Posted on 02/06/2014 6:46:28 AM PST by Phillyred
I was fourteen & thought G.I. Joe was, after all, just a doll.
After a childhood of playing war where boys wore actual WWII helmets, bandoliers, gas masks, and even binoculars, it was hard to be interested in all that in miniature. Rifles & pistols were plywood cutouts wrapped with 100 mile an hour tape. Some of them fired innertube `rubber bands’.
Some on the `enemy’ side even sported German helmets, SS officer’s caps, & daggers (long as their Dads didn’t find out!); all of these were our fathers’ souvenirs, the real McCoy.
I too was 14. I had dad’s uniform but no helmets. Had his Marine Raider knife made by camillus. It was taken away from my at age 10 when I threw it up into trees to try to get starlings it had a broke tip from me throwing it into stumps. I then committed the ultimate insult to this eminently collectable piece. I SHARPENED IT!!! Decreased its value by around $800. The sheath also sports my initials. Dad’s gone but the knife sits in my gun safe.
See if you can find the “Venture Brothers” homage with their OSI opening. Much like the Joe opening, but giddy with mindless violence and gore. It’s what GI Joe should have been, except for the homosexual agents like Shore Leave.
They took too much off the top !!!
Either that or the steroids took a toll!
I created a GI Joe long before, when ii was about 10, say1947.i played with plastic toy soldiers for years . One day I found a doll of a man in a blue suit, tie and all. Prob 12 in with movable arms and legs. I quickly painted his suit olive from my model airplane supplies. I fashioned a helmet from medical adhesive tape and painted that olive. Not sure how long I had him but at some point buried him and never dug him up. Larry
Hey, 50 is the new 35!
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