We all know that 3 3/4 o-ring Joes have been a retail flop. Hasbro canned a planned 2 pack and we haven't seen any new packs in a couple of years. The Transformers crossovers are collecting dust at every retailer who was dumb enough to buy them. And, Amazon can't give away the Transformers sets for a fraction of the original retail price. What if, though, the issue with the vintage Joe style is not the 40 year old engineering. But, instead, it is the property on which the style is used?
Well, we're about to find out. Hasbro threw a curve ball at Wondercon on 3/30/24 that no one saw coming. They will be releasing a 3 3/4 o-ring set of the original Ghostbusters figures. Now, I won't pretend that I ever wanted Joe compatible Ghostbusters. But, for the right price, they are something I'll buy. From the mock up image below, the figures look decent enough. The heads will likely be a little overdetailed to be 100% matches for vintage Joes. But, the rest of the bodies look like they were stripped straight from a 1983 Doc.
It will be interesting to see how these do. The Ghostbusters Haslab funded almost immediately. So, there's a fanbase. And, since everything but the heads and Bill Murray's lower legs look like reuse of the same parts, Hasbro doesn't have a ton invested in the tooling. The proton packs look like 1982 Joe gear with the attached hoses. They should be more pliable than the old Hasbro accessories. And, I'm unlikely to be all that invested in their quality when these proton packs turn 40.
As a kid, I wished that every toy line and property was available in Joe construction. If Hasbro starts looking at other properties that could be ported over to classic construction, I wouldn't hate that. But, I'm also unlikely to fully support every product released in the style. But, if Joe isn't viable in the vintage style, I'm OK if other licensed characters are. I'll approach them much like I do Kickstarters and Factory Customs. If something's cool, I'll buy it. But, I'll easily skip anything that doesn't really speak to me.
I'll be very curious on pricing. If they price out at $22 each like the Pulse Joes, they will be a tougher buy for me. If they're in the $13 range, they're much more palatable. Supposedly, there is a compatible Ecto-1, too. Getting an all new 3 3/4 compatible vehicle will be nice. Though, the Ecto-1 is so iconic that it would be tough to integrate into a Joe collection. But, cool toys are cool toys. And, so far, these look OK and are a direction that isn't terrible for a company like Hasbro who has really struggled over the past couple of years.
(Update - it appears the figures will run about $44 for the set. If so, that's an amazing price. And, it also means that we paid $10-$11 extra per figure for the Pulse o-ring Joes....)
