The late but ever great Charlie Chaplin, a truly timeless "action figure" in his own right

In honor of the 83rd anniversary of the original release of the iconic final speech from Charlie Chaplin's 'The Great Dictator' (October 15th, 1940), and with much deserved applause and enduring gratitude to all of the many folks who continue to share clips from the film like the one embedded below.

Perhaps all I can add then, is that... okay, sure, Chaplin himself later in life said that if he'd known while making the film that the Holocaust was actually taking place at the time, he'd most likely have never made it at all. But I for one am really glad that he did.

I've read quite a bit about Charlie Chaplin, and although I think most people would agree that, behind the camera, he was far from perfect, at the very least, the vast majority of his impeccably crafted films will, I am quite sure, continue to stand the test of time.

Was Charlie actually "a communist," or just merely naively sympathetic to "the cause" at a time when Marxism wasn't yet well understood in the West? Not that it actually is, even to this day! Worse yet, was Chaplin a perhaps unsuspecting pioneer of Hollywood's now infamous "casting couch" tradition?

Maybe so. And if so, and there really is, as I truly believe, an Afterlife, where we all eventually must go to atone for our often blindly committed sins, then so be it. And besides, far be it from me to judge.

All I know for sure is that I still adore Charlie Chaplin's films, and The Great Dictator is beyond doubt my absolute favorite. Because I could watch and listen to that perfectly worded and flawlessly performed final speech a million times over and never ever get tired of it.

And believe me, I'm no Marxist. Never have been, and I never will be. But I know universal truths when I hear them. And I know good art and timelessly classic artists when I see them, too, and as far as I'm concerned, Charlie Chaplin was most definitely one of the very best there has ever been. Whether he was ever actually a completely flawless human being, or not.

20101123 - War Games CQB

On an isolated island somewhere in the South Pacific, our favorite boys in green face off in one of their usual bouts of fun and war games. Though they all fall down eventually, they just keep getting right back up to do it over again the very next day. Such is the eternal life of a venerable toy soldier.

This 1:32 Scale diorama was created with air and hand-brushed acrylic paint and spray enamel on fiber board and Styrofoam (with just a few little digital enhancements here and there). For this particular project, I used 63 of the 'Toy Story Green Army Men' (from the 72-piece "Bucket O Soldiers" playset). The diorama itself, I created primarily from garbage. Yes, garbage!

You see, in South Korea, all household trash must be meticulously separated to comply with the government's national recycling program. However, as one might imagine, not everyone here (or unfortunately, even in many other parts of the world) is particularly orderly, conscientious. or fastidious when it comes to putting out their garbage.

In fact, South Korea, like other countries in the Asia Pacific region in particular, tends to be quite awash with litter (particularly in certain areas) because many people here are either just too poorly educated (or just too lazy) to put their trash in the proper receptacles. But then.... there's the South Korean government that doesn't even provide public trash cans! And no, I'm not joking.

But the good news is, that if you're a big, "dumb," foreign (American!) guy like yours truly, then all you need to do to find some real gems from time to time is to take a walk around just about any neighborhood in South Korea on any given day.

So, believe it or not, this particular project was assembled using a discarded fiber-board table top I found on the curb outside my apartment. Then I added a few strategic sprinkles of aquarium rocks and various pieces of Styrofoam that tend to get carelessly thrown out on just about every street corner over here.

I'm not really sure if Koreans don't realize that improperly discarded Styrofoam blows away in the wind with relative ease, or... they just don't really care. Though, sadly, I'm afraid that it's more often the latter rather than the former.

Anyway, my trash collecting ways makes my Korean wife sometimes affectionately refer to me as "고물상 (Gomul-sang or, junk man)!" Ha-ha! Or rather, bwu-ha-ha! Because, as the old saying goes, "One man's garbage is another man's treasure." ;)

Lastly, if you love toy soldiers (and specifically little green army men) as much as yours truly, you've absolutely got to check out Mega Hobby.com.

Quark, the Quirky Sci-fi TV Series That Premiered Right Before Star Wars

I don't know if Quark was actually the best show on TV, but way back in early May of 1977, even before the premiere of the very first Star Wars feature film (on May 25th, '77), it sure as heck was a lot of fun to watch. Especially if you happened to be a big fan of science fiction and fantasy in a day and age when the genre was as yet almost completely ignored and unappreciated by most TV networks and major motion picture studios.

Richard Benjamin & the babealicious Barnstable Twins

Then again, maybe the real reason why Quark was such a sight for sore eyes was because of "The Bettys," the scantily clad clones, Betty I and Betty II (Cyb and Patricia Barnstable - and don't ask me which is which in that photo!), that shapely pair of blond, disco-era hotties that any self-respecting heterosexual, pubescent American boy would eagerly ogle every time the show graced the NBC airwaves - though perhaps clandestinely, especially if your parents just happened to be watching too - right there in the very same living room....

Ahem.

To be more accurate and fair though, one of the Bettys was supposedly a clone, while the other was the original. Either way, they were the pilots/navigators of the United Galaxy Sanitation Patrol Cruiser commanded by Adam Quark, played by the sly, wisecracking, ever grinning like a cat in ye olde catbird seat Richard Benjamin, whose character, hilariously enough, claimed to only be in love with one of the Bettys - though he was never quite sure which girl was which....

To be honest though, as a kid, I couldn't quite figure out how a guy like Richard Benjamin even got the starring role in the first place, but then, the rest of the cast was pretty comical (and some even came off as downright miscast) too, come to think of it. It sure wasn't cerebral-minded Star Trek fare, that's for darned sure! This, despite the fact that several of the episodes were direct parodies of the aforementioned Original Series.

And given that the short-lived (mid-season) replacement comedy was the brainchild of Buck Henry, who is perhaps most famous for co-creating the original Get Smart comedy TV series, the sometimes stale humor set against the backdrop of sci-fi themed sets and scenarios makes a whole lot more sense. Well... even though a lot of times, it still didn't make all that much real sense at all. But hey! I was still elementary school at the time, so what did I know?

So maybe I just need to find that wonderful old show and watch it all over again. Because, hey! I still have incredibly fond memories of Quark, and even of Richard Benjamin's cheesy lead performance. But then... maybe it's just mostly that I miss ogling the Barnstable twins. Hmm. Maybe! Just maybe.

Further Reading:

* The Super Saturday Short-lived Showcase

* RetroPhaseShift

* Space:1970

The End, and a Whole New Beginning

This isn't exactly an historically accurate Appomattox Court House scene, but rather, an Old American West set that I recently built for my growing collection of Marx Johnny West action figures and accessories, and since I absolutely love these Timeless Collection GI Joe Wal-Mart exclusive figures from 1998 that pay tribute to Confederate Army General Robert E. Lee and Union General-in-chief (Lieutenant General) Ulysses S. Grant, I decided to set up a photo to commemorate the April 9, 1865 surrender of the Confederacy that effectively ended the American Civil War on this day 155 years ago.

Imagination is the True Beginning of All Things Great and Small

So use your imagination. Not drugs. For not even nostalgic dreams of bygone days when once you were (or could have once been) "somebody," can truly save you from the often frightfully all too real horrors of Life. In fact, you, all of us really, we're all somebody at this very moment, on this very day. Everyone matters, no matter how small, no matter how old, no matter how young. Absolutely everyone. 🙂

Not All Apes Look Alike

Yeah, that's Cornelius (Roddy McDowall) in the middle, but that's not Dr. Zaius (Maurice Evans) on the left there. That's Dr. Maximus (Woodrow Parfrey), who, in this particular scene, is just about to admonish Dr. Zira (Kim Hunter), saying, "And you know the rules. No animals allowed outside the compound. And most especially not without a leash." 'Cause not all apes look alike you know.

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)!

Growing Up to Be a Proud Toy Geek

Now what's happening in the video above, is what I call FUN!  The annual G.I. Joe Collectors' Club parachute drop (though this specific clip is from the 2009 drop event at the Hyatt in Kansas City, Missouri​).  'Cause hey, if you never get in touch with your "inner child," you're probably never gonna have any real fun in this life.

Psst!  When most kids enter puberty, they start to feel a curious need to "grow up" a lot faster than necessary.  Mostly because of the way adults treat them.  Most kids have no power over how they are treated, so they want to hurry up and "grow up" and get all that power!

But power is a drug that doesn't necessarily make people well or happy.  So, when puberty hits, many kids feel they've outgrown their toys, and they start doing other so-called "fun" things, usually out of a sense of peer pressure, or sheer curiosity ('cause they haven't figured out yet, how much being an adult actually really SUCKS, compared to being a carefree child).

So some kids start smoking at average age 12, drinking, doing other drugs, and getting into all sorts of other, more or less self destructive behaviors and bad habits.  I don't care what you think you should be able to smoke, it's bad for your health.  You like herbs?  Take vitamins or something!  Almost any naturally occurring plant that has some health benefit has to be regulated and processed properly to get the truly beneficial ingredients to react properly in the human body, and to avoid the possibility of inadvertently abusing the substance.

Don't believe me, ask a certified health professional.

Sick?  Go to see a doctor and get a prescription.  If he or she says, 'Sure, go sit around and toke it up at home!  Get the munchies and be almost totally useless for long periods of time,' that's fine by me.  I mean, if something actually, really is good to treat cancer, then you might want to have a doctor tell you that it's okay before buying ANYTHING from the neighborhood pusher.

So I don't care what anybody thinks about my big boy, toy geek hobbies and creative interests.  I choose sobriety.  I choose creativity.  I choose to live life, in full command of myself AND my inner child, and not miss whole parts of my valuable life from being "high" or "hung over."  After all, as Ferris Bueller put it, in John Hughes' hilarious 1986 classic coming of age film, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."  Though I'm not at all sure his hooky playing behavior in the movie is really the best example of how to not miss a single moment of invaluable human life.  Oh well.  To each his own.  And I choose action figures!

No, You Can't Always Get What You Want

A vintage Hasbro AT Sea Adventurer - the HOLY GRAIL of my G.I. Joe dreams!

Oh my Gosh!  I finally, after like... only 40 YEARS... finally scored a complete G.I. Joe Adventure Team Sea Adventurer!  But now I'm financially all tapped out for this entire month.  And probably the next one, too, actually.  Because I had to dip into next month's fundage to acquire the ginger haired beauty pictured here.

Yes, unfortunately, my vintage toy budget really isn't as big as a lot of adult toy collectors, I'm afraid.  I wish I was rolling in dough, to buy both new AND antique toys, but like a lot of people, sadly, I simply am not a Texas oil baron.

Now, mind you, I'M NOT COMPLAINING OR DOWNING ANYONE ELSE who just happens to have more toys than I do.  Just stating facts, ya know.  'Cause I don't know about anyone else, but the price of collectible toys has really skyrocketed in recent years, has it not?

But I'm talking about a vintage toy that is roughly four decades old though, right?  Right!  Which means it's not always easy or cheap to come by, thank you very much!

At any rate, when I was really little, there were, at first, only three G.I. Joes in our house.  My older brother and I were incredibly luck enough to get Talking G.I. Joe Commanders for Christmas, and my younger brother got a Sea Adventurer.  And I loved my G.I. Joe to death.  Seriously.  Because by the time I was through with him, his fuzzy "Life Like Hair" was pretty thin in several places, and I don't have the slightest idea where that "rare" shoulder holster all the first AT Joes came with ended up.  Let alone the Lebel Revolver that fits in the holster.

But I was so little way back then, you know.  I don't even know for sure how old I was, or whether it was the Christmas of 71, 72 or 73.  I have since guesstimated that it must have been one of those years, based on the fact that all three Joes were hard handed figures (and not the later "Kung Fu Grip" versions that didn't come out until 1974), and the Talking Commanders my brother and I had didn't have the Green Beret style pockets that collectors clamor for nowadays (so my very first G.I. Joe was almost certainly not received on the Christmas of 1970 either).

So to this day, I don't give a big flying crap about the number or configuration of pockets on those vintage Talking G.I. Joe Commander jackets.  Oh, I've since acquired a vintage TC Joe with that jacket, but I didn't jettison one of the later run square pocket jackets, just to make myself feel like I'm keeping up with the other collectors (Joneses).

At any rate, I had no plans whatsoever to have to scramble this month to move hell and high water (because my wife said I could have it for an upcoming birthday present, but was NOT especially enthusiastic about helping me free up the funds for it - the poor, beleaguered wife of a MAD TOY COLLECTOR like yours truly, that she is), but when I saw that the Sea Adventurer was on offer in a Facebook group, I guess I just freaked!

I guess, because... that younger brother who got the Sea Adventurer for Christmas back in the early 70s... he never even played with it!  That cad!  That rube!  That... brotherly... person....  IN THE NAME OF TOYS, MAN!   That beautiful, fuzzy red headed Sea Adventurer sat in its pristine vintage box in a chest of drawers in our tiny room (that us four boys shared).  Yep, two sets of bunk beds in a really small room, with one closet and one chest of drawers.

So from time to time, I'd ease that drawer open and just stare at that beautiful G.I. Joe Sea Adventurer.  And I usually only had SECONDS to cop a look, because if my red headed younger brother (who is still mom's favorite, and yes, that's why "Santa" got him the sacred carrot topped SA), he would GO NUTS!

Okay, okay.  We were both really little kids, for crying out loud!  And it was his toy, of course.  But my dopey younger brother (who's actually pretty smart and has a good job, a great wife and two super kids, AND a nice house nowadays) really never played with it.  I think I even heard him whine about it a time or two!  Which is something that, as an avowed adult collector of any and ALL eras of Hasbro's G.I. Joe... I of course, absolutely, totally and completely CANNOT fathom!  I mean, what self respecting kid back in the day WOULDN'T have loved a red fuzzy headed, sixth scale G.I. Joe in a pristine Sea Adventurer box?  Sheesh!

But... I guess I opened my younger brother's sacred drawer once too often, to take a peak at his G.I. Joe (though I SWEAR, I never even got to touch it).  Because one day, that beautiful G.I. Joe Sea Adventurer was simply... gone.  And it never returned to our house.  NEVER.

This brown haired boy was maybe six years old then, and if so, that younger brother would've been four.  And as far as I know, my mother GAVE that figure away!  Oh, the PAIN!  Because red headed glory boy had no interest in it, for God's sake!  But like a typical four year old, he apparently did not want anyone else to have it....  So even though I love vintage G.I. Joe Talking Commanders, Land Adventurers, and Air Adventurers, I've always had a soft spot (no... a gaping wound, of something suspiciously similar to unrequited, deep seeded love, way, way deep down inside) for Sea Adventurers.

I've since acquired various reproduction SAs, but in over 40 years, I have never even so much as laid eyes on a vintage Sea Adventurer that wasn't just in pictures on the Internet.  I only hope that when it finally arrives, I can repair that bald spot on the chin, without having to have the whole head sent away to be re-flocked.  Which is yet another reason why collecting vintage toys can be so freaking pricey!

Still... I don't know why my younger brother was allowed to keep his Sea Adventurer in that pristine vintage box in his drawer in our tiny bedroom.  My old man is ex-army, ex-air force, AND ex-police chief; a real man's man hard ass (and I guess I'm bragging AND complaining here), who looked like Billy Jack, or Robert Conrad from the Wild, Wild West.

So naturally, all the furniture and even the curtains in our house were regulation Olive Drab, US military "army green" when I was a kid - just like on the local base where he worked most of my young life.   Even the exterior of the house was painted OD green, for crying out loud!

Anyway, my father would stand there with a big black trash bag, on Christmas morning, and if he thought something ought to be added to the trash to be burned in the garden (like my brand new Talking Commander box, with that beautiful vintage artwork, that I BEGGED on my pajama clad knees on Christmas morning to be able to keep), he would do just that.  With cold as steel military precision.  So, my then brand new Talking G.I. Joe Adventure Team Commander box simply... went up in smoke.  In the stark, cold, barren winter time garden, way, way up at the end of the back yard.  All those long, long years ago....

Oh the pain!  The pain! 

So, I can't wait to see my new... old... new for me, G.I. Joe Adventure Team Sea Adventurer, complete with vintage shoulder holster, Lebel revolver, short black boots, AT dog tag and nice, complete uniform!  No box, of course, but as a toy collector, either as a kid or as a kidult like yours truly, sometimes, you just have to learn what the Rolling Stones said so well, way back in the day:  "You Can't Always Get What You Want."  Boy, ain't that the truth!