Here’s a double your displeasure ad if you’re a toy collector. An ad from an almost defunct department store for a brand that’s in hibernation. Yay! Sorry I didn’t get this one out on Black Friday, but I didn’t want anyone to run to their local non-existent K-Mart looking for GI Joes fighting Yetis or Sound Attack Choppers.
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It’s not often that I get to scratch my monster kid itch on this blog. Halloween is the perfect excuse to throw a little horror into the mix of GI Joe, so yay! I only wish I could do this more often. Son of Dracula was offered along with other Universal Monsters back in the late 90s. While Frankenstein’s Monster,
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Lanard’s twelve inch Ultra CORPS! line filled a niche that the large scale GI Joe series wasn’t focused too heavily in at the time. Although the Joes were available as both real-world military and large scale versions of then current small figures, the execution of the scaled up little guys was lacking. With few exceptions, Hasbro had forgone full cloth
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A year before large scale Joe returned to regular retail with a newly designed highly-articulated body, Target offered up a series of Hall of Fame based interpretations of World War II officers. I had to make a trek to Wichita in order to pick up the set, as my area didn’t get a Target store until the 2000s. At the
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My first exposure to this set came in the pages of Lee’s Action Figure News and Toy Review magazine. I still have that particular issue, the first toy magazine I had seen on a newsstand–well, a comic shop stand to be exact. So is this the first example of the GI Joe line packaging a vehicle and “driver” figure together?
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If you’re into the twelve inch scale, and have an interest in unusual figures and accessories, the 90s Action Man range may be worth a look. I’ve been picking up examples every now and then, and I find quite a few outfit sets speak to my affinity for bright colors and unique concepts that separate themselves from the usual Joe
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It’s not often that we bring up Big Questions around here. So on the occasion of Nice Pants Week 2017, we ask one about one of the oldest GI Joe figures. Why did sailors at one time wear bell bottoms? I thought I knew the answer thanks to a relative who served, but after scouting online sources, it turns out
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Mummies and GI Joe go way back–all the way to the 70s. As a kid just barely aware of the large scale Joes that predated my childhood Real American Heros, I was somehow aware of the original search for the mummy set. Maybe it was the Peter Pan book and record. As an adult collector, I think that set perfectly
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Ideal’s Captain Action series of licensed super hero outfits would seem like a natural formula for success. Based on the razor and blades concept that made Barbie and GI Joe champions of the toy aisle, the Captain was a basic twelve inch doll who could be outfitted as any number of comic and/or TV heroes. The series didn’t last long,
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For the past several years, I’ve been choosing the club’s 12 inch yearly incentive figure. My interest was piqued first by the henchman figure that made its debut as a convention exclusive. Then the Man of Evil was released, and after the expected 50th anniversary figure, was later followed by weirdos like Dr. Isotope and Mike Power. This year, The
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