TOYHEM! A veritable platoon of Hasbro’s Movable Fighting Men…
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Welcome to TOYHEM! For the sixth straight holiday season, we’re bringing you a series of features and columns celebrating the toys of our youth, which often made for the best memories this time of year. Click here to check out the complete index of stories — and have a Merry Christmas, a Happy Chanukah and Happy Holidays! — Dan
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UPDATED 12/18/24: A fave from the TOYHEM vaults! This piece first ran in 2022, but let’s dig it all over again. Plus, check out Jim’s TOP 13 GI JOE ADVENTURE TEAM ACCESSORIES AND PLAYSETS. Click here. — Dan
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By JIM BEARD
No matter how much I’ve talked about the toy over the years, it’s still a challenge for me to quantify my love for the original GI Joe. We’ve been together, see, since I was 4 and there’s a lot of history there.
I met Joe on Christmas ’69 — Christmas Eve, to be exact — and though I’ve had other toys since that fateful meeting, none have measured up to the stature, the grandeur, the sheer coolness of America’s Movable Fighting Man. If you’re not that familiar with the original Joe, I’m hoping the following pictorial will impart some of what I’m trying to say about the toy. There was nothing like it before his debut in 1964, and in my opinion, there’s been nothing like it since.
So, this is an ode to the so-called “military era” of GI Joe, the 1964 to 1969 stretch when soldier toys were a thing and it was OK for boys to have dolls… err, “action figures.” I’ll keep the verbiage to a minimum so as to concentrate on the figures themselves, because even all these years later — and me having published a non-fiction book about Joe and my homage fiction “DC Jones” series — I still find it hard to shape a solid salute to my old chum.
These are the 13 vintage “soldier era” GI Joes I own. Enjoy.
(Dan adds: Also check out Jim’s TOP 13 GI JOE ADVENTURE TEAM Accessories and Playsets. Click here.)
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Action Soldier. It all starts here, the most basic of Joe figures, the common army grunt.
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Talking Action Soldier. A variation on the previous grunt, with full pack and loaded for bear. This figure belonged to a childhood friend of mine. It still talks.
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Action Pilot. Just as he came out of the box.
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Scramble Pilot. “Scramble” is one of the coolest sets for the Action Pilot. Unfortunately, there’s no parachute in the parachute pack.
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Astronaut. My original Astronaut, the one I got in ’69, is long gone, but I sure do love this replacement.
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Action Sailor. The basic Action Sailor here is dressed up in the “Navy Attack” life vest.
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Green Beret. An incredible set. I love the attention to detail here — and the working bazooka.
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Action Marine. Another basic figure, just as you would have bought him off the shelf back in the day.
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Military Police. This one is the childhood figure of the guy who used to own the comics shop I patronize. He said he wasn’t a fan, thus the amazing condition it’s in.
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Japanese Imperial Soldier. In the mid-’60s, Hasbro produced the incredible “Soldiers of the World” series, a subset of the GI Joe line. This one reflects a WWII-era Japanese soldier.
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French Resistance Fighter. One of my great honors of being a Joe collector is becoming the caretaker of others’ childhood figures. This is one of them.
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British Commando. I just love the gas mask on this one.
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Russian Infantryman. My most recently acquired Joe, and a work-in-progress. Please forgive his lack of boots—the very specific footwear for the Russian and German soldiers is hard to find, as well as very pricey.
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MORE
— The Complete TOYHEM INDEX of Stories and Features. Click here.
— The TOP 13 GI JOE ADVENTURE TEAM Accessories and Playsets. Click here.
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JIM BEARD has pounded out adventure fiction since he sold a story to DC Comics in 2002. He’s gone on to write official Star Wars and Ghostbusters comics stories and contributed articles and essays to several volumes of comic book history. His prose work includes his own creations, but also licensed properties such as Planet of the Apes, X-Files, Spider-Man, Kolchak the Night Stalker and Captain Action. In addition, Jim provided regular content for Marvel.com, the official Marvel Comics website, for 17 years.
Check out his latest releases: Rising Sun Reruns, about classic Japanese shows on American TV; a Green Hornet novella How Sweet the Sting; his first epic fantasy novel The Nine Nations Book One: The Sliding World; and the most recent Batman ’66 books of essays he’s edited: Zlonk! Zok! Zowie! The Subterranean Blue Grotto Essays on Batman ’66 – Season One, Biff! Bam! Ee-Yow! The Subterranean Blue Grotto Essays on Batman ’66 – Season Two and Oooff! Boff! Splatt! The Subterranean Blue Grotto Guide to Batman ’66 – Season Three.
He’s also published novels about a character very much like GI Joe: DC Jones – Adventure Command International.
December 3, 2022
Your collection is in great shape! Serve these up on a rainy day with a few episodes of The Rat Patrol and you have some great childhood memories.
December 3, 2022
Thanks, man!
December 3, 2022
Awesome Joe collection!! I still have my collection of Kolchak the night stalker on vhs! Has anyone ever kidnapped their sister’s Barbie and made her the damsel in distress for the Joes back in the day (or was that just me?)
December 3, 2022
Where is the German soldier?
December 3, 2022
I don’t own one.
December 3, 2022
I had one of the original GI Joes when they first came out–my parents even got me the foot locker, which I had for many years (but didn’t get to fill it with very many armaments and accessories. They were very hard to find in the early days, and those that were found were the same ones over and over again. I also seem to vaguely remember they had a club and some mailings, which I had received. Wish I still had those…
December 18, 2024
Jim, “… Please forgive his lack of boots…”, would you consider 3D printed replicas?
December 18, 2024
Since the posting of this article last year, I was able to acquire a vintage pair of boots for him.
December 20, 2024
Wow! Great collection, Jim. (And I’m clueless as to how I missed this post 2 days ago)
I too am of the era of the foot-tall GI Joe action figure. But my experience of it was the early 1970s when the warring military emphasis had been very much pushed aside (mostly–the clothing could still suggest it with camouflage outfits and such) owing to the unpopularity of the Vietnam War and concerns about violence in the media as coming off that mid-to-late 60s period of urban riots and rising crime rates (though as a kid back then I was clueless). So the various Joes diversified into various “Adventurer” types (b. 1970).
I had (unfortunately “had”) the talking Commander, the Adventurers for Land, Sea and Air (your Action Pilot) and a generic Adventurer (who happened to be black). They all had fuzzy hair (crewcuts–but some textured stuff that you could feel) and a few with beards (the Commander and Land Adventurer, and even the Sea Adventurer who was the repurposed Action Sailor now with truly fuzzy facial hair).
Jesus, I just loved this stuff where I had accumulated a TON of accessories for these figures–various clothing outfits like scuba gear (including a 19th-century diving suit with the closed helmet) hunting gear, pilot gear (with an actual parachute to go in the parachute), spy gear etc. Some of these, like the diving / scuba stuff came with other things like a shark (scuba) and an octopus and a treasure box (diving suit). And a hunting set contained a gorilla. The spy gear had an inflatable raft and high powered flashlights (which didn’t really work) My stuff here could fill a massive chlorine drum container my father made for the purpose (I had a swimming pool growing up).
On top of that, I had (again, unfortunately, “had”) a bunch of vehicles and other things that went with them: a folding-out portable Command Center / HQ (whose central area raised up into a second-story, with that central area supporting a command chair that could rise up between the two levels on a pole. I had the Mobile Support Vehicle (which looked like a more compact version of the later Ark II, if yellow rather than white) that also opened up into techy control panel things and whose front detached as a separate driving vehicle, a generic jeep, a generic airplane and a wonderful helicopter with spinning rotors as had by continually pushing a button on the helicopter’s side (back when you could sell dangerous toys to kids–as the rotors could fly off as they were spinning).
I remember having several catalogs for the accessories, one of which had the stronger military feel of the 1960s era
Geez, those were just wonderful days of imaginative playtime. I got rid of it all in the later 1970s thinking I should grow up more, but am now regretful that I didn’t insist up being a kid a bit longer (and may be appreciate the idea of “collectables”). A bit envious that you still have your collection.
Thank you for the recollection, Jim.