Rarities - Early Wave Funskool Figures

The early years of Funskool figures featured collector favorite molds in colors that were supposed to be close to the look of the American figure release.  In most cases, Funskool followed this pattern.  But, in some cases, they departed from the character's established look rather radically.  We'll start off with a Funskool catalog that was inserted with many vehicles of the day.

Funskool Figure Catalog Insert

You will notice that Stalker is black (and appears to be wearing a backpack), Zap is straight arm holding the early bazooka that was only released in the U.S. and that many of the figures appear to be stock photography of American figure releases.  However, you do see Cobra Commander with the Crazylegs with which he was released in India.  So, you have a mix.  What you don't see here, though, are the multitude of variants that accompanied many of these figures when they were released in India.

Of the 6 Joes shown, three of them (Zap, Short Fuse and Stalker) all have many Funskool variants, all of which are very different from one another.  Gung Ho, Hawk and Chuckles still have variants.  Though, they are minor in comparison to their counterparts.  Below you can see examples of a Red Stalker (with caucasian skin) and an Emerald Green Zap figure.

The Cobras shown have equally dramatic variants available.  Of the 10 figures, 4 have major variants. (Scrap Iron, Buzzer, Ripper and Major Bludd)  The rest are somewhat different from their American counterparts, but are designed after the iconic appearance.  There are lots of small variants within each figure.  But, none as major as those for the four listed above.  Scrap Iron has a very rare green trimmed figure.  Ripper has a purple trimmer variant that is also tough to find and very famous which is shown.  You'll also see examples of a blue and yellow Major Bludd as well as a dark haired, red vested Buzzer below.

In addition to these catalog figures, Funskool also had a wide variety of other characters who were released, some in drastically different colors.  Below you will see the yellow Torpedo, the black version of Snake Eyes with silver highlights as well as some examples of the hard to find Funskool Clutch figure.  There were many more rare variants, too.  Included in these are blue versions of Hawk and Short Fuse, the yellow and red Beach Head and the blue Snake Eyes.  All of them have become highly sought after these days and high quality specimens command premium prices.

Funskool likely had to change these alternate versions to something more similar to the American releases so that the characters matched their appearances in cartoons and print ads.  Funskool was obligated to follow Hasbro's color palette for characters that Hasbro deemed important.  That's why all of these major characters have Funskool versions that are nearly identical to the American release.  But, figures like the 1991 Grunt and Wild Bill were not deemed important by Hasbro and Funskool was able to produce those figures in any color scheme they desired.  Thus, we have so many wacky repaints from the early 2000's era.

Rarities - Clear Shadow Ninja Prototypes

A great many collectors hate the Shadow Ninjas.  Actually, that's probably not overly accurate.  It's more correct to state that most collectors are indifferent to the existence of the Shadow Ninjas.  They may own a couple that were acquired in lots of better figures.  But, few people actually collect them and fewer still consider them an integral part of the Joe line.

It appears, though, that the Shadow Ninja concept morphed a bit in the design process.  Instead of the color changing plastic that was released at retail, Hasbro originally considered clear figures for the series.  A few samples of these clear version made it out into the world and you can see examples of Snake Eyes, Stormshadow and Night Creeper below.

While the idea of clear figures would have been novel at the time, the design would have run its course quickly.  Maybe if one of the figures in the set had been "invisible", it would have been a cool gimmick.  But, a whole series of them quickly showed the fad's limitations.  You can see the inner workings of the figures.  And, since these molds all had spring loaded features, there's a lot of guts to see.

There's no real info as to why this concept was abandoned for the color changing plastic.  We can speculate that the color changing gimmick was better received than the clear plastic.  But, we don't know for sure.  These figures are an interesting look into what might have been, though.

Please read the comments below.  These were engineering samples designed to showcase the inner workings of the figures.  They seem to exist for the Shadow Ninja line.  It seems there are several sets of them out there.

Night Creeper Unreleased Figure

Clear Snake Eyes Unreleased Figure

Clear Stormshadow Unreleased Figure

Rarities - Alternate 2002 BJ's Snake Eyes

I've showcased 6 figures in the BJ's 8 figure set who had alternate figure designs.  Today is the seventh: Snake Eyes.  The unproduced version of Joe's iconic character has a decidedly different look.  This body is in a base of faint green.  It is a stark new look for Snake Eyes and gives him an odd appearance.

Hasbro was fairly protective of Snake Eyes' iconic black base for a long time.  So, it is unlikely that this figure was ever seriously considered for release.  But, the fact that it is fully painted shows that it was part of a color sample and did get far enough in the process to be a late rejection.

During the heyday of the these alternate figures' availability, Snake Eyes wasn't too popular.  The 1989 mold was overused by Hasbro and collectors soured on it: even in unproduced forms.  While the Firefly and Roadblock from this set fetched high prices, this Snake Eyes was relatively forgotten.  He would often go unsold or sell cheaply.  What interest there was in the mold was mostly focused on the better unproduced Wal Mart Sky Patrol version of the same mold that was also available at the time.  Like all of these alternate, unproduced Asian figures, though, this Snake Eyes has gotten harder to find and more expensive.

As an oddity, this guy is actually kind of interesting.  The gold looks better on the green than it did on the production black.  You will note this figure is missing the terrible GI JOE logo on the figure's leg.  And, the production figure features a 2nd, silver paint mask over the knives' blades that is missing here.  But, this figure also has paint armbands and grenades that were left black on the production piece.  So, it's definitely a mishmash of a few designs.

As an oddity, this figure is interesting.  But, as a fully released figure, I think he'd be as forgettable as the retail BJ's set figure is.  The green would have been a short topic of conversation during the time.  But, the purple release in 2003 would have stolen all the focus off of this figure had it seen production.  It is, definitely, a relic of that era's unproduced figures.  But, isn't anything that really catches a collector's eye.

Rarities - Coming Soon Explosion Back Cardbacks

1980's toy marketing was completely different than anything we know today.  Then, there were few ways to get information to your customer.  You could take out expensive TV advertising either on local channel weekday afternoons or on the national networks' Saturday morning cartoon blocks.  You could team up with a food promotion.  You could advertise in comic books.  Or, you could use your sales packaging as marketing cross promotion.  Kenner achieved this with great success with their Star Wars line.  And, Hasbro emulated it with G.I. Joe.  On the back of every figure package was a visual representation of pretty much every figure that should have been available at retail in that given year.  It was a great way to let kids know that there was a whole lot more to the line than the one figure they might get as a present.  At various times, though, Hasbro blocked out some upcoming characters with a 'Coming Soon' explosion.

These explosion backs occurred in two different years, 1983 and 1987.  In 1983, the characters of Trip Wire, Torpedo, Major Bludd and Destro were exploded out.  I recall that both Trip Wire and Torpedo figures were almost non existent until the late summer of 1983.  So, they might have been a case where Hasbro didn't want kids looking for them until they were released.  Destro and Major Bludd are, likely, the same thing.  Destro's look was some of secret until his full appearance in the comic.  They hinted at him, but didn't show him for a few months.  Bludd, though, was a mail away.  So, any kid who collected Joe was aware of him.  But, his carded figure may have been delayed until the mail away was done, so he was blocked out, too.

The reasoning behind the coming soon explosions isn't fully known.  In the case of Kenner's Star Wars line, Lucasfilm specifically didn't want anyone to see the Ewoks (or Jabba the Hutt) prior to the release of Return of the Jedi.  So, they were blacked out on the earliest cardbacks.  (I got a Chief Chirpa figure that had him still blacked out on the back.)  But, G.I. Joe didn't have a movie to spoil.  (Well, it kind of did in 1987.  But, the most prominent movie characters like Falcon and Jinx are showcased while other, more obscure characters are not.)  It could have been that the artwork wasn't ready at the time when the cardbacks were done.  But, this seems like an unnecessary rush.

In December of 1986, my mother took me to Toys R Us.  While I always looked at the Joes, I didn't figure I'd find anything really new.  But, among the carded figures were newly released 1987 characters.  I bought Falcon and Cobra Commander.  I have no memory of who else they might have had on the shelves.  It is likely, though, that because the 1987 figures were seeing a slightly early release for the 1986 Christmas season, Hasbro saw an opportunity to bring back the explosion backs.

Explosion backs are rare.  MOC examples are very pricey and can be ridiculously expensive if you find a highly desirable character on one.  Even loose explosion back cardbacks can be tough to find.  But, once you have one, you kind of have them all for a given year.  To me, the interesting part is the inconsistency of Hasbro's usage of them.  Why just those two years?  Maybe they didn't test well either time and were never brought back.  Regardless the reason, they are a footnote in Joe's retail history.

Rarities - 1992 Recalled Roadblock

In 1992, Hasbro released a new version of Roadblock.  The figure was true to the character and a nice update of a favorite Joe that had not appeared at retail in a few years.  The first issue of the figure featured some unique accessories.  The first was an updated heavy machine gun.  This massive weapon was ideal for Roadblock and matched his prior appearances.  The second accessory was a two part spinning launcher that shot a helicopter disk into the air.  It sounds innocuous enough.  But, the launcher would break if it was wound too tightly.  Hasbro quickly "recalled" the figures.  Though, it's doubtful they actually went out to shelves and pulled them down.  More likely, they simply didn't make any more and he was pulled from the remainder of the 1992 case assortments.  They replaced the figure in 1993 assortments with the same figure: only now packaged with a weapon tree and a new spring loaded accessory that wasn't as powerful.

If you have a loose version of the 1992 Roadblock, there is nothing about the figure that denotes he was the recalled version or not.  The figure itself remained unchanged.  It was only an accessory and packaging change.  First hand accounts from collectors who owned or own the figure are that the launcher is EXTREMELY powerful if wound tight enough.  For years, it was believed that the strength of the launcher was the reason for the recall rather than the susceptibility of breakage.  However, you will find that many loose launchers are broken from kids trying to maximize the height they could attain from the device.

In an interview in a toy magazine in 1993, Kirk Bozigian made a statement that 80,000 Roadblocks were produced.  Based on the fact that the figure is pretty hard to find and you rarely see loose versions show up in original collections, the 80,000 number seems high.  In the early 2000's, you'd occasionally see a loose version of the figure show up in a random lot.  But, they were much less common than the Eco Warriors variants of Snow Storm and Outback.  It's possible that a lot of unaccessorized Roadblocks were recalled versions and the gear was lost.  But, due the size of the gun and the launcher, this is also an unlikely scenario since those were not accessories that were likely to be lost.

It is likely that Hasbro produced the full batch of 1992 Roadblock figures in late 1991 and, possibly, into 1992.  When they stopped shipping the figure in the 1992 cases, they kept the overstock that had yet to be packaged with the recalled accessories.  When it came time to release the 1993 Roadblock figure, they first used up all the 1992 overstock.  Once that ran out, they then started packaging the 1993 repainted Roadblock figure onto the 1993 card.  You will notice that 1992 Roadblocks on 1993 cards have card art that matches the 1993 repainted figure.  So, the intention was likely to only release a repainted Roadblock in 1993.  But, since they had the 1992 overstock already made up, they used them first before moving to the new 1993 deco.

While the launcher is the dangerous part of the figure's equipment, the gun is more interesting.  The rifle was large and fit with the figure nicely.  Why Hasbro chose to remove this from the "fixed" Roadblock's is a mystery.  That weapon was actually the more desirable part of the recalled pieces...until 2001.  In 2001, Funskool figures became rather ubiquitous among American based Joe dealers.  Among the figures they sold was an Indian repaint of the 1992 Roadblock.  Included with this figure was the recalled Roadblock machine gun.  This gave collectors easy access to cheap versions of the weapon and helped to reduce it's desirability.  (The weapon was also available with a couple of other Funskool figures of the time, making it even more common.)  Now, the figure remains popular for both the gun and spinner, but it's the spinner that draws attention.

Time was, this was a $100 figure.  Since you don't see them that often, it's tough to nail down specific pricing, though $200 seems too high.  The carded figures, though, have skyrocketed from their ~$100 price from two decades ago and will often fetch nearly $700 if they are nicely conditioned.  That's a lot for a spring loaded spinner, gun and knife.  Personally, I think the story is worth more than the figure and this isn't a variant I have any desire to track down.  Getting Funskool versions of the gun were enough to sate my desire for anything related to this figure.  But, the catchy name of "Recalled Roadblock" connotates 1990's toy hysteria better than anything else and has given this figure a lot of life in the collecting world.

1992 Recalled Roadblock MOC