GI Joe Documentary: The Story Of America's Movable Fighting Man

[00:00:00] Speaker ?: *music* [00:00:30] Speaker 1: We didn't do any research. You know, you would think if you're starting like this, you'd go into a library and you'd research how dolls were made for the last hundred years and things like that. We didn't do that. We just went and made it. [00:00:41] Speaker 2: I don't think anybody could do that today. I think the reason we were able to do it is because we were a little nuts. We had no fear. [00:00:50] Speaker 3: This product, in all its complexity, was born and created and had samples in one year. [00:00:59] Speaker 4: The action figure aisle in all of the toy stores that moms and dads go into was never there. It started with G.I. Joe, action soldier. He was the grandpa of it. [00:01:08] Speaker 5: The thing that is most surprising is the success with which this toy had in such a short period of time. [00:01:17] Speaker 6: Because it's G.I. Joe that put me through college. If it hadn't been for Joe, I'm not sure I would have been able to go to college. [00:01:24] Speaker 7: He was our buddy. He was a generation's buddy that the kids took to war, took to bed, confided in and blew the hell out of him. [00:01:33] Speaker ?: The End [00:02:03] Speaker 8: On the land On the sea And in the air [00:02:10] Speaker 4: There's a fellow named Stan Weston And over the years he and I became friendly And a very creative fellow And he handled the licensing of the monsters And the monster characters in Frankenstein I wanted to use those And what we did is we would license them And give the companies a royalty And an advance and things like that And in 1963 I went to Toy Fair Which is always in New York in February And Stan said to me Come on up I want to show you something And we talked for a while And during the conversation he said You know Barbie and Ken do very well But nobody's got a movable action figure A boy figure Ken really isn't an action figure She's sort of there as the consort to Barbie And he started to tell me about what he thought would be interesting And trying to be play poker face I said yeah that's very interesting And I left his office And I said my goodness This is exactly my kind of thing I think it could be exciting And as fate would have it I walked down the street It was on 55th street in New York and Manhattan And it probably still is there There was an art supply store called Arthur Brown Art Brown And in the window were these wooden dolls That artists and sculptors and people like that Used to pose for figure artwork and sculpturing And I went in and I bought about a dozen of those And I brought them back to Rhode Island And met with a very small staff of people in my office And I said I think I've got something here very exciting And I talked about a movable figure It just so happened that Sam Spears Who was the head of product development Jerry Einhorn Which was in marketing in my division Janet Downing Who was sort of the lady that took care of us all And yet was very creative [00:04:09] Speaker 3: He was presenting the proposal Which was, as he called it, a marriage Between the Barbie doll Which is very, very popular And military product lines for small kids [00:04:24] Speaker 1: Right away, old Sam says I don't want a boy's doll Especially if you're going to dress him I had a five-year-old son My wife and I at that time And I couldn't see a boy's doll He says it's to be dressed in military uniform [00:04:41] Speaker 3: I said to myself And then said it out loud That I think we should stop thinking about this as a doll And always refer to it as a soldier A G.I. Joe [00:04:52] Speaker 2: And I jumped up and said Well, you can't use G.I. Joe That belongs to Bill Malden From the story of G.I. Joe How can we use somebody else's property? [00:04:59] Speaker 3: Don Levine looked at me at that point And said, well, okay, Jan Use that as a name for now Until we get a better one [00:05:07] Speaker 1: It was going to be called a soldier Immediately I felt differently about it [00:05:13] Speaker 2: A soldier with uniforms and stuff And when I heard this Naturally, the first thing that popped into my head was Hey, Barbie's got the girls We're going to get the boys [00:05:24] Speaker 8: This is G.I. Joe Action soldier Here is the basic package And an exciting package it is With beautiful four-color action illustrations But Hasbro gives to the boys of America More than just a sensational new kind of soldier Hasbro introduces a whole new concept In playing soldier To go with G.I. Joe Action soldier There is box after box of regulation military gear Different kinds of uniforms All sorts of battle equipment Authentic G.I. Joe material With everything from combat To bivouac From MP To command post Helmets Rifles Tents Flags Sandbags Machine guns Everything carefully reproduced Down to the last detail But this is just the beginning In this giant new concept Hasbro brings to the youth of America Not only G.I. Joe action soldier But also G.I. Joe action marine G.I. Joe action sailor And G.I. Joe action pilot Four G.I. Joes Four different services [00:06:43] Speaker 4: Three or four of us had been in the military I was in Korea And the boys were in the service And it was very comfortable For us to say Wait a minute We could do a machine gun Or we could do a hand grenade It wasn't foreign to us We had been veterans in the military And most times in combat [00:06:59] Speaker 2: And everybody at once Started saying Hey we could do this And we can do that And we get uniforms And we get this And we get weapons And this and that And for a few minutes It was almost like chaos [00:07:11] Speaker 4: Until we calmed down I think it was Janet Or somebody saying I think it's a great idea But Don Mr. Hassenfeld Was not going to let us be in the doll business [00:07:20] Speaker 3: It was violating a couple of his taboos One of which was a doll Another was guns [00:07:26] Speaker 1: We would love to get in the doll business But every time we tried It was very unsuccessful [00:07:33] Speaker 4: He always said This is not for us If we're going to be in the doll business We better buy a doll company We know nothing about it Very competitive business And my attitude was Well this is not a doll This is a soldier Come on Don It's still a doll Right? And this was the concern that they had But as we started to get into this The enthusiasm and the excitement Started to build [00:07:58] Speaker 1: So Joe was going to be the same size as Bobby Proportioned differently But that was the statue [00:08:07] Speaker 2: Actually nobody could really do anything Until we had actual models, products to work with [00:08:14] Speaker 1: Don had in the office at that time I believe Was an artist mannequin And he says This should be articulated And I agreed wholeheartedly In fact After I saw the mannequin I figured this thing Has got to be able to pose But I'm not sure everybody else understood What I meant pose I wanted to him If he was going to throw a grenade His arm would hold that position And not fall down by the weight of the grenade Or if he had a backpack He wouldn't fall on his face [00:08:48] Speaker 4: There was no reason to have a movable soldier If he couldn't move And he couldn't get behind the wheel of a jeep Or go into a foxhole Or jump off a roof with a parachute Up to that point All of these soldiers had been plastic soldiers Or die-cast metal soldiers So this idea of a movable doll And the joints in the wooden doll Seemed to be The timing was perfect [00:09:11] Speaker 1: If Norman, Walter and I Could make a soldier that was poseable We'd have a great item [00:09:17] Speaker 8: A soldier big enough to really play with But look G.I. Joe doesn't just stand He kneels He lifts his arms to fire a rifle He can charge Or he can sit down and rest He can throw a grenade Or crouch in a foxhole He can perform every action of a soldier Because Hasbro's G.I. Joe Has 21 movable parts His head turns His arms move He bends his elbow His wrists move He can turn from left to right [00:09:51] Speaker 2: One of the key words In this entire G.I. Joe project From the very first day Was secrecy And that very first day When Don Levine told us About this idea room We started talking about He said We tell nobody It doesn't leave this office Not even other people In the department Yet Nobody's to hear about this Don't even tell your wife Your wives Because women go to the supermarket With their friends And they start talking And before you know it Somebody hears something And mentions it to somebody And next thing you know Another company's coming out With What we're doing Knockoffs were very, very prevalent In the toy business [00:10:30] Speaker 1: We really wanted G.I. Joe equipment To be authentic So I went to Don And I said Do you suppose We could get rifles and grenades And bring them in here So that we can measure them And reduce them to G.I. Joe size He said Why not I'll get Jerry on the ball Right away [00:10:49] Speaker 2: The first place I decided to go to Was the armory Of the mounted command The National Guard armory The commander of that Was the adjutant general Of the state of Rhode Island Leonard Holland Wherever I went I had to concoct some stories About why I wanted What I wanted And I went to General Holland I told him that We were thinking of coming out With a line of backyard toys For kids To play soldier And he had a great idea I said Yeah But general I need weapons I want an M1 rifle I want a carbine I want a .30 caliber machine gun A .50 caliber machine gun And a BAR And he just sat there Looking at me And he had a hell of a sense of humor And he said Who are you going to declare war on? I said We're going to take over Central Falls But he said He called in his assistant At that time Captain Nick Anicelli And he said Give him what he needs Drove back to Central Falls And one by one Brought the stuff upstairs And had to walk through The main office To get to the steps To go up to our office And everybody's looking What is he doing With these weapons [00:11:58] Speaker 3: Big weapons Through the corridors And weaving their way Through the secretaries And going up to our stairs And climbing up the stairs All these young women Eyes as big as saucers [00:12:13] Speaker 2: We lined them up Outside the door And anybody who would Venture up those stairs Would be facing All these weapons The .50 caliber machine gun And the .30 caliber And the tripods Just looking you right in the eye And that was our starting point [00:12:26] Speaker 1: Some equipment Couldn't be found So I went to Jerry Einhorn And said Hey Jerry We need blueprints If you can't find The actual item Blueprints [00:12:35] Speaker 2: Who is going to give me The blueprints I called General Holland again And I told him What I really needed And he said The Springfield Armory In Springfield, Massachusetts Has all the blueprints To all the small arms In the U.S. arsenal [00:12:52] Speaker 8: Take a look at G.I. Joe's Battle Gear A new kind of action realism In playing soldier All of his gear From canteen and mess kit To .30 caliber machine gun From entrenching tools And field pack To communication equipment Is all regulation gear Designed from official Army and Navy blueprint And each piece of gear Scaled to size So that it fits The canteen cover Fits over the canteen The canteen Clips onto the cartridge belt And the cartridge belt Fits over the uniform This is G.I. Joe Action soldier [00:13:31] Speaker 2: Then came the uniforms And that was a little tougher Where am I going to get The uniforms I called all different Army and Navy stores I called several In New York City In Boston And one of the guys in Boston And one of the guys in Boston Said to me There is a warehouse On the Chelsea waterfront Where this man has a warehouse Full of war surplus Everything you can think of I said What does he use it for? He said He's shipping it to South America There every Seemed like every month Down in South America At that time In the 60s There was a revolution In a different country And this guy was just supplying The stuff He told me where it was And I walk in And I see As far as the eye can see Mounds of uniforms And weapons And parts And everything And all of the sudden From my left A little guy walks over And says Can I help you? In a voice Just like that And I said Yeah I need some of this stuff He said What for? So here again I had to think fast And I said Well I represent The University of Rhode Island And we're adding To our museum We're adding a wing Dedicated to World War II And we need actual things To put on display He says Take what you want Well I loaded up The trunk of that car With all sorts of uniforms Everything Helmets Just stack that trunk full Close the trunk Said to the guy What do I owe you? He says Hey give me 20 bucks I figured revolutions Were very cheap In those days [00:15:01] Speaker 8: What about his uniforms? They're just uniforms Just the regulation uniforms Just the authentic uniforms That the Quartermaster Corps Designs for the real life G.I. Joe Fatigue uniforms Battle dress MP uniforms Whatever the action The real uniform [00:15:20] Speaker 4: Mr. Hassanfeld was away He was overseas For two or three weeks Which again worked out beautifully Because we were able to In a very secret way Behind locked doors Put this secret thing together And one day I'm informed Mr. Hassanfeld is back And he's going to want to know What we've been doing [00:15:39] Speaker 9: To earn our salaries It was quite irate That everybody In the management Knew about What Donald Levine Was working on Except he Himself [00:15:49] Speaker 4: Did not know We were upstairs In our offices At that time We had sort of The upstairs floor We had the art department The model making department And my office up there And one day And I think it was Janet Said I hear him coming up the stairs [00:16:04] Speaker 3: And we all heard Mr. Hassanfeld Climbing those stairs He was not a very tall man But he was a very big man And every step you heard [00:16:16] Speaker 4: And Merrill came into my office And he said to me How you doing? How's everything? And I talk specifically About everything but G.I. Joe We're going to do new paint sets We're going to do new chess And checker sets We have a new stethoscope For our doctor kit And he says He puts his hand up And he said to me Wait a minute Wait There's something going on here That the whole company Is talking about I'm the last to find out I own this company Please tell me what's going on [00:16:44] Speaker 3: Marion The secretary Who was in the hallway office Comes in to us In our room And said Please get everything together That you've done For G.I. Joe [00:16:57] Speaker 9: It was great flurry The conference room Outside of the president's office Was just around the corner From my office And that was cleared And Don Levine And his staff Set up an entire layout With toys Figures Implements Everything for G.I. Joe And he made a presentation As if it was To a group of investors Of one To Merrill Hassenfold [00:17:22] Speaker 3: This was about 4.30 We all left at 5 And we didn't know What was going to happen The next day If we were all Going to be working there The next morning or not [00:17:31] Speaker 4: And I took out The cigar box And I opened it up And I took out This very rudimentary Soldier And sailor And marine And I showed it to him I watched him To see what was happening [00:17:42] Speaker 9: Every toy concept That was ever presented To Merrill He would shift gears From the business Mathematical executive type To a child And he really acted Like a child He would finger toys Toys He would move them As if he had pudgy fingers And it was amazing How he would evaluate things [00:18:06] Speaker 4: And he was fascinated with it He said my goodness Where did you get this Where did it come about And I gave him the story And he said You know this is interesting But he said wow This is so different Than anything we've ever done In the industry And he said I'm very concerned about this And he said Let me go home And let me think about this For a while And that's all I wanted He was a beautiful Straight guy And if he said He's going to think about it He was going to think about it [00:18:32] Speaker 6: When dad first talked to me About his coming out With G.I. Joe I sort of looked at him And said You know dad I'm not sure boys Are really going to want to play With dolls [00:18:46] Speaker 9: Merrill Hassenfeld's wife Sylvia Heard what was happening At the company And she had concerns About a boy Boy doll And she was given The very same presentation By Don and staff To convince her That this was a legitimate toy And finally The presentation was done For whoever the backers Finance people were For the amount Of money that was needed Because this was going to be The very first time That Hasbro Was going to be outsourcing To the Orient For the manufacturer Of an entire Whole product line [00:19:23] Speaker 8: This is G.I. Joe Action Marine Uniformed in camouflaged Fatigues With all sorts of Exciting marine equipment Here is everything From paratrooper To communications From dress parade To beachhead assault Parachute packs Carbines Flamethrowers Camouflaged communication gear Helmets And flags G.I. Joe Action Marine Brings a new kind Of action realism To plain soldier [00:19:58] Speaker 1: Mr. Hassenfeld Had a big Big nut to crack If he was going to Back up This new concept Of G.I. Joe Because there was going To be at least 72 packages And they had to be ready For Toy Fair 1964 [00:20:12] Speaker 9: We were confronted I think Early in the summer With a basic decision And that was Precipitated By a major Product concept Being offered To Hasbro From a California Designer Named Ruben Klamer And he came in With what Hasbro Felt Merrill Hassenfeld And the Hasbro Team felt Was a major Major step For them And this was In direct competition With G.I. Joe It was a shopping A grocery shopping Set concept With shopping carts And shelves Canned goods Replicas Of fruits and vegetables Checkout counters With recorded messages It was a full blown Grocery store Experience We came upon The idea Of play testing The G.I. Joe Concept And the shopping Store concept And the conclusion Was that the Supermarket concept [00:21:10] Speaker 4: Had greater appeal Than G.I. Joe One Friday night I went into his office Going home And we worked late And he was sitting In his office Smoking his cigar With his glasses Up on top of his head He said to me I'll tell you what I'll tell you what I'm going to do I'm going to call Four or five Of the leading buyers In the country Who are friends of mine And I want to bring Them up here And I want you To present this line And I want you To be a big boy If they turn it down I want to forget about it I don't want to Ever hear anything Because I would bother Him every single day Close to the fact That my wife Nan Would say You're going to get fired If you don't leave This man alone I said okay And he said I'm going to give you The chance At my expense I'm going to bring These people in And I'm going to look At this whole story [00:21:57] Speaker 9: The key people That were coming in To see Hasbro Were leaning towards The G.I. Joe concept And as a matter of fact I understand I wasn't in the meeting I understand that Sears and Roebuck Flatly rejected The supermarket concept Because they said Something similar Had been tried Several years earlier In Canada And had not succeeded And that did it For that whole concept [00:22:21] Speaker 4: The attitude was After it was all over You've got a winner here We think it's interesting We don't know about How it's going to sell We think it's very interesting And that next Friday night I was leaving the office A month later And he's in his office And I walked in And I said Excuse me I said Now you be a big boy And let's get this thing going And he laughed And he says How soon can you pack up To go overseas [00:22:45] Speaker 1: With Don Levine saying go I ran out of the office To Norman and Walter I said We have a project Put everything else down This has to be done tomorrow How? I don't know But I envisioned Pretty much What it had to be I didn't want any prop Or anything holding this G.I. Joe In a position I wanted him to stand by himself And then assume positions And hold the equipment Norman was very ingenious He could do anything With box making He'd make open boxes Closed boxes Set up boxes He was really Their packaging man And very good to have On my staff Walter had been In the jewelry industry For many years If he could make These small beautiful jewelry He could somehow handle it Well Walter says Where do I start? And I said Well I guess you start With a chest So he started sculpting A chest out of metal From day after day He and Norman Would work together And I would When they got in a problem They'd call me They'd say Sam I don't know where we go We got the chest done What do we do next? Well I said You've got to have Some place for the arms to go You've got to have A socket there I would think Now Start to try to fit The upper arm Into that socket Once you get it In other words It'll be a female socket And you put a ball in there Okay well how do we hold it there? And I said [00:24:10] Speaker 4: Well let me think about it a while You have to remember That this figure Had to be manufacturable It had to come out Of a certain cost If we made this figure And it was 62 dollars and 50 cents What was the fun of that? [00:24:25] Speaker 1: I remembered There was such a thing As women used For elastic In their garments It's called elastic braid Brought them back To Norman and Walter And I said Put these In the chest To hold the two arms together And whenever You need An extension To hold parts Use this elastic braid I don't remember exactly What the formula was But it was cotton And elastic Now today 35 years later If I find a Joe And I examine That elastic braid It's still functioning So we were lucky I admit But it was the right material [00:25:09] Speaker 4: The fact that it ended up being What everybody knows today That it's the movable figure With 21 movable parts That's become famous I never said to anybody Make me a figure With 21 movable parts I just said Make me a figure That moved and sat down And would stretch And do things like that It just so happened To be molded correctly And economically It became 21 movable parts [00:25:34] Speaker 1: Walter and Norman Came to me one day And they said Sam we're at the hands What position do you want The fingers put in And I thought for a minute And I said Well fellas I think we're going to Certainly have them Shoot M1 rifles So let's make it So he's got a trigger figure And something To hold the rifle [00:25:54] Speaker 4: And I looked at these hands And lo and behold On one of the thumbs The thumbnail Instead of being on the top part Like our thumbnail Was on the bottom And the poor young man That was doing this Was going blind Trying to look at These little fingers And he said Oh my goodness I apologize I'll correct it I said Don't correct it Nobody will notice it Leave it there So sure enough He looked at me Like I was crazy And we left it there We made hundreds Of thousands that way And one day Jerry Einhorn Came to me And he said There's a shipment Of characters Coming in like G.I. Joe And we said Let's check the hands And sure enough That fingernail Was on the wrong side People in Asia Copied it The way they saw it And we stopped That guy too [00:26:38] Speaker 1: What was going to hold The various components In position And really The only answer Was a rivet To hold Two parts together The rivet Would pass through The adopter And be closed At the outside The only other problem We Norman and Walter Ran into Was at the Ball joints At the hips Again We needed something That was rubbery But And not slippery Because it had to hold Again Tension At that point So that if he were To bend over He could hold That bend I happened to As a child Would take golf balls Apart And these golf balls Had in their center A small rubber ball And it occurred to me That might be At right size And it might not I brought them back [00:27:33] Speaker ?: I brought them back [00:27:33] Speaker 1: To Walter and Norman They drilled a hole in them They fed the elastic braid Down to the legs And it was great stuff I don't think we ever Improved on those rubber balls But we had to find Some other way Of manufacturing And eventually We injection molded them Out of styrene butadiene When Walter was finished With the first one The whole G.I. Joe Was finished All metal I said Come on over to my desk And Norman and Walter Come over And I said Let's see if it will stand And they placed it on my desk And he did stand And his arms moved In positions Many positions And he held those positions I said That's great I think that's what we wanted But he looks terrible He's a sort of [00:28:23] Speaker 4: Ugly looking character When I finally saw This figure go together Because you have to remember I was seeing bits and pieces I was very concerned That when the boy Took clothing off G.I. Joe Which was part of the play value That they would look at this thing And it would look like Something like an automaton Or something like The bionic man Or whatever All stuck together with rivets [00:28:44] Speaker 1: On the other hand We really We again lucked out It wasn't smooth Like Ken Or Bobby It was rough And crude Like a boy Should play with It was more robotic Florence Worked along with us To four sizes She knew how to make a pattern Over what we had And she made The first G.I. Joe uniform And once you placed That G.I. Joe uniform On this soldier He looked like a soldier He didn't look like a robot anymore And she made a man's face to kill her [00:29:22] Speaker ?: And she made a man's face to kill her And she made a man's face to kill her And she made a man's face to kill her And she made a man's face to kill her And she made a man's face to kill her And she made a man's face to kill her And she made a man's face to kill her And she made a man's face to kill her And she made a man's face to kill her And she made a man's face to kill her And she made a man's face to kill her And she made a man's face to kill her And she made a man's face to kill her And she made a man's face to kill her And she made a man's face to kill her And she made a man's face to kill her And she made a man's face to kill her [00:29:39] Speaker 4: I learned something Little boys couldn't care less What he looked like underneath the clothing Girls probably with a Barbie doll Would care But little boys just took it And took it in stride And that came out fine So it never really was a problem Once we learned about it [00:30:20] Speaker 1: We finally brought the metal soldier To Hugh O'Connor Hugh started immediately Building a one cavity mold of each pot So that they might possibly meet [00:30:31] Speaker 4: Toy Fair in February 64 The immensity of doing Army, Navy, Marine and Air Corps Again, Meryl and our people were concerned That how can we get it all done I tell you what I was asked Why don't we just come out with Army at first And really do a job on Army I had been so involved and enmeshed in this I said to my boss Please, let's not do that If we don't do Army, Navy, Marine and Air Corps Make a statement to the world And this is our concept Our property Somebody else is going to jump in very quickly Because they could do that Once they see what we did And they will do the other services We've got to protect our flanks Is the way I said it in the military term And again, Meryl Hassanfeld thought for a moment He said, okay, we'll work it out We'll get the finances to do it We'll make it happen When the metal model was turned over to Huey [00:31:28] Speaker 1: It did not have a head It just had the neck with the ribs in it Where a head could be snapped on Walter Hansen had tried a head But it wasn't accepted by Don [00:31:39] Speaker 4: So when they would bring me these faces And I'd look at them And I guess it was wrong I was predetermined to do something That was a general kind of all-American G.I. Joe I never saw that And one day, again I believe it was Sam Spears Said to me that someplace up in Massachusetts Near us in New England Was a very famous sculptor I called up Phil Krakowski And wondered if he'd meet with me [00:32:05] Speaker 1: He did busts of Jack Kennedy Curtis LeMay, J. Edgar Hoover He was certainly a quality sculptor [00:32:16] Speaker 4: I think if you conveyed to him What we're looking for He would be able to do this [00:32:21] Speaker 1: Phil told us that it would be done Within the week In what we call plastiline Rough modeling So in about a week Phil showed up at the plant And showed me what he had It looked good But of course Don [00:32:36] Speaker 4: Would be the final answer on it And he wasn't putting up with any nonsense And the attitude was This is the head If you don't like it There's the door [00:32:44] Speaker 3: When Sam came back from picking up the head From Phil Krakowski And he had it on his desk He was really It was like he was holding the Holy Grail I mean he just really was just awestruck [00:32:59] Speaker 8: To go with G.I. Joe Action Sailor There are these exciting Navy packages Equipment for sea rescue For frogman For Navy attack And U.S. Navy shore patrol Children will be fascinated by the detail in the regulation equipment Life preservers Scuba suits Scuba tanks Swim fins Complete shore patrol gear G.I. Joe Action Sailor Brings a new kind of action realism To playing soldier [00:33:40] Speaker 4: At that particular time We said what is the name going to be Of this particular concept So we had working names like Ace the fighter pilot Rocky the marine And at that time we thought That this is pretty good That this will be fine We had a very small advertising agency In New York That was owned and run By two gentlemen One's name was Fred Bruns He was the older gentleman B-R-U-N-S The other one was Donald Don Bruns And at that time Having some insight Into what we were doing Fred Bruns came back one day And said to me You know I think this is great The buyers have seen it But you need a special name By having all of these different names It's like shooting buckshot We're not going to hit the target You need one name And forget about all these other names And one night I'm sitting in my den And I'm watching television And a black and white movie comes on It's called The Story of G.I. Joe And that reaffirmed And I said wait a minute This is fate again Is doing something to us We had a trademark attorney Elliot Salver at that time And Elliot looked into it And we found out That the name G.I. Joe Was registered for a comic book And it was registered for a candy bar But it was never registered In whatever the classification is For toys 22 or 23 or whatever And we decided to Trademark this and register After that I went all over the world Making sure that Hasbro That we own the name G.I. Joe But the synergistic connection Between the name G.I. Joe And what we did I honestly say Has a lot to do with Why you and I are sitting here 35 years later Still talking about G.I. Joe It works [00:35:24] Speaker 2: When I first got those Initial weapons The M1 The carbine The machine guns We were supposed to have them For a week or two But we had them For about four weeks And General Holland Called Merrill Hasenfeld One day And said Merrill The Inspector General Is coming from Washington For an inspection Of my command Are you going to give me Back the weapons Or should I send them To your place [00:35:47] Speaker 4: To inspect them It was a gentleman At that time Who was Vice President Of Hasbro Named Bill Pressman Who had traveled Extensively In the toy business And he said To Merrill Hasenfeld I, Don And I will go overseas Together And we will seek out Suppliers to make this And we had a lot Of hand samples And a lot of stuff That our product development Department gave us And we went to Japan And we worked with A company named Sanye In Japanese Ichi, Nissan San is three Sanye were three partners That ran this Particular manufacturing company [00:36:23] Speaker 6: A lot of it was done In the island At Kiyushu And I remember stories Of my brother Coming back From the Far East Telling me Of all the trials Of the tribulations [00:36:33] Speaker 4: And Sanye Would go out Into small fishing villages Around Japan Around Tokyo And give out G.I. Joe's uniforms To be made The mayor of most of these towns Would ride a bicycle And he would go collecting The clothing From these women Who may have been nursing Their kids in their houses And I would go into these towns And it was like Bawana Dun Was coming into the town Everybody was putting together The clothing [00:36:59] Speaker 6: And then they actually Moved down The sourcing of it To Hong Kong To HKI Hong Kong Industrial [00:37:07] Speaker 4: I met with Some lawyers there In Hong Kong Called solicitors And I said At that time I'd like to Trademark And copyright G.I. Joe And they looked at this And they said Mr. Levine You can't own And copyright The human body I said I want to own this body And they said We all own Our own bodies You can't own The human body But what we would Recommend is That you do something Sort of special For G.I. Joe If you could figure out Something special Then we know Whoever goes And makes it Or knocks it off We can stop them And I thought about it Right then in the office And I said Let's put a scar On his face Anything I could do To not make it [00:37:48] Speaker 1: Look like a doll I was happy Because he was going To have a real grenade And a gun That was going to help too But a scar He'd been through battle And I threw that out At that meeting But we didn't hear From that In a long time There was no scar Except Don wrote me A letter From Hong Kong At a later date Saying Hey We should put a scar On his cheek Well at that time I walked over to Walter And I said Look I took a pencil It just seemed A natural place For a scar to be So I said Here Put a little scar On his face [00:38:25] Speaker ?: There [00:38:25] Speaker 9: Someone just Made a A sarcastic comment About the G.I. Joe scar And everybody shrugged Their shoulders And just laughed And said Well let's Don Let Don have his way It was obvious The scar was there For a reason And again This was the Masculine infant This was not going To be a pretty boy [00:38:46] Speaker 4: Ken And that became Very important And significant For G.I. Joe Which we did Several companies Did that They copied G.I. Joe With a They copied A doll With a scar And we were able To stop them Because of that [00:38:59] Speaker 8: To go with G.I. Joe Action pilot There are thrilling Sets of Air force equipment Everything from Scramble To survival And of course Dress uniforms High altitude Helmets Flight suits Pad and clipboard Air vests Flare guns All the gear Necessary So that G.I. Joe Action pilot Can bring a new Kind of action Realism To playing soldier [00:39:30] Speaker 4: One of the things I was definitely So sure of Was the packaging And how we would Present it to the world I wanted Packaging people That would just Give this Army, Navy, Marine and Air Corps Enthusiasm And excitement And I have to give credit I believe it was To a fellow Named George Barton Who has since Passed away Who was in charge Of our art department He and Sam Sat down And said Don is looking for this And we're looking for that And they came up With this Thresher and Petrucci [00:40:03] Speaker 10: The first item In doing the boxes Was we have to Come up with a logo For G.I. Joe Harold and I Worked on Probably At least A dozen Different logos It was the final one Now That you see now On the boxes Which it actually was Our main choice Everybody said Well we gotta make it A little more You know Unusual And it was almost like Everybody said Let's put one of the G.I. Joe heads On top of the I Every branch Of the service Has their own Little head on top And it makes a nice Little nice logo This whole project Took about 75 different packages Which had to be ready In time for the Toy fair There were so many Illustrations That had to be done So we had a friend George Eisenberg And we called him in To help us Do the illustrations [00:40:56] Speaker 5: This rang a bell Because it has Revived my Memories of an exciting Period of my life A board of Combat destroyer During World War II And I had so much Experience In this regards I was quite excited About getting involved With this whole new project [00:41:14] Speaker 10: When doing the Illustrations They had to be authentic So this meant We had to get Authentic uniforms [00:41:20] Speaker 5: We tried to think In terms of What kind of a person Is G.I. Joe Is he a person? No He was America The American conscience He was The Army Navy Air Force He was everything We had to find Some way of identifying Everybody under one name [00:41:43] Speaker 10: Now we had a model So We'd have Different people Poles In the positions We wanted With the uniforms [00:41:53] Speaker 5: I found this pilot In dress And asked him If he would pose And sure enough He was very obliged Got him standing up Sitting down Running Doing everything Possible To fill That little Slotted area That was given to me [00:42:14] Speaker 10: This became More fun Than doing the Illustrations Sometimes Because I did a lot Of the posing Myself But there were A lot of models That are Some of these Some of these People They thought This was the Greatest thing When they saw These toys And they knew That they posed For the pictures Even if dad Didn't have children They'd be out Buying the boxes To show Or giving us Gifts for Christmas To their nephews So that was a fun part Of it Even the jeeps And everything We drew Was very authentic Because we did Go to the source And make sure We had the right thing And this This probably Had a lot to do With the success Of this [00:42:58] Speaker 2: We had to get together The entire line Which then consisted Of 75 packages They wanted to take it Into New York To show it to various Buyers To get their reaction [00:43:16] Speaker 4: He took a group Of rooms In New York City I think it was The Regency Hotel And a few days before We showed it To five or six Key buyers And Sam and I [00:43:28] Speaker 2: And whoever else Came with us Went into one Of the back rooms And we were listening With the door Slightly ajar As Don Levine And Merrill Hassenfeld And whoever else Was involved Was showing it To the buyer From Woolworths And I think From Sears They're really They're really big guys [00:43:45] Speaker 11: We were Sears Roebuck In those days Sears was it There was no Wal-Mart There was no Toys R Us It was Sears Roebuck Everybody wanted To be in Sears catalog We packed the stuff up [00:43:58] Speaker 2: And brought it back Up to Rhode Island And several weeks later For Toy Fair We packed up Six station wagons With a regular toy line On a G.I. Joe line And just as we were About to leave In a convoy To New York Don Levine said to us If we get into An accident Throw your bodies Over the samples We don't want Anything to happen To them [00:44:20] Speaker 4: There's an old Truism In the toy business Which is as true Today as it was In 1804 And that's Boys like action And girls like fashion And that has never Changed So if I've learned This in the toy industry That girls like fashion And boys like action What am I going to do With this boy doll That they call it So again Merrill and I sat down We were coming into 1964 To the Toy Fair We were at a hotel In New York City Where we were in The theater of the hotel There must have been A couple of hundred people There are advertising agency Marketing people Salesmen Etc And our staff And people from Hasbro I think it might have been Merrill Who said to everybody Let me tell you something If any of you Are caught Selling your accounts And telling your buyers That this is a doll We will not ship Into your territory We will make no commissions It's over [00:45:18] Speaker 2: The whole thing was based On what a boy Played with a doll Said no We wouldn't play with a doll But he played with a soldier G.I. Joe Was always referred to As a soldier Never the D word [00:45:28] Speaker 9: The first thing That was needed Was a Documentary film Or introductory film For the trade That is The major chain buyers Wholesale buyers And the major retail buyers Strictly people Who would be distributing The G.I. Joe product line The Bruns agency Developed this film It was about 20 minutes long [00:45:48] Speaker 12: G.I. Joe Reporting for duty sir [00:45:50] Speaker 8: Since the beginning of time Children have always Played soldier With wooden swords Broomstick rifles With cast lead soldiers With plastic miniatures But none of these Had the ring of authenticity None of these Gave a boy the feeling That he was playing Real soldier Give a boy An army field manual And his fanciful imagination Will carve reality Out of thin air To make a boy's dream Come true Hasbro is proud To present G.I. Joe America's movable Fighting man Thousands of boys Will start with one service But other thousands Will start with two G.I. Joes And even all four Market research tests Show that boys Who have played with G.I. Joe Want all four And with a full range Of authentic equipment The four-way G.I. Joe line Builds into the greatest Open-end merchandising program The boys market has had Since the introduction Of the electric train G.I. Joe Cannot live his service life And fight his playroom battles Without the full range Of equipment Which is built Into all four categories And sold in beautiful And dramatic packages And to promote This revolutionary concept Hasbro will use The most strategic Advertising campaign Ever put behind a toy A campaign plan Not only to reach Every boy in America But every adult Plans call for Giant advertising And mammoth publicity Advertising strategy That will use television As though this were Truly a battle For the consumer's dollar On the right flank G.I. Joe On network television On the left flank G.I. Joe On spot television In your market And right up the center A G.I. Joe Print campaign In comics In newspapers In magazines Total advertising strategy Exciting television commercials Startling and dramatic Print ads A publicity campaign With stories Already projected And in work For America's Leading magazines To make every boy And every parent A part of the big parade To toy stores everywhere To see And to buy G.I. Joe America's movable fighting man On the land On the sea [00:48:27] Speaker ?: And in the air [00:48:33] Speaker 8: He's here In the wonderful world of toys And Hasbro's got him G.I. Joe [00:48:45] Speaker 9: It was mandatory At Toy Fair That no salesperson Could bring in a buyer And show them The G.I. Joe product line Without first having seen This film Because this was felt To be an important Indoctrination To establish the military Masculine mark On the product category We did hear Some negative comments That some individuals Especially those Who had relatives Or children Who were lost in war Took it quite hard They felt that the treatment Was very grim Too militaristic Notwithstanding [00:49:31] Speaker 4: He did his job We decided beforehand Sam Spears and I That we would Not just put this product On the shelf Or on the wall That we would do Something Hollywood That we would present it The way We would see kids Buying it And doing it In their backyards And we created What were known As these glass dioramas There were four dioramas [00:49:55] Speaker 1: One for each service Within these dioramas We had brought along Rocks from North Attleboro And wood And dirt And when they were finished They were absolutely What a child would desire Should he or she [00:50:11] Speaker 4: Be playing with G.I. Joe On the Navy one We had an aircraft carrier With maybe 60 Navy people Coming off of it With the Army We had bunkers And we had lines Of soldiers lining up And fighting And we did things like that So when you walked Into that Hasbro showroom And you looked at this There was G.I. Joe In every position You could bend And move him And that They went nuts [00:50:40] Speaker 9: Over that thing And we were short One item Which is very mundane But very necessary In any line of business And that's a catalog We didn't have a catalog ready For one very good reason And this was a problem Of security And I must say That on this score Don didn't help too much Because throughout the Summer and fall Preceding toy show Even though we Even though we had Play tested G.I. Joe And even that was difficult Because Don was Almost paranoid About the idea Seeping out And someone would Pick up on it And beat us To the punch [00:51:21] Speaker 4: We went away From Toy Fair With sort of Something called Light and polite They bought They were polite They bought light And they said If it does well We'll stand behind you But we want to try it I believe our marketing And advertising people Decided to try Some television In New York City And do some local Advertising [00:51:44] Speaker 9: And strangely enough The first commercials Presented to us At Toy Show In the form of Storyboards And an informal Presentation Were rather Kidsy I recall that They were using A parallel Of the Speedy Alka-Seltzer commercial Which was then Current Where Speedy Was an animated figure I guess that was The rationale And G.I. Joe Would be an animated Figure who would Pop up and Maybe talk to camera And this was Rejected Very Soundly By everybody At the Hasbro team Especially Don Levine Don Levine Didn't like this At all So The agency Went back And Continued In the same vein As the documentary Film And developed A series Of combat scenes With a central Character Of G.I. Joe Who was the hero [00:52:40] Speaker 13: G.I. Joe G.I. Joe Fighting man For men to go On the land On the sea In the air G.I. Joe Is back Boom boom G.I. Joe Take battle Bam bam Terrific battle Terrific equipment To have a battle with When you get G.I. Joe And the authentic G.I. Joe Equipment You'll have The greatest realism The greatest fun You ever had In playing soldier Box after box Of authentic uniforms And equipment So you can change Your G.I. Joe And your G.I. Joe Soldier Into a camouflage marine Ready for battle A Navy frogman With complete scuba suit And inflatable Nightwrap An air force pilot With high altitude Helmet and air vest Get G.I. Joe And get G.I. Joe Equipment So you can set up Exciting battle action Whenever you want Remember Only G.I. Joe Is G.I. Joe [00:53:38] Speaker 4: Once that commercial Came on You gotta remember It was just in New York City A few times It blew everybody away The items [00:53:46] Speaker 2: Had to go on Allotment In other words A buyer Couldn't come in And say I want As many as I can get It's whatever We will allow you To get Because we gotta Spread it out [00:53:58] Speaker 9: When G.I. Joe Finished his first year Of the company And I was doing 60 million A year It was a Threefold increase [00:54:04] Speaker 6: I give my dad Such credit Because there Were many other People That said You know A doll Won't ever sell And then I can Remember A number of years Later Working with U.S. customs Because for years What we now Call action figures Were classified As dolls And you know How quickly You change The way you think I can remember Passionately discussing That darn it G.I. Joe Is not a doll It's an action Figure Can't you get That through Your heads And we finally Got it Changed Actually Out of the doll Category And we'll see you next week's story [00:54:46] Speaker ?: And we'll see you next week's show And we'll see you next week's show And we'll see you next week's show And we'll see you next week's show And we'll see you next week's show And we'll see you next week's show And we'll see you next week's show And we'll see you next week's show And we'll see you next week's show And we'll see you next week's show And we'll see you next week's show And we'll see you next week's show And we'll see you next week's show And we'll see you next week's show And we'll see you next week's show And we'll see you next week's show And we'll see you next week's show And we'll see you next week's show And we'll see you next week's show And we'll see you next week's show [00:55:16] Speaker 1: As we get into the second year It was up to us to accessorize Joe What are we going to do the second year? We decided to do a Jeep It was unnatural to have a Jeep I mean, how can a soldier [00:55:34] Speaker 2: Be a soldier without a Jeep? We decided to mount on the Jeep A 105mm recoilless rifle Again, where are we going to get this? Well, back to the armory of the mounted command And North Main Street in General Holland And they happened to have Just what we needed The Jeep, the trailer That thing was driven to the back parking lot Of Hasbro And everybody came down with their cameras And took pictures and made sketches And this and that Because it had to go back [00:56:02] Speaker 1: It turned out a very nice project With its trailer and gun With G.I. Joe in the seat of the Jeep You couldn't see anything more realistic [00:56:11] Speaker 4: One of the things that are interesting Is that I wanted the scuba suit The black scuba suit Which was orange at one time And black in another To be actual rubber And that was unheard of years ago How are we going to make it? And I showed it to our oriental friends And they looked at it And they said, Mr. Levine We'll make this out of plastic, out of vinyl And I said, no, I want it in rubber And they said, the only place you can make this Is out near Singapore In Kuala Lumpur And this is where they make the rubber gloves That your wife uses to wash the dishes About two days later I'm sort of slogging through the jungle Someplace in Kuala Lumpur To a rubber plantation And with the suit You know, in a box With a rubber suit And that's how we started to make it And that we learned in Hong Kong How it was made in Singapore But it had to be rubber [00:57:05] Speaker 1: Bart Rizzo was an engineer at Hasbro He brought home pieces From the G.I. Joe line Guns and Joes And his son was playing with them But the son was leaving them All over the house Bart saw this And remembered that When he was in the army He had a footlocker Bart presented the idea to Hasbro And from that day on They were making wood footlockers It was a great seller And a great help To the youngsters [00:57:34] Speaker 4: To store their gear Well, the second year of G.I. Joe In 1965, I believe I'm sitting in this dark theater Next to Merrill Hassenfeld And a commercial that Bruns did Said, G.I. Joe is so real You can almost hear him say Take the high ground And I looked at Merrill And I said Why don't we make him talk and say Take the high ground He said, great Go find out what it is Tell me how much it's going to cost And let's do it So I contacted a company Named Bolt, Baranek, and Newman Who were sound specialists Up near Boston I went to see them And I had a little box Cardboard box That had about The chest cavity Of G.I. Joe To show them How much real estate They had That they could play with These people These people were working on Submarine sounds Underwater So that people couldn't detect The submarine So they were really in this And when I walked in And said, make G.I. Joe talk They thought I was a little bit nuts But they said, we'll do it And they came up with this thing That was a pull string [00:58:37] Speaker 14: They would play the recording Of the man who recorded the voice With all the different inflections Over and over and over For days and days and weeks And it went on It was like You woke up in the middle of the night You could hear it [00:58:58] Speaker 4: It never really worked that well Because if a kid took it In the bathtub G.I. Joe went Like that And that was the end of that [00:59:04] Speaker 1: As we looked for new product For each succeeding year It was quite easy Because there was so much To the services But one item I always wanted to make And it was my idea to make it Was the deep sea diver [00:59:19] Speaker 5: Fire on Punch fire [00:59:26] Speaker 1: The deep sea diver Was just a natural addition To the Joe line I'd been in the navy And I'd seen these in action With the big helmet The window And the suit Metal boots And belt I just felt G.I. Joe Had to have it The action of the deep sea diver Of course Was to blow air down to him As he was in the water And he would rise to the surface And then slowly descend again This made the toy Very functional And certainly a hit With the children With Don's permission He said go ahead See what you can do So again Norman and Walter And I went to work [01:00:07] Speaker 15: You're watching a dangerous Underwater treasure hunt Look out A giant octopus Is attacking G.I. Joe In his new adventure The eight ropes of danger And it's all happening Right in your own backyard [01:00:20] Speaker 1: I was at Westport During the summer In my boat And believe it or not As I drove past This mother and a child The little boy Had the deep sea diver Over the side of the boat And it came I came to realize then That we had really A toy that was enjoyed By many, many children The dollars and cents Meant something But until you actually See it happening [01:00:48] Speaker 2: You don't believe it One of the items In the navy category Was a landing signal officer His uniform consisted Of a one-piece jumpsuit With two brightly colored stripes Down the front And we decided We wanted to do this There was a naval air station At Quonset Point, Rhode Island They had an aircraft carrier Attached to them The Tarawa Drove to Quonset Point And I walked in And the captain came over What can I do for you And I told him I had just seen Colonel Sawtell And I told him what I wanted He says Yeah, we have them But we have one problem We have two Landing signal officers We have two uniforms Both happen to be On the Tarawa Which is about 200 miles Off the coast right now Just finishing up Some exercises I said When will the Tarawa Be back? He said The day after tomorrow I said That's really too late Because The head of our department Don Levine Is leaving for the Orient Tomorrow night And we have to get These things Duplicate them So that he could Take them to the Orient To have them made He said Let me see what I can do And he goes into a room And he gets on the radio And he calls the Tarawa Well I need a set of paddles And the jumpsuit From the LSO Well we'll be back In a couple days I need it right now They had a supply plane Leaving the Tarawa In 10 minutes Get those things On the airplane And fly it in here Says to me Be here in 45 minutes Sure enough In 45 minutes The plane lands They hand him the package He brings it over He gives it to me And I bring it back To Hasbro [01:02:20] Speaker 4: Why don't we put together A GI Joe club Larry O'Daley At that time Was our advertising guy And he started To put together Stories And memorabilia And badges And whatever Patches And whatever we could do And he signed it Colonel Lawrence He made himself a colonel In the GI Joe Army And at one point These envelopes With 50 cents Would come in So tremendously That the postal authorities Here in Rhode Island Contacted Our people at Hasbro And they said You know We are a federal agency We're not going to deliver These things to you anymore We just don't have The trucks to handle it And they said Mr. Hasbro Would you send Your own trucks To pick up These envelopes Full of 50 cents And there were girls On an assembly line Opening them up And sending stuff And even in those days It became this Great phenomenon [01:03:22] Speaker 16: I worked for Mattel From 1966 to 1969 For about three years And we used to receive Really cute letters From kids And I remember This one particularly And I would usually Answer them On my own time Dear Sirs [01:03:38] Speaker 12: How do I go about Getting a left foot For my G.I. Joe He was the toughest Soldier on our block But now all the other kids Want him to be The dead guy all the time Because he has no left foot I hope you can help To get him another foot Thank you Shannon Childress [01:03:53] Speaker 16: This is my response November 10th, 1967 Dear Shannon We received your letter About your G.I. Joe And were very concerned About his condition We do not make G.I. Joe Here at the Mattel Toy Company But we forwarded your letter To the company that does The Hasbro Toy Company So they will probably Be contacting you About your G.I. Joe's problem We're glad to know That you care enough About your toys To want them kept In good condition And we can certainly Understand why you Don't want your G.I. Joe Being the dead guy All the time Couldn't he be sent To the base hospital Until his new foot arrives The other soldiers Should be instructed To visit him often And keep him informed So he doesn't feel sad While waiting for his foot We hope it won't be long Before he's the toughest Guy on the block again Sincerely Mattel Toy Company Joanne Morgan Personnel Secretary [01:04:50] Speaker 4: A British company Came to Merrill And said that They would like To use our tools And they'd like To pay us A licensing fee And Merrill and I Went to England We sat down With these people And they decided Not to use the name G.I. Joe Because it wasn't relevant In Europe And they came up With the name Action Man And believe it or not Action Man Is G.I. Joe's cousin And it started all with us Here in Rhode Island [01:05:26] Speaker 1: Another extension For G.I. Joe Was the sea sled I remember seeing The James Bond movie Thunderball It just impressed me So much that Joe Had to have a sea sled We worked a model That functioned And would dive And take on water As ballast And expel water And it was Again Another success As an industrial designer Of course I was taught To make renderings And drawings Of what we proposed But many times We didn't have The time to do it That was the case With the sea sled We just went ahead And built models And hoped That they would function If they didn't function We threw more batteries in [01:06:09] Speaker 2: I got a call from Don To come up to his office And I went in there And Sam and Don Were in there Closed the door And Don said I think we ought to do An astronaut Now at that time The astronauts Consisted of the original seven I think they called it The Mercury series The first group And Sam says You got to get me A space suit I said I got to get you What? You have to get me A space suit We got to copy something Right from the Original thing How am I going to get A space suit For Sam Spears After about the Eighth phone call I decided to call One of our senators Senator John O. Pastore And he arranged A meeting for me With people at NASA At the Pentagon And I flew to Washington And rented a car And drove over To the Pentagon And two gentlemen Took me into Another office And we were talking And by that time G.I. Joe Was no longer a secret And they knew of G.I. Joe And I told them We want to do A G.I. Joe astronaut Well these guys Were related This was great I said But I have a problem In order to make This really authentic I need a space suit Well they looked At each other And they said We can help you With that I said really And they take me Into another room And there is a Wooden box About seven feet long And about three feet Wide on the floor And they open the box And there is a Six foot tall Manikin Wearing an actual Space suit They said We can let you Have this I said The suit He said No we'll give you The mannequin The whole thing We'll ship it to you In Rhode Island I said That is absolutely great And I said You know We'd like to Also I need some more Information If I could get it We'd like to put A record A record in Telling kids About space travel About being an astronaut Maybe something About a space flight And one of the gentlemen Says to me We could give you The tapes From John Glenn's Space flight I said I'd listen to that On the radio And with all the static And all We could never put that On a record He says Oh no These were the tapes That were recorded By John Glenn himself Inside the space capsule Roger [01:08:22] Speaker ?: The clock is operating We're underway Roger Zero G And I feel My capsule is turning around Oh that view Is tremendous [01:08:31] Speaker 2: Thank you very much Shook hands And I'm leaving the office And I have my hand On the doorknob And I hesitate for a minute And I'm gonna go back And I say to myself They will never give you A space capsule Just leave A space capsule [01:09:14] Speaker 15: The sinking capsule Starring G.I. Joe And his action equipment The G.I. Joe Space capsule is down Another mission complete Frogmen and sea sleds Are ready to help Capsule sighted Prepare to pick up Suddenly the capsule Fills with water And sinks G.I. Joe Sailors in deep sea Diver suits Are going to the rescue In seconds you attach a line To the capsule And pull it to safety There's more trouble ahead The capsule is radioactive But here comes the G.I. Joe Crash crew truck To wash down the capsule With a working pump Kids Make up your own G.I. Joe adventures Like the one you've just seen By getting any or all Of this equipment Capsule Deep sea diver suits Frogmen Talking G.I. Joe Make up a different adventure Every day With G.I. Joe [01:10:16] Speaker 4: We were so successful We were riding this success story That I thought we could walk on water I thought anything we did Would be successful So again we sat down one day And I know it was me or somebody We said If little boys Millions of them And thousands of them Are all over the country Playing on the floor Why don't we Take this phenomenon And come up with a G.I. Joe nurse Because then the sisters Will buy it Why not get into that doll business Which we didn't want to [01:10:50] Speaker 14: Go up against Barbie Originally she really wasn't Part of the G.I. Joe concept She was originally Going to be an action girl She was going to be Dedicated to the girl market And she would have been a doll That I would have Been mad about When I was a child Because she would have Bent and moved And did all these wonderful things We could have sat her on a horse A bike or whatever We did all kinds of Outfits for her I sculpted the hands And I sculpted the head The body on her We wanted to stay away From the typical Barbie body We wanted her to have A more youthful body Not quite as voluptuous [01:11:26] Speaker 4: And again Knowing we didn't know Too much about The doll business We were now experts In the boy action figure business We created this nurse She was like a MASH medic nurse And we put this out [01:11:40] Speaker 14: And I believe she only Stayed on the shelves About a year Because she was in With the G.I. Joe equipment And things And the G.I. Joe And of course The little girls Didn't shop there Especially when they had Barbie with the pink ball gowns And the boys Didn't even want to Deal with her [01:11:59] Speaker 4: And it went no place [01:12:01] Speaker ?: And it went no place [01:12:01] Speaker 4: No place to the extent That I was going to do A G.I. Joe dog next I figured anything Anything we did We'd be successful with [01:12:09] Speaker 14: Very next year At Toy Fair The big news Was that Mattel Had a twist at the waist Barbie And that was the beginning Of the Barbie Being more flexible And now of course They have a fully Articulated Barbie That moves And can ride bicycles And horses And all of this And everything But we all had it first [01:12:29] Speaker 4: Today If you have a G.I. Joe nurse And it's in pristine condition In its box You can send your kids To college for a couple Of years on that The collectors will buy it [01:12:41] Speaker 14: She's the one Who's the most valuable So I feel a little bit Better about it [01:12:45] Speaker 2: Don and I Had been talking Several times About Not an enemy For G.I. Joe But G.I. Joe Was a World War II character And in World War II We were fighting somebody We were fighting the enemy But we didn't Didn't feel right Putting out something Called an enemy [01:13:03] Speaker 4: G.I. Joe Was never Promoted to be An aggressor He was never fighting And killing And hurting The enemy Or the Axis You know Groups of countries We always let The little boys Decide What they would do With G.I. Joe They would create Their own adventures So at one point When letters started To come in Saying Well you know what We'd love to have A German soldier We'd love to have A Japanese soldier Or Russian soldier We said Hey Their uniforms And what they look like Are so colorful Let's do it So we decided [01:13:38] Speaker 2: To put out a line And call them Action soldiers Of the world We call them The Japanese imperial soldier The German stormtrooper The British Tommy French resistance fighter The Australian jungle fighter [01:13:54] Speaker 14: One of the first projects That I worked on For the G.I. Joe There were other projects Going on at the time Of course Because it was product development But the G.I. Joe Was the foreign soldiers And that involved Just making the heads Because of course The bodies were universal And what they did Was that they wanted A Japanese face And then they wanted The other face For the German For the German Australian British French soldier Etc And they wanted A Nordic looking face And my way of referencing That Was To actually cut out Pictures from magazines Was my best thing And make a kind of A picture board Up of young Young men Who looked to me Like I can't remember Who they were exactly But Young nice looking men [01:14:44] Speaker 10: We did change The artwork style Which was quite noticeable And it ended up Being the best style I think that we used On all the illustrations Because there was A lot of freedom to it We knew the kids Were told How bad The Japanese were And The Germans And I know I did The Japanese one And I really wanted Him to look like He was mean You know And The British one I mean He was our friend I posed for that one And I did the illustration And I had I purposely had him Really You know Trying to move ahead You know Get his men to follow him And he was the big leader Hasbro got sick of seeing my face On a lot of the illustrations And So I said Sure I said Okay It became a big joke though The Italian G.I. Joe [01:15:39] Speaker 1: Unfortunately Do not have a large collection Of G.I. Joe I do have The foreign soldiers Which represent The extended G.I. Joe line They're beautifully done And many times I look back And wonder How We at Hasenfeld Brothers And Hasbro Could possibly Sell A soldier Dressed In such Gorgeous uniforms Action soldiers Of the world [01:16:06] Speaker 4: We then ran into Something called Vietnam [01:16:10] Speaker 3: I was being called By different organizations At my home Who happened to know I worked at Hasbro And they wanted me To boycott The place Or to boycott Toy stores Because of war toys And I said Well that's how I make My living to myself What am I going to do [01:16:29] Speaker 4: Again in the toy business When there is no confrontation No war going on The graph of sales Of military things Like guns And soldiers And things like that Goes very high Because there's no confrontation Little boys like to play With cowboys And Indians And soldiers Once there is a war Of some sort And our fellows Are over there It just completely drops And everybody starts Complaining about it And we ran into that [01:16:55] Speaker 3: You know And then I started thinking Am I Was what I'm doing wrong I don't think so People have People have been Playing with Soldiers Forever [01:17:08] Speaker 4: People were saying G.I. Joe Is a military toy And I don't want my kid Having it [01:17:12] Speaker 1: We found ourselves In a spot That we had to change Joe If he's going to continue The idea Came that he would Be made an adventurer [01:17:23] Speaker 15: The adventures of G.I. Joe There are 11 different G.I. Joe adventure sets Each filled with Exciting equipment Here's the mouth Of doom adventure You get this complete Jungle outfit Raft Pool And crocodile Could you save G.I. Joe It's easy to find out Each adventure Comes with its own 16 page comic That tells The complete story And look There are three New G.I. Joe's Too Including talking G.I. Joe astronaut Landing party Now on moon You can have A different adventure Every day With all the new Exciting G.I. Joe adventure sets Get G.I. Joe Today It's G.I. Joe From Hasbro [01:18:07] Speaker 1: About the time The adventure team Concept came along Bill Pugh Of the Palletoy Company Of England Was sitting in front Of his television set And he saw Where some gentlemen In the town of Daventry Were decorating Glass bottles With a flocking To make vases And it occurred [01:18:29] Speaker ?: And it occurred [01:18:29] Speaker 1: To Bill That what would Happen If we try To make real Hair For G.I. Joe By electrostatically Flocking The hair [01:18:37] Speaker 17: This is the G.I. Joe Adventure team Five rugged men With lifelike hair They're outfitted For action And they take Their orders From this man The adventure team Commander I've got a tough Assignment for you [01:18:49] Speaker 1: I was the one That was to line up These various Packages And I referred To the National Geographic Again and again It was so easy For me To pick out An adventure That already Had taken place Like the Pygney Gorilla Or the White Tiger Hunt [01:19:10] Speaker 17: Today's mission Capture the rare And dangerous White Tiger Your own G.I. Joe Will dare anything Risk everything Look out Joe While G.I. Joe Talking Commander And the White Tiger Hunt Are each purchased Separately from G.I. Joe [01:19:23] Speaker 18: The idea Of the adventure team Was born Initially We had proposed Character names But Meryl Hasenfeld Steven's dad Was really adamant That G.I. Joe Is just one Joe One character And we persuaded Hasbro That the adventures Would be more exciting And the advertising Would be more exciting If we could have A little snake In there With this mummy And if we could have Symbols of adventure play And challenge For what was the new G.I. Joe adventure team The children's television audience Is the smartest audience That there is You better not Kid them You better not mess around You better not mislead Them because They never forget We didn't feel There was a benefit In trying to Mask the fact That a child Was involved With these products We felt that By using Active play And the active Participation You would Enhance The play experience And enhance The emotion Of this So that's what We tried to do In our commercial So we had a lot Of kid involvement We had Joe Diving through mud And underwater We created rivers And streams And did divers And all sorts of things And a lot of Backyard setups Where with a few Boulders and a hose And a rock We would create A realistic fantasy Setting that kids Could do in their Own backyards And often did But also Could fantasize And imagine That these were Jungles Or more Romantic Adventurous places You know we Over the years Created a lot Of good adventures We had a lot Of great features Every year We would try To come up With a gimmick An idea That was a little Bit different We were involved In really everything That happened In the company In those days It was a great time Wonderful time To be in the business [01:21:09] Speaker 11: I joined Hasbro In January 1970 I was hired As vice president Of international marketing Before that I had 25 years With Sears Roebuck As a national toy buyer Buying toys For the retail stores And the catalog So we developed From each of the licensees A team Which we call Action team And we'd meet Every year At toy fair In New York And we'd meet Together in Nuremberg In fact We had a big dinner Which was the annual G.I. Joe dinner In Nuremberg The action team Consisted of Many countries We had the Polysteel From Italy They called it G.I. Joe G.I. Joe But pronounced G.I. Joe France was buying And importing Action Man And G.I. Joe From Hong Kong So their new package In French Was Action Joe Palatoy In England Continued with The Action Man Pronounced Action Man Spain came up With theirs And called it Gaperman In Brazil They called it Falcon Germany Being very Anti-military Just named theirs Action team After the group In the early years Of licensing With the European Countries They couldn't afford To print Individual boxes In their language So we developed A plan Where they would Make standard boxes And then make Inserts That would be Inserted on the Left side Or the margin Of the box That way they Could print Five or ten Different products Inserts On one sheet Each team Each team member Brought pictures And swatches Of material Samples Of what he wanted In the line So the maker In Hong Kong Could duplicate them And together At our meetings We would develop A new program For the next year It was truly An exciting And rewarding Adventure For me To have been Part of the Action team And developing Joel throughout The world [01:23:17] Speaker 6: Joe for years You know From 64 Through the early 70s You know Just was on a rise And then we Began to encounter You know The pressures With oil prices The cost of plastic [01:23:34] Speaker 18: And the ability To make a Profitably Make a product That we were Trying Almost everything We could think Of to try To justify Going smaller In size [01:23:48] Speaker 6: And still giving A value to the kid And so that's When we came We played with First Super Joe Which took it Down in size But not You know By that much [01:23:56] Speaker 19: Introducing Introducing Super Joe Commander With a one-two punch He also has a Power light vest So you can imagine He's ready at night With a beam of light One pen light battery For each not included Uh-oh It's Gore King of the Terrans Gore has a red power ray But as you can imagine Super Joe's ready With a beam of light Imagine the fight Imagine it Lights out for Gore [01:24:15] Speaker 18: It was really hard In those days To shrink down And down And we were trying To do it in millimeters [01:24:21] Speaker 6: And it wasn't working We were watching kids Begin to move away From Joe Into you know Other areas And part of it Was the pricing point [01:24:31] Speaker 20: By 1980 Most of the original G.I. Joe creative team Had left Hasbro Meryl Hassenfeld Passed away in 1979 Meryl's eldest son Stephen Became president of Hasbro [01:24:57] Speaker 21: In 1981 We started to Seriously look at Doing G.I. Joe As a toy soldier The idea of Shrinking him down In size To three and three Quarter inch We picked Three and three Quarter inch Because at the time A very successful Boys brand Star Wars Had come into The marketplace Based off the hit movie We looked at Star Wars And we said You know There's got to be Another way of doing A three and three Quarter inch figure And we went back And looked at G.I. Joe And we said Well what worked For G.I. Joe And what really Worked for G.I. Joe We believed Was Poseability And we Took that same idea And scaled it down To three and three Quarter inches And where Star Wars figures Maybe had Six movable parts We had eleven We would have [01:25:47] Speaker 18: The benefit Of being able To make equipment And all the things That were so essential To G.I. Joe In a smaller size And therefore Being more affordable You know Having these giant Vehicles Was one of the problems Of trying to maintain [01:26:00] Speaker 21: A twelve inch figure There were two people In the marketing department My boss Bob Prupas And myself Bob was a driving force Behind this concept He knew How a retailer Would buy this line And one of the things He told us was I want a line That's going to be Collectible I want it at various Price points And he said I want it to be sold At retail All of it The entire first year line For under a hundred dollars So that a kid Could walk into a store Throughout the year With his own spending money And buy a G.I. Joe figure And then for Christmas Get the big wow That really was The marketing plan [01:26:39] Speaker 18: We went to The company initially And to management Which was In that case Really Stephen Assefeld With a proposal That we Develop a plan To try to bring back G.I. Joe And we were Thrown out Rebuffed Don't see how we can do it Trade won't want it All the litany Of reasons That everybody gives To say [01:27:03] Speaker 21: Shouldn't do that We all looked at each other Like oh my gosh Six months of our lives We're invested in this And he doesn't want to do it And we discussed [01:27:12] Speaker 18: The fact that Despite the fact That we've been Given this directive To not bother with this That what could we do [01:27:18] Speaker 21: We said Come up with a concept That is going to excite Stephen Because if we can get him excited Then we have the green light For this project If we can't get him excited Forget about it He doesn't want anything To do with G.I. Joe again Joe and I went back [01:27:33] Speaker 18: To work And came back I think about A month later For one of our Product line reviews With An extra presentation A non-agenda presentation To talk about G.I. Joe It began with a Discussion that Basically said Philosophically Star Wars has the movie And they have reached X millions of kids And all that And he said Well we can't have the movie But we can have We can have the book [01:28:02] Speaker 21: And he held up a book And the cover of Which was A mock-up really Of what eventually Became the cover Of the first G.I. Joe comic book And he said Stephen We've got A concept here That's never been Done before We are going to Advertise A book To kids About G.I. Joe But it's not just Any book It's a comic book He said Comic books Have never been On television before And we can do things In animation To bring the comic book To life That we can't do With a toy commercial While that raised Some interest [01:28:40] Speaker 18: It wasn't until Joe Bacall Got up and Presented What G.I. Joe Real American Hero Was all about And played the music [01:28:51] Speaker 13: G.I. Joe Is fighting Cobra The enemy I'm laughing To see you there G.I. Joe [01:28:57] Speaker 8: Is an American hero Joe is chasing Cobra In a desperate race Soaring and diving [01:29:03] Speaker 19: In a great sky chase A real American hero What's in store For G.I. Joe Find out In Marvel Comics [01:29:11] Speaker 21: Steven was up Leaning against The back wall He wiped a tear From his eye And he said Guys You did it [01:29:19] Speaker 18: Really Steven was So excited That he got in his car And he drove out To the cemetery Where Meryl was resting And As he told us Told his dad That We gotta be able To bring back G.I. Joe And he'd be really Proud of it And really excited About it So It was As we're all A close Family [01:29:40] Speaker 21: And a close group It was a really Touching moment For all of us All war comics All war comics At the time Had teams of guys Sergeant Rock Had his easy company Nick Fury Had his howling commandos We had G.I. Joe And instead of it being One individual guy Or character It was the code name For a team of guys [01:30:02] Speaker 18: We picked up on the adventure theme And extended it with villains And heroes And characters And really fleshed it out Into a whole new line And a whole new life [01:30:14] Speaker 21: For G.I. Joe Over the years That G.I. Joe The three and three quarter Inch line Was in existence We sold Close to 500 million figures That's a small army I mean that's That's a large army I shouldn't say a small army That's a giant army That's like probably Every combined army In the world Is what that adds up to But that's about What we sold In terms of And that's how successful it was And that was just The United States And Canada That had nothing to do With what was sold Worldwide Because G.I. Joe Was and still is It's a worldwide concept So yeah That I think Can put it into some perspective How big and overwhelming it was As the line went on For the next 12 to 14 years We started immortalizing People we knew In plastic If you were on our good side The marketing and R&D good side We'd find a way To get you in the G.I. Joe line So of all the personalities That are in that line I would say about 80 to 85% The faces are sculpted Based on some real person Who we came into contact with At Hasbro And then we even incorporated People's names On the bio cards So if you didn't get Your face pictured You had your name On the back of the file card It was kind of an in joke That we had at Hasbro At the time That I think most people Don't know about [01:31:37] Speaker 17: Every now and then [01:31:42] Speaker 21: Somebody from R&D would propose Let's redo the 12 inch figure And every now and then It would get knocked down Because we didn't want to Confuse the marketplace What is G.I. Joe Is he 3 and 3 quarter inch Is he 12 inch And we just didn't believe The time was right Well about 1990 A buyer for Target Approached Hasbro And our sales force And said I am a big G.I. Joe fan And I really love The 12 inch figure His name was Mark Pritchard And Mark said Let's work out a deal Where I will have The exclusive rights To sell G.I. Joe 12 inch figure For 6 months Or the first year Whatever it was I don't remember now But Mark was really Instrumental In pushing us And a product manager Who worked for me At the time Vinnie DeLeva Really took the bull By the horns Along with an R&D guy Greg Bernstein And they developed The 12 inch G.I. Joe At the time Desert Storm Had just erupted We did it in Desert Cammies We made him Duke One of the 3 and 3 quarter inch characters Target takes this 12 inch G.I. Joe figure And puts it in a special ad They run it in their Circular That comes out On a Sunday And they say It's on sale At Target Only at Target And by that Following weekend However many pieces We shipped Were completely sold out They came back And reordered You know A second time And that gave us The encouragement To then develop A whole line Of Hall of Fame figures [01:33:24] Speaker 22: G.I. Joe Doesn't get any bigger Than this The G.I. Joe Hall of Fame Collection Duke Stalker Snake Eyes And Cobra Commander Each 12 inches tall And authentically detailed From Duke's lifelike hair To Cobra Commander's boots They've got cloth uniforms Metal dog tags And accessories Like weapons cases And combat helmets And each numbered Collector's Edition Is armed with an awesome Light and sound weapon For really big action Cobra Commander Snake Eyes Stalker and Duke sold separately From the G.I. Joe Hall of Fame collection A whole new way to play [01:33:54] Speaker 21: It was a return To the 12 inch size Dads of 1990 Were going back To when they were Kids in 1964 And bought Their very own G.I. Joe And I think that's One of the interesting Things about the phenomenon Of G.I. Joe Is that it has been So long lived That you've had Generations now Of people Who have played With a G.I. Joe And there's that link Almost like baseball Where a father Teaches his son How to play baseball A father can teach his son How to play with a G.I. Joe And there's that link That has carried on For the last 30 years [01:34:33] Speaker 20: Steven Hassenfeld Passed away in 1989 His younger brother Alan became CEO of Hasbro [01:34:44] Speaker 21: We had discovered That there were These little groups Of people out there Across America Who were having Miniature G.I. Joe Conventions They were collecting G.I. Joe Primarily the 12 inch [01:34:57] Speaker 6: The 3 and 3 quarter inch Always was meant To try and get The kids back in And we were Giving You know We weren't spending The time With the collector Today for me One of my passions Is that whole Collector business [01:35:11] Speaker 23: My first G.I. Joe When I was 7 That was a Christmas present For my grandmother We were watching G.I. Joe commercials When they first came out [01:35:23] Speaker 24: I put on my Christmas list That I wanted a soldier I got my first Action Sailor I think in 1966 All I wanted for Christmas Was a space capsule My older brother and I Got the space capsule On the same Christmas morning And helped each other Put the labels On the interior Of the space capsule I could remember it Very fondly [01:35:39] Speaker 25: After the third day Of pulling me out of school She said Alright what's it going to take For you to go to school All day long And I said Mom I want a G.I. Joe And that's how I got my first G.I. Joe [01:35:47] Speaker 26: When we first took over the club There were about 200 members In the club And we've grown up To about the 4,000 level today And we do the international conventions For Hasbro And we sell all their items So it's really expanded Into a lot of different things [01:36:01] Speaker 25: What I do is I try to find People's collections Buy them out And keep obviously The things that I want And the nicer things And then sell off the extras And I don't try to make a huge profit I'm not in it to make money I'm into it To actually feed my own fever Basically [01:36:15] Speaker 26: The thing about G.I. Joe collectors Or anyone that comes to a convention You can look around We've got all races All creeds Many different nationalities White collar Blue collar There is no one We've got old We've got young G.I. Joe Is the quintessential American hero And collecting G.I. Joe Cross cuts all demographic lines [01:36:35] Speaker 27: My mom had put away My collection From when I was a kid And I had a jeep And a trailer And four G.I. Joes And then a footlocker Filled with gear And I looked through there And I started seeing I was missing a helmet From one set And a rifle From another set So I started out By trying to replace What I had as a child I've got way too many [01:36:56] Speaker 28: Vintage figures out It's become I like to say An obsession Some people say An addiction [01:37:02] Speaker 26: No matter where I go If I'm wearing Any type of G.I. Joe Logoed apparel People come up to me That I don't know And they'll tell me A story about G.I. Joe So I've decided That almost everyone Has a story about G.I. Joe So one of the reasons We do this convention And move it around The country Is so that we attract Different people And maybe they'll have That memory Or they'll go You know I had G.I. Joe I think I'll call my mom And see whatever Happened to those That's a story about G.I. Joe [01:37:28] Speaker ?: And see what's going on in the middle of the night And see what's going on in the middle of the night And see what's going on in the middle of the night And see what's going on in the middle of the night And see what's going on in the middle of the night And see what's going on in the middle of the night And see what's going on in the middle of the night And see what's going on in the middle of the night And see what's going on in the middle of the night And see what's going on in the middle of the night And see what's going on in the middle of the night And see what's going on in the middle of the night And see what's going on in the middle of the night And see what's going on in the middle of the night And see what's going on in the middle of the night And see what's going on in the middle of the night And see what's going on in the middle of the night And see what's going on in the middle of the night And see what's going on in the middle of the night And see what's going on in the middle of the night And see what's going on in the middle of the night And see what's going on in the middle of the night And see what's going on in the middle of the night And see what's going on in the middle of the night And see what's going on in the middle of the night And see what's going on in the middle of the night And see what's going on in the middle of the night And see what's going on in the middle of the night And see what's going on in the middle of the night [01:38:45] Speaker 4: A young gentleman who was a writer approached me And said he'd like to co-author a book with me about G.I. Joe He said I'd like to put in the book Or with the book the original G.I. Joe Whether you could resurrect the tools overseas or whatever That piqued my interest The fact that it wasn't a book It was a book and G.I. Joe I went to the Orient And I bought the tools And those things that weren't available after 30 years We retooled and we came up with the old G.I. Joe And we put this masterpiece edition together Because of that Over the last couple of years We in my company create G.I. Joe specials for Hasbro Called Timeless Edition And there were a lot of people Collectors out there That say this was the original one And we do nicely with that So we're still involved With that famous guy named G.I. Joe [01:39:43] Speaker 7: I was restoring a G.I. Joe head And I had stripped all the paint off of it And the lighting wasn't that great Where I was working at And I was going to repaint the face And I had held the head up to the light To start to work on the eyes When all of a sudden it struck me like a ton of bricks That G.I. Joe The head of G.I. Joe Looked like JFK Like John Kennedy Now I've got to prove it Is it really JFK? I called the National Archives And I requested photographs of JFK And then I shot the head At the same angle that the photographs were taken of JFK To put them side by side in the book To show the illustration The hairline was identical The cleft in the chin was identical The crook in the nose was identical The eyebrows Even And this was the thing that was very unique G.I. Joe has his hair combed a certain way And it was the typical JFK hairstyle Which was very unique back in the 60s Because crew cuts was the style And JFK had this special type of hairstyle [01:40:46] Speaker 14: I can see how you would find a resemblance Anytime you're doing a doll's face Or that type of a face Small especially You want to really have very strong features on it And John Kennedy had very strong features So I can certainly see where there'd be a resemblance You know, a very square jaw That type of rugged good looks [01:41:08] Speaker 1: Through the years many collectors have asked me If Phil Krakowski had JFK in mind When he sculpted G.I. Joe's head The answer from Phil was No, not really But he had done medals of JFK And he's also done bus Previously in 1961 and 1962 So the resemblance May have just come out incidentally [01:41:33] Speaker 20: Hasbro recently produced a G.I. Joe figure Based on John F. Kennedy's days As a PT boat commander So ultimately G.I. Joe would end up looking like JFK [01:41:45] Speaker 29: G.I. Joe is very important to Hasbro It's one of the brands that the company really was founded on Every year Hasbro produces an entirely new line of G.I. Joe's And we try to keep it fresh every year By coming up with all new characters Whether they are different military roles Important historical figures A variety of eras We try to do all those as authentically and historically accurate as possible With the detail as correct as we can down to the last badge Or button or the hairstyle that they would have worn [01:42:20] Speaker 24: One of the things that's particularly interesting Working on the G.I. Joe line Is the sense of history that you get in all the research that we do [01:42:27] Speaker 23: There's a great historical value in going back to find out about heroes Who you never read about as a kid Who were everyday guys And gals for that matter Steelworkers, farmers You know, who went off to war And are now depicted as an action figure And you feel very good about bringing that stuff into products Bringing that history to life G.I. Joe is just such a large icon And encompasses so much of America and American values And those people who in generations past Would give the supreme ultimate sacrifice for their country That you kind of have to build a shell for all of them [01:43:06] Speaker 6: You know, one of the things that I'd like to see us do And it's still cost prohibitive today But we're working on technology Where maybe, Mitch, at one point in time You'd come and you'd basically say You know, I'd like my own G.I. Joe With my face I think in time We might be able to customize Not only have a collector piece But something that also is you A lot of dreams A lot of goals A lot of aspirations for G.I. Joe And it'll happen [01:43:40] Speaker 2: The first we heard About G.I. Joe being a collector's item Was when we got a phone call About the G.I. Joe convention At the Kennedy Space Center And that would we like to come And I said, sure we would But what's this all about And Mike Hertz proceeded to tell me That G.I. Joe is a big collector's item And there's a big convention And all that will be required of me Is to sign some autographs And talk at some breakfast And why not And I said, are you kidding me Mike? Is this some sort of candid camera thing? [01:44:18] Speaker 3: You have to sign autographs I couldn't believe it I said, you've got to be kidding No [01:44:25] Speaker 2: We received our airline tickets And we met several others at the airport [01:44:30] Speaker 3: I'm saying, something's very familiar about them And I said, for heaven's sake That's Sam Spears and Jerry Einhorn Well, it was so great to see them I had not seen them for all the years I'd been away from Hasbro When I left in 1965 [01:44:48] Speaker 2: Taken to a condominium complex Where we were put up for several days [01:44:53] Speaker 3: And who was there to greet us Was Don Lafine So Don right away says Well, it looks like it's time for a meeting And so we did We all went into the lounge To have a drink It was just so neat To have, to be there [01:45:09] Speaker 2: That very next morning We were driven to the visitor center At the Kennedy Space Center And as we were getting out of the van We noticed a line of people Lined up outside the door I said, what's this for? And one of the other guys said They're waiting for you [01:45:26] Speaker 3: My head was so large I could not believe I said, they've got to have the wrong person here [01:45:31] Speaker 2: That was when the book was introduced The Legend of G.I. Joe John Nicklick and Don Lafine's book And we had to sign these books [01:45:39] Speaker 3: People with two or three boxes of these books Now these books are $60 a piece They'd buy three at a time And you had to sign a special way They even have pens Special pens they wanted you to sign with And this particular page And a page that they had all opened up Where I said what I said in John's book I had to put my name there And say a little something They'd tell you their life story I mean, why G.I. Joe was important to them [01:46:03] Speaker 1: A black fellow threw his arms around me And said, you know, I didn't ever have a father I never had a father G.I. Joe was my dad [01:46:13] Speaker 5: Another person worked for Walt Disney Studios As a result of looking at the artwork [01:46:19] Speaker 1: Another man came up and he says You know, I just completed 20 years in the Army And I would have never joined the Army If it hadn't been for G.I. Joe [01:46:29] Speaker 10: And there was just endless lines of people coming in And just so thrilled over, you know, G.I. Joe And so thrilled over beating me Because I was an artist that did the first ones And all that And it was quite thrilling to be too [01:46:44] Speaker 3: And they wanted to know What it was like to have been part of this team Well, you see, at the time We didn't know we were on anything special We had such a ball doing it We didn't know it was going to be like this [01:46:57] Speaker 4: A lot of people, including myself Take a lot of credit for G.I. Joe Because we did work hard and we made it happen Every little intricacy about G.I. Joe We were concerned about But nothing, nothing at all would have happened No one in the world would ever know the name G.I. Joe And place it with an action figure Without a fella named Merrill Hasselford It was okay for us to be drawing our salaries And doing our jobs Correctly so But if this fella didn't have the courage And the fortitude And the trust in all of us There would be no G.I. Joe [01:47:30] Speaker 6: One of the things that I'm sorry That my father never got a chance to see Was where it is that Hasbro, you know Has gone in what we've become Because no man ever set a better table For two sons than my father did And then my brother took up the gauntlet brilliantly I think Dad would probably say Hey, I got you You know, I got you into this business I took you here Now you've got to live with this new economy And the way things are changing I just, you know, most passionately want to make sure That Joe is here forever and a day [01:48:08] Speaker 30: Pretend there's trouble for G.I. Joe You gotta get out, you're G.I. Joe Copters waiting, time to go Gotta rescue G.I. Joe Better move out, you're G.I. Joe Mission accomplished, G.I. Joe And the way things are changing, you're G.I. Joe. [01:48:44] Speaker ?: And the way things are changing, you're G.I. Joe. And the way things are changing, you're G.I. Joe. And the way things are changing, you're G.I. Joe And the way things are changing, you're G.I. Joe [01:49:10] Speaker 31: And the way things are changing, you're G.I. Joe And the way things are changing, you're G.I. Joe [01:49:19] Speaker ?: And the way things are changing, you're G.I. Joe And the way things are changing, you're G.I. Joe And the way things are changing, you're G.I. Joe [01:49:26] Speaker 31: And the way things are changing, you're G.I. Joe And the way things are changing, you're G.I. Joe And the way things are changing, you're G.I. Joe And the way things are changing, you're G.I. Joe [01:49:38] Speaker ?: And the way things are changing, you're G.I. Joe [01:49:38] Speaker 31: And the way things are changing, you're G.I. Joe [01:49:40] Speaker ?: And the way things are changing, you're G.I. Joe [01:49:42] Speaker 31: And the way things are changing, you're G.I. Joe And the way things are changing, you're G.I. Joe And the way things are changing, you're G.I. Joe And the way things are changing, you're G.I. Joe And the way things are changing, you're G.I. Joe [01:49:52] Speaker ?: And the way things are changing, you're G.I. Joe And the way things are changing, you're G.I. Joe And the way things are changing, you're G.I. Joe