A photo of Crankcase, a Hasbro G.I. Joe figure from 1985 sold as part of the A.W.E. Striker vehicle set. I couldn’t find the helmet and his weapon while the vehicle is in no shape for a photo session.
The articulation is very impressive for its time. There’s a ball-joint for the head, swivel/hinge combos for the shoulders, swivel joints for the upper arms, hinge joints for the elbows, ball joints for the hips and hinge joints for the knees. The final articulation point is at the waist where there’s an O-ring that provides a range of motion roughly equivalent to a ball joint.
Although I’m a big fan of articulation, I would’ve preferred a simple swivel joint for the waist. The problem with O-rings is the rubber tends to disintegrate after a few years. It’s an easy enough fix, though. You should be able to get substitute rubber pieces at a hardware store.
I have no doubt the majority of G.I Joe: ARAH fans are Americans but there is a significant number of fans who aren’t residents of the US. How do the latter feel about the flag-waving aspect of the franchise? It wasn’t constant or flagrant but both the cartoon and the comic did give a nod to the “Real American” aspect of the line. It may not have mattered as a kid but as an adult you do have to wonder what impact it may have had.
I know the Europe markets dealt with this by turning Real American Heroes into International Heroes and changing the “Yo Joe!” battle cry (which was rather genial as battle cries go) to the slightly more bloodthirsty “Full Force!”
(Malaysians got the original US versions of the toyline and cartoon but it was possible to find Takara-packaged toys in some department stores and the UK version of the comic was serialised in the Transformers UK comic which was sold in newsstands here.)
My personal feeling is the values these G.I Joe characters exhibit and practise are universal. You don’t need to be American to appreciate G.I. Joe anymore than you need to be Cybertronian to appreciate Transformers.
Besides, the Real American Hero shown above was actually made in Hong Kong.
Yeah, when GI Joe came out originally, I was in my mid-teens and already exposed some to anime, so it didn’t really keep my interest. I watched the initial pilot run and some more, but I was kind of put out by the over-patriotic theme and the way no one ever seemed to die on either side . I dug the vehicles though and I encouraged my younger brother to get into it, just glad to see the old o-ring articulation and scale put to good use again (never really liked the Star Wars toys for their stiffness). Little did I know back then that the scale format and o-ring design were both inventions of Microman inventor Iwakichi Ogawa back in ’74.
The GI Joe characters and backstory are largely the creation of Larry Hama, who as a Japanese-American had no small amount of familiarity with internment camps and other less happy moments of US history, so much of the compassionate, multicultural view presented in the series was his work, I am given to understand (I’m no Joe expert though, but there’s some cool interviews out there with Mr. Hama on the subject).
Salient points, Bryan.
Any idea what the vintage Henshin Cyborg hip construction is like? I can’t find any good photos or descriptions but I would guess the O-ring/hook combo was designed to mimic the Henshin body articulation within the constraints of 10cm figure format.
One final note: the Transformers Action Masters had O-rings in them as well despite not having any waist articulation.
If I recall, it’s a strand of elastic rubber that connects the thighs to a hook, so it’s like of like the o-ring in reverse…I could be wrong on that point. But yeah, it was clearly Ogawa’s rescaling of that part of the articulation. The entire original Microman Zone ‘barefoot’ body was clearly meant to mimic the Cyborg/Joe articulation as closely as possible, which is why Microman was so ridicuously articulated with ball jointed ankles and wrists, and it only occured to them afterwards that they didn’t need to keep the feet bare for the rescaled design, heh.
Yes, the Action Masters are perhaps the most ironic part of the TF line given that they were Hasbro’s product rather than Takara’s. Talk about returning the series to its’ roots. And then of course Microman 2000 reused the Action Master Optimus Prime’s truck to bring it full circle again. I was surprised they didn’t repurpose more from that line (well except that obviously their sales were dropping at the time). I think Action Masters exemplifies one of the several ways aspects of Microman and Diaclone would continually reemerge over the course of the series, as both are the stylistic roots of the toy designs themselves. Unicron is in particular IMHO a really fitting synthesis of classic Takara SF Land design motifs with the Fluro Dery-created character design.
On another note, I once modded my Blaster Action Master with a razor saw so he now has an articulated waist…it works great since the mold had a natural seam there (like perhaps they might have originally intended waist articulation then eliminated it), though I need to add a bit of a lip to the inside later to keep the torso and hips better aligned when rotated. I think it’s awesome that he’s essentially a Microman figure of a classic MicroChange robot! I’d like to get others like Megatron and Soundwave someday. I do have Jazz and Shockwave, the latter is a really nice likeness in particular and I have him next to my Alternators variant.
It’s a pity we don’t see more interviews with the Takara Tomy designers about Takara’s toy history. I can understand why the company would want to extol current or future products rather than reminisce about past achievements but I’m still a little disappointed. I expect as time goes on, we’re going to get more replies along the lines of “I can’t remember” and “I’m not sure what the thinking was on that” to questions about toy history.
I keep getting the feeling there’s a lot left undiscovered about these toys. One thing I would like to know is whether those references to Microman/Diaclone were put in by the designers who worked on those lines or whether they were put in by other designers as nods to the company’s toy history.
Say, any chance of seeing a photo of that modded Blaster on your site?