I lost my grandmother last week, and it’s been a difficult time to do the usual stuff of life, much less photograph and write about toys. That’s why most of the writing from week’s posts have been cribbed from entries written years ago. Today I was going to post Falcon glider Grunt, not realizing until I pulled up the old
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You could say that GI Joe is a descendant of the little green army men from days of yore. One of my favorite memories of playing with the little green guys were the paratroopers. A simple plastic parachute and string turned the regular troopers into death defying airborne attackers. At the time of its release, the Skystriker was the Cadillac
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If you needed an all-around, useful anywhere trooper follow-up to Grunt, Airborne was your man. This cat could jump out of a perfectly good Dragonfly and pound the ground with the best of them. What’s not to love about the accessories, color and specialty here? Just compare that backpack and rifle to what came just one year before. Sleekly designed
Read moreWhat a winter it’s been here at JAD HQ! With snow storms, ice storms, sleet, freezing rain, graupel (look it up) and many, many snow days for the kids, Mother Nature has served up a winter that takes me back to my youth. We’re no strangers to snow in these parts, but it seems as the decades have gone by,
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The first and my favorite of all the Joe team’s combat divers, Torpedo brings forth all sorts of great childhood memories. First and foremost, a kid just couldn’t help but get this figure into the water, whether sink, tub, or pool. Unfortunately the aquatic adventures eventually wreaked havoc on the toy, as screws ultimately rusted, and in the case of
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The new for 1983 Joes are one of the most cohesive looking assortments in all the Real American Hero year’s. With sleek sculpts, an overall drab color scheme, and a wonderfully diverse group of specialties, Hasbro cemented what the previous year established, at least in this kid’s mind. It was the year that hooked me and pulled my toy-collecting heart
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By KansasBrawler Sometimes when you want a certain character when you’re a kid, you wind up buying some pretty subpar figures. By the time 1993 rolled around, KansasBrother had had his version of Snake-Eyes for a while and I kind of wanted my own version. While at the Toys ‘R’ Us near my grandparents’ in the south suburbs of Chicago,
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The 80s team’s original “big man”, Gung Ho was in my universe a hard-nosed and super powerful brawler. I had him delivering two-handed punches that rivaled the power of Superman. In contrast to this superheroic strengthening were the size of the figure’s arms in relation to the comic and cartoon. By 1985, GH looked puny in the guns department. His
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If you need an early example of the specialization of the 80s Joes, Tripwire is a perfect subject. Like Breaker, he’s one of the few figures not to include a weapon. Although his mines count, I suppose. He’s the perfect support trooper to help get the Joes through Cobra-laid mine fields. I know The Enemy used to put down a
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The Mobile Missile System is one of the most real-world of the early GI Joe battlefield weapons. Where the HAL and JUMP were fantastical pieces of future technology, the MMS more closely resembles any number of mobile systems in use during the latter 20th century. As a toy, the MMS is more playset than vehicle, and provides a smaller environment
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