Law & Order (2000)
The Real American Hero Collection series was a welcome sight on toy shelves. It represented Joe’s return to regular retail after a couple of Toys R Us (sniff) exclusives. Sorry about that, but the thought of TRU going the way of other toy stores is a truly sad thought. I know in the grand scheme of things it’s only a store, but dang does it sting to know it might be gone.
Anyway, enough maudlin stuff. Law & Order, like others in the series, takes a more realistic approach to figure decoration. Not that the original Law was a neon maniac, but the series did give is paint washes and marbled plastic, both interesting experiments for the Joe line.
The variant paint scheme for both figures make for a new MP & K9 to build up the ranks, if you’re so inclined.
We still have some time on TRU. Kmart went Tango Uniform around 4-5 years ago and only shuttered the final stores last fall.
I like the collectors series figs, but this head looks aweful.
Law always looked like my 6th grade teacher. That was kind of weird.
This figure shows that when the ARAHC got it right, they really nailed it. It’s a perfect repaint for the figure, included all his gear and didn’t really tread on the original. I bought a bunch to army build at the time just because you can’t have enough MP’s.
As for TRU, it’s an end of an era. All my local stores were in the first round of closings. I took the boys there: realizing that it’s very likely they’ll never again set foot in a store only dedicated to toys. But, funny thing, they scoured the store for nearly an hour looking for something to buy with their birthday money. And, they didn’t find a damn thing that interested them. That was a stark realization that toys simply don’t speak to their generation like they did to ours. So, the loss of TRU will hit me. But, it really won’t matter much to them.
Did you ask them if they wanted some video games, or something to play on a so called smart phone, or a so called tablet? By the way, do kids today like Hot Wheels anymore? Oh, and according to the article from Avclub.com that What Snake Eyes Said (…) linked to in the two previous articles before this one, someone there left a comment responding to someone who commented something about Best Buy, saying that “they’re completely doing away with CD’s in July”(I hope that it’s not true). Also, some people on there mentioned that Mitt Romney’s Bain Capital might have something to do with what is happening to Toys R Us. If that is true, then Bain Capital is evil.
That was a stark realization that toys simply don’t speak to their generation like they did to ours.
I think it might almost be more the nature of the toys themselves these days rather than a generational thing. I walk into a TRU now and even I can’t find anything that catches my interest other than the odd Transformer or Marvel Legends figure.
I don’t know, but, should we blame Ben 10, and those other anime based toys, for this catastrophe? Or how about the fact that so many of the action figures made now at days try so hard to look realistic, rather than just been fun, and having fun colors on them. And no, I’m not talking about painting the figures, or the vehicles, or whatever, with neon colors. I also blame the way that cartoons are drawn today(G.I. Joe Renegades(sort of an alright interesting story if you don’t mind the fact that it is a remake/reboot of G.I. Joe, but, for some people it might be hard to take it seriously because of the childish looking art work), Ben 10(the quality went down on this one pretty quick), Generator Rex(remember that one?, great concept, but, awful unrealistic looking art work), and the worst offender of them all, the Transformers parody called, Transformers Animated). And many other modern action adventure cartoons that were drawn looking cartoonish, rather than been drawn looking realistic, like the stuff that we grew up with back in the 1980’s, and even in the early 90’s. I have a theory that the artwork on those classic cartoons were part of the reason why we were so into them, and why we wanted so badly to have the toys that those cartoons were made to sell to us. These new cartoons that are made today do not have that same power to attract today’s kids, because there is no effort to make realistic looking animation anymore. The people who make these new cartoons have just gotten lazy, and we are now seen the proof of that. And Toys R Us can not sell these toys to today’s kids anymore. It is not their fault. Even adult collectors do not want the majority of these new toys. I have a feeling that tells me that all of the things that I just mentioned, combined with video games(specially the violent video games), and many other things that exist today, are the reasons why kids today are no longer into toys. I have been complaining for years about how today’s cartoons look so bad, and how they look so cheap(like they were made in China), but it seems like a lot of people were not paying attention, and this is what is now happening. But, like I said, this is all just a theory that I have about how the cartoons back then were drawn, and how that probably was the reason why those toys back then sold so well.
Packed with Dusty because…who knows? Some of ARAHC 2-packs pairing were just random almost. Like Big Brawler and Tripwire. Not complaining. I miss those days.
Actually, this one should have been packed with a repaint of the 84 Mutt, and Junkyard. That would have made so much more sense. Two MP’s with two dogs, in one set. That would have been so cool.
They didn’t have Mutt 1984’s mold apparently. For the Anti-Venom 6 figure set they recreated the head, torso, thighs and waist. So more likely back in 2000, they’d have used Mutt 1992 instead.
Recreating o-ring G.I. Joe body parts? How, using a 3D printing machine? Thank you very much for that information, but, where do you get it from?