While watching Toy Story 3 with the family last night not only did I place an over under bet on the number of times my wife would cry but I also thought back on the toys of my childhood. While I had some favorites at various times I don't remember having any that I had with me my entire childhood. I guess partly because I was more like Sid than Andy. Not in the sadistic way of just tearing them apart and cross breeding them with my sister's toys to create new ones but I was essentially a toy surgeon. We had this huge rock garden on the side of our house that we used as our G.I. Joe battlefield and set up booby traps which as it turns out rocks don't mix well with plastic toys. Luckily my dad was a garage sale junky so he'd come home with all sorts of G.I. Joe accessories, vehicles and any duplicates would go in the parts bucket.
The great thing was that my buddy Mike (who still owes me his 1st born from a lost poker bet but that's a story for another day...didn't happen in the 80's) only lived a few blocks away and he'd bring over the heavy artillery and jets and we'd have this huge battle zone set up. We'd always use this same rock that was shaped like a sharks fin as the Cobra Command Center too. All these rocks were set to trigger avalanches and I can remember more than a few times getting a finger crushed in the mayhem too. Pitfalls with broken off sticks in the bottom were another key element in our battlefield strategy though mainly reserved for Zartan and the Dreadnoks. For those of you not up to snuff on your G.I Joe lore...Zartan was a master of disguise and leader of the Dreadnoks who were a branch of Cobra (the bad guys) that were a biker gang and I could go on and on but I'd lose ya. But the great thing about about Zartan the action figure was he changed color when exposed to sunlight and he had a thermal reactive chest plate. Sadly what made him so cool is also what made it so hard to return him to his original state. I'm not sure if Zartan was rare or people were hoarding him but I never could find replacements parts for him but in reading up on him today it turns out he was only made for a limited time so maybe that explains it.
I mentioned earlier that whole thing about rocks & plastic not being compatible well many an action figure lost limbs or worse being crushed between a couple rocks. Good thing is I became quite adept at dismantling and reassembling both G.I. Joe and Cobra guys and had this little tool kit I kept in my bucket of random parts. Now one of the more devastating injuries for anyone including these action figures were of the spinal variety which in their case is to the rubber O ring that connected the t shaped hooked looking thing that was essentially their hips to the spot in their chest where the screw held them all together. This was a problem because I could never find the right size/thickness combination in an over the counter/after market O ring. They would be too short, too long, too thin or too thick so I had to take apart a perfectly good guy to get the coveted needed part which then led to random arms and legs that went to supply other wounded soldiers. So I'd end up having Beach Head with Lady Jayne's leg or Destro with Tomax or Xamot's arm but it was always hard to tell since they were twins. I always made sure no intermingling of parts between the opposing forces didn't need Duke's arm to turn on him as he was about to take out Cobra Commander because Dr. Mindbender took control of Monkeywrench's arm which had been transplanted onto Duke after the flooded mine incident.
I'm fairly certain my old G.I. Joes are still hanging around my parents house waiting for their next mission that is unless my little brother did unmentionable things to them. Even though their battlefield has been transported away a part of me wants to go get them and bring them out of retirement when I see my boys playing with Storm Shadow & Snake Eyes and show them how a real G.I. Joe vs Cobra war should be done.
No comments:
Post a Comment