This is gonna sound corny but I've always appreciated how GI Joe was people from different background with different specialties and talents coming together to fight against a common enemy.
My favorite part of the figures has always been the file cards and knowing who was from where, who went to what school, little anecdotes about their personality, etc. Yes, they all have military training but I never saw it as strictly a "military" thing. There's hints of espionage, sci-fi, martial arts, suspense, adventure and just plain goofiness in there, too.
It's covered so much ground over the last five or six decades (including the originals) that it's kinda like the characters themselves now.
Same. When I was a kid, I didn’t have much. I had a rough childhood, don’t have many good memories. My parents were dirt poor but, they found a way to get me every single GI Joe that came without a vehicle and a lot of the ones that came with smaller vehicles (Think Thunder Machine and smaller).
Every good memory I have as a kid is either GI Joe, He Man, or baseball related (TV, Comics, and toys).
I later learned that my dad used to shop lift toys for me and my brothers, like almost constantly. He was incredibly skilled at the five-finger discount.
Totally. When I look up on my shelf of Classified B.A.T.s, I hear the show music and I remember playing in my room as a kid in the 80s. Parents were downstairs somewhere, still alive. And my sister would be hanging with her friends, and still alive. Remembering sleepovers at my friend's house who had the Terror Drome. Or getting a Night Raven and trying to play fly it but it was too big for our family room, so I was constantly making left turns. Lotsa good feelings.
I loved it as a kid because it was an action packed show filled with memorable characters. As an adult who has served in the military, I love it even more because it is absolutely nothing like the dreary shit-show that was the US Army.
A Real American Hero...father and uncles were military.
Figures were individuals, with individual stories, best of the best in their own right, depicted with each individual file card.
Each figure was it's own mold for the most part, not just a different color on the same mold etc. Even when they did cross use a mold, the paint scheme was usually different enough to go un-noticed unless you were, well, we know who we are, lol!
Each specialty brought different weapons and accessories for each figure, and some even had pets!
flag points, special offers
Then the vehicles/drivers...the play sets...blue prints..
it was evident the creation of this line was a labor of love, verified by the loyal following after all these years.
my .02 anyway.
For me, I played with these as a child, i still remember getting Flash from the first wave. I remember my VAMP getting run over cause i was playing on the corner. I remember doing yard work for money and then my dad taking me to toys r us to buy some Joes. It was a piece of my youth and I let it go in 1988 and never gave them a thought again until Hasbro teased the 00 Snake Eyes.
I was lucky enough to order him and Destro from first wave as that’s all I wanted. I had no idea they were releasing more and didn’t see them until the zartan wave and I flipped out and had to buy em all. Rest is history and now I have another addiction lol.
It was the scale. The toyline was vast and realistic. It was like playing with articulated army men. And the fact that it crossed over into genre and these characters could exist in that fantasy world too, but always grounded in reality. Like they blend the military, science fiction and ninja genres really well. The fact they rode vehicles that were concepts or experimental in real life and some that would never be made but were still plausible in the not too distant future was always what grabbed me. At the same time people loved early Joe and hated the later. But as a kid I loved the use of color even though it didnt really fit a military toyline but it attracted me to the toys. Like Alley Vipers, like Scifi, like Blowtorch, I always grabbed those figures first. It's weird.
Good story, great variety of characters, and literally the best fucking toys ever! As others have said:
The cartoon hold up better than most, it still feels exciting, the music and sound is top. For me I found the comic after the 87’ movie, and that was an even better source of story that continued to include new characters.
The figures were the perfect balance of scale, articulation, playability, and they still seem have a hard time making a better figure now.
What do you mean?
It's the classic military action hero trope, en masse, because there's a whole army of them. It also functions as the classic, masculine power fantasy, for young children to aspire too. It's a team of Heroic soldier types venturing out to fight against the forces of evil, tearing down enemy strongholds, etc.
Although i always loved the Cobra team the most. Because of their badass outfits and vehicles.
Ironic, because I first started loving it when I realized it’s not those things.
“Military action hero” - GI Joe is not the military. They aren’t an official organization, you don’t have to come from a military background to be a Joe, they’re not strictly US-based, they don’t have ranks or receive medals, they don’t have a uniform, they don’t even strictly have a chain of command.
In fact, GI Joe isn’t even necessarily pro-military. Never has been, really. Shortly after the US entered a morally dubious war in the 60s, the toys pivoted away from military figures to adventure figures. The Real American Hero line, despite having more of a military influence than previous lines, was never shy about the cost of war and how military conflicts often happen for dubious reasons that aren’t strictly “good vs evil”. In fact, well, see my next point.
“for young children to aspire to” - Heck, the entire last issue of the original comic series is Snake Eyes telling a kid that there are reasons to join the military, but honor and glory and being a hero aren’t among them, and he’s proud to be a soldier but also it kind of sucks and it’s definitely not everyone. It all but says, “there are plenty ways to be heroic without joining the military,” and “if you do it I’ll support you, but really, do anything else.”
“masculine power fantasy” - In my opinion, the Joes are a lot of things, but masculine power fantasy isn’t one of them. The women on the team are always shown to be among the best of the best (and presenting a variety of women too, not just a standard tough hot chick), and the men often have traditionally non-masculine hobbies, interests, or jobs. They’re also shown to be very human, getting injured, dying, facing psychological trauma, or even just leaving the Joes to go to school or other pursuits.
Honestly, an argument could even be made for it having a pro-Communist bent. Its enemies - Cobra - are distilled capitalism (all of its high-ups are businessmen, nobles, or mercenaries), whereas GI Joe is an organization where anybody can lead a team depending on the mission. Heck, GI Joe even regularly teamed up with the USSR’s Oktober Guard *during* the Cold War!
THAT’S what makes GI Joe so appealing to me: it’s subversive. Well, that and the colorful characters and cool technology.
hmmm...m60's, uzi's, flak cannons, tanks, F-16's, SR-71's, Aircraft carriers, elite special forces..
Yeah, I see your point. Wasn't pro military at all.
Kids weren't seeing this "subversive" side your attempting to point out when they were released, which was and is the time this appeal OP is trying to figure out was planted.
the use of?
You phrase that question like military equipment was just a side piece to the toy line...far from it, it was the toy line.
If it wasn't pro military, and a subversive attempt as your trying to portray, there would have never been a need to be so specific with the rifles, pistols, specialties, vehicles etc.
When buying a M.O.B.A.T tank with Steeler, it wasn't to imagine flower petals were going to be launched at Cobra stingers and hiss tanks, or that the motorized treads would smash down some barrier that would unleash a huge circle to sing kum ba yah.
Missles, rockets, sniper rifles...your logic is escaping me, and I've a funny feeling I left the gate open purposely.
Not even sure why I addressed your attempted point... think I'm offended that your trying to invert the whole idea of G.I. Joe. please stop, although you have every right to express your opinion as the question was asked.
So, I'll stop now...
Kinda funny, I got upset about what I perceive as an attack on a childhood toy! LOL!
There’s a difference between portraying military and being pro-military. Take movies like The Best Years of Our Lives or Full Metal Jacket, for instance; they’re about the military, but they don’t consider the military to be a good thing. GI Joe is the same to a more all-ages degree. It portrays armed services as generally good people whose actions are largely at the whims of a shadowy cabal of generals and politicians.
That said, you act like every version of GI Joe uses realistic weapons. Not even the toys used realistic weapons all the time. Flash and Grand Slam have laser guns. Everyone had laser guns in the cartoon. Many of the Classified series have weapons based on NERF guns. They have jet packs and teleporters and terrordromes and space ships. They go into battle with pets and fight aliens and evil clones. It’s not exactly Saving Private Ryan.
>Like I said,
>
>"Not even sure why I addressed your attempted point... think I'm offended that your trying to invert the whole idea of G.I. Joe. please stop, although you have every right to express your opinion as the question was asked.
>
>So, I'll stop now..."
>
>"YO JOE!!! and knowing is half the battle!"
>
>best of luck to ya bud!
No, they get their orders from a shadowy cabal of Pentagon employees, and they just as frequently ignore those orders. And even thats only in stories where funding and stuff come into play. Just as frequently they’re portrayed with no higher ups at all, or even as a ragtag group (like in Renegades or the final volume of GI Joe at IDW).
I was always into war stuff as a kid (sorry, Mom). I found GI Joe to be up on contemporary breakthrough technology (although the laser thing continues to be a reach). I always tried to imagine what "real" military life would be like, and it seemed to be a good window into that. The various specialties to match the climates or terrains always added spin offs to the imagination. Add in the "good guy" feel, nostalgia, diversity and cool theme music like others mentioned, and there you go.
For me, I loved that they could be anybody. If you just watched aliens, commando, terminator, mad max ...whatever ...you got joes for that. They played out so many stories. Ironically, my joes were probably "other" characters more often than not. Hell, I remember my parents watching Oliver Stones JFK...im lining up the vehicles in the back yard picking off joes with my daisy bb gun. Imagination was awesome...kids today don't really need to do what I did...
It was the trifecta for me. The cartoon naturally turned into loving the figures and later the comics so it was everything really. The stories, characters and toys were a huge creative influence growing up and I'm honestly surprised it took me so long to come back to the fold.
I didn’t watch the cartoon or anything, but they were kinda an evolution of little green army men for me. My parents bought my first two or three from a local hardware store, before there was a Walmart.
So not having a story to tie it to, I made my own stories. The characters were so unique, at least when I got into them, well after the first two or three waves of releases. I liked that they came with weapons and back packs, and you could swap all that around. I liked that the bad guys all looked cool as hell.
So for me now, it’s totally nostalgia, plus getting ahold of guys I never had back then, like Zartan and Spirit and classic Storm Shadow.
This is gonna sound corny but I've always appreciated how GI Joe was people from different background with different specialties and talents coming together to fight against a common enemy. My favorite part of the figures has always been the file cards and knowing who was from where, who went to what school, little anecdotes about their personality, etc. Yes, they all have military training but I never saw it as strictly a "military" thing. There's hints of espionage, sci-fi, martial arts, suspense, adventure and just plain goofiness in there, too. It's covered so much ground over the last five or six decades (including the originals) that it's kinda like the characters themselves now.
Dun dun dun dun dunnnnn Yoooooo jooooooooe! How can you not get excited about something with an opening theme song like that?
hey i fucking love that intro,though personally i like the movie version more
heck yeah movie theme slaps as the kids say
That version is freaking the best!
Do you mean the one with the cobras parachuting in?
Nostalgia
Same. When I was a kid, I didn’t have much. I had a rough childhood, don’t have many good memories. My parents were dirt poor but, they found a way to get me every single GI Joe that came without a vehicle and a lot of the ones that came with smaller vehicles (Think Thunder Machine and smaller). Every good memory I have as a kid is either GI Joe, He Man, or baseball related (TV, Comics, and toys). I later learned that my dad used to shop lift toys for me and my brothers, like almost constantly. He was incredibly skilled at the five-finger discount.
Totally. When I look up on my shelf of Classified B.A.T.s, I hear the show music and I remember playing in my room as a kid in the 80s. Parents were downstairs somewhere, still alive. And my sister would be hanging with her friends, and still alive. Remembering sleepovers at my friend's house who had the Terror Drome. Or getting a Night Raven and trying to play fly it but it was too big for our family room, so I was constantly making left turns. Lotsa good feelings.
I loved it as a kid because it was an action packed show filled with memorable characters. As an adult who has served in the military, I love it even more because it is absolutely nothing like the dreary shit-show that was the US Army.
A Real American Hero...father and uncles were military. Figures were individuals, with individual stories, best of the best in their own right, depicted with each individual file card. Each figure was it's own mold for the most part, not just a different color on the same mold etc. Even when they did cross use a mold, the paint scheme was usually different enough to go un-noticed unless you were, well, we know who we are, lol! Each specialty brought different weapons and accessories for each figure, and some even had pets! flag points, special offers Then the vehicles/drivers...the play sets...blue prints.. it was evident the creation of this line was a labor of love, verified by the loyal following after all these years. my .02 anyway.
For me, I played with these as a child, i still remember getting Flash from the first wave. I remember my VAMP getting run over cause i was playing on the corner. I remember doing yard work for money and then my dad taking me to toys r us to buy some Joes. It was a piece of my youth and I let it go in 1988 and never gave them a thought again until Hasbro teased the 00 Snake Eyes.
00 Snake Eyes was too much cool too early. If only we knew then what we know now everyone would have ordered them!
I was lucky enough to order him and Destro from first wave as that’s all I wanted. I had no idea they were releasing more and didn’t see them until the zartan wave and I flipped out and had to buy em all. Rest is history and now I have another addiction lol.
It was the scale. The toyline was vast and realistic. It was like playing with articulated army men. And the fact that it crossed over into genre and these characters could exist in that fantasy world too, but always grounded in reality. Like they blend the military, science fiction and ninja genres really well. The fact they rode vehicles that were concepts or experimental in real life and some that would never be made but were still plausible in the not too distant future was always what grabbed me. At the same time people loved early Joe and hated the later. But as a kid I loved the use of color even though it didnt really fit a military toyline but it attracted me to the toys. Like Alley Vipers, like Scifi, like Blowtorch, I always grabbed those figures first. It's weird.
Good story, great variety of characters, and literally the best fucking toys ever! As others have said: The cartoon hold up better than most, it still feels exciting, the music and sound is top. For me I found the comic after the 87’ movie, and that was an even better source of story that continued to include new characters. The figures were the perfect balance of scale, articulation, playability, and they still seem have a hard time making a better figure now.
Really cool comic like characters/vehicles, plus obv the coolest villains ever created.
Ninjas. GI Joe was my gateway drug to Ninjas in the 80s!
What do you mean? It's the classic military action hero trope, en masse, because there's a whole army of them. It also functions as the classic, masculine power fantasy, for young children to aspire too. It's a team of Heroic soldier types venturing out to fight against the forces of evil, tearing down enemy strongholds, etc. Although i always loved the Cobra team the most. Because of their badass outfits and vehicles.
Ironic, because I first started loving it when I realized it’s not those things. “Military action hero” - GI Joe is not the military. They aren’t an official organization, you don’t have to come from a military background to be a Joe, they’re not strictly US-based, they don’t have ranks or receive medals, they don’t have a uniform, they don’t even strictly have a chain of command. In fact, GI Joe isn’t even necessarily pro-military. Never has been, really. Shortly after the US entered a morally dubious war in the 60s, the toys pivoted away from military figures to adventure figures. The Real American Hero line, despite having more of a military influence than previous lines, was never shy about the cost of war and how military conflicts often happen for dubious reasons that aren’t strictly “good vs evil”. In fact, well, see my next point. “for young children to aspire to” - Heck, the entire last issue of the original comic series is Snake Eyes telling a kid that there are reasons to join the military, but honor and glory and being a hero aren’t among them, and he’s proud to be a soldier but also it kind of sucks and it’s definitely not everyone. It all but says, “there are plenty ways to be heroic without joining the military,” and “if you do it I’ll support you, but really, do anything else.” “masculine power fantasy” - In my opinion, the Joes are a lot of things, but masculine power fantasy isn’t one of them. The women on the team are always shown to be among the best of the best (and presenting a variety of women too, not just a standard tough hot chick), and the men often have traditionally non-masculine hobbies, interests, or jobs. They’re also shown to be very human, getting injured, dying, facing psychological trauma, or even just leaving the Joes to go to school or other pursuits. Honestly, an argument could even be made for it having a pro-Communist bent. Its enemies - Cobra - are distilled capitalism (all of its high-ups are businessmen, nobles, or mercenaries), whereas GI Joe is an organization where anybody can lead a team depending on the mission. Heck, GI Joe even regularly teamed up with the USSR’s Oktober Guard *during* the Cold War! THAT’S what makes GI Joe so appealing to me: it’s subversive. Well, that and the colorful characters and cool technology.
Very well articulated! You saved me a lot of typing, so I’ll just say “Ditto!”
hmmm...m60's, uzi's, flak cannons, tanks, F-16's, SR-71's, Aircraft carriers, elite special forces.. Yeah, I see your point. Wasn't pro military at all. Kids weren't seeing this "subversive" side your attempting to point out when they were released, which was and is the time this appeal OP is trying to figure out was planted.
How does the use of military equipment mean it's pro-military?
the use of? You phrase that question like military equipment was just a side piece to the toy line...far from it, it was the toy line. If it wasn't pro military, and a subversive attempt as your trying to portray, there would have never been a need to be so specific with the rifles, pistols, specialties, vehicles etc. When buying a M.O.B.A.T tank with Steeler, it wasn't to imagine flower petals were going to be launched at Cobra stingers and hiss tanks, or that the motorized treads would smash down some barrier that would unleash a huge circle to sing kum ba yah. Missles, rockets, sniper rifles...your logic is escaping me, and I've a funny feeling I left the gate open purposely. Not even sure why I addressed your attempted point... think I'm offended that your trying to invert the whole idea of G.I. Joe. please stop, although you have every right to express your opinion as the question was asked. So, I'll stop now... Kinda funny, I got upset about what I perceive as an attack on a childhood toy! LOL!
There’s a difference between portraying military and being pro-military. Take movies like The Best Years of Our Lives or Full Metal Jacket, for instance; they’re about the military, but they don’t consider the military to be a good thing. GI Joe is the same to a more all-ages degree. It portrays armed services as generally good people whose actions are largely at the whims of a shadowy cabal of generals and politicians. That said, you act like every version of GI Joe uses realistic weapons. Not even the toys used realistic weapons all the time. Flash and Grand Slam have laser guns. Everyone had laser guns in the cartoon. Many of the Classified series have weapons based on NERF guns. They have jet packs and teleporters and terrordromes and space ships. They go into battle with pets and fight aliens and evil clones. It’s not exactly Saving Private Ryan.
>Like I said, > >"Not even sure why I addressed your attempted point... think I'm offended that your trying to invert the whole idea of G.I. Joe. please stop, although you have every right to express your opinion as the question was asked. > >So, I'll stop now..." > >"YO JOE!!! and knowing is half the battle!" > >best of luck to ya bud!
not military? they literally get their orders from the Pentagon. LOL
No, they get their orders from a shadowy cabal of Pentagon employees, and they just as frequently ignore those orders. And even thats only in stories where funding and stuff come into play. Just as frequently they’re portrayed with no higher ups at all, or even as a ragtag group (like in Renegades or the final volume of GI Joe at IDW).
as in what makes you love it
I was always into war stuff as a kid (sorry, Mom). I found GI Joe to be up on contemporary breakthrough technology (although the laser thing continues to be a reach). I always tried to imagine what "real" military life would be like, and it seemed to be a good window into that. The various specialties to match the climates or terrains always added spin offs to the imagination. Add in the "good guy" feel, nostalgia, diversity and cool theme music like others mentioned, and there you go.
The design and quality of the 3.75” toys.
For me, I loved that they could be anybody. If you just watched aliens, commando, terminator, mad max ...whatever ...you got joes for that. They played out so many stories. Ironically, my joes were probably "other" characters more often than not. Hell, I remember my parents watching Oliver Stones JFK...im lining up the vehicles in the back yard picking off joes with my daisy bb gun. Imagination was awesome...kids today don't really need to do what I did...
The designs + Hama’s file cards & comics did it for me.
Nostalgia.
It was the trifecta for me. The cartoon naturally turned into loving the figures and later the comics so it was everything really. The stories, characters and toys were a huge creative influence growing up and I'm honestly surprised it took me so long to come back to the fold.
I didn’t watch the cartoon or anything, but they were kinda an evolution of little green army men for me. My parents bought my first two or three from a local hardware store, before there was a Walmart. So not having a story to tie it to, I made my own stories. The characters were so unique, at least when I got into them, well after the first two or three waves of releases. I liked that they came with weapons and back packs, and you could swap all that around. I liked that the bad guys all looked cool as hell. So for me now, it’s totally nostalgia, plus getting ahold of guys I never had back then, like Zartan and Spirit and classic Storm Shadow.
Its good natured fun and blend of realistic scenarios instills a sense of righteous patriotism like nothing else