Blast from the Robotic Past: G.I. Joe

11/09/2004

So I was talking with another artist today about old characters and redesigning them years later... another topic for another day... and he sent me an illustration of a character he drew back in the early 80s... and I mentioned it reminded me of the original G.I. Joe "Covert-Action Specialist" Snake-Eyes, which was one of my earliest figures in my Deliberate Collecting Phase (as opposed to random toys and hand-me-downs and what have you... the start of actually actively getting toys and collecting the whole lot of em') and this artist, Mark, wasn't familiar with the character. So I googled him a pic of Snake-Eyes to demonstrate. Which got me thinking of the old-school, earliest version of the smaller 3 3/4" G.I. Joe figures that started my collecting days... these being the ones that replaced the larger Action Man style 12" dolls from the previous decade. Anyway, so that compelled me to look a few of those figures up, for nostalgia's sake (and to avoid the work...) and I came across the YoJo website, dedicated to all things G.I. Joe. They've got a massive database of figures, accessories and vehicles, all cross-referenced with variants, international repaints, exclusive collections, and more. Since I only collected G.I. Joes for a few years before losing the thread of serious action-figure aquisition, channeling that embodied energy into my drawing full-time... and girls... I only appear to have collected from 82 to 85. That said, I started looking at some of my favorite figures back in the day, and how they changed over time as the toy designers attempted to reinvent the franchise to keep it fresh, then would re-issue the older toys, slightly modified, for a retro anniversary feel... then redesign them again. Sadly, I think they went downhill. The best designs were the earliest ones (of the unique characters, not the olive drab soldiers like Flash) and the best trade-off of aesthetic and playablility were the early swivel-arm battle grip figures a few years later, at the tail end of my collecting. After that, it's chroming, repainting, extra parts, and then a downward spiral of muscled, mutated, gender-undefined madness in later designs.



I now present for you a serious waste of bandwidth, but for those of you my age who collected these back then ( or still do) it might be fun.

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First, here is a small gallery of my four favorite action figures, and how they changed over time. The links lead to Yojo's site, where you can read about the manufacturing history of the figure, the international variants, see the accessories, etc. You will not the figures are more or less in time sequential order here, getting more and more ntty as they go... some of those Scarlett and Baroness sculpts, despite their strong attention to detail, are as FUG as can be.

Scarlett:

Verdict: I like that orange action third from last, but talk about an Oompa-Loompa... the original Scarlett's still the best. I burned her in a Boy Scout campfire. Troubled times.

Snake-Eyes:

Verdict: It's hard to comprehend how some of these versions could be construed as covert anything... covert Castro maybe... but anyway, 4th from the end there, he's got wicked lats and some gnarly thigh pouches, looks like those guys who had the shootout with the LAPD imitating Heat several years back. My original Snake-Eyes met his end at the business end of Mom's vacuum... but that's how I discovered the ubiquitous 'coat hanger' torso/pelvis connector within the figure. But while the original Snake Eyes gets my nostalgic nod, I'll go with LPAD-snipered guy instead on this one.

Baroness:

Verdict: Hands down, the original takes it. Latex and spectacles. IronLung would know a thing or two about this, say at 10,000 feet?

Destro:

Verdict: While the original Destro is still pretty bad-ass... I'm going to have to give it to inner city 70's avenger Destro, 2nd from the end. He looks like he even has broken housekeys strpped to his knuckle-dusters... damn!

:::

And if that's not enough... remember al those rad little accessories? The cool guns, backpacks (not so cool, actually,) shoulder packs, swords, artillery pieces, helmets, dog collars triple dildoes, etc.? They were always better when included int he blister packs. Though it was brilliant to issue "Accessory Packs" filled with weapon refills and new ones and all that, they were always cast in different wrong colors (an orange Uzi appeals to me far more now than it did in 1984) and didn't fit the hands as well... but anyway, the site also has a kick-ass accessory identification wizard. Give it a try. It's pretty cool.

:::

Lastly, vehicles. I started with a number of large vehicles, and over time, whittled my collection down to a very small assortment of very small vehicles, due largely in part to being forced to move and live a somewhat nomadic and unpleasant lifestyle we won't talk about, but which saw my massive collection suffer severe attrition in a matter of days. Naturally, those few smaller vehicles I remember most fondly, because i think they got me through some difficult times, allowing me an action-movie, ultra-violent 3 3/4" escapist diversion when i needed them. Anyway, here's everything I personally owned (I think this is everything) and a few I never did, thought were pretty interesting.

My favorites, as said above, were smaller, versatile (and easily hidden from fucking shit thieves,) and were:



The Ferret was a Cobra ATV. Simple as that. But the tires were rubber and had a funky suspension, and there were grapple points on the chassis where figures could be hanging off of it during slo-mo action sequences. The RAM motorcycle was the first vehicle I ever got, with Flash the flamethrower dude with the bad visor. Kind of stiff, and you know, it made no sense, but it had a gatling gun sidecar. So step off.



Then we have the two compact flyers, both helos... very cool. The Skyhawk was actually pretty stupid, with the Star Wars rip-off cowling. But it was, as I said, compact and that was important.


This is the rest of the once-collected-now-landfilled...



I remember how several befell fates similar, or concurrent, to the fates of the figures that drove them. The Skystriker F-15 Eagle plane up there died at my hands as I attempted to recreate Goose's final moments in Top Gun, by hurtling the plane, with figures, about 40 feet into the air. Hey, I was in 9th grade, and making a point. The original jeep up there died by fire: I set up a line of flaming matches, then let loose a paint thinner-doused jeep full of figures to roll downhill across the trap... the thing burst into flame, and continued rolling some distance before the wheels started to melt and it dragged, then flipped and rolled, causing an unplanned minor garden fire. I wasn't one of those kids, but I sort of was. Ahh, those were the days...

Here's some vehicles I never had, but should've.


A cardboard missile command center?!? I'd use that NOW.


Not a sgood as the real Aliens figures, but hey, i give them points for trying... to rip them off, anyway.


WTF! I thought my wicked hovercraft was...wicked... but this thing kicks ass!


OK, a jump pack with an old school launchpad?! That would have blown my young mind in compact playability under stressful conditions!


I mean... it's a Blackhawk, but cammo... comes with free wounded American soldiers and a coupon for sending away for 347 enraged Somalians.


Finally, an orange speedboat with on-board nukes. I could totally solve cases on the open sea with this.

I hope you've enjoyed this trip either down memory lane or through a disturbing journey through the youthful male's psyche. You basically have a collection of toys here combining hot redheaded chicks, brunettes in glasses and latex, mean motherfuckers in pre-Matrix outfits, and a lot of war gear. Sounds about right doesn't it. But even after all of this, and the hours of wasted time today researching this, there's just one thing I don't understand.

How is it that a guy that looks so fucking saucy was possibly the coolest figure ever made?



Talk about Concealed Dope!!!


So says...Wrongrobot!


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