Word: hasbro
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...that I've seen the movie, I understand the Paramount bosses' urge to suppress it. G.I. Joe has plenty of narrative strands, most of them taken from the '80s TV cartoon show and Marvel comic version of the antique Hasbro soldier figures, but they are woven clumsily. Director Stephen Sommers, who did the Mummy trilogy, has no skill with actors and little more with the manipulation of real and virtual hardware. We know the theme will be "War is swell," but the film plays like a long slog in the Big Muddy. (See pictures of ninja warriors: from myth...
While toy company Mattel could barely keep up with demand for its Barbie dolls in the early 1960s, its competitor, Hasbro, realized the market had no analogue for boys. In 1963, Hasbro began development on a military-themed line of dolls that, like Barbie, could be accessorized with different outfits and equipment. The original strategy called for a different figure for each branch of the military, but seizing on a 1945 film called The Story of G.I. Joe, the toys were eventually genericized. (The term itself comes from World War II, where it was used as a shorthand symbol...
...initially a massive success and Hasbro expanded the line throughout the '60s, reimagining Joe as an astronaut, a deep-sea diver and a Green Beret. But outcry over American involvement in Vietnam dampened enthusiasm for a camo-clad action figure, so Hasbro gave Joe an honorable discharge. It redesigned the toys and relaunched them in 1970 as Adventures of G.I. Joe: the figure received lifelike hair, moveable eyes and a "kung-fu" grip, enabling him to hold onto objects for the first time. But the changes proved to be a gimmick, taken even further by Hasbro with the development...
...unlikely savior in Star Wars. The sci-fi flick and the collectables it spawned rekindled America's appetite for action figures, so Hasbro reintroduced a scaled-down line of G.I. Joes to try and capitalize on the trend. Instead of a single character, there was an entire battalion of G.I. Joes, each given signature weapons, backstories and code names like Scarlett and Snake Eyes. Joe also got a new enemy, Cobra -"a ruthless terrorist organization determined to rule the world," as described in the intro to the 1980s TV cartoon G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero. (Cobra operatives got action...
...premise of vehicles morphing into robots continued to seem preposterous to me. But I had to admit, the conceit was also undeniably impressive in its attentiveness to the interests of small males. Some of the Decepticons even look like dinosaurs, which borders on pandering to 5-year-olds. If Hasbro could engineer such an adaptable delight, why not a toy for girls that is both an Easy-Bake oven and a princess...