The Greatest, non-real, American Hero

Seeing the new G.I.Joe trailor durring the Super-Sized American Football Game that Determined this Season’s Champion last night, it brought back fond memories of one of the greatest toy lines ever created.  As such, I shall now ramble a bit on why G.I.Joe was so full of the awesome.

From around ‘77 through ‘82, the action figure market was being dominated by the, then Midi-chlorian free, Star Wars toy line.  Light saber wielding figures, with plastic capes, who’s arms and legs could only move as if they were marching for Hitler?  How could something like that be stopped?   Fisher-Price attempted to compete around that time with something they called, Adventure People.  Seriously, that’s what they were called.  I remember that one of them came with a motor cycle, and his legs actually bent at the knees, but if he was ever not on his motor cycle, he looked like he was walking with a load in his pants.

Then in ‘82 Hasbro re-launched their G.I.Joe toy line, this time not as the 12″ Ken dolls with army fatigues that old people used to talk about, but as 3-3/4″ plastic Star Wars killers.  What made G.I.Joe great was so simple, yet so much better.  Knees and elbows.  However, the poseability didn’t stop there, the next year they drove the stake through Luke’s heart with Swivel-Arm Battle Grip aka Kung Fu Grip.  With Kung Fu Grip my toys could finally hold a gun in a semi-reasonable way as opposed to the previous standard of holding a gun in such a way that the safest place to be, was directly in front of the gunman.

Star Wars tried to make a go at things with Return of the Jedi, but the Ewoks just couldn’t compete with the technological terror Hasbro had created (a figure that changed color in sunlight and a 7 foot long aircraft carrier).  Not to mention, they still lacked knees and elbows.