It's Always a G.I. Joe Adventure Team Christmas

20151224 - A G.I. Joe Adventure Team Christmas

What's Christmas in the Action Figure Universe without a little trip down memory lane to good times long past?  For me, one of (if not THE) most wonderful and memorable Christmas gifts I've absolutely EVER received was in the early 1970s, when I got my very first ever G.I. Joe action figure for Christmas!  That Hasbro, G.I. Joe Talking Commander (as represented in the image above, top row, center) was and still is my absolute favorite G.I. Joe figure of all time.

Of course, a whole lot of G.I. Joe and related toy history has come and gone like water under that proverbial old bridge since those thrilling, imaginative and exciting days of the original sixth scale Adventure Team, but I guess I'll just have to always be an old softy for that particular era of Hasbro's perennial favorite toy for boys.  Heck, even us bigger boys (and plenty of girls, too) still love really well made toys, do we not?

Interestingly enough, unlike Ralphie in the timeless classic, A Christmas Story (by the late, great satirist and author Jean Shephard), who wanted nothing more in all the world than "an official Red Ryder, carbine action, two-hundred shot range model air rifle" for Christmas, I didn't even have a single clue what I was getting from Santa the year I was lucky enough to get my first G.I. Joe.  Not until that magical, misty, nostalgia enshrouded December morning all those wonderful years ago anyway.

But why, kid?  Ask Santa for an Adventure Team G.I. Joe!  I promise you WON'T shoot your eye out!

So way back then, I had no idea how G.I. Joe and the classic Adventure Team would end up having such a profound effect on my life.  I  really didn't.  Seriously.  Only dear old Santa Claus (and my thoughtful, incredibly generous and hard working parents, of course) had even the slightest inkling just how much good old fashioned Adventure Team style goodness was headed my way on Christmas morning.  And I'm pretty sure that even they didn't realize just how much that one gift was going to stick with me for literally decades and decades to come.

So was my young mind just plain wasn't prepared for just exactly how many seemingly never ending hours of imaginative play time fun I was about to enjoy.  I was really young that Christmas, of course, so I sincerely doubt I could have been much more than 5 or 6 years old when I first beheld the now immortal visage of my Talking G.I. Joe Adventure Team Commander.

But let me tell you, fellow kids and kidults of all ages, the moment I laid eyes on that pint sized beauty (that rugged, manliest of manly action figures, actually) in his trademark green jacket, trousers, and nifty removable black boots - who also just happened to be packing a shiny black shoulder holster, complete with Lebel revolver, it was all over.  Even more pleasant to my prepubescent peepers was that trademark fuzzy, "life-like hair and beard!"  So, as you might well imagine, I was hooked for life, dude!  I mean, come on... how could any self respecting boy child reared in the 70s ever possibly ask for anything more?

Oh yes, friends of the G.I. Joe, Action Man, Geyper Man and Action Team faith, the momentous year that the Talking Adventure Team Commander magically appeared under my family's Christmas tree may very well have been the very best one ever!

And the real beauty of it all was that with that tiny, 1:6 scale revolver (that was standard issue with every G.I Joe Adventure Team figure up until 1974, when Hasbro switched to a hunting rifle accessory), there was absolutely no way whatsoever that I'd ever end up being haunted by the perennially confounding words of dire warning uttered by just about everyone to poor old Ralphie: "You'll shoot your eye out, kid!"

Ralphie (Peter Billingsley), about to shoot his own eye out!

But strangely enough, the thing that I remember most vividly about that golden Christmas past, was struggling to put my own tender young mitts into the exact same pose as that original "hard hands" G.I. Joe figure.  Which, as most collectors of vintage original Joes know, looks something very much like this:

My now much older mitts in that classic "hard hands" G.I. Joe pose

Yeah, those were the days, my friends!  Unfortunately, most kids nowadays don't have a clue how much fun collecting sixth scale G.I. Joe really is.  On the bright side however, there's still the International G.I. Joe Collectors' Club for all us old die-hard vintage style G.I. Joe collectors.  Thankfully, they still produce exclusive Hasbro licensed figures.  Most are the 3 3/4" variety of G.I. Joe (which I also really like), mind you, but thank goodness, they also offer "12 inch" G.I. Joes as well.

Actually, the term "12 inch" annoys the crap out of me, because technically, vintage style G.I. Joes have never been a full 12 inches tall.  Okay, call me a stickler, but most Joes tend to be much closer to 11 1/2 inches in all actuality.  Some of the sixth scale Club produced G.I. Joes (made from body molds originally used for Hasbro's Timeless Collection figures) are even just a bit short than that.  Unless you count the ultra detailed (but also equally EXPENSIVE) Real American Hero figures that Sideshow Collectibles has produced for a number of years now, that is.  Those guys are definitely 12 inches tall.

At any rate, this Christmas, as with every Christmas, would never be quite complete for yours truly, without G.I. Joe and the good old Adventure Team under the Christmas tree.  Okay, okay, I'd take some Star Wars figures, too, I guess.  They'd do in a pinch, of course.  Maybe some classic, MEGO style 8 inch Star Trek "retro" action figures.  Yeah!  Or some Marx Johnny West style "recast" figures from Classic Recasts.  Yeah!  Oh, what a greedy kidult I truly must be!  But Christmas tends to do that to kids of all ages, you know.  One way or another, Merry Christmas, everyone!  And "God bless us, everyone."

Rick Springfield's Action Figure Universe

Starbuck (Dirk Benedict), Apollo (Richard Hatch), & Zac (Rick
Springfield), from the original Battlestar Galactica (1978)

Oh, how TOTALLY AWESOME! Rick Springfield is not only a part of Battlestar Galactic history (having starred in the pilot film as Zac, Captain Apollo's - Richard Hatch​'s - ill fated younger brother, way back in 1978), but he's ALSO a Star Wars action figure collector! I knew there was some reason why I've always loved that guy (and his music)!