Thursday, June 22, 2017

Target Exclusive Hit and Run - Parachute Pack

As 1988 wound down, Hasbro produced a few special figure releases that were repacks of some of their 1988 figure offerings.  These special packs were marketing gimmicks to entice gift givers to choose something G.I. Joe for their recipients.  There was a special Voltar vs. Muskrat pack that featured exclusive packaging.  The option that is most familiar to me, though, is the Target exclusive Parachute Pack Hit and Run figure.

This exclusive showed up at some point in 1988.  The Hit and Run figure itself was no different than the standard version that was still available on a single card.  In addition to his traditional accessories, though, the figure also included Parachute Pack that was taken from the same mold as the long time mail away premium.

MOC, this figure is rather hard to find and extremely expensive.  Loose, the figure is easily made from a Hit and Run and common Parachute Pack.  (There are, though, differences in the parachute pack with one made in China and one made in Hong Kong.  It's possible that one of these is either exclusive to this Hit and Run or that Hit and Run only included one of the chutes but the chute was also available as a mail away.  I've never seen a carded version of this figure with the chute packaged so you can see the made in stamp and no one is going to open a $1,000 carded figure to find out something so trivial.)  So, you don't often see the figure command a premium.  But, the cardback did include a unique, orange backed filecard.  You will see this exclusive bio sell for substantially more than all but the rarest filecards in the line.

Hit and Run was one of the last figures I purchased at retail in early 1988 before I quit collecting Joe.  However, my youngest brother continued buying figures through the year.  And, at some point, he acquired this figure.  I remember as I found the Hit and Run lying around the house and I thought he had stolen mine from the closet in my room again.  However, I found mine safe in his plastic baggie inside a Lego container on the floor.  I then found the packaging for this figure and realized he was something different.

For some reason, I had not saved the filecards from my 1988 figure purchases.  (Still don't know why that was since I had been religious about filecard clipping since 1983.)  So, I cut the orange file card off of the packaging and added it to my Hit and Run that was saved away.  That proved fortuitous in later years when the filecard got scarce and pricey since I already had one.

Hasbro didn't really do re-releases like this Hit and Run again.  Any later special offers were packaged with an exclusive figure to make them more enticing.  But, this figure serves as a somewhat pre-cursor to Sky Patrol who would debut two years later.  It is also an excellent pairing of figure and gear that Hasbro would move away from as the line sputtered out.

1988 Hit and Run, Target Exclusive, Parachute Pack, Mail Away, 1985, MOC, Filecard, Carded


1988 Hit and Run, Target Exclusive, Parachute Pack, Mail Away, 1985, MOC, Filecard, Carded

6 comments:

  1. In the WNY area we didn't have Target stores until the late 90's....I missed out on Night Force too!

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  2. Target was 30 miles away or better from where my family lived in 1988, but we would occasionally go there and I don't recall ever seeing this or the Ultimate Enemies 2-pack.

    This actually had the strap for the parachute pack...sky patrol's were supposed to rely on the pack peg and a prayer.

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  3. T thought the target exclusive had a China coo on the pack, vs Hong kong on the mail away.i could be wrong but I thought that was how you could tell the difference between back packs.

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    1. There is a China and Hong Kong version of the pack. All of the Hit and Run packaging references Hong Kong. But, I've never seen a carded sample where the actual stamp on the pack is visible. There's actually a slight color difference between the two, too. But, I'm not 100% sure on which is which and if both were available with the mail away offer or not.

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  4. so you cant tell if the waist is marked china or HK?

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    1. Not from inside the package. I'd assume the figure would match the packaging COO. Though, there are standard Hit and Runs from the same country. So, the figure's COO is unlikely to confirm if it is a Target version: just if it is not.

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