Just before—or around—the time Transfomers G1 stuff was hitting the shelves in the U.S., knock-off variants of key figures were released all over the place. Most of them came from Taiwan and specifically a company called Shiantai. Scored a "Cassette Man" knock-off of "Soundwave" and really like the "Engrish" packaging on the back of the box. Makes clear references to Microman. Check it out:

Best lines:
"...it may come to help you by changing into a handsome, courageous cassette man..."
"We beg your pardon for this situation."

Aah, cassette man - he was my favorite. Loved the transforming cassettes, esp the jaguar. I never saw the camera before, what a lame transformation! I had a bunch of knockoffs including these 2 that were recently excavated from an attic:

Actually Cassette Man is a ko of the Microman Microchange MC-10 Cassette Man. It's a nearly, if not perfect copy of the original (minus the Takara info). The original also says Cassette Man on his chest, a detail which was later removed for it's release as a Transformer. Here is a microforever.com link for the original:

http://www.microforever.com/MC10cassetteman.htm

i had the knock off grey watch in the bottom left corner of the first image

and i had that knock off shockwave also!

I just bought a few loose watch robos this weekend. 2 strapless ko's and a takara kronoform version with the strap. With some digging there was some strange bits to be had at Botcon this past weekend.