First invented in 1963, G.I. Joe remains the world’s best-selling
action figure for boys. Known outside the States first as Action Joe, then
G.I. Joe and finally Action Man, this character has not ceased to keep up
with the changing times . . .
In 1983, he reappeared as part of a phenomenally
successful series of small action figures, which have now become the
heroes of a new movie directed by Stephen Sommers, director of The
Mummy (1999) and its sequel, The Mummy Returns (2001).
The boy’s version of Barbie
The story of G.I. Joe begins in 1963, four years after Mattel’s Barbie
Doll revolutionized the toy industry with its unprecedented success. Its
success took Mattel’s competitor, Hasbro, by surprise and they quickly had
to come up with a rejoinder. Don Levine, the director of marketing for
Hasbro, received a visit from a consultant named Stan Weston, who
suggested that Hasbro also create a doll…but for boys! Levine listened,
intrigued. The idea was simple enough: to lure young customers, the
character would be the manliest of men - a soldier. The product would never
be designated as “a doll”, but rather “an action soldier.”
Levine forged ahead. Enlisting help from the best
artists on his team, he developed a prototype, awaiting its completion
before going to Merrill Hassenfeld, the CEO of Hasbro. When Levine finally
showed him the foot-tall soldier capable of adopting numerous poses,
Hassenfeld was won over, but still somewhat hesitant. The project was
hugely ambitious and costly because they had to create an entire line of
military accessories around the character, with each of the armed forces
represented therein - Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines. After a period of
reflection, Hassenfeld agreed to go ahead and “Operation G.I. Joe” was
launched. Advertising appeared in comic magazines and during television
programs aimed at kids. G.I. Joe was a hit wherever he was sold and that
success only grew over subsequent years.
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"G.I. Joe sales slumped during the Vietnam War . . ." |
Joe quits the military
Despite his success, G.I. Joe was a controversial, er, figure by the end
of the 1960s. At that time, the U.S. was still involved in the Vietnam
War, which was protested by militant pacifists and left thousands of
bereaved families in its wake. The image behind Hasbro’s proud WWII
fighter ran contrary to the images of a seemingly endless brutal conflict
as reported television news each evening. A victim of the pervasive
unrest, G.I. Joe sales slumped. It was time to reinvent the character.
G.I. Joe would keep his name, but would cease to be a
soldier, becoming a daring explorer instead. Hasbro imagined several toy
lines conceived as mini-movies: each box contained all the accessories and
clothing necessary for “staging” an adventure featured in the enclosed
comic strip brochure. G.I. Joe looks for forgotten temples; discovers
enormous diamonds cached in a sacred idol; rescues treasure from a ship
trapped in the grip of an octopus; flushes abominable snowmen from the
Himalayan heights; departs on a hunt for a white tiger… The type of story
that thrilled young boys in the 1970s! It was at that time that G.I. Joe
arrived in countries such as France and the UK under the Action Joe
moniker.
G.I. Joe cut down to size
The G.I. Joe line prospered until the petroleum crisis of 1974 that drove
the price of oil sky high. This was catastrophic for Hasbro because the
plastic used to make G.I. Joes is derived from oil and making hundreds of
thousands of foot-high figurines demands a huge quantity of plastic . . .
Hasbro tried to simplify the character while reducing
his size a bit, launching a “Super Joe” with botched joints and a somewhat
derivative sci-fi universe background that proved to be unconvincing to
young customers. At the same time, Kenner had good luck with fabricating
small Star Wars character action figures.
They were about four inches tall and their articulations
were limited to the simplest expressions: the head turned, their arms and
legs lifted and lowered. Despite their simplicity, these George Lucas
movie hero effigies met with stellar success and the
Star Wars line produced by
Kenner grew ceaselessly during the following years.
In 1981, Kirk Bozigian, the new marketing director at
Hasbro, dreamed of reinventing G.I. Joe in light of the Star Wars action
figure success story. While brainstorming, he zeroed in on the principal
attraction of the G.I. Joe original: its ability to assume a variety of
poses. With the help of his team, he applied the same approach to a new
type of smaller action figure also about four inches tall and featuring
not five, but eleven articulations. The drastic reduction in scale also
allowed for the development of several toy vehicles. Because of its
smaller size, this new line could be sold in stores of all types besides
toy shops.
Next: "The
militant environmentalist Ecowarriors of 1991 toy range!"
