And it just so happens that I stopped playing with GI Joe figures around 1989 or 1990. The very last thing I did was to pose all of my figures and vehicles in an epic battle scene culminating with Snake Eyes fighting hand-to-hand with Cobra Commander, all spread out across the entire living room floor. My mom wasn't too happy about that -- she can't appreciate fine art.
Thankfully the living room wasn't used much at the time so none of them were thrown away. But after that all of them were packed up into their fancy blue-and-yellow Bell Systems toolbox and moved down into the cellar.
I met Larry Hama a few years ago, he explained he was in the Korean War, and the entire first lines of good guys were based on guys he knew and friends from the Korean War. The minute he said this Doc and Gung Hos clothing made sense. Gung Ho was dressed as he was because hes essentially the Joe in the field on a long deployment in a jungle or hot country, hes now down to his flak vest and pants after weeks of digging fox hole the way they used to have to and sitting in the hot sun playing cards between mortar bombings and fire fights. To kids with good imaginations who had seen all the war movies, Gung Ho gives you a more in the field action guy to play with. Larry Hama designed most of the GI Joes and couldnt stand Hasbros ridiculousness. He said all the madness, came from some executive board of people. Half the time hed get a sketch of some crap some fool designed on a napkin, and was told to work it into his comics. The stupid florescent colors and moving away from authentic characters like Hit and Run and Tunnel Rat, was because of the hippie bastards trying to protest military toys, and so they moved to more martial arts, and stupid themes and colors and maybe a handful of excellent figures came out in the 90s line, I personally think a fair amount of vehicles came out then.
@@SerialKillerJM I love the toys, hate the channel, the guy isn't funny, he talks for too long and the sound effects are distracting and always louder than what he's saying, not that anything he says is ever normally interesting.
Dubuya Jay, it was already stated correctly: High *Explosive* Anti-Tank. It is a multiple use acronym, used by both artillery ( tank gun esp ) and missile warheads. The high kinetic energy weapons use different acronyms.
Can you please leave the pictures of the items your discussing up for longer? Sometimes you're describing things for 60 seconds that were only on the screen for 4 seconds...it would make more sense to leave them up for the duration they're being described...at least in a small portion of the screen. Otherwise great job on your channel!
I almost put it in the open that I wasn't even going to consider them part of the line for the list. Probably should have done the same thing with everything post-1990.
I was done collecting Joes by the late 80s and I remember catching sight of Hasbro's brightly colored offerings in a mall somewhere and was amazed that GI Joe was still around. Then I saw the Street Fighter tie ins and I predicted it wouldn't be for much longer.
My vote goes to the whole 90's Joe line. There not my childhood Joes. That neon funky color that ran rampent in the 90's ruined Transformers and G.I. Joe. Great list
I had quit buying Joes by then, used to see them in the stores and be like "wtf happened?" I held on for a really long time, was like a sophomore in HS and was still secretly into the comic and the toys. And then I decided to meet girls, get a driver's license, not be a geek anymore. Maybe a closet geek after that? Well, I did have plenty of girlfriends oddly enough. Some of the guys from back then had a tough time moving on. I think I was never the stereotypical nerd, just really liked those toys for some reason and kept it to myself pretty much.
I was out of collecting by the time Dee-Jay rolled around but damn did he look godawful. I heard he was almost as notorious as peg-warmer as Crystal Ball. At least CB could pass as a Rasputin-style mystic if you took away that dumb shield. Poor Dee-Jay was just dogshit all around.
The original figure is awesome. He had that wrist-mounted crossbow like the dude from Road Warrior. I don't know what they were thinking with the Sonic version lol. It looks like a clown threw up all over him.
I guess I managed to hit that sweet spot where I didn't have a ton of GI Joes, but all the ones I had were awesome. I'm suddenly left wondering if I owe a thank you to my dad for making sure I only got figures and vehicles that conceivably looked like they might actually be in the military--I had Flint and Sergeant Slaughter, but somehow didn't even know about any of these hideous neon figures until just this minute.
I really like Ninja Force Scarlett and it's the very first Female G.I.Joe Action figure I ever owned which was very recently! Scarlett is my favorite female G.I.Joe character and to have any figure of Scarlett is Golden to me! I never owned Scarlett or any other female G.I.Joe action figures as a kid!
Deep Six !!! Number 2! You hurt me deep with that one Dan, you hurt me deep. There is no GI Joe figure I coveted more of my best friend's more considerable collection than him. Articulation be damned. That robotic clunky looking suit filled my imagination with all of the power and protection that its form implies and he singlehandedly won many a mission when faced with overwhelming odds because of it. Anyway, great video as always keep it up 👍
Loved the dome, and I'm all for a sci-fi-bell-diver type figure but even back then it was all about the superiority of Joes to Star Wars because they had more articulation and then you're going to throw a 2-pt figure out there? No, Hasbro. No.
I had Deep Six, the original one and for me as a kid, his clunkiness left him in his vehicle or standing in the background a lot during 'episodes'... (I was weird, I expanded my own universe with stuff from the Marvel comics and the cartoon -like the first version of Storm Shadow became Billy after I got the new camo one etc).
It's hard to see these things through the eyes of a kid when you've grown old and jaded. I try not to lose that but sometimes... sometimes it's hard to get there.
@Macro Aggressor: The Titty Baby Killer I think that was Sky force(?) Battleforce 2000 was trying to be the future and started the downward spiral of ridiculous fictitious weapons and colors that made no sense for any military application. Not quite day-glow neon but almost there. Dee-Jay was the worst offender of that line.
Yea.. I had the set that connected to make a base. The Gold Destro tank thing? When it got into the whole python patrol n whatever sets. It got stupid really quick. The o.g. Road Pig was awesome.
@@Biosynthnut I didn't care for Battle Force 2000 but I liked Cobra-La. Go figure. The Iron Grenadiers came out the same time as Road Pig and were bad ass little army builders. My dad got me a few of them.
I can't believe you forgot Crystal Ball. No body bought this guy. You would go into the store and every joe would be gone except a backlog of dozens of Crystal Ball, HEAT Viper does make sense if you know military acronyms. H.E.A.T. Refers to High Explosive Anti-Tank. Tank rounds come in HE, High Explosive, AP Armor Piercing, and HEAT
Jim Tilley I totally remember Crystal Ball being the only Joe figure left in stores. His only accessory was a psychedelic shield, not even a pistol. You can still get him today, mint in package, for like $10 on eBay.
JIM.. TO THIS DAY I STILL BELIEVE THE TERM "PEGWARMER" ORIGINATED WITH CRYSTAL BALL!! ANYTIME I SEE A ROSE TICO OR A ZUVIO I THINK OF GOOD OLE CRYSTAL BALL!!
man, I read this after I wrote the same thing above. There are probably a few thousand Crystal Ball figures out there in that dump along with the Atari E.T. cartridges.
Fun fact about Crystal Ball: he was held over for two more waves (three waves total) not because he was so popular, but because they couldn't sell out his first wave! They had thousands of this thing just sitting around waiting to be sold. I bought him because I thought he looked cool, but I wish he would have had a rifle at least.
I had the fisherman Bazooka and Deep Six as a kid. Called them fisherman (even though, like you, the grenade wrist strap confused me too), and for some reason I called Deep Six Deep Suit. Mr. Deepy was a brick, but he made for a good bath and pool toy, always loved deep sea exploration and I guess they made him simplistic so no metal joints or screws would rust. Great list Dan, quite a lot of odd ones for sure! The thing that confused me the most on the Heat Viper was that a little bit of his chin was showing. Why?
You could have populated this list entirely with the Street Fighter toys made with GI Joe molds. they literally just painted skin tones over any utility pouches or weapons.
GI Joe Captain GridIron was one of the weirdest and stupid concepts. I regretted owning him. Heat Viper on the other hand was just one of several super colorful troops that I really could get into.
the only reason i had Skidmark was because he was the driver for the desert fox vehicle,which i loved,otherwise he certainly would have been a peg warmer back in the day. my least favorite figure was Raptor,his existence perplexes me.
And that's what makes these kinds of lists so subjective. I LOVED Raptor. As an adult? I think he's ridiculous as part of that line. But as a figure, especially as a kid, LOVED him.
HEAT (in the militarily fashion) stands for High Explosive Anti-Tank. So, the HEAT Viper, being a “bazooka” soldier, would be a correct naming convention since he would be an soldier specific to anti-armor operations 🤓😂
Remember the MOBAT? It was an M1 Abrams but they called it MOBAT. It stood for M Obile B Attle Tank. Like wtf? Aren't all tanks mobile and designed for battle?
This one made me lol a few times, cheers! I got too 'old' [sic] for the line before its decline, but as a video game fan would love the SF2 figures, as out of place as they were.
We lost ours early on, I guess that's why there's a fondness. I don't know.. Deep sea water dude beats a lot of lamer joes for me. But I get that he is pretty useless in all but one scenario. But his head is in a bubble. All time top ten head in a bubble figures.
Deep six the action figure could have been a hundred times less terrible if his hands had been useful. loved his vehicle but his fig was pretty awful. He couldn’t even see out when driving! Do you have any idea how much that screws with an 8 year old’s mind?! How much time I wasted unconvinced I was placing him in the shark right
Yeah, I loved the GI Joe Shark vehicle, but I didn't bother with using Deep Six as the pilot. Never mind the lack of articulation. He just looked stupid. If his joints has been just as posable as a standard Joe, he'd still have looked like garbage. I tried that stupid underwater action feature ONCE. I used the Shark vehicle as a plane, because that's what it looked like.
Actually had the G. I. Joe Desert 6WD and the original Interrogator, the latter was an improvement over Dr. Mindbender. Agree with you about the ninjas. The neon colors of the Ninja Force line made it ridiculous. And the updated Gung-Ho, Scarlett, Dojo, Bazooka and Leatherneck. Never liked the Dreadnoks, though.
Since toys are such an important role in American history. I hope one day we will have college courses based solely on vintage 80s toys and maybe some 90s and 70s toys. I can only imagine the quizzes you would recieve.
My theory is that GI Joe was used to showcase potential Hasbro deals with movie IPs and stuff. Dreadnots were likely Mad Max based on interest figures and they wanted to capture the figures. Ninja force was likely a push to obtain the rights to Street Fighter movie in development and they decided to use a dying IP to create IPs. Same with Waterworld and the Eco Warriors line. They were likely using scrapped molds or unused IPs for that when the deal went through. Instead they went with Kenner who then used the same Power of the Force methodology. Th Cesspool figure really looks like the main villain and hence they likely went with the cheaper option as GI Joe's articulation was not as marketable.
OMG that Ninja Force commercial SO worked on me when I was a kid, and I hate to admit that for some odd reason I really liked my Dojo action figure. I think it was because of the rooted hair and those Bajan colors. I wasn't totally stupid though: He was the only colorful one I got from that line. I loved the Storm Shadow and the guy in purple the most.
where is ice cream soldier, lobatomaxx, predacon, and the rest of the star brigade aliens? My least favorite has to be lobotomaxx just because it was an insult to children everywhere. love the vids keep them up
I LOOOOOVE the Star Brigade aliens so I can't help you there. Ice Cream Soldier, while a ridiculous name, isn't really a bad figure and his color scheme is fine since he's a flamethrower trooper.
Fair enough. I do believe that everyone is entidled to thier own opinion and no one should ever dissuade you from that opinion. I respect your opinion even though I do dissagree with it... namely with Deep Six I would put him in 10 worst for the first 5-6 years but not when many others from the 90's deserve the punishment. Like i said, Once you find something you love and cherish hold onto that with all your heart and don't let someone dissuade you from that. Love the videos and entertainment and keep it up. - U.P. 833
I clicked on this because the thumbnail picture (Leatherneck) was literally one of, if not my favorite, G.I. Joes. He reminded me of my grandpa, so I always liked him.
What about 1986's Big Boa? He was kinda odd but I did have him as a kid, only to swap his arms with Sgt Slaughter's arms :/ Now that i think about it, he did have some cool removable boxing gloves....
both Bazooka and Leatherneck look like they are going on that fishing trip. load up the 4x4 Mudbuster with the fishing gear and some cold cans and head down to the lake for the long weekend!
I knew a kid once in summer camp who was bullied all summer long for bringing his Heat viper figure with him. All the other boys made fun of him for having such a stupid figure. Having G. I. Joes with you was cool, but Heat viper was considered extremely rare. Poor kid tried to defend himself by telling everyone that it came with a lot of cool rockets. Yeah? Where are those rockets now? - asked the others. Of course he lost all of them soon after opening the figure.
I had the blue beach head too. lol. Oh and I had gung ho in green camo. He had 3 colors. Sometimes he had red tiger stripes, other brown and then most often green which was the figure I had.
Nice, I think you summed up this list perfectly. Oh God, the 90's Joes and bright colors,WTH? Another fine vid sir, well done. Oh, i liked HEAT-Viper, but your right about the name.
C'maaaaan! Interrogator is an interrogator! He just came with a Battle Copter. Just. Because. And Skidmark comes from '88. But don't get me wrong, this is the best toy channel on the 'Tube. Love you guys!
It's a color of money$$$! Bright colored action figures, strategically placed on key points at various toyshops certainly made more money than bland, drab or uniform figures, no matter how realisticly they were painted. But I agree, it has nothing to do with alleys or urban force camo.
I liked the ninja Joes as a kid, But in retrospect the only ninja Joes worth buying were snake eyes and stormshadow. I also got the street fighter and mortal kombat joes. I did not like the new colors of old joes, like all the neon and day glow schemes. Not very tactical. My least favorite G.I. Joes was that Cobra character that likes to blow everything up. I forgot his name but he had missile launchers attached to his legs. Good video.
To the H.E.A.T. Viper comment at the end... that acronym is used in the military all the time. It stands for High Explosive Anti Tank. So, actually, H.E.A.T. Viper's name is COMPLETELY appropriate. He's a dedicated anti-armor trooper.
I made the transition from the wonderful 80s to "those 90s"... watching my "Jo's" adorn neon this and neon that...was painful...(I kinda like the neon now) but I saw that the "end was nigh"....off topic, but even transformers went neon with "G2"...damn, those 90s!!!!
The 1990s 'updates' of Bazooka, Beach-Head, Leatherneck, & Gung-Ho were uncalled for; but the absolute worst was the Eco-Warriors and DEF. The Ninja Force lineup, excepting Storm-Shadow, Slice & Dice, was ridiculous. The color scheme was silly. At least we had the 1992 General Flagg. Beach Head was only 4th in line in command only if one follows the cartoon & thought it was actually good.
I always thought Big Boa looked pretty ridiculous. A boxing instructor all decked out in spiked leather daddy gear and a masked helmet that can't possibly be practical ring gear. And he was produced as a nemesis for a never-made Rocky Balboa tie-in figure. It's like he has no reason to exist, and yet, he fits right in with all the gonzo Cobra characters that showed up in '87.
That makes a ton of sense. It was definitely a popular aesthetic in 80s sci-fi and fantasy, and I'd always figured the design was riffing of something in that realm, like Mad Max. EDIT: still pretty silly-looking, though.
Deep Six's 90s redesign would have been great-- a sleeker, more conventional deep ocean diver with a glass face mask, and the world's most vicious looking dolphin sidekick. If only it weren't ruined by the awful 90s color pallet. WHY. DID. THEY. USE. PINK!?
To be fair, since Bazooka is from Hibbing, MN, it is ENTIRELY reasonable that he would go fishing. With grenades. People from Hibbing are a little weird. LESS reasonable is him wearing a Patriots jersey as opposed to a Vikings jersey. #14 for the Vikings would have been the team's original kicker, Fred Cox, who while a fine kicker, was better known for inventing the Nerf football and hence, Nerf as a kids' sports toy empire. The number Bazooka should be wearing is #10, the number of classic Vikings quarterback Fran Tarkenton (who has the dubious distinction of being the best QB in NFL history who never won a Super Bowl, in 13 seasons with the Minnesota Vikings plus six with the New York Giants).
I kinda liked the Bazooka figure (First one Shown), Joes didnt use Uniforms like the US army, they used customized and personal equipment because they were all specialists in their field. At the very least, the outfit is at the very least, para military, and im sure its somewhat armored vest he is wearing. It looks far less casual then the first release. And remember, the Faceless machine military was cobra. Joes needed to stand out as individuals to compete against facelessness. And while you mock the new and teleporting Tattoo of Gung Ho, the outfit was pretty inspired by Hollywood Soldiers of Vietnam, complete with a large LMG Weapon he could prob hold with one hand with a bullet belt with the other.....
Dan, do you think you'll make a video going over your action figure collection? At least what you have displayed. I'm always looking at the background trying to figure out what figures are there.
Once you get past, about 1988, G.I. Joe starts to struggle for cool new characters. Eco warriors, D.E.F. , Space Command or whatever, seemed miles away from the small elite anti- terrorism special missions force. Damn, I miss the 1980s.....
Just rewatched this. Great list and why did Hasbro have the need to go with all these crazy colors? Was it an anti-military thing? I think for Skidmark (other than his name), Battle Corps Bazooka (other than grenade bracelet), battle corps leatherneck, & Beach Head V3, COULD have been decent figures, if they were all actually colored with military olive drab green, woodland camouflage, or desert camouflage. I would also list Lifeline V1 as a bad Joe (figure great, color not), too. WHo where's red and white into battle, other than a British Redcoat? He would have been great if he was olive green or camo. At least Tigerforce Lifeline V2 looked a little better.
I kinda liked Roadpig V2, basically because back then I didn't have the original one. As for my least favorite Joe, it has to be Outback V3. dude went from badass survival specialist to ... Militarized construction worker. with the Yellow hard hat.
Dan, you're funny and good at delivering information in an entertaining way, but I wish there were more photos or footage of the actual toys in your videos. Less humans and more shots of the vintage toys, and not just internet photos.
Well, there were about 5 or 6 G.I. Joe shows and 2 of them I don't know anything about. Well, by the name, I guess G.I.Joe Extreme took it to the extreme somehow. Sigma 6 didn't have a lot beyond their core characters. I think it may had 15 Joes. It's been kind of a long time so I might be wrong about that. I think after the first or second season they wrote a Joe or 2 out of the series and pretended they were never there. In the "A Real American Hero series, the show had Grunt and 2 others go to another reality and decided to stay while Flint and I think Lady Jaye decided to come back. Anyway, picking a least favorite Joe isn't easy. Flash didn't do much in the show. I know who some of my favorites were. I think after the movie both Big Lob and Chuckles just vanished. Jinks stayed around as a some what popular character. Other than her the team only had 3 other women that I remember. Scarlet, Lady Jaye and Cover Girl. In one of the animated movies much later on it was decided to turn Dial Tone into a woman and I don't think they bothered using Jinks and Cover Girl. In that movie both Bazooka and Major Bludd died. I don't know how they decided those 2 had to die. It was kind of an odd movie. Anyone else remembers the show where Duke and some of his friends were made outlaws and it was up to Flint to catch them while they fight against Cobra's forces and try to clear their names? I can't recall it's full name.
Cannot agree with the V3 & v4 GungHo being on this list. My favorites as a kid! Gung-Ho & Tunnel Rat would cruise in the Mud Buster, kicking Cobra butt and taking names for days.
H.e.a.t. was for the type of ammunition. He had a recoiless rifle for tanks and fortifications. High Explosive Anti-Tank Viper. Heat stands for High Explosive Anti Tank. Many games and other cartoons as well as movies had shown this and so kids at the time learned of it. There is the reason for the name "H.E.A.T. Viper". Least favorite was the snake dude god. Favorite was by far Grenadeir Viper.
Dojo runs a vape shop in Bakersfield. He traded in his, um, gi? for one of those burlap drug rug hoodies and jnco jeans, even though he’s in his late 40s and it’s _[current year]_ He also traded his weapons in. For replica fantasy weapons. Like that five-pointed, bladed boomerang thing from _Krull._
![[Live] : ONE 168 วันนี้!! "โจนาธาน vs ซุปเปอร์เล็ก"](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/0jIN65KgJsI/mqdefault.jpg)
And it just so happens that I stopped playing with GI Joe figures around 1989 or 1990. The very last thing I did was to pose all of my figures and vehicles in an epic battle scene culminating with Snake Eyes fighting hand-to-hand with Cobra Commander, all spread out across the entire living room floor. My mom wasn't too happy about that -- she can't appreciate fine art.
How many of them survived the great culling of the living room? If that was my mom they would have all been put in the trash.
Thankfully the living room wasn't used much at the time so none of them were thrown away. But after that all of them were packed up into their fancy blue-and-yellow Bell Systems toolbox and moved down into the cellar.
Holy crap!! Great minds think alike! I did the same thing for my last battle. Even took pictures.
Jozabad I like the way you think! I was born in 82 and over the last 36 years, my imagination has made Snake Eyes basically omnipotent in my mind.
I met Larry Hama a few years ago, he explained he was in the Korean War, and the entire first lines of good guys were based on guys he knew and friends from the Korean War. The minute he said this Doc and Gung Hos clothing made sense. Gung Ho was dressed as he was because hes essentially the Joe in the field on a long deployment in a jungle or hot country, hes now down to his flak vest and pants after weeks of digging fox hole the way they used to have to and sitting in the hot sun playing cards between mortar bombings and fire fights. To kids with good imaginations who had seen all the war movies, Gung Ho gives you a more in the field action guy to play with. Larry Hama designed most of the GI Joes and couldnt stand Hasbros ridiculousness. He said all the madness, came from some executive board of people. Half the time hed get a sketch of some crap some fool designed on a napkin, and was told to work it into his comics. The stupid florescent colors and moving away from authentic characters like Hit and Run and Tunnel Rat, was because of the hippie bastards trying to protest military toys, and so they moved to more martial arts, and stupid themes and colors and maybe a handful of excellent figures came out in the 90s line, I personally think a fair amount of vehicles came out then.
Just think how terrible the Joe's would have tuned out without Larry Hamma.
Larry was in Vietnam, not Korea. :p Good points about his excellent grounded character choices despite Hasbro, though.
Do they start charging you if you show more than 3 seconds of the toys?
I love this channel but yeah I wish they’d show more of the freakin toys
@@SerialKillerJM I love the toys, hate the channel, the guy isn't funny, he talks for too long and the sound effects are distracting and always louder than what he's saying, not that anything he says is ever normally interesting.
@@sea-dawg what?
@@hypnotised-clovershameless plug: you'll probably hate the gi joe videos on my (garbage) channel
Ahh, the 90s, when Hasbro lost the friggin' plot.
And, H.E.A.T. is a legitimate military term. It stands for High Explosive Anti Tank.
Oh I know. But he looks like he should be a flamethrower character. Especially with that name.
Yeah for sure. See 1993 Ninja Force Zartan
@@SecretGalaxyTV But the acronym means "High Energy Anti-Tank." It's a main gun round. 😑
Dubuya Jay, it was already stated correctly: High *Explosive* Anti-Tank. It is a multiple use acronym, used by both artillery ( tank gun esp ) and missile warheads. The high kinetic energy weapons use different acronyms.
90s zartan. Orange Mohawk looks like a member of a cold slither tribute band
I don't care for that figure as Zartan but I think he fits as a Drednok at least.
I had that Zartan! I always thought the 80s Zartan was better!
@@geraldperez2768 80s zaryan was the shit. Changed colors, came with a mask and a cool vehicle.
@Macro Aggressor: The Titty Baby Killer Cold Slither is from the 80's cartoon Cobra had this idea of Zartan and the Dreadnoks as a rock band.
The Dreadnoks were a Mad Max riff, pretty cool idea, actually.
Can you please leave the pictures of the items your discussing up for longer? Sometimes you're describing things for 60 seconds that were only on the screen for 4 seconds...it would make more sense to leave them up for the duration they're being described...at least in a small portion of the screen. Otherwise great job on your channel!
What this guy said. I had to skip back a few times to look at the figure being discussed. Kinda annoying.
Show the figure, not your face. We already see your face like a lot.
Yup!! Thought the same thing. Really bad bad editing. You do this a lot. Show the toy more! And I notice some episodes you don’t show you at all?!
I was coming here to say this.
Was going to say the same thing. Love these videos but this one was hard to watch for that reason.
I appreciate you fighting the urge to take a shot at the Street Fighter Joes.
I almost put it in the open that I wasn't even going to consider them part of the line for the list. Probably should have done the same thing with everything post-1990.
Those things were god awful!!!! With the exception of E Honda and Guile.
I had so many of those when I was a kid.
Those were some of my favorites still have them and the mk ones
I was done collecting Joes by the late 80s and I remember catching sight of Hasbro's brightly colored offerings in a mall somewhere and was amazed that GI Joe was still around. Then I saw the Street Fighter tie ins and I predicted it wouldn't be for much longer.
My vote goes to the whole 90's Joe line. There not my childhood Joes. That neon funky color that ran rampent in the 90's ruined Transformers and G.I. Joe. Great list
Like Hasbro I suppose I should have just cut that whole part of the line off.
They should have been displayed in the candy aisles.
I remember I would base paint and color the ones I didn't like. I also had doubled to have two different costumes 😎
I had quit buying Joes by then, used to see them in the stores and be like "wtf happened?" I held on for a really long time, was like a sophomore in HS and was still secretly into the comic and the toys. And then I decided to meet girls, get a driver's license, not be a geek anymore. Maybe a closet geek after that?
Well, I did have plenty of girlfriends oddly enough. Some of the guys from back then had a tough time moving on. I think I was never the stereotypical nerd, just really liked those toys for some reason and kept it to myself pretty much.
Yeah the 90s were obsessed with all the neon colors and GI Joe was no exception.
I would've included Dee-Jay, just for those boots alone.
Oh yeah! Forgot about Dee-Jay. What a terrible outfit. I'm not alone.
I was out of collecting by the time Dee-Jay rolled around but damn did he look godawful. I heard he was almost as notorious as peg-warmer as Crystal Ball. At least CB could pass as a Rasputin-style mystic if you took away that dumb shield. Poor Dee-Jay was just dogshit all around.
Aw man. I owned that Road Pig and he was one of my favourites. He was badass.
The original figure is awesome. He had that wrist-mounted crossbow like the dude from Road Warrior. I don't know what they were thinking with the Sonic version lol. It looks like a clown threw up all over him.
And his concrete weapon.
I guess I managed to hit that sweet spot where I didn't have a ton of GI Joes, but all the ones I had were awesome. I'm suddenly left wondering if I owe a thank you to my dad for making sure I only got figures and vehicles that conceivably looked like they might actually be in the military--I had Flint and Sergeant Slaughter, but somehow didn't even know about any of these hideous neon figures until just this minute.
I really like Ninja Force Scarlett and it's the very first Female G.I.Joe Action figure I ever owned which was very recently! Scarlett is my favorite female G.I.Joe character and to have any figure of Scarlett is Golden to me! I never owned Scarlett or any other female G.I.Joe action figures as a kid!
@7:19 -- H.E.A.T stands for High Explosive, Anti-Tank, so it actually makes a LOT of sense for a bazooka trooper.
Deep Six !!! Number 2! You hurt me deep with that one Dan, you hurt me deep. There is no GI Joe figure I coveted more of my best friend's more considerable collection than him. Articulation be damned. That robotic clunky looking suit filled my imagination with all of the power and protection that its form implies and he singlehandedly won many a mission when faced with overwhelming odds because of it.
Anyway, great video as always keep it up 👍
Loved the dome, and I'm all for a sci-fi-bell-diver type figure but even back then it was all about the superiority of Joes to Star Wars because they had more articulation and then you're going to throw a 2-pt figure out there?
No, Hasbro. No.
Toy Galaxy 😂
I had Deep Six, the original one and for me as a kid, his clunkiness left him in his vehicle or standing in the background a lot during 'episodes'... (I was weird, I expanded my own universe with stuff from the Marvel comics and the cartoon -like the first version of Storm Shadow became Billy after I got the new camo one etc).
Dude you had me rolling on this one. The fighting sounds when you were talking about dojo had me crying.
Road Pig v1 may be my favorite Joe of all time (since I never found a Snake Eyes). But I had nearly outgrown action figures by that time.
I had #1 as a kid and loved it! Thought he looked so badass!
It's hard to see these things through the eyes of a kid when you've grown old and jaded. I try not to lose that but sometimes... sometimes it's hard to get there.
Battleforce 2000 was the beginning of the end. I was completely done by the time we got to the Eco Warriors and Drug War lines.
I've come to appreciate some of those space figures since then but back then, yeah, no interest.
@Macro Aggressor: The Titty Baby Killer I think that was Sky force(?) Battleforce 2000 was trying to be the future and started the downward spiral of ridiculous fictitious weapons and colors that made no sense for any military application. Not quite day-glow neon but almost there. Dee-Jay was the worst offender of that line.
Yea.. I had the set that connected to make a base. The Gold Destro tank thing? When it got into the whole python patrol n whatever sets. It got stupid really quick.
The o.g. Road Pig was awesome.
@@Biosynthnut I didn't care for Battle Force 2000 but I liked Cobra-La. Go figure. The Iron Grenadiers came out the same time as Road Pig and were bad ass little army builders. My dad got me a few of them.
I can't believe you forgot Crystal Ball. No body bought this guy. You would go into the store and every joe would be gone except a backlog of dozens of Crystal Ball, HEAT Viper does make sense if you know military acronyms. H.E.A.T. Refers to High Explosive Anti-Tank. Tank rounds come in HE, High Explosive, AP Armor Piercing, and HEAT
Jim Tilley I totally remember Crystal Ball being the only Joe figure left in stores. His only accessory was a psychedelic shield, not even a pistol. You can still get him today, mint in package, for like $10 on eBay.
JIM.. TO THIS DAY I STILL BELIEVE THE TERM "PEGWARMER" ORIGINATED WITH CRYSTAL BALL!! ANYTIME I SEE A ROSE TICO OR A ZUVIO I THINK OF GOOD OLE CRYSTAL BALL!!
The only cool thing about Crystal Ball was Stephen King wrote his bio. The character Sneek-Peak real name was named after Stephen King's son.
man, I read this after I wrote the same thing above. There are probably a few thousand Crystal Ball figures out there in that dump along with the Atari E.T. cartridges.
Fun fact about Crystal Ball: he was held over for two more waves (three waves total) not because he was so popular, but because they couldn't sell out his first wave! They had thousands of this thing just sitting around waiting to be sold. I bought him because I thought he looked cool, but I wish he would have had a rifle at least.
One minor retraction: Skidmark was actually 1988, NOT 98. That aside, I wholeheartedly agree with the entire list.
I used #1 road pig for wrestling figure like LOD type-so color scheme worked and I also had tomax n xamot like the British bulldogs
The Scarlett figure makes sense based on her relationship with Snake Eyes in the Comics,
I love watching the background of your vidz and seeing the Lazer Tag helm covered skull move around.
I had the fisherman Bazooka and Deep Six as a kid. Called them fisherman (even though, like you, the grenade wrist strap confused me too), and for some reason I called Deep Six Deep Suit. Mr. Deepy was a brick, but he made for a good bath and pool toy, always loved deep sea exploration and I guess they made him simplistic so no metal joints or screws would rust.
Great list Dan, quite a lot of odd ones for sure! The thing that confused me the most on the Heat Viper was that a little bit of his chin was showing. Why?
For some reason I can see Bazooka fishing with hand grenades.
As I recall, the figures that caused my peers and I to drool rabidly were the Dreadknots and their leader, Zanzabar.
I lost it at the Dojo part with all the hand swoshes.
Hey!!!! I luv heat viper!!!! He was one of my favorites, because of his quirkiness!
Jim Beam and Milwaukee's Best Ice are responsible for me ending up with a few "Road Pigs".
You could have populated this list entirely with the Street Fighter toys made with GI Joe molds. they literally just painted skin tones over any utility pouches or weapons.
Dojo was one of my favorites. All the dudes in my class loved him.
GI Joe Captain GridIron was one of the weirdest and stupid concepts. I regretted owning him. Heat Viper on the other hand was just one of several super colorful troops that I really could get into.
the only reason i had Skidmark was because he was the driver for the desert fox vehicle,which i loved,otherwise he certainly would have been a peg warmer back in the day. my least favorite figure was Raptor,his existence perplexes me.
And that's what makes these kinds of lists so subjective. I LOVED Raptor. As an adult? I think he's ridiculous as part of that line. But as a figure, especially as a kid, LOVED him.
Desert fox was an awesome vehicle. Skidmark!?! I never knew that was the figures name until this upload.
I don't really have a least favorite Joe but one I would've liked to see more of is Nemesis Enforcer. He was so badass.
I can no longer look at Gung Ho w/o thinking, "Who wants sandwiches?"
... or see Roadblock w/o thinking "Who wants a body massage?"
The sad part is the generation that ONLY knows those characters from those videos.
HEAT (in the militarily fashion) stands for High Explosive Anti-Tank. So, the HEAT Viper, being a “bazooka” soldier, would be a correct naming convention since he would be an soldier specific to anti-armor operations 🤓😂
Remember the MOBAT? It was an M1 Abrams but they called it MOBAT. It stood for M Obile B Attle Tank. Like wtf? Aren't all tanks mobile and designed for battle?
This one made me lol a few times, cheers! I got too 'old' [sic] for the line before its decline, but as a video game fan would love the SF2 figures, as out of place as they were.
At the time I wanted to like the SF2 and MK figures because there was no other option. But you just knew they were so woefully inadequate.
Deepsix? I guess you didn't have that one as a kid? I do agree with most the picks. Maybe try worst Joes of the 80's, there's too many 90's to choose.
I had Deep Six. That's why he's such a disappointment to me.
We lost ours early on, I guess that's why there's a fondness. I don't know.. Deep sea water dude beats a lot of lamer joes for me. But I get that he is pretty useless in all but one scenario. But his head is in a bubble. All time top ten head in a bubble figures.
Deep six the action figure could have been a hundred times less terrible if his hands had been useful. loved his vehicle but his fig was pretty awful. He couldn’t even see out when driving! Do you have any idea how much that screws with an 8 year old’s mind?! How much time I wasted unconvinced I was placing him in the shark right
Deep Six sucked as a figure. The Shark sucked as a toy. Bottom line. Yes, I had it. It blew.
Yeah, I loved the GI Joe Shark vehicle, but I didn't bother with using Deep Six as the pilot. Never mind the lack of articulation. He just looked stupid. If his joints has been just as posable as a standard Joe, he'd still have looked like garbage. I tried that stupid underwater action feature ONCE. I used the Shark vehicle as a plane, because that's what it looked like.
I thought Gun ho's tattoo was to attract enemy fire to that area because it was reinforced, oh wait!...forgot that was only skin 😁
This entire video is a reminder of why I stopped buying figure in 93.
I think road pig v1 was the last joe figure I owned. I remember buying it with my allowance.
I am old, I grew up with the 12 inch tall G.I.Joe with the fuzzy hair and beard. Had all the vehicles and extras, had a blast with them.
Am just happy that you didn't include Crystalball, Raptor and Dr. Mindbinder...love those crazy guys
Actually had the G. I. Joe Desert 6WD and the original Interrogator, the latter was an improvement over Dr. Mindbender. Agree with you about the ninjas. The neon colors of the Ninja Force line made it ridiculous. And the updated Gung-Ho, Scarlett, Dojo, Bazooka and Leatherneck.
Never liked the Dreadnoks, though.
Since toys are such an important role in American history. I hope one day we will have college courses based solely on vintage 80s toys and maybe some 90s and 70s toys. I can only imagine the quizzes you would recieve.
The worst Joe is this guy Joe from work, Every morning it's like "Yo Joe, Who peed in your coffee?"
HEAT stands for High Explosive Anti Tank. Its a real tank round
HEAT stands for High Explosive Anti Tank. It's a real military acronym.
You just ripped two of my all time favs. Bazooka and Beachhead.
My theory is that GI Joe was used to showcase potential Hasbro deals with movie IPs and stuff. Dreadnots were likely Mad Max based on interest figures and they wanted to capture the figures. Ninja force was likely a push to obtain the rights to Street Fighter movie in development and they decided to use a dying IP to create IPs. Same with Waterworld and the Eco Warriors line. They were likely using scrapped molds or unused IPs for that when the deal went through. Instead they went with Kenner who then used the same Power of the Force methodology. Th Cesspool figure really looks like the main villain and hence they likely went with the cheaper option as GI Joe's articulation was not as marketable.
The entire dreadnoks kinda had that mad max vibe especially the 2nd line road pig thrasher etc
Just absolutely losing my shit over the hand sound effects during the Dojo talk hahaha
I love the weird colors but I grew up in the 90's.
OMG that Ninja Force commercial SO worked on me when I was a kid, and I hate to admit that for some odd reason I really liked my Dojo action figure. I think it was because of the rooted hair and those Bajan colors. I wasn't totally stupid though: He was the only colorful one I got from that line. I loved the Storm Shadow and the guy in purple the most.
I can see kids watching that commercial and nodding approvingly: "Yes, I would like to subscribe to this."
where is ice cream soldier, lobatomaxx, predacon, and the rest of the star brigade aliens? My least favorite has to be lobotomaxx just because it was an insult to children everywhere. love the vids keep them up
I LOOOOOVE the Star Brigade aliens so I can't help you there. Ice Cream Soldier, while a ridiculous name, isn't really a bad figure and his color scheme is fine since he's a flamethrower trooper.
Fair enough. I do believe that everyone is entidled to thier own opinion and no one should ever dissuade you from that opinion. I respect your opinion even though I do dissagree with it... namely with Deep Six I would put him in 10 worst for the first 5-6 years but not when many others from the 90's deserve the punishment. Like i said, Once you find something you love and cherish hold onto that with all your heart and don't let someone dissuade you from that. Love the videos and entertainment and keep it up.
- U.P. 833
I just did an image search on the name. What the hell is that thing? Looks like a humanoid giraff covered in green toxic waste.
Union Pacific 833 there was an G.I.Joe action figure called Icecream Viper & what the hell is a Lobatomaxx?
@@SecretGalaxyTV Then Hasbro took the same mold added blue, red, and black and made a decent Cobra army builder out of him as the 2002 Shock Viper.
I feel like a virgin again watching your videos! I remember little after I ran off joined the marines and started drinking!!!
I clicked on this because the thumbnail picture (Leatherneck) was literally one of, if not my favorite, G.I. Joes. He reminded me of my grandpa, so I always liked him.
You know, this would be a good figure if it weren't for the color choices they made. There's nothing inherently wrong with the sculpt or costuming.
To be fair no one expects the shady guy selling bongs at the flea market to be a trained assassin so Dojo may have been onto something there.
What about 1986's Big Boa? He was kinda odd but I did have him as a kid, only to swap his arms with Sgt Slaughter's arms :/ Now that i think about it, he did have some cool removable boxing gloves....
Big Boa was awesome. He beat the shit out of most of my Joes. Only Snake-Eyes was able to kick his ass.
He was basically strongbad.
YES! This exactly
both Bazooka and Leatherneck look like they are going on that fishing trip. load up the 4x4 Mudbuster with the fishing gear and some cold cans and head down to the lake for the long weekend!
I knew a kid once in summer camp who was bullied all summer long for bringing his Heat viper figure with him. All the other boys made fun of him for having such a stupid figure. Having G. I. Joes with you was cool, but Heat viper was considered extremely rare. Poor kid tried to defend himself by telling everyone that it came with a lot of cool rockets. Yeah? Where are those rockets now? - asked the others. Of course he lost all of them soon after opening the figure.
Quality control: this colo.... those colours are awful!
Designer: it’s okay... we’ve already made it. Just role with it.
Quality control: FML!
I had the blue beach head too. lol.
Oh and I had gung ho in green camo. He had 3 colors. Sometimes he had red tiger stripes, other brown and then most often green which was the figure I had.
Nice, I think you summed up this list perfectly. Oh God, the 90's Joes and bright colors,WTH? Another fine vid sir, well done. Oh, i liked HEAT-Viper, but your right about the name.
The mask always bugged me. Asymmetry triggers me.
Lol, plus the hose coming from the side of the head, kind of weird.
Ninja Scarlett was actually a retool of the Joe Chun Li, and her kick gimmick was a result of Chun Li having her Spinning Bird Kick.
C'maaaaan! Interrogator is an interrogator! He just came with a Battle Copter. Just. Because. And Skidmark comes from '88. But don't get me wrong, this is the best toy channel on the 'Tube. Love you guys!
Hey, Interrogator v1 is one of my favorite Joes but... I gotta makes the jokes.
This was too funny!! I laughed through the entire video, great job!!
Excellent!
The Alley Viper bright orange and blue what alley is that color?
Good point. Very good point.
Andrew Lazin San Francisco lol
Cobra subtle ? Since when ? Lol
Version 1. Version 2 was yellow and black.
It's a color of money$$$! Bright colored action figures, strategically placed on key points at various toyshops certainly made more money than bland, drab or uniform figures, no matter how realisticly they were painted. But I agree, it has nothing to do with alleys or urban force camo.
I liked the ninja Joes as a kid, But in retrospect the only ninja Joes worth buying were snake eyes and stormshadow. I also got the street fighter and mortal kombat joes. I did not like the new colors of old joes, like all the neon and day glow schemes. Not very tactical. My least favorite G.I. Joes was that Cobra character that likes to blow everything up. I forgot his name but he had missile launchers attached to his legs. Good video.
There Really were no bad joes while I collected, then I saw chuckles and knew it was over. Lol
To the H.E.A.T. Viper comment at the end... that acronym is used in the military all the time. It stands for High Explosive Anti Tank. So, actually, H.E.A.T. Viper's name is COMPLETELY appropriate. He's a dedicated anti-armor trooper.
I made the transition from the wonderful 80s to "those 90s"...
watching my "Jo's" adorn neon this and neon that...was painful...(I kinda like the neon now) but I saw that the "end was nigh"....off topic, but even transformers went neon with "G2"...damn, those 90s!!!!
In one of the very many confusing G.I.Joe comic book continuities Skidmark died when a helicopter fell on his head.
Love this video. I agree, gi Joe in the 90s was horrible. The cobra commander with breathing tube outside the mask was nuts.
The 1990s 'updates' of Bazooka, Beach-Head, Leatherneck, & Gung-Ho were uncalled for; but the absolute worst was the Eco-Warriors and DEF.
The Ninja Force lineup, excepting Storm-Shadow, Slice & Dice, was ridiculous. The color scheme was silly. At least we had the 1992 General Flagg.
Beach Head was only 4th in line in command only if one follows the cartoon & thought it was actually good.
Hasbro took the piss, these figures. You nailed it!
I always thought Big Boa looked pretty ridiculous. A boxing instructor all decked out in spiked leather daddy gear and a masked helmet that can't possibly be practical ring gear. And he was produced as a nemesis for a never-made Rocky Balboa tie-in figure. It's like he has no reason to exist, and yet, he fits right in with all the gonzo Cobra characters that showed up in '87.
That makes a ton of sense. It was definitely a popular aesthetic in 80s sci-fi and fantasy, and I'd always figured the design was riffing of something in that realm, like Mad Max.
EDIT: still pretty silly-looking, though.
Deep Six's 90s redesign would have been great-- a sleeker, more conventional deep ocean diver with a glass face mask, and the world's most vicious looking dolphin sidekick. If only it weren't ruined by the awful 90s color pallet. WHY. DID. THEY. USE. PINK!?
To be fair, since Bazooka is from Hibbing, MN, it is ENTIRELY reasonable that he would go fishing. With grenades. People from Hibbing are a little weird. LESS reasonable is him wearing a Patriots jersey as opposed to a Vikings jersey. #14 for the Vikings would have been the team's original kicker, Fred Cox, who while a fine kicker, was better known for inventing the Nerf football and hence, Nerf as a kids' sports toy empire. The number Bazooka should be wearing is #10, the number of classic Vikings quarterback Fran Tarkenton (who has the dubious distinction of being the best QB in NFL history who never won a Super Bowl, in 13 seasons with the Minnesota Vikings plus six with the New York Giants).
I kinda liked the Bazooka figure (First one Shown), Joes didnt use Uniforms like the US army, they used customized and personal equipment because they were all specialists in their field. At the very least, the outfit is at the very least, para military, and im sure its somewhat armored vest he is wearing. It looks far less casual then the first release. And remember, the Faceless machine military was cobra. Joes needed to stand out as individuals to compete against facelessness. And while you mock the new and teleporting Tattoo of Gung Ho, the outfit was pretty inspired by Hollywood Soldiers of Vietnam, complete with a large LMG Weapon he could prob hold with one hand with a bullet belt with the other.....
Dan, do you think you'll make a video going over your action figure collection? At least what you have displayed. I'm always looking at the background trying to figure out what figures are there.
Unlikely. I don't really have it displayed. The background is always changing as we make videos and stuff gets moved around.
Aw. Ok.
Once you get past, about 1988, G.I. Joe starts to struggle for cool new characters. Eco warriors, D.E.F. , Space Command or whatever, seemed miles away from the small elite anti- terrorism special missions force. Damn, I miss the 1980s.....
It's safe to say they ran out of good ideas for GI Joe figures in the 90s. All those neon colors would have made no sense on the battlefield.
Just rewatched this. Great list and why did Hasbro have the need to go with all these crazy colors? Was it an anti-military thing? I think for Skidmark (other than his name), Battle Corps Bazooka (other than grenade bracelet), battle corps leatherneck, & Beach Head V3, COULD have been decent figures, if they were all actually colored with military olive drab green, woodland camouflage, or desert camouflage. I would also list Lifeline V1 as a bad Joe (figure great, color not), too. WHo where's red and white into battle, other than a British Redcoat? He would have been great if he was olive green or camo. At least Tigerforce Lifeline V2 looked a little better.
Love the ninja hand sound effects.
I kinda liked Roadpig V2, basically because back then I didn't have the original one. As for my least favorite Joe, it has to be Outback V3. dude went from badass survival specialist to ... Militarized construction worker. with the Yellow hard hat.
I just came to say Interrogator v.1 and 2 are INCREDIBLE figures. V.2 is worth more too.
Deep 6 is the worst. The Leatherneck and Bazooka that you listed… I always got those 2 confused. They are both going on a fishing trip.
Ohh god... I have never laughed so heard in my life... and all of it so true.
Dan, you're funny and good at delivering information in an entertaining way, but I wish there were more photos or footage of the actual toys in your videos. Less humans and more shots of the vintage toys, and not just internet photos.
Well, there were about 5 or 6 G.I. Joe shows and 2 of them I don't know anything about. Well, by the name, I guess G.I.Joe Extreme took it to the extreme somehow. Sigma 6 didn't have a lot beyond their core characters. I think it may had 15 Joes. It's been kind of a long time so I might be wrong about that. I think after the first or second season they wrote a Joe or 2 out of the series and pretended they were never there. In the "A Real American Hero series, the show had Grunt and 2 others go to another reality and decided to stay while Flint and I think Lady Jaye decided to come back. Anyway, picking a least favorite Joe isn't easy. Flash didn't do much in the show. I know who some of my favorites were. I think after the movie both Big Lob and Chuckles just vanished. Jinks stayed around as a some what popular character. Other than her the team only had 3 other women that I remember. Scarlet, Lady Jaye and Cover Girl. In one of the animated movies much later on it was decided to turn Dial Tone into a woman and I don't think they bothered using Jinks and Cover Girl. In that movie both Bazooka and Major Bludd died. I don't know how they decided those 2 had to die. It was kind of an odd movie. Anyone else remembers the show where Duke and some of his friends were made outlaws and it was up to Flint to catch them while they fight against Cobra's forces and try to clear their names? I can't recall it's full name.
I have to disagree, Deep six was rad, I loved how that figure was enclosed like that
Cannot agree with the V3 & v4 GungHo being on this list. My favorites as a kid! Gung-Ho & Tunnel Rat would cruise in the Mud Buster, kicking Cobra butt and taking names for days.
H.e.a.t. was for the type of ammunition. He had a recoiless rifle for tanks and fortifications.
High Explosive Anti-Tank Viper.
Heat stands for High Explosive Anti Tank.
Many games and other cartoons as well as movies had shown this and so kids at the time learned of it.
There is the reason for the name "H.E.A.T. Viper".
Least favorite was the snake dude god.
Favorite was by far Grenadeir Viper.
I graduated in 1994 and I had skidmark (with some awesome vehicle) waaaay before that.
Dojo runs a vape shop in Bakersfield. He traded in his, um, gi? for one of those burlap drug rug hoodies and jnco jeans, even though he’s in his late 40s and it’s _[current year]_
He also traded his weapons in. For replica fantasy weapons. Like that five-pointed, bladed boomerang thing from _Krull._
RE: The HEAT Viper, HEAT is an acronym for High Explosive Anti Tank, has nothing to do with flamethrowers.
I think Heat in that use stands for high explosive anti tank.
By the early nineties,no one was buying the small G.I. Joes. That's why in,about 1996 or 1997 Hasbro re-released the 12 inch line.