When I was kid there were only three toys worth having and in this order:
1. G.I.Joe
2. Transformers
3. Star Wars
G.I.Joe, the Greatest American Hero, was hands down the big daddy of the three and kids were so into them the Government of the time seriously considered making the trade of the 3 & 1/2 inch figures a form of legal tender.
The craze had started a few years earlier with the advent of Star Wars figures but whilst they were cool, they did suffer from one design flaw; their limbs didn’t bend. G.I.Joes on the other hand were like a good strap on; fully pose able and their accessories were interchangeable. They took action figure play to a whole new level that older brothers everywhere, owners of copious Star Wars figures, could only dream of.
I loved my Joes. I was the first kid in the neighbourhood – in my school - to get them. When I was young my Mother presented me with two comics one fateful day and said I could get one of them weekly, all I had to do was choose a title.
Now one was Whizzer and Chips, a comic about cheeky English kids and one was Battle Action Force and it had guns, planes and war. The choice was a simple one for a nine year old boy. I’m not sure if I knew the expression back then but I probably said ‘Fuck Yeah’ when reading the latter.
Action Force was the English copy of G.I.Joe. It had all the same characters and back stories and my god was it cool. Every week I got a new copy of Battle Action Force and I can’t be sure, but I think I possibly started experiencing my first erections around that time in my life.
Some time later Action Force figures appeared in the local toyshop and I somehow managed to scam my parents into buying me a few. Possibly the embarrassment of seeing their pubescent son standing with a stiffy in the shop played a part, who knows? Later G.I.Joe toys hit the shops and I was no longer the only kid with a 3 and ½ inch member in their shorts.
Back then war toys were the norm and nobody cared that boys ran around with guns playing soldiers. The plastic guns you could buy from Toy World looked real but everybody knew they were plastic. These days they put orange bits on the end so that they look fake and yet some people think they’re legit. Go figure.
Every boy I knew wanted to be in the army. At lunch time we would mobilise en masse and re-enact every major global conflict to date. Once G.I.Joe hit the market then our role plays hit a new level, now we could be complex characters with back stories and differing personalities struggling to function as a combative unit in a hierarchical structure. And that’s just how we discussed it too.
By the late eighties though the world was changing; cold wars were ending, walls were coming down and war stuff was not looked upon quite as awesome as it once had been. Captain Planet was the most watched cartoon after school and he was most definitely not into fighting legions of crazed Cobra troopers. Nobody seemed to care that his uniform was not in the slightest way camouflaged nor that his sidekick was not a mute badass Ninja, but a bunch of multi national, ethnic minority kids.
Transformers were the next big thing and the natural progression from G.I.Joes, just as they had been to Star Wars. Our younger siblings were more excited about cars and trucks that turned into robots than they were masked ninjas and terrorists. The writing was well and truly on the wall for the Real American Hero long before the G.I.Joe & Transformers cross over comics started coming out.
And kids didn't need Megan Fox straddling things in cut off jean shorts to be tempted into buying Transformers either. I've always wondered what the fuss with Fox is? Sure she's a looker but in her line of work who isn't? The teenage buzz about Fox reminds me of the very same buzz we fellas had over Tea Leoni when she first appeared in Bad Boys. Admittedly she had some very sexy legs all the way from her bum to the ground but once she had her 15 minutes of fame we all moved on. Now she's married to self confessed sexaholic David Duchovny. Score.
Anyhoo, next month the live action G.I.Joe movie hits theatres and the promo machine has started to crank up. Just like the two Transformer movies before it, figures and accessories are again on the toy shop shelves and yep, they still give me a woodie.
Which is a lot harder to explain when you’re a grown man standing in the kids toy aisle at The Warehouse. Trust me on that one.
Now this is a collection.
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