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The 10 Worst G.I. Joe Rip-Offs of All Time


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By Brian Heiler

Hasbro literally created the the phrase “action figure” when it debuted G.I. Joe in 1964; the 12-inch soldier was so amazingly badass that millions of boys could lie to themselves and pretend it wasn’t a doll. In 1982, Hasbro reinvented G.I. Joe with the 3 3/4-inch Real American Hero line, and a new generation of boys learned that there was no evil that couldn’t be thwarted by enough Americans with guns (although ninjas certainly helped). With more than 40 years of success, it’s inevitable that many, many other toy companies would try to emulate G.I. Joe in both forms — although the results never matched the success of the original, and most were laughably horrible. Here are the 10 most dishonorable discharges from the G.I. Joe rip-off pile.



10) M P.A.C.T.
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The talking action figure gimmick of the ’90s was responible for a lot of horrible toylines, including Toy Max’s M P.A.C.T. series. These cheapie discount store figures were barely articulated, came with a back pack, and was saddled with a tremendously homoerotic codename, such as “Kelly Nightwing,” “Le Macho” and “L’ Homme” — which does indeed literally mean “The Man.”

9) Action Force
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Not so much a knock-off but more of distant cousin, Action Force was created by U.K. toy maker Palitoy, who for over a decade had been marketing Hasbro’s G.I. Joe as “Action Man” in England. With sales of the 12-inch figure declining, Palitoy sought to re-brand it in a smaller size in 1983; the 3 ?-inch figures they came up with owe more to Star Wars than Hasbro’s Real American Hero, and have a far more realistic military flavor. Eventually, Hasbro would buy out Palitoy in the mid-’80s and the figures would simply become part of the Joe team we all knew and loved.

8) Bronze Bombers  (Olmec 1988-1997)
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Olmec Toys was a company dedicated to providing alternatives for African-American children, who seemed to ignore the fact that the Joe team was rather racially diverse. The company began releasing the Broze Bombers in 1987, with card art which looked like it was from some cool Fred Williamson movie. Unfortunately, the toys themselves looked like they were cobbled together by repainting body parts from ’70s Mego lines like C.H.i.Ps” In 1997, the line returned, this time using toy molds leased from Hasbro itself, and the figures were quite popular during the Real American Hero drought.

7) Fighting Yank
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In the late ’60s, Mego was a maker of budget toys you’d get when it wasn’t Christmas or your birthday. In an effort to produce a male counterpart to their hit Barbie knock-off “Maddie Mod,” they produced Fighting Yank in 1970, a 12-inch “nudge nudge” version of America’s fighting man. Trouble was, the factory they chose simply copied an existing Joe figure, including its famous reversed fingernail, which Hasbro had left uncorrected on its 12-inch toy to help spot counterfeits. The result was lawsuit hilarity

6) Sgt. Rock

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Sgt. Rock is an comic book icon, and anytime he makes it to toy form, it should be exciting. However, toymaker Remco simply used his name as a competitor to G.I. Joe in 1983, and really didn’t adhere to the comics at all. Rock came in Vietnam-era fatigues and his Easy Company was replaced by a bunch of generic soldiers with unimaginative but functional names like “Sharpshooter.”  While Sarge’s packaging did have some killer Joe Kubert art, the figures were rather clunky; Remco simply repainted the good guy figures blue for the enemy soldiers.
 
5) Gen. Patch
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Galoob reused a lot of the same figure molds from their hit A-Team line for this 1984 rip-off series. The big hook with the General Patch line was that his “weapons with the smell of battle,” which one can only assume was the stench of fear, blood, gunpowder and possibly freshly pooped pants.

4) The CORPS!
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Produced by Lanard Toy, the CORPS! (you have to yell that part every time you say it ) is a series of swivel armed 3 ?-inch soldiers that are well-made and offer a lower cost alternative to RAH. During the lamentable period in the ’90s when Hasbro dropped the RAH line in favor  of going all “Extreme,” The CORPS! suddenly became the only game in town and developed its own following. Over twenty years later, you can still find these tiny knock-offs on store shelves.

3) American Defense (Remco 1986)

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Once an innovative company that brought you toys like McDonaldland action figures and Energized Spider-Man, Remco spent a good portion of the ’80s grinding out generic versions of G.I. Joe and He-Man for department store chains like K-Mart. Just like off-brand cola, these figures look like the real thing but left a weird aftertaste. American Defense ran under several different names throughout the ’80s and ’90s.

2) X-Troop

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Anything made by a company called Happy Well International Enterprises should tip you off as to what you’re dealing with. Not content with just knocking off the concept, these figures are retooled versions of various characters such as Snake Eyes and Cobra Commander, but given new paint ops and comical names like “Thor-John” (you can see the Baroness moonlighting as the heroic Pheonix up above)  In keeping with the fly-by-night nature of the bootleg business, these figures have popped up under other names with different manufacturers since then.

1) Defender (R.I. Toy Company 1975)

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Tired of so many other companies knocking off Joe and his accessories, Hasbro decided to knock themselves off with the Defenders in 1975, a line of rather blank-faced blow-molded doll that just reeked of cheap. All of the Defenders accessories and outfits were overstocked Joe pieces that were simply placed in new packaging. Somehow, Defender looked even crappier than a lot of his imitators and while sales of 12-inch Joes were already tanking, Defender was happy to toss the soldier a brick while it was still sinking.