What was it like?

[popsicleviper]

Hey everone, this is my first post here on hisstank, I'm new.

Anyway I've always been curious, I'm too young to have really experienced G.I. Joe at it's peak in the 80s. So what I would like to know is what was playing with G.I. Joe for you like in the 80s?
How did parents feel about it? Were your friends into it too?

[xhairs]

welcome aboard. man i love it my parents were cool with it. my friends were in to them to. we used to have big battles in the back yard. it was a great time to be a kid.

[esg2145]

My parents had already been though 4 years of Star Wars at that point, so they were already well broken in for buying action figures. :)

As far as my friends were concerned, we were ALL into it.

There were quite a few GI Joe and the Rebel Alliance vs Cobra and the Empire battles as I remember it.

As I got older though, it was more GI Joe than SW as I remember it, mainly b/c we were pretty much done with SW after '84 or so after ROTJ came out in '83, and then w/ GI Joe being all new in '82, that held us for a few years or so until we discovered computers, girls and then cars. :) I think I quit Joes somewhere around '85 or so altogether.


Part of the reason I was so happy to see the 25th line was b/c I have twin 3 year old boys now myself, and I figure by the time the movie comes out they'll be 5 and just about the same age as I was when my dad took me to see SW in '77. :)

They've already got Sigma Six scuba divers for the tub and pool. I was lucky enough to get a deal on both seasons of the cartoons on DVD earlier this year, so now we have 16 discs full of GI Joe DVDs to watch and enjoy together(and trust me, if you've got kids you can appreciate 16 DIFFERENT DVDs to have to watch with you kids :).





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[TEMPLAR BAGGINS]

Ya know, I don't think there were ANY boys who didn't like Joes back in the day!

[Amberbratt]

Ya know, I don't think there were ANY boys who didn't like Joes back in the day!



Girls to me and my sister had some

she had the figs.... like 3-4

i remember which ones she had to

he-man - she had "stinkor" (i tried to steal it like 3 times) lol
g i joe. - she had "ice berg" the first one.


thundercats.. i had hitchaci man i freaking wanted the "real" thundercats but i didn't have em i think beCause by the time i found out about them they were all sold out :)

[SnakeEater]

Man I just remember playing gi joe nonstop. At my friends basement, his pool, my pool, my basement, my upstairs, my front lawn, in the snow, at church, at school. I was always playing with GI Joe. I will always be a joe fanatic! I want them all. I remember in 4th like 1992 or 93 finding the chinese cobra commander and dial tone on chinese cards at 1/2 price store. Man $2 each. what a steal. Same as the original versions 2. those were the days.

[alexreed]

It rocked! Kids were always bringing New Joes to school. You walked into the dep. store and the pegs were full of joes, several to choose from not just 6 or 7 and plenty of vehicles. No shortages, not that I remember.

[alexreed]

Oh and they cost around $2 per figure.

[DaViper]

The 80's were a great time to be a kid. The cartoons to the toys were a lot different then they are now(cost less too!). Thinking about it now, I rarely see kids playing with action figure together. I was fortunate to have four neighbors roughly around the same age as me who were joe fanatics. We would have great battles going from house to house. Everyone would haul out their collection(Everyone had a good size collection) and have at it. I miss my neighborhood battles, so Craig, Mike, Billy, and Greg if you reading this, we should all battle again!! :D Brings back a lot of fun memories.

[Gung.Heaux]

Oh and they cost around $2 per figure.

yeah, which made the initial pricing of 25th singles of $4.88 a welcomed surprise.

its not that $6.84 is THAT offensive....its just how quickly it got there.

[G.I. Smurf]

welcome fellow my kentucky joe collector.

[VIPER 48]

Welcome to the tank man. I remember getting my first joe, way back in the early 80's. My mother got me into them and knew i liked to play with them so it was usually what i got for christmas after that. Now a days she laughs at me when i tell her i still collect toys...

[nighthawk]

I remember before where I'd go to the store with my dad and he'd buy me a figure or vehicle each time. I was so spoiled. I miss those days where you can walk into a toy store, or department store, and see an entire wall/shelf dedicated to G.I.Joe. Back then, there was no internet, so you wouldn't even know what new figures and vehicles there were unless you saw them at the store. I remember when new ones came out, it would be so exciting going through all the pegs and checking out the new never before seen figures. Ahh..those were the days.

[USAgent]

it was never 'army' building for me. once i had a figure, even a soldier, that was good enough (there was that whole imagination thing going on where the cobra soldier just came back as a diffrnt cobra soldier once he got blown up) And I would drag a grocery bag full of vehicles (MOBAT, FLAK cannon, the Missile thing) to friends houses for sleepover and mega-battles!

[DarthBrett]

My family had a lot of ex-military (Uncles, Dad, Grandpa) so my mom and dad both loved buying me Joes as a kid. And almost every boy was into GI Joe (and of course, Star Wars). I am glad I grew up in the 80's. Seems like we got all of the cool toys and movies, too! I almost feel bad for kids that grew up in the 90's! :D

[TheLongestDay]

welcome! (Im pretty new here too!)

For me it was funny,cuz firstly it was "Action Force" and secondly it was only me,my brother and a few friends that knew about it-sure alot of kids might have bought the toys or whatever-but we had the cartoons on video and some of the comics and annuals (hardback graphic novels) so we thought we had the real knowledge of the characters...it was almost like a secret club lol!

We would take it in turns going to each others houses and bringing our collections together to make huge battles...and if 2 people wanted to be a certain character then you had to use your own version of the figure and pretend they were twins or somethin equally stupid lol

[DaViper]

I am glad I grew up in the 80's. Seems like we got all of the cool toys and movies, too! I almost feel bad for kids that grew up in the 90's! :D

HA that is so true!!

[MunkyX]

Being a kid in the 80's was the best. Joes, Transformers, He-Man, M.A.S.K... we had the best toys (IMHO of course). I got my first Joes for X-Mas in '82... the original 13. The next X-Mas was the Command Center Headquarters chock full of the '83 figs. The playability of these things was a million times better than the Star Wars figs and Luke and Co. quickly fell to the wayside as Snake Eyes and crew took over my imagination. I played with my Joes until they couldn't be played with. I lost or destroyed more figures than I can rememeber. Those poor figs were buried in the horeshoe pits we had in our backyard, buried under the gravel around my jungle gym, lost in the ground cover, left in the green belt behind our house, lost in the snow when we'd go skiing... man, I never got tired of them and there were always more coming out. My parents got tired of asking "Don't you have that one already?" :p Around highschool we moved and I got rid of just about all of them. To this day I'm still kicking myself for selling those off.

When I heard the 25th were coming back... all that nostalgia was overwhelming. I loved them then and I love them now.

[swafus]

I was born in '77 and my brother is 6 years older than me. He had a pretty big collection of Star Wars stuff by the time I was 4 or 5. At hat same time was when the first joe commercial came on t.v. to introduce the original team. From that point on it was all joe, all the time!! Even when return of the jedi came out in 83' we could care less, we were constantly on a joe mission every time we went to a store (of any kind). All the kids in my neighborhood were joe fanatics too and we would alternate playing with the figures with role playing as members of the team running around our houses with plastic assault rifles that looked just real enough.

Dammit those were good times!!

[Agent-GHQ]

Oooohh...... those fond memories of the 80s when I was a kid.

Even though I was more into Macross and Transformers, I still had those moments where I reminisce playing with a select Joes. It was the Dreadnoks "Trasher" with Thunder machine, Cobra Wolf with "Ice Viper," and the Devil fish.

With all these 25th gradually coming out, i'm starting to feel more and more of a kid again.

[DarthBrett]

Where the hell is Doc? He said he'd be here to pick me up and take me back in time!!

[RAR]

I remember my best friend and I playing in my front yard, in my pool, at his house (he had a creek). We had so many battles. Between us we had the Whale, Sharc, Water Moccasin, Vamp, Stinger, Wolverine, Mobat, Flak, Mobile Artillery that came with Slugger I think, Dragonfly, Fang, APC, Ram, others I have forgotten and tons of figures.

I remember Friday nights being cool because Mom would let me set up a battle in the evening and leave it set up over night to play on Saturday. Our living room always was doubling as a Joe v. Cobra battlefield.

I remember going to the toy store, Lionel Kiddie City, on a Friday night (I did not know what a Toys R Us was) and you picked out what you wanted instead of buying what you found. I do not recall ever not being able to find something I wanted.

A while back someone linked to the Joe commercials from the '80's, I do not even think I saw many of those. I mostly relied on the back of the figures card and the catalog that was included in the vehicle boxes to know what was coming out.

The late 70's and 80's were a GREAT time to be a kid! How much better having a really cool American Hero as my favorite toy!

Thanks for the question, great memories!

[Michael Jade]

I remember getting my first Joe at about 9 years old. Snake Eyes. I played with him with a rope and my steps for days. I'd have him climb up and down the rope like he was climbing a mountain.
then Christmas came and i got the entire rest of the first series. Mobat and all. my uncle got me the CC, Destro, Major Bludd three pack and I was in my glory.
my friends and I would go to each others house with stella doro cookie tins full of our Joes and play for hours.

I think that's why I love this line so much now. It brings me back to a simpler time.

[RAR]

Oh I am so with you Jade!

[slim19722]

I remember when the figures first hit retail and the comic first came out. My Dad was Drill Sgt at the time, so it was cool to actually play Army like Dad was doing every day. Fun times, walking into TRU when it was a toy store and seeing lots and lots of GI Joe toys.

[allen dane]

I was a big Star Wars fan. After the three light saber figures (Luke, Vader, Obi Won) lost their swords... the figures couldn't do that much. The vehicles ruled, but the figures were stiff at best. My mom used to buy me a toy to play with in the center of the local mall (Cleveland, Ohio) while she did her Christmas shopping. One day, I decided I wanted to get something from Sears instead of KB Toys. Well, Sears and Hasbro had some sweet deal back in the day, old people like me remember this.... they had all the exclusives, AND... most importantly... they got the next year figures 1st!!!! So, the winter break of 1983, I went to Sears to get another Star Wars trooper or pilot. Well, Sears didn't have much to choose from in the Star Wars selection... BUT, there was this figure from G.I. JOE (I told the kids at school I hated Joes... because of the decline of Star Wars interest), I told my mom I wanted the Joe. I could tell my mom wanted me to stick with Star Wars, because I got 2 older brothers and all of their old toys. My mom knew they would be worth something (never mind my sister's Barbies from the early 60's) but, I insisted on the Joe. That day, I played with Blowtorch in the middle of that mall for hours!!!! I couldn't believe how real he felt to me (look at all the other brand of figures back then). Well, I told you about my big family, so my mom shopped a few more days in a row to get all of our Christmas gifts bought. By the next week, I had Blowtorch, Torpedo, Duke, The Baroness, and Major Blood + a Claw. I then traded all my transformers for about 12 more older figures and a few vehicles with kids in school. I also got a lot more for Christmas that year, my birthday is 2 months after Christmas, so I got the Whale and Zartan from Uncle Bills. Gold Circle had the Mobat and Wolverine still, and Children's Palace would do the 4 for $10 on figures. I could go on and on about how greatly into these toys I was. I bought the entire 83/84 line (figures and vehicles and both collector cases) off of a kid my older brother knew for $40 bucks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! try getting a mint with parachute Sky Striker now for $40, much less the whole 1st three years of toys!!!! So, I got a lot of doubles and triples of stuff as interest wandered for other kids. I have to say that being a kid in those days was great because of the quality of toys. But, being a looser adult in the 90's made me sell off my soul (Joes). I have slowly re-built my collection (mostly Cobra). Having this site is awesome for me, because none of my friends, or my girl want to know anything about this obsession (I print out my figure wish list for holiday shopping, that way I don't trouble anyone with names).

So, even though you didn't get the thrill of finding toys back in the 1st run, you at least have this forum-ran site to give you great insight. Back then it was just talking to a few others in 4th grade lunch period.

[DPrime]

The biggest thing I remember were the toy aisles... There was just solid Joe product clogging them, huge sections. Toys 'r' Us was the best, but you could get a lot of stuff anywhere. Back then I could get Joes at a drug store, even - overall there just seemed like more places where you could get toys in general.

The '80s really were the best years for toys. I mean, it was hard to stay focused on Joes, with all the cool stuff out there. I remember seeing a lot of Star Wars figures well after ROTJ came out, and of course He-Man, Transformers, MASK, Thundercats - all that stuff was very cool. Even Gobots were alright once in a while. The toy guns you could get were pretty awesome too - very realistic looking!

Ah, those were the days!

[hectorxd]

GI Joes ruled. I vaguely remember other kids having maybe one or two star wars toys or a transformer here and there but everyone had GI Joes. You literally took them everywhere you went. Its like kids today with their PSP's and gameboys. Back then we had imagination and some figures.
Having the cartoon on for a couple of years really helped the interest level for everyone also.
I was born in 81 got into joes sometime during 84 (older brother) and was done by 87 when I started getting into baseball. I had a few other toy lines after that, but nothing that I played with like when I was young. I remember I was in third grade and this kid told me he wanted some action figure and I remember thinking.. aren't you too old for that?
I think I am compensating now for growing up too quick.

Should we all start posting pictures of us at Christmas and birthdays getting our joes? I have a few pics of me and my brothers room with all the vehicles layed out on the shelf.

[RedEyes]

Man, me and my brother played with GI Joes everyday. Big battles everywhere!! Outside, all over the house, in the pool, during winter. God I miss that.

Also, my friend that lived down the block had a TON of GI Joe's, including the Flagg.(never had one myself.) I remember going over there and playin with GI Joe's all day in his basement. Good times! :)

[bravo]

man back in the 80s, it was non-stop, the big thing was gijoe, he-man,cops,m.a.s.k., and so on..i love it, i wish i could go back, Waite a minute , i can , now were did i put that time machine,

[fireflyguy]

We had quite a cache of figs, vehicles, etc. It all started with Rock N' Roll for my brother and Breaker for me. We got most of the comics. We watched the cartoon faithfully every day, except on Fridays. On Fridays, we have piano lessons at the time that GI Joe came on, so we would alternate Fridays -- one Fri I would watch JOE while my brother took lessons and then vice versa the next Friday.

My parents were okay with it because they are the ones that bought most of the stuff since I didn't have any money! But my aunt was the coolest. Every birthday and Christmas she would get us something really cool. One year I got the Tomahawk. Another I got the Battle Platform.

All of the guys I knew were into it. My next-door-neighbor was, and we played together a lot. We had a ditch near our house that would fill up with water, and we would float some of the Joes's boats in it. We would dig trenches for them, and we would even blow some apart around the 4th of July.

Seeing the 25th Anniv line come out has brought back so many great memories. I have even found the cartoon on youtube! I can't get over how hokey they were, and yet I still love them.

[katcountrydean]

i grew up in a rural area and all my friends had at least a few joes so it was always a big deal to spend the night at your friends house and spend the entire day building forts out by the barn or near the creek bed... one of my best friends had all the cool vehicles so i loved going over to his house so i could play with a dragon fly or the rattler... in fact im going to email him now and see if his mom still has all his old stuff in the attic... i also remember he had the millenium falcon that the joes seemed to fit into... good times, good times

[BOMBSHELLMIKE]

Yeap. 1.99 a fig at Cheap Charlies in Huntington Beach, Had many MOC SA Snake-Eyes.....Joe Cartoon was awesome...rushed home everyday to watch @ 3:30 pm then at 5:00 pm in 85'....Those were the days. Even made Destro put the smootch on Baroness, saw it in the comix, 1.25 back then ....Yo Joe!

[SITHLOU33]

Let me put it this way, my dad was singing the theme song today and is anticipating the movie( I'm 36 and he's 56). As for me and the joes in the 80's well that's a long story for later.

[VIPER 48]

My family had a lot of ex-military (Uncles, Dad, Grandpa) so my mom and dad both loved buying me Joes as a kid. And almost every boy was into GI Joe (and of course, Star Wars). I am glad I grew up in the 80's. Seems like we got all of the cool toys and movies, too! I almost feel bad for kids that grew up in the 90's! :D

I agree, growing up in the 80's was the best time of my life...

[wraith]

It was like this:
Found some old pictures of me & my childhood buddy who played Joe with me with some of my old Joes!Thought I would share.
My birthday party:(note the Joe boxes piled up!)
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a40/deadwraith/joedays15.jpg
Close up of boxes!
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a40/deadwraith/joedays4.jpg
Me blowing out candles...What figure is in my hand?
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a40/deadwraith/joedays12.jpg
Why, it's my newly aquired ZARTAN! Just got him from my bud, Billy!
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a40/deadwraith/joedays3-1.jpg

[wraith]

Here's Billy holding my Major Bludd figure...lol!
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a40/deadwraith/joedays13.jpg
My skystriker had crash landed on a pile of stuffed animals...Ace had punched out...guess that Hiss on the bed did it's job!
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a40/deadwraith/joedays14.jpg
Close up of the hiss & it's crew.
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a40/deadwraith/joedays1.jpg

Sorry if the pics are a bit blurry, these were from the early 80's!

[botticus]

Let's just say my dad vividly remembers helping me put dozens of "NO STEP" stickers on the Skystriker.

For those who got GI Joes for Christmas presents often, was it as obvious as it was to me which ones were GI Joes? My mom eventually started to hide them in boxes or put two together.

[sharke]

The biggest thing I remember were the toy aisles... There was just solid Joe product clogging them, huge sections. Toys 'r' Us was the best, but you could get a lot of stuff anywhere.

so true! I remember being little and just looking up to a massive wall of GI Joes. it was insane. theres no line now that even comes close to it now. so much space was devoted to the line *sheds tear*

[WillyK]

Some of my fondest childhood memories are of me and friends playing with GI Joes. I had tons of them and played with them constantly outside, in the pool, in my room, wherever.

I also remember getting a beatdown from my mom in People's Drug Store because they had Quick Kick and Snake Eyes on a spinning rack and kept begging her to buy them for me. :D

[d3troit]

It was a great time, even my grandma was scouring for the GI Joes! We used to battle and flood my Mom's flower bed!

We traded GI Joes mjust because and I even kept the GI Joe Battle case and took it to be with me!

Couple that with SW and Transformers, ThunderCATS, GOBOTS, Centurions and MASK- my childhood was spectacular!

[d3troit]

Yeap. 1.99 a fig at Cheap Charlies in Huntington Beach, Had many MOC SA Snake-Eyes.....Joe Cartoon was awesome...rushed home everyday to watch @ 3:30 pm then at 5:00 pm in 85'....Those were the days. Even made Destro put the smootch on Baroness, saw it in the comix, 1.25 back then ....Yo Joe!


No , sh*t Cheap Charlie's! We used to get all of our Joe's from there!

[Wylde Weezle]

What was it like? I'd look forward to birthdays and christmas 'cause the gifts would be toys I didn't have to beg mom and dad for. You were never as enthusiastic about opening presents you saw looked like department store clothing boxes.
Theres was just TOO MUCH cool stuff to get. Star Wars, Masters of the Universe, Transformers, GoBots, Robotech, MASK and Joes were the main stuff me and my brother collected. We'd play with other people's Thundercats and Voltron stuff we never had for ourselves.

1982 Christmas was particularly good as me and my brother got our first Joes - straight arm Flash, Scarlett, Short Fuze, Cobra Enemy and a RAM cycle, a HAL and MOBAT.
Imagination was a huge factor. We got a Cobra Officer a year later, and then didn't start buying Cobra Troops until 1984's Scrap Iron. So our Cobra Troops led army of Star Wars Imperials.

Brother and I decided that our rules for playing Joes outside or bringing them to friends' house were we could only use weapons from the weapons pack since we didn't care as much about losing them and their weird-ass colors.

[Michael Jade]

This thread is awesome. makes me want to look up some of my childhood friends to see if they are joe geeks like me.

[minstrelboy]

It was pretty great - there was so much great stuff back then. G.I. Joe were high priority for myself, and my mum seemed enthusiastic about them (she liked the ones that came with animals, like Mutt and Spirit). After Joe was Star Wars, Transformers, Fisher-Price Adventure People, Playmobil, Legos and Construx. I never was into He-Man, but I liked the Thundercats, Voltron and Silverhawks cartoons. My older cousins had a hellacious comic book collection, which was great. I remember when Spidey first got the black uniform and how it became Venom. Of course, most of that is being recycled for the generation of kids nowadays.

[GGPiKE]

You know, I love reading all of these "Joe Experiences." GI Joe was such a phenomenon in the 80's. I can't remember a single boy that didn't play with Joes. We brought them to school with us and played with them pretty much every day.

I was a spoiled kid and was lucky enough to get the Flagg and the Defiant. Those were played with until they pretty much fell apart from so much usage. I remember going into Toys R Us and Lionel Toy Warehouse (right across the street from each other . . . . what you didn't find at one, you'd find at the other) frequently. The GI Joe isle was just that, an entire isle. I think I just took it for granted that that's how it would always be. Now, like the rest of you, I sometimes cry in my beer thinking of what we had!

The best parts I can remember, like many others, were the outside battles. One part of the driveway at my parents house ends in a dropoff with a brick retaining wall. My parents had a dump truck come with a whole load of sand and dump it on the other side of the wall. The pile of sand was about 4 - 5 feet high. The whole neighborhood played in that thing. We had battles galore. Hoses created rivers that ran through sand bases and foxholes. Giant Cobra bases built into the side of a "sand cliff" (about 2 feet high) came tumbling down in an avalanche when the Joes attacked. Every single kid came home caked in sand (their parents none to happy about it.) I think everyone's experiences sum it up . . . GI Joe wasn't just a "toy." It was a best friend, an outlet for our imagination, but mostly a strong and common bond that ran through every boy I knew.

[paraviper]

This is a great thread. I remember getting into joes when i was four. My older brother had lots of them and star wars. We used to have huge battles everywhere. We all used to watch the cartoon on tv. They even had a video game later on for nintendo back then. I never could beat that dang game! The 80's were great times. I remember trading figures with friends at school.The thing I miss most about the 80's was the wide selection of figures. I mean back then you could walk into any number of stores and find very large gi joe sections filled to the max. Heck there were so many stores back then that sold Gi joes. Toys R us, K&k toys,K&B toys,peoples drug, Dart drug, Ames, Jamesway, Zares, Murphy's,Bradleys, Sears, Kmart, Rite Aid, Woolco, woolworth,tons of fun toys,I could keep going on and on. Compare that to now....... Wal mart,sears,Target, Toysrus,K&b...I miss the 1980's!

[Tomahawk]

it was great