Captain Cat

Captain Cat is a BN-1 knockoff by Kwong Fei. While I have no photos of the box, this is the name given to the toy by Kwongfei's website and a listing for the toy. It requires three AA batteries.

Appearance

The toy resembles a silver cat with two front legs with black paws, and a pair of stationery back legs with black, plastic spheres (or wheels?) attached. It has silver ears, with the insides being black.

In contrast to the licensed product, the knockoff has translucent, circular eyes, and it does not have lights in them. The eyes have a single dot as the pupil, with more dots that partially surround it (the pupil isn’t completely surrounded by the dots).

Additionally, the knockoff’s visor appears to be further above the eyes and is shaped like a pentagon, the ears aren’t as pointed as the real BN-1’s ears, it has no muzzle, and it is smaller than an actual BN-1. Captain Cat has a long tail with a translucent sphere at its tip. The color of the visor, eyes, and tail tip match.

Only four color variations are known to exist, including:

Silver with blue
Silver with orange
Silver with red (I think the one in the first image on this page has the same color scheme as the one in the gallery)

Functions

The toy is sound activated. When activated,a light in its visor will flash, and the toy will say "Uh-oh!" It will then begin moving around while singing "Nah nah nah nah nah nah!". The cat will move around by swinging its front legs back and forth, and the toy's eyes will spin. While moving, it will start to make another noise which sounds like an anime character flailing its arms or trying to run. When it's done moving around, it will laugh. The toy has the same audio as Pichi Pichi Gonzalez and Cy-purr Mouse.

Patent

Click here to view a design patent for Captain Cat, which has photos of the orange version. The patent refers to it as just "Robot Cat", and it credits Xu Dixuan as the designer and applicant. The application date is 15/1/2001.

Merchandise

Two keychain versions of the toy sold by Kwong Fei also exist. One is a windup figure, while the other has a light. The windup toy is only known to come in green, it has pink wheels beneath, and it has a tail with a pink, capsule-shaped tip. The eyes of the windup toy and light-up figure are pink and translucent, and they have dots which form a heart in each eye. The windup toy has a plastic, white knob you can twist. The light-up keychain is only known to come in silver, and it has a small blue button on its back, which you can press for light. Both toys only have back feet, instead of wheels, and both toys do not have front paws.

I do wonder if the windup's tail is supposed to move, when in action. Both toys were sold separately in blister packaging, according to the company's official website.

Gallery

Click on an image to view a larger version of it in another tab.