GI Joe, the Original Action Figure

On February 2, 1964 Hasbro introduced the world's first action figure line, the original GI Joe Adventure Team of 12 inch scale action figures. Mattel had found success with their Barbie line of 11 1/2 inch scale fashion dolls and Hasbro was looking to do something similar, but marketed towards boys. The original line of Adventure Team figures were military inspired, but that eventually changed over more towards adventure themed figures and vehicles as the Viet Nam war began winding down. Many variations of Joe found their way into toy isles including figures with 'life-like' hair and beards, an African-American version, 'talking' GI Joe, 'Kung Fu Grip' GI Joe(which I had), 'Eage Eye' GI Joe, Mike Powers 'the atomic man'(Hasbro's version of Kenner's successful Colonel Steve Austin 'The Six Million Dollar Man' action figure), As the Adventure Team toys began winding down, Hasbro released a superhero figure known as 'Bullet Man' and an odd looking figure called 'The Intruder'. The line ended in 1976, but a year later Hasbro launched a smaller scale(8 inch) action figure line called 'Super Joes' which failed to match the success of their taller counterparts. With the success of Kenner's 3.75 inch Star Wars line of action figures, vehicles, and playsets Hasbro re-imagined GI into their own line of small scale action figures known as 'GI Joe A Real American Hero' in 1982. This new anti terrorist team of male and female action figures went up against the terrorist team known as COBRA. The toyline was spun off into a comic book series from Marvel Comics Group which ran from 1982 until 1994 as well as an animated series. As I said earlier, I had the eagle eye GI Joe when I was growing up as well as the atomic man. I still have several of the A Real American Hero action figures, but they've seen their better days. I enjoyed the comics, but didn't really get into the animated stuff. I'm going to sign off this action packed edition of this blog by saying happy birthday to the original action figure and giving out a "yo Joe!"