Introducing BTR-Ticles by Twitziller
Rob here first, with just a quick note. I’m proud to be bringing to you the beginning of a new series of entries by Twitziller. Today, we begin with TZ’s intro to the series, but be on the lookout for the first BTR-Ticle soon, with more to come in the future. But enough of my yakkin’–let’s boogie!
It’s in our nature to explore the world around us and to improve upon what we find. A child’s experiences with their favorite toys can inspire a life-long connection to creative work, even, in some cases, leading to careers as actors, writers, designers, engineers, architects, inventors, scientists, and others who work to create what doesn’t already exist and leave the world a better place for their efforts. Even if you don’t do any of these things for a living, chances are good that your childhood ability to take your brain off the leash and explore fantastic possibilities with your toys and your friends informs your efforts every day.
Two of my favorite toys growing up were G.I. Joe and Lego. Whether inhabiting the camouflaged fatigues of Joe while navigating the jungles of the back yard, or assembling the next great structure on the construction site of the living room floor, these two toys presented infinite possibilities for open-ended fantasy in the minds of the people who played with them. Even when Joe was reduced to around 4” in height and given a more defined identity, the possibilities remained wide open for his adventures, as new vehicles, playsets, and accessories brought his world to life.
It was inevitable that childhood thoughts would turn toward combining these two lines. Picking the team and the adventure was cool, but what if you could design and build the vehicles and playsets with which the mission would become a backyard reality? Because Lego didn’t produce military sets, it was difficult to create vehicles for G. I. Joe, but again, with a little imagination, some amazing results could be achieved. Once competing companies began producing military sets, it became a lot easier to find the parts you needed to produce new weapons and transport for Joe, but still, something was missing; they weren’t quite G. I. Joe toys.
What if they actually made official, Lego-compatible building sets for 4” G. I. Joe figures? In 2003, Hasbro announced that they would do just that, with the “Built to Rule” line, also known as BTR. For many fans, it was great news, and a fulfillment of decades of wondering about such a toy line. Set in the worlds of G.I. Joe’s Spy Troops and Valor vs. Venom toy lines, BTR offered retooled figures from those lines, with brick-compatible studs on their arms and legs. New parts that were sized for the Joe figures, such as seats, wheels, and weapons, allowed the construction of full-sized vehicles and playsets, based roughly on existing G.I. Joe toys. When the sets were released, however, they received a lukewarm reception…at best. Many fans of Lego and other bricks were disappointed that the sets, with pieces matched in scale to the 4” figures, weren’t Lego enough. Many Joe fans, not impressed with the clumsy-looking vehicles and figures, felt the sets weren’t G.I. Joe enough. The hybrid concept failed to capture the imagination of either group, and didn’t last very long at retail, with sets soon arriving on deep discount clearance shelves and later sets seeing very limited distribution in small markets in the Midwest. BTR lines based on Tonka Trucks and Transformers were also released, and also suffered the same untimely demise as their Joe cousins.
Hasbro wasn’t through, however, with the idea of kids building their own G.I Joe toys. Launched in 2013 and continuing in 2014, their Kre-O line of G.I. Joe brick building sets, utilizing the finer “grain” of the standard Lego minfigure scale, has caught on with both brick fans and Joe fans in ways that BTR never could. By abandoning the goal of making construction toys work in the relatively realistic 4” Joe universe, and embracing the distorted proportions and scale of the minifig world, Hasbro has created a buildable Joe line where cartoony looks and clumsy interpretation are no longer a negative. Shrewdly trading on today’s minifig collecting mania and nostalgia for the beloved 12” Adventure Team toys of the 1970s and the iconic 4” A Real American Hero toys of the 1980s, Kre-O has fans of Joe and brick building sets snapping up every release and waiting impatiently for news of the next wave of toys.
And who knows…with increasing access to fabrication methods like 3D printing and desktop milling, people who want to design and build their own vehicles and playsets for 4” Joe figures might soon find it much easier to do just that. Clearly, the desire to build a world for Joe is still strong and there is, in fact, a place in the world for G.I. Joe construction toys. BTR’s place, however, is in the history books. Flawed though it was, Built To Rule was an important chapter in the ongoing saga of G.I. Joe. Many G.I. Joe lines, though not widely beloved, when seen together as a collection, as a snapshot of a time when Hasbro tried something new, are really quite beautiful.
You might even be able to see that in the Built To Rule line. You just need to, you know…use your imagination.
I actually thought the G.I.joe BTR stuff was better then the Transformers kits; those things were awful and stpid.
I picked up a few of the Joe kits. I got them at 75% off. I thought the forest fox was pretty good but then again these were the only Joe related items in my area after the ships refused to get in more of the spytroops era stock.
When it comes to lego these days i’m really sick of it. Lego used to have heart in what they made, now theyve sold out to every major franchise. And the value for money in those star wars sets is really bad.
“Its entirely possible to build a spaceship out of lego without the “special” pieces” [James May]
BTR never jelled with me. I never used Lego with action figures partly because Lego had its own little people and partly because it never looked right.
Had BTR come out in 1982, I would’ve been all over it. I regularly used (random color) Legos with GIJoe 4″ figures. But as more Joe vehicles & playsets came out, I stopped. It seems BTR really suffered from trying to please all the people all the time and not doing any one thing well. Some of the models were creative, though, and I liked the 2-models-in-each-kit presentation (like the Lego Movie sets are doing this year).
While I did incorporate Legos into my G.I. Joe play at times, I can’t really say I did it all that much. Generally, if I didn’t have playsets, like most kids, I’d just use things around the house and my imagination. Sinks, rugs, plants, tables, etc. all could become fun little worlds. I was one of those kids that liked to have bridges for the figures to travel over, so I would often take a Monopoly board folded in half and place one end on the couch and the other end on the coffee table.
As I got a little older, I would actually construct my own Joe playsets out of wood. The ones I remember most were an arctic outpost for Cobra and a huge city playset for the Joes and Cobras to do battle on, complete with a helicopter landing on one of the roofs. Those were a lot of fun and thank God I didn’t get hurt messing with those.
It was a nice experiment.