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Popular GI Joe doll still in fighting shape at 39
Associated Press
FILE PHOTO
Rick Buehner shows his collection of GI Joe action figures. Due to the war in Iraq, the doll is enjoying a resurgence in popularity.
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Despite his relatively advanced age for a fighting man, 39-year-old GI Joe shows no sign of slowing down.
Sales of GI Joe dolls--make that “action figures”--increased 46 percent last year and are currently moving off the shelves. While Joe’s maker, Hasbro, downplays any link between the increased sales and the war with Iraq, others see a connection.
"We anticipated this would be a strong seller, once we knew there was a possibility of war,’’ said John Zimmerman, spokesman for Meijer stores. "People get rather patriotic, and they go out and buy their GI Joes. It happened before the Persian Gulf War.’’
Sales of GI Joes were up 45 percent during the past year at Meijer stores, Zimmerman said.
At the Knapp’s Corner store, employee Matt Seipel was stocking shelves in the toy department. He said since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, policemen, firefighters and other rescue action figures such as Mike Medic and Race Tanner, a hazardous material specialist, have been big sellers.
"What’s really gotten people are the Rescue Heroes for little kids,’’ he said, pointing out shelves filled with the figures made by Fisher-Price. "About November is when they began picking up. By Christmas, we couldn’t keep ‘em on the shelves.’’
Rescue Heroes include firemen, lifeguards and other unarmed heroes.
Rick Buehner recently displayed his platoon of army men standing on his dining room table.
He picked up one soldier and pulled a string in its chest.
"I have a tough assignment for you,’’ the soldier said.
Buehner pulled down the miniature warrior’s pants, revealing a brand on his butt: "Copyright 1964.’’
A medic during the Gulf War, Buehner stops by toy departments to check out the GI Joes. He got his first when he was a kid, and he has been collecting them for many years.
"The art of soldiering has always been of interest to me,’’ Buehner, 33, said. "The only difference, they say, between men and boys is the price of their toys.’’
At his northeast Grand Rapids home, he showed some of his favorites, most still in the original boxes, which makes them more valuable.
He has a World War II Tuskegee airman, a Coast Guard officer, a West Point football player, an Annapolis midshipman, a Vietnam gunner and many others, all versions of GI Joe.
He picked up a figure of German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, made by another company and detailed down to the medals on its chest.
"These are, as far as action figures go, the cream of the crop,’’ said Buehner, but he added: "I’m always partial to GI Joe.’’
The current rise in sales is, in part, driven by men like Buehner who grew up playing with the action figures and now collect them.
A Hasbro spokeswoman declined to say what portion of sales is to adults.
“GI Joe’s doing very well right now,” said Audrey DeSimone, director of corporate communications for Hasbro. But she denied the increased sales are due to the prospect of war. "It’s been a trend we’ve seen over the last four years,’’ she said.
Brian Savage, president of the GI Joe Collectors’ Club based in Fort Worth, Texas, estimated there are about 10,000 hardcore GI Joe collectors nationwide--those who spend $100 or more a month on GI Joe paraphernalia.
"It’s a timeless type of toy,’’ he said. "GI Joe in the ‘60s was always every man. He could be your dad. He could be my dad.’’
Kids today buy GI Joe, he said, because "they want to be the hero. They want to beat the bad guys.
They want to protect the homeland.’’
"One of the things we like to say is GI Joe has saved the world a million times over, one back yard at a time.’’
Kevin Epling estimated he has 200 military figures in his collection, including dozens of GI Joes, "because that’s what I grew up with. "
"That was my favorite toy. I just gravitated back to recapturing my childhood.’’
Epling, director of multimedia for university relations at Michigan State University, has built elaborate dioramas and posed his soldiers in World War II combat settings.
He and Joe are the same age.
"I came out in January,’’ Epling said. "He came out in February.’’
That middle-aged men still admire GI Joe pleases Joe’s creator.
"For us to be sitting here in 2003 and talking about GI Joe is amazing,’’ said Don Levine, a former vice president of Hasbro who oversaw the team that developed GI Joe.
Mattel had seized the girls’ doll market by introducing Barbie in 1959. Many in the business were skeptical that boys would play with dolls, even those dressed as soldiers.
“I kept saying, `It isn’t a doll. It’s an action figure,’” Levine said.
Thus was born a new category of toy: the action figure.
Levine, a former master sergeant who had spent two years fighting in Korea, came up with the name GI Joe one night while watching a movie starring Robert Mitchum and Burgess Meredith, “The Story of GI Joe.”
“I said, ‘That’s the name,’” he recalled.
The following year, Hasbro introduced the first GI Joe, a 12-inch-tall figure, and it was an immediate success.
“The timing was perfect,” Levine said. “Parents didn’t feel uneasy about buying GI Joe. They considered GI Joe to be a surrogate father or a big brother or a hero.”
The company later released military figures based on Joe in other countries. In England, he’s Action Man. In Japan, he’s Combat Joe. In France, he’s Gyper Man.
GI Joe’s had his ups and downs over the years.
The company stopped making him in the late 1970s, then introduced a 3 and 3/4-inch version in 1982, calling him a "Real American Hero’’ battling an evil organization called COBRA, which, in retrospect, sounds a lot like al-Qaeda.
Hasbro reintroduced the 12-inch version a few years ago and came out with Colin Powell, John F. Kennedy and Dwight Eisenhower action figures.
“I think the heroes today are the young fellows who are sitting in Afghanistan and Baghdad,” Levine said, ignoring the fact that no American troops officially have reached the capital of Iraq.
History has shown sales of GI Joe tend to follow the popularity of wars.
“When Vietnam came along, it killed the sales,’’ Levine said.
As for the current conflict, “the attitude is if it doesn’t work out well and young men and women are injured, we’re going to see this GI Joe thing slow down.’’
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