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02-03-2023, 07:43 PM | #51 |
Iron Grenadier
Join Date: Dec 2021
Location: Cobra Island
Posts: 780
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My intro to GI-Joe is that I'm the youngest of 3 - my brothers are 7 and 9 years older than me, and they grew up during the GI Joe glory days, whereas my "Joe era" was early to mid 90s. My brothers exposed me to all the over the top action films of the 80s and GI Joe was the only toy you could be recreating the over the top violence that my young brain could comprehend.
It was BIG but even as a kid I remember the majority of my friends were playing with TMNT / X-Men, and then eventually SNES / Sega dominated everything. I distinctly remember those transitionary Christmases, where I was sorta moved on totally to PC Gaming, GI Joe was starting to put out Sgt Savage blobs of plastic with no articulation. Growing up happened. This thread is a super cool read. I almost feel like I need to try and capture the magic of the GI Joe marketing and use that to further lure my kids into playing with the o-rings, on top of keeping them away from video games as long as I can. |
02-03-2023, 07:58 PM | #52 |
Crimson Guard
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: Illinois
Posts: 4,177
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I was a completionist in about six different lines (things were so simple back then) and was always about half a season behind. My poor mom was always hunting for the previous wave of stuff. I got Jetfire for Christmas, and he was probably the last one on shelves on this side of the Mississippi River.
The shoulder broke beneath the Christmas tree before I even got him upstairs, and there was no way to replace him. I can relate to the earlier shifting interests comments. It was Star Wars until 1983 or 1984 with a little He-Man mixed in there, after which G.I. Joe and Transformers took hold. However, MASK, Go-Bots, Clash of the Titans, Indy, those little guys with magnet feet, and various other toy lines compelled me occasionally. I was also into things like V and Ghostbusters that had no toys. My last wave of Joes was in 1989, I think, and I still have them carded. I was collecting and not playing at that point. Around then, I got into comics. I started buying up my friends’ Super Powers and Secret Wars figures. My friend had some TMNT, but I do not think I got any myself. By college, I was spending my discretionary income on comic books, and it was my stated goal as an English major to be a comic book writer (coincidentally and fortuitously, my roommate was studying art to become a comic book artist). However, when my girlfriend left college, I started spending my money calling her instead of on comics. I married her, so I do not regret the investment. I still remember my roommate waking me up in the middle of the night, though, and urging me to pick one of the two surprises he had in his hand. They were two X-Men figures. I picked Cable and let him keep Wolverine. It was the first new figure I had acquired in months (maybe years). A few years later, I would be hunting down new Star Wars figures and have let my toy collecting hobby be my obsession ever since. |
02-03-2023, 08:29 PM | #53 |
stretching your O-ring
Join Date: Jul 2021
Location: Tomball, Texas
Posts: 2,867
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Quote:
My intro to GI-Joe is that I'm the youngest of 3 - my brothers are 7 and 9 years older than me, and they grew up during the GI Joe glory days, whereas my "Joe era" was early to mid 90s. My brothers exposed me to all the over the top action films of the 80s and GI Joe was the only toy you could be recreating the over the top violence that my young brain could comprehend.
It was BIG but even as a kid I remember the majority of my friends were playing with TMNT / X-Men, and then eventually SNES / Sega dominated everything. I distinctly remember those transitionary Christmases, where I was sorta moved on totally to PC Gaming, GI Joe was starting to put out Sgt Savage blobs of plastic with no articulation. Growing up happened. This thread is a super cool read. I almost feel like I need to try and capture the magic of the GI Joe marketing and use that to further lure my kids into playing with the o-rings, on top of keeping them away from video games as long as I can. My mom was always helping me make ponchos, tents, capes, pillows, blankets, anything out of cloth I could make as a Joe accessory. One time I made a bedrobe for CC out of plaid cloth, because I got "ideas" from A Christmas Carol and Not A Ghost Of A Chance to have him visited by ghosts like Scrooge. I wish I still had the imagination I had as a kid. |
02-03-2023, 08:29 PM | #54 |
Bill Cosplay
Join Date: Feb 2014
Location: Staying clear of knee-jerk nerds.
Posts: 5,912
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You know, I forgot I originally intended to point out that only a lucky few Filipino men, and plenty of women in ports the world over, truly appreciate just how big GI Joe is.
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02-03-2023, 08:37 PM | #55 |
Iron Grenadier
Join Date: Dec 2021
Location: Cobra Island
Posts: 780
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Quote:
Build dioramas. Kids love crafts.
My mom was always helping me make ponchos, tents, capes, pillows, blankets, anything out of cloth I could make as a Joe accessory. One time I made a bedrobe for CC out of plaid cloth, because I got "ideas" from A Christmas Carol and Not A Ghost Of A Chance to have him visited by ghosts like Scrooge. I wish I still had the imagination I had as a kid. |
02-03-2023, 08:43 PM | #56 |
Just a fan
Join Date: Feb 2021
Location: NY
Posts: 8,580
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Quote:
Last edited by AWOL; 02-03-2023 at 08:55 PM.. |
02-03-2023, 08:53 PM | #57 |
Crimson Guard
Join Date: May 2015
Location: CT
Posts: 2,052
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Quote:
My intro to GI-Joe is that I'm the youngest of 3 - my brothers are 7 and 9 years older than me, and they grew up during the GI Joe glory days, whereas my "Joe era" was early to mid 90s. My brothers exposed me to all the over the top action films of the 80s and GI Joe was the only toy you could be recreating the over the top violence that my young brain could comprehend.
It was BIG but even as a kid I remember the majority of my friends were playing with TMNT / X-Men, and then eventually SNES / Sega dominated everything. I distinctly remember those transitionary Christmases, where I was sorta moved on totally to PC Gaming, GI Joe was starting to put out Sgt Savage blobs of plastic with no articulation. Growing up happened. This thread is a super cool read. I almost feel like I need to try and capture the magic of the GI Joe marketing and use that to further lure my kids into playing with the o-rings, on top of keeping them away from video games as long as I can. I distinctly remember the TMNT/X-Men/Batman slowly transition to Power Rangers/Super Human Samurai/Exo Squad in the mid 90s. On top of that the SNES/Sega were becoming mainstays. I really didn't stray too much from GI Joe myself - Legos and matchbox/hotwheels were the other toys I typically played with. Needless to say I was a die hard Joe fan. It was an awesome time to be a kid but I will say that ARAH did hold it's own up until the line's final year. If I recall either 1992 or 1993 was one of the Joe lines most successful years financially. The history of Joe in the 90s is actually pretty fascinating - some good interviews are out there with the folks at Hasbro who ran Joe in the 90s - they gave some good, logical explanations as to why the 90s Joes got as whacky as they did and it's hard to fault them in retrospect. For me I guess I "aged out" of toys at the same time the ARAH run ended. I turned 13 in 1995 and the last Joe I purchased was Flint. Even with the end of the line I never strayed to far - I remember getting a Moray Hydrofoil with birthday money from Yojoe.com in 1998 and then in 99/2000 during my Senior year I used my expendable income to collect Joes - I built up a nice collection prior to leaving for college. |
02-03-2023, 09:25 PM | #58 |
Salty Scallywag
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Swabbin' with Shippy
Posts: 3,226
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Quote:
Nah, you're looking at them as adult collectibles and not toys. The toys we played with as kids were toys, and they were engaging and fun for kids. What pushed toy "innovation" forward for a long time were simple market forces: if something didn't attract children's attention and/or keep them engaged and interested, it didn't sell. Now action figures are a collectible for a subset of adults, and we nit-pick, bitch and push for "better"...while we buy them anyway. The attitude seems to be, "I'm buying this so make it be what I want it to be!" The old model worked better. If you don't like something, why you buying it? But anyway, somewhere along the way, we forgot what toys actually are and replaced that with what our adult selves want them to be.
Yeah, I think that many of the perceived improvements made to action figures, are not really the sorts of things that kids would prioritize. Certain sculptural details, hyper-realism, max articulation, an aversion to anything slightly wacky or garish - these are more the priorities of collectors, than kids. Articulation is one "improvement" that I feel, if pushed over a certain level, becomes more a fiddly hindrance to handling and playability - IF, the purpose is to design an actual toy.
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02-03-2023, 09:41 PM | #59 |
stretching your O-ring
Join Date: Jul 2021
Location: Tomball, Texas
Posts: 2,867
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Quote:
Yeah, I think that many of the perceived improvements made to action figures, are not really the sorts of things that kids would prioritize. Certain sculptural details, hyper-realism, max articulation, an aversion to anything slightly wacky or garish - these are more the priorities of collectors, than kids.
Articulation is one "improvement" that I feel, if pushed over a certain level, becomes more a fiddly hindrance to handling and playability - IF, the purpose is to design an actual toy. Also, the problem wasn't so much the colors themselves, but how much they clashed with previous years. I think the O-Ring era could have easily continued into 1997 at least had they not alienated the kids who were still collecting Joe by making pieces that didn't fit with earlier years. Even 1991 Snake Eyes looked odd riding on the 1990 Hammer with Salvo, *1992* Battle Commanders Hawk, Stretcher, and Rampart. It was like a color-attention war was going on in the boys toys' aisle and heading for critical mass. |
02-03-2023, 09:46 PM | #60 |
Just a fan
Join Date: Feb 2021
Location: NY
Posts: 8,580
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