GI Joe VHS Tape Ad

 

I know this isn't quite a toy ad, but here is an ad from an old comic book announcing that G.I. Joe cartoon episodes were going to be available on Family Home Entertainment VHS tapes.  F.H.E. would go on to release twelve tapes featuring G.I. Joe.  The first two compiled the episodes that made up The M.A.S.S. Device mini-series, and The Revenge of Cobra mini-series as full-length movies.  Most of the rest of them were just tapes featuring single episodes.  If that price tag of $39.95 was the same for all the tapes, that’s pretty crappy.  I can see possibly paying that for one of the two mini-series, but not for a tape featuring just a single episode.  For Christmas in 1986, I received one of the tapes, the single episode titled Sattelite Down.  I really hope my parents didn’t pay that much for that tape back then.  That $39.95 is $93.00 in today’s dollars. 

GI Joe Killer WHALE Hovercraft Commercial from 1984

 

Throughout my memories of the mid-’80s, two action figure lines dominated my playtime. Masters of the Universe and G.I. Joe. The cartoon series and the Real American Hero toyline were a powerful combination. I lived and breathed G.I. Joe pretty hard back then. I mean, I still do today, but not nearly like I did back then.

This commercial combines the two pretty well. The animated sequence at the beginning is befitting of its own episode of the cartoon and would make a great commercial by itself. But then you throw in the hovercraft itself, and I was in playtime heaven.

Like most things I salivate over in these old commercials, I never owned the WHALE, nor did I ever get a chance to play with it. So watching the kids in this commercial put it through its paces makes me excited even today. The fact that it actually floats on water is a big drawing point, and watching the depth charges roll off into the water almost sent me over the edge. It was a stellar toy in a line full of them, and yet it still stands apart from the rest because of all its cool features.

And what about that environment they are playing with it in? I wish I had had a place like that to take my Joes back then and fight out the battles between G.I. Joe and Cobra.