Somebody at Funskool was either super high or prone to taking things way too literally. As the pilot of the Skystorm X-Wing Chopper, his original namesake was most likely chosen in relation to the vehicle’s design. It’s not all goofiness however, as Funskool gave his uniform a nice spruce up of color. The original was just an odd combo, and
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By Past Nastification Funskool usually had two approaches to its color schemes. The first was to keep figures about the same as their American releases. The second was to go random with gaudy and clashing colors guaranteed to create motion sickness. Those figures were fun not because they were good, but because they were outside the norm. But every
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If there’s one thing you can’t accuse the later Funskool releases of, it’s drabness. The colors ran pretty wild and wooly near the end of their time with the GI Joe license. Of course, I’m not complaining, because I have a streak in me that prefers polychromatic playthings. Wild Weasel is I think famous in collectors’ minds because of both
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Sometimes the gang over at Funskool surprises us with wild new art modified or inspired by the original domestic designs, and sometimes they stick with the originals. In the case of Rock ‘n Roll, I guess it’s a little of both. The colors certainly have been intensified, which makes sense considering the source figure. The most unique aspect here is
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Super Cop! For action figure criminals, his very name strikes fear in their hearts! For life-size collectors, the very mention of his name strikes fear that a thumb or crotch will break without warning! The same applies to his vehicles, unfortunately. Dang cheap Funskool plastic. Hailing from the amazing Super Cop Rescue Squad box set, the jeep is a remold
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Funskool often gets laughs based on its later offerings of domestic GI Joe figures, but earlier along in their history they were less crazy, and even made some interesting color variants. Snake Eyes came in two flavors, black with silver highlights, and blue. The card art is inspired by the domestic ’82-83 version, and even though it’s comparatively crude when
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Zartan is one of my favorite GI Joe figures, so when I saw a Funskool version, I just had to pick it up. In the early 2000s, the closest I had to a remade o-ring version of the master of disguise was the disappointing collectors series release. You remember the one, with the SAW Viper body. It would be a
Read moreAs Funskool figures go, Spearhead and Max don’t fare too badly. There’s no oddly recolored or replaced weapon/accessory complement, and Spearhead wasn’t given a garish uniform variation. I originally picked this figure up thinking that his helmet would make for a useable replacement for my missing Night Force version. Not quite. I was surprised however that I ended up liking
Read moreSay what you will about Funskool’s GI Joe output in the 2000s, but there was no shortage of toy features built into the line. Sometimes there were even a few clever add-ins that had no domestic corollary. Case in point–Law. I can’t think of a figure that I’d be more surprised to see provided with a gaggle of kid friendly
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I normally try have some sort of punchy intro statement when I sit down to write these things, but today, I can only think of two words, folks: Bomb Squad. Bomb. Squad. Is it really any surprise to see such an oddity of a figure coming from the 2000s era of Funskool’s output? After all, the same period produced the
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