When it comes to toys and packaging, sometimes what you see is not what you get. The 2005 GI Joe Moray Hydrofoil is a perfect example. The box art depicted a white and black colored repaint of the classic Cobra Hydrofoil. It looked something like a law enforcement vehicle to me, and the matching flames on the hull were just
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Our look back at 1993’s Toy Fair catalog continues with one of the flagship offerings of the year. Hasbro even gave it an amazing two-page spread to showcase it. The Ghoststriker certainly deserved the attention, and was an impressive jet for a late line release. It’s feature-laden yet maintains a nicely scaled silhouette. Of course, none of the Joe vehicles
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Now this convoluted bit of machinery is about as far as you can get from most anything dating from the Real American Hero days. Imagine what a neck-breaking change this was just after the end of that beloved o-ring era. Imagine also the pace the line showed up at discount stores. I remember bins of the stuff at the Half
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Lanard’s Action Rescue series, focused on fire, rescue and police themes is an interesting line to collect. Within Hasbro’s 1/18 scale GI Joe world, we don’t get much material that can be used to replicate real-world people and vehicles within play patterns. I know as a kid I would have liked to have a few regular folks, or at least
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By KansasBrawler Kids can be funny sometimes. I don’t mean in the lame Kids Say the Darndest Things way, but it’s interesting to watch how your opinion of a toy changes after seeing a kid’s eyes light up while they’re playing with it. I was talking with a couple of Hasbro design team folks near the “free play” area they’d
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There’s irony in the fact that the relaunched 1980s GI Joe line, originally conceptualized as a vehicle toy line, became as much about action figures as it did their accessories. Once more colorful characters beyond the green garbed originals were introduced in 1983, the concept took off like a rocket. It’s no surprise then that when Hasbro commemorated the 25th
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Before Lanard rebranded its CORPS! line a few years ago, it had been using the Total Soldier title for other military toys. Most examples I’ve seen have included slightly smaller, reduced articulation figures as pack-ins. Think Chap Mei, if you want an idea of what I’m talking about. Each year at the annual Lanard sale, there seem to be a
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From the 1991 Hasbro international catalog comes the Arctic Blast. I love the snowy background in this one. Very Wampa ice cave.
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Here at JAD, we love toy presentation as much as we love the products themselves. GI Joe in the 80s and 90s had some of the most eye-popping packaging for its product line. It’s no wonder that legions of kids were drawn to these things. I mean, what’s not to love here? I also have to admire Hasbro for being
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Don’t call it a Humvee–at least not this time. Lanard’s CORPS! line had featured vehicles incredibly similar to that famous official military transport for years. This more modern take on the concept takes things further into the future design-wise, and I think it’s a big hit. The CORPS! has a long history of vehicles, and although some of the early
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