The Power of Packaging: Chest Winch

If you think the GI Joe brand only gave rise to ridiculous accessory concepts as recent as the 1990s, you’d be thinking wrong. Check out the Chest Winch, from the Adventure Team era. I covered it once before in its application as part of the Action Man line, but I think this piece of package artwork truly captures the beautiful madness of such a device. Never mind the possible back strains, let’s just consider the physics of what’s going on here. Granted, the wood block Joe appears to be fishing out of the water has much less mass than he does, but what does Joe do when he needs to lift, say, his stranded six-wheeler? Maybe this thing has a mass-altering feature built into it as well. Crass adult logic aside, isn’t this the kind of toy you really want as a kid? I still think the Adventure Team concept could be viable today, especially in the sense of bigger than life, childlike imaginative play.