Dee Jay (1989)
Leave it to Battle Force 2000 to give us the absolute doofiest Joe ever, bar none. I don’t care how long the Joe line lasts, nothing will top this guy on the doofus scale. Now let me be clear about this, there’s a difference between bad and doofy. Stars and Stripes Breaker–bad. Dee Jay–doofy.
It takes a special kind of figure to achieve what Dee Jay does. Throughout the history of the small Joe line, there have been many crazy designs. There have been many crazy specialties. But it takes a combination of both to get a guy like this. Communications specialists are generally cool concepts in the Joe line, witness Breaker and Dial Tone. Both cool comm specialists, and classics both. Dee-Jay is a Joe whose code name is literal, as he was a disc jockey before joining the Joe team. Oh, brother.
And the doofiness doesn’t stop there. Let’s break down the figure itself. Kid’s bike helmet on the head–check. Skin tight shirt–check. Codpiece–check. Blue jeans tucked into thigh-high ribbed legwarmers–check. Finally, the boots. Oh my goodness the boots. Oh, the humanity, those boots!
It’s like Satan went to Florsheim and special ordered white disco boots for his cloven hooves. They’re honestly the weirdest footwear I’ve seen on an action figure.
One thing the figure has going for him is consistency, as the accessories are also appropriately doofy. The rifle looks like something Buster Crabbe might have picked up on planet Mongo. I hesitate to even discuss the phallic backpack.
Want an idea of the kind of respect he commanded from GI Joe comic scribe Larry Hama? Dee-Jay debuted and died in the same issue. ‘Nuff said.
And what’s with his chest plate? Some kind of weird writing? Great choice today!
I thought that too. Maybe its Klingon!
Doofy is a fantastic word for it. I assume it is a combination of “dumb” & “goofy” in a way that reaches for the apex of both terms.
Incidentally, what I said in the comments for Blocker back in October still remains true for this guy. I can’t help but paste it here again, because I’m continually amused by the whole BF2K thing, and likely will be for many more years to come.
“The letters page of issue 113 of the comics (the issue where their “indestructible” stuff got itself thoroughly exploded) is home to my fondest memory of BF2K.
There is a letter that ends with “Let’s keep G.I. Joe going until Battleforce 2000 is a bunch of antiques”. This is replied to directly with one of the best comic letter replies I have ever read: “As for Battleforce 2000-well, it’s probably not such a good idea to be hitching your wagon to their star…” Classic!”
Yeah, Dee Jay was a victim of the “anything goes” syndrome which defined the future according to the Battle Force 2000 designers. He was sort of tossed in there after the original sextet had been introduced and he both debuted and died in his only comic appearance. DJ got a raw deal all around. Guys like Mangler and Cool Breeze were created to be killed off from the start, but there were actual purposes to their stories. I still think that there are worse figures out there, though. Maybe if he had popped up during the Star Brigade era Dee Jay wouldn’t have looked so out of place. Easily the worst case of bad timing in RAH history.
Great shoes…oh my God!
The pegs were always full of these guys! No kid I knew would go anywhere near one of ’em. Worst Joe of the ARAH era.
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