The Most Ridiculous G.I. Joe Figures
I was a huge G.I. Joe fan. In fact, I’m pretty sure I had well over a hundred figures and maybe half that many vehicles and I would play the HELL out of those things. The original 3.5 inch figures were released n 1982, so that would have made me 8 and just the right age for wanting every single one of them. No, I don’t remember all of the figures I had, but what I do recall is that for every Storm Shadow, Snake Eyes, Flint, and Scarlett, there were an equal number of completely bizarre and “What-the-Hell-were-they-thinking” figures just like the ones below. Enjoy the reminiscing.
Dee Jay
According to his File Card: “Dee-Jay was the baddest, hottest disc jockey in Boston before he signed up for the Battle Force 2000 Team”
I’m not sure where to begin on how much sense that sentence doesn’t make.
Muskrat
According to his File Card: “Muskrat… was able to hold his own against poachers, ‘gator skinners, moonshiners, escapees from the chain gangs, and smugglers.”
Where the hell was this guy hanging out? Also, I can’t help but think of the Captain and Tennille song whenever I hear this guy’s name.
Footloose
According to his File Card: “Footloose… was standing on a boardwalk in Venice (FL) pondering something cosmic when the utter pointlessness of his existence hit him between the eyes like a runaway freight train.”
No. No I am not making that up. I had no idea Kafka was on their payroll.
Here’s the original Footloose ad for ya featuring a kid with quite possibly the shrillest vice on Earth.
Cobra Snow Patrol (Snow Serpent)
According to his File Card: “Other aspects of their training include airborne operations under arctic conditions… and the use of snowshoes, skis, and kayaks.”
Really? Kayaks? Also I was under the impression that G.I. Joe/Cobra troops were immune to cold weather since these guys and maybe Snow Job are about the only soldiers to actually dress for adverse climate conditions. Not very bright, those guys.
This is the commercial for the Snow Cat, but you get the idea about only a few characters in coats.
Wild Bill
According to his File Card: “Amiable and slow-talkin’, he fancies himself a Country Western singer.”
Slow-talkin’. Yeah, I guess he could fit the Country Western mold.
Here’s an ad featuring the Dragonfly, Wild Bill’s copter. Ya know, despite Wild Bill’s epic failure as a character, those vehicles look like fun eve now.
Monkeywrench
According to his File Card: “…having made himself a pariah in his hometown by the age of sixteen…”
Sweet Lord, now that’s how you screw up like a champ! And, just in case you aren’t looking closely, Monkeywrench is Snake Plisskin.
Not a Monkeywrench ad, but it is for his organization, the Drednoks. And they were pretty lame, too.
Spirit Iron-Knife
According to his File Card: “Spirit comes from a family so far below the poverty line that they never realized they were poor.”
Then they bought a casino. Could this guy be any more stereotypical? No. No he couldn’t.
Please, pay attention to this PSA. Your life depends on it!
Gnawgahyde
According to his File Card: “Ganwgahyde won’t bathe for a month before he goes out into the bush…”
What?
Another in the Dreadnok ads. No one specific, but still pretty silly.
Budo
According to his File Card: “He could have even higher rankings if he didn’t spend so much time working on his chopped pan-head Harley and listening to Heavy Metal.”
Don’t you just love how they make an otherwise throw-away character seem human and cool?
Raptor
According to his File Card: “Raptor was a Yuppie tax consultant who took up falconry as a past time...”
I can’t even count how frequently this happens.
Here’s the Falconer from SNL because it’s almost as funny as the Cobra guy there.
Croc Master
According to his File Card: “Croc Master, a former alligator wrestler and burglar alarm salesman.”
Perhaps the most random collection of words ever assembled.
Though this guy reviews toys about as excitedly as a blind monk, it is about Croc Master.
Major Bludd
According to his File Card: “Major Bludd writes poetry…” Oh, and his name is Sebastian. Ooooh, scary!
Hey, at least his name is a descriptive adjective and a noun. That’s cool.
WTF?
Crystal Ball
According to his File Card: “Cobra doesn’t use torture to interrogate their prisoners, when Crystal Ball is having one of his good days, they simply don’t need to.”
According to rumor, those words along with the rest of the card and the actual character were inspired by an idea from the King family… as in Stephen King. That explains it.
William ‘The Refrigerator’ Perry
According to his File Card: “The G.I. Joe obstacle course consists of only one obstacle: The Fridge.”
See cause he’s the size of a fridge, and all.
Football on a chain? Oh you know it!
Dr. Mindbender
According to his File Card: “Dr. Mindbender was at one time an excellent orthodontist and a very kind and honest man.”
And then he became the champion of the Gay Pride Parade.
I guess this is pretty clever.
Sgt. Slaughter
According to his File Card: “His favorite past time is marching over the boys backs while they do finger push-ups.”
Look at him. I’d just bet it is.
And after this he became an exceptionally shitty wrestler. Or maybe that was first. Who cares.
I actually had most of the Joes you have listed there. Many of them were actually pretty awesome. lol. But I guess my views were jaded by my love the toys.
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You should credit YoJoe.com for all of the images you took from our site. Bad etiquette.
Take all that back about Muskrat, he is clearly riding a surfboard into battle with a close range shotgun and machete.
He could be deployed against Somali pirates for crimony sake!
And I demand you remove Sgt. slaughter from this list. If you were a fan, you would know he was the leader of a special, special, SPECIAL forces program where he retrained criminals, ex-cobra soldiers, and NFL football dropouts.
Alright, anyone recognize that song that was being played by Dr. Bludd?
It was a butchered version of Four Horsemen by Metallica.
Cobra just got way cooler.
Major Bludd
Tomax and Xamot, the mirror image twins.
YoJoe.Com – I heartily apologize. Yes, tis true, a few of the, were borrowed, with gracious thanks, from your site, but the rest were gathered from elsewhere. Thank you, YoJoe (and whomever else we borrowed pics from), truly without you this list would not work. Please, share in its popularity.
Most of those toys were awesome. Whoever wrote this article is a douchebag.
I second the comment about Tomax and Xamot. those guys were douches.
What kid wants to buy an action figure whose file card reads – “Joined the reserve after he realized that 13 years in the US public education system didn’t give him a single marketable skill, but that the GI Bill would pay for his college tuition”?
Actually the following fits a number of people I met in the military: “Footloose… was standing on a boardwalk in Venice (FL) pondering something cosmic when the utter pointlessness of his existence hit him between the eyes like a runaway freight train.” As a veteran I would say whoever came up with that had spent some significant time around real soldiers.
As for ridiculous – what about the motorcycle with the canon for a sidecar? Great weapon for those mad max situations you get into with an enemy on the freeway.
Most of those dossiers were written by Larry Hama, who wrote the comic book. I had the first generation action figures from the 80s line, waaaaaay back in ‘82, and I still remember many of those personality descriptions to this very day.
Thanks to Mr. Hama for making my childhood that much cooler.
Muskrat had an awesome shotgun…as can be seen in the package. So he is by definition awesome.
Actually most of these figures were pretty awesome back in the 80’s.
There were so many worse than these.
The original Alley Vipers — with the florescent orange and blue suits and stupid cobra head shield … (actually, there are at least 10 Viper varieties that are absolutely ridiculous).
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After watching some of those commercials, I now wonder if G.I. Joe was partially/wholly funded by the U.S. military. I’m gonna go google it. Wait a sec… no answers on page one of the results, and that’s as far as I research anything. (True story, Fin)
How can you do an article on lame Gi-Joe figures and leave out Big Boa, Cobra’s own personal trainer. He was a boxer with a rediculous helmate. No wonder the joes walked over the vipers and other cobra foot soldiers so easilly, they were trained for boxing not guns.
Only by the standards of the first-string Joes and Cobras were these not cool. Compared to the larger toy world? Hell, they are still pretty good.
Man, I love GI Joe figures. There were some ridiculous ones though, I agree.
Crystal Ball looks like the product of some perverted gene splicing experiment involving Dr Strange, Mentok the MindMaster and Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four… if it then dressed up as a gay lion poacher.
nice post.
I had several of those, but I was always partial to Croc Master for some reason. And I lost him in a lake (or some similar body of water), because he fell out of the cockpit of some (non-GI Joe) space shuttle (or something) that I had him in.
You’d think something that upset me as much as I think I recall that doing would be more memorable, come to think of it.
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Saddly, people like you will never get what GI Joe is about. Honestly, you’re not even worth the bandwidth you’ve been given so far.
You missed the worst one of all… Ice Cream Soldier. I am not making it up.
Man, I got Duke that way too. That was a looooooong 68 weeks.
I am so hoping that they hired Ellis to write these in order to test the idea of doing a full blown series.
most idiotic review ever. you tend to focus on some of the bio cards’ information, not all.
snake eyes is very cool in the newer version. Totally SWEET I’d pay lots for just one of those hall of fame snake eyes with timber. YO JOE!
Ok this list is messed up. While I agree with Dee-Jay, Crystal Ball and The Fridge. But Mjr Bludd, Snow Serpent, Spirit and Mindbender? You have to be kidding me. Especially the Mindbender version you picked. The lab coat is arguably the best MB figure, even customs don’t come close to this one.
Funny
Alot of the figures were stereotypical, but GI Joe was my favorite. The commercials and cartoons were a genius way of bringing in my whole generation as a kid. Everyone had them. I never did get that ridiculously long air craft carrier. Too bad Hasbro began to grow up with the generation by modernizing it, and of course Kenner’s bias. Also,the 80’s figure design was superior!
And I’ve been on yojoe.com many times. They absolutely specialize in G.I. Joes. I would recommend them to anyone that wants to look back the full line of GI Joes.
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