Thursday (Late) Throwback: GI Joes

(Every Thursday WKFTB will bring you a throwback, something that reminds us of our late-80s-early-90s childhood. Today's edition: GI Joes.).

First off, I think I've now done about 10 of these Thursday Throwbacks, and this is like the third that's actually come out on Friday. That's a pretty shitty ratio and clearly epitomizes my affinity for partying, as I went to yet another concert yesterday. Party. Woo.

Anyway, I figured this throwback was very apt considering the release of the new movie today. But it's not the movie, I'm talking about today, it's the ill action figures and the unreal cartoon. Remember these guys:

Equipped with the best weapons -- rocket launchers! -- and lathered with mustaches, muscles and angry eyebrows to make them look badass, these action figures were the bomb (oooh throwback word in a throwback post?!?!). I know I'm going way back here, but I played with tons of these things when I was a young'n.

The good guys always had sweat power weapons, but I kind of sweated the bad guys, were always shift characters like ninjas and scuba guys and stuff. I don't even remembering armies fighting Ninja hordes, but GI Joe did it anyway. The bad guys were even called Cobra and wore red masks over their faces.

And I'm not sure how many dudes out there remember this, but fi you do, I'm about to blow your mind. The GI Headquarters, one of the most dynamic toy bases in the history of play time lore:

God damn, this puppy was decked out with missile launchers, sirens, sound effect and a mother-f'n search light! It was unbeatable. It folded up into "battle mode" and unfolded when you wanted the full, sprawling effect of a fully functional good-guy lair. It even had targets you could hit with enemy fire that would cause something to explode or fall apart. I remember one was that orange barrel to the right. Blap that sucker and the door to the jail explodes, freeing all the CObra scum you had worked so hard to round up. Why place an explosive barrel right near a sensitive area of your fortress? GI Joe was clearly a victim of poor layout.

Anyway, I can't tell you how much money my dad must have spent on things like the GI Joe headquarters, but it must have been worth it. These toys would kill an entire Sunday, where I could just keep to myself and blow stuff up while he chilled or relaxed. (now that I'm older, prob recovering from a hangover, woo).

But as cool as the toys were, NOTHING compared to the corny cartoon that ran every weekday morning. I remember getting up mad early before elementary school to peep this. "GI JOE, reall American heerrooooo." Yahhh.

It was tough to have a war cartoon were no one ever died, but hey, the A-Team did it for years, and I'm pretty sure that was an adult show. In GI Joe, the only things that got bundled were the vehicles, from which every character luckily escaped before it exploded. Pheww.

And do you remember the PSA's at the end of each 'sode? This, in fact, may be GI Joe's lasting legacy and I hope to see one at the end of the movie because, you know, knowing is half the battle.

I mean, how else would I learn to not rush into a shaky tree house?

I mean, how can you not LOL at this:


Wowie, I should have done a whole post on this. Look at this shit:


There are literally hundreds of these. I could spend all day watching them, but I'll just give you one more:



Your mom, um, had an accident.

---Nick