By KansasBrawler Generally speaking, I don’t have strong memories of most of the trips to toy departments when I came home with Joes. However, I do remember the origins of ones that I got as presents for Christmas. In my household, we sort of had two Christmases. My father was a pastor (he’s now since retired) which meant traveling to
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GI Joe’s 80s period stands as a triumph of interconnected toys and accessories. Thanks to the common design and size of the figures, there are very few instances of characters not being able to fit in vehicles or borrow weapons and backpacks from their comrades (or opponents). As the series continued into the 90s, Hasbro veered off the compatability path
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Yoga fire! Dhalsim is certainly unique among GI Joe figures, and yes this is a GI Joe figure, at least in terms of official branding. Just check out the smallish logo on the packaging. I was all-in for the StreetFighter figures, particularly the characters made up of entirely new parts. While others like Ryu and Ken were disappointing, others were
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We’re back again (it’s been too long) with a quick-hitting review of the Karate Chopper box. Yeah, we couldn’t find the actual toy, so this is what you get. I don’t have a whole lot to say about it, so Will saves the day, as usual.
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Ryu and Ken were the dynamic duo when it came to the marketing of the GI Joe/Street Fighter toy crossover. It’s no surprise then that both of them made an appearance in the first playset for the line. I didn’t pick up the Dragon Fortress set back in the 90s. Years later, I wish I had, if only because much
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Yesterday’s post sparked quite a bit of convo, so here’s another page from the same year’s catalog. It’s the Street Fighter II assortment. While not as crazy a dio as the Mega Marines, there’s still some interesting things going on–such as pre-production differences from the final toys. Can you spot ’em all?
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By Acer In 1994, 3.75″ G.I. Joe was on the way out, but Hasbro/Kenner sought to give many of the figure molds purpose in their upcoming lines based on the movie adaptations of Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat. In the case of the Street Fighter line, probably because of the then-popularity of the movie’s star Jean-Claude Van Damme, the toymaker
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By Acer The year 1994 was one where Hasbro was making a few gambles, two of which predicated on the success of two movies based on two popular fighting video game franchises: Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat. Street Fighter, which tied in to the 1994 film starring Jean-Claude Van Damme and Raul Julia (in his final film role), saw Hasbro
Read moreThe Street Fighter spin off series of the 90’s produced not only figures based on Joe molds, but vehicles as well. This was a stretch to say the least. What possible reason would fighters like Chun-Li and Blanka have to drive a missile-firing off-road truck? One character that could justify piloting a military vehicle is Col. Guile, who has a
Read moreWhen I started this blog, I wanted to keep things wide open in terms of what I’d talk about. Sure, the main Joe lines have enough figures that I’ll probably burn out on this before even coming close to running out of subjects. I also didn’t want to ignore the effect that the success the 3 3/4″ Joes have had
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