Category: G.I. Joe

Well, I did it again. I was browsing through a local second hand marketplace app when I came across this vinyl record with cartoon tunes from the 80’s in French.

This time, not just a 7″ single, but a full 12″ album with the tunes for G.I. Joe, Jem, Transformers, Bravestarr, Clair de Lune and Guerres Secretes.

The A side contains the tunes.

The B side has 2 stories, one of Clair de Lune and 1 of G.I. Joe.

The story is a 14 minutes radio drama where Cobra is making ships disappear with some sort of magnetic weapon. They have a huge base underwater and in the end G.I. Joe comes along and attacks it from all sides. Cobra Commander and Destro need to flee to try and terrorize the world another day. Sounds familiar, right? They stole this story and turned it into part of The Rise of Cobra script.

It may not be the best of stories, and certainly not the best voice acting, but even then, this vinyl album is a great little gem showing the international appeal of G.I. Joe. I’m very glad to add this to my collection. Now If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go and listen to the rest of the album and maybe this holiday, I have to introduce my girls to Jem…

Happy Collecting and YoJoe!

It has been a while since I added something new to my collection. Today these four little Funko Mystery Mini Retro Pops have arrived.

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I got these figures through an eBay auction and actually scored them for a nice price. The little Shipwreck has both his grappling hook and Polly, something his bigger version is lacking (see this post). The Snake Eyes figure is all black. That’s always a good look, but on this figure, it does seem a bit cheap. At least there is some glossy black to make some details stand out. He comes with no accessories whatsoever. Strange if you ask me since his hand is shaped like he could perfectly hold a sword or UZI…

The Leatherneck figures are nice. A simple repaint, it’s not like we haven’t seen that before in the G.I. Joe universe… The 3.75″ figures had nine iterations. Still, it’s a bit odd that they have chosen Leatherneck. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a cool character, but if you ask a hundred Joe fans to list their top-5 Joes, I don’t think he’ll be mentioned a lot.

These little figures do have me thinking back to the Sunbow cartoon episode ‘Once upon a Joe’. Mind you, I haven’t seen that cartoon as a kid, but we had a sticker book from Panini in Belgium and The Netherlands that featured this story. There were other stories in the book as well, ‘Cobra’s Creatures’, ‘Jungle Trap’, ‘Haul down the Heavens’, ‘The Phantom Brigade’, ‘Spell of the Siren’, ‘Excalibur’& ‘Ninja Holiday’.

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Disclaimer: While I have the original sticker book in my collection, it’s currently somewhere in a storage box. The pictures above were scanned by gijoe.nl, the official G.I. Joe fan page of Belgium and The Netherlands. Check out to see what goodies we got over here (you’ll have to learn Dutch or use a translation app to get the full experience)

That’s it for now. See you around and until then…

Happy Collecting and YoJoe!

While the last few weeks had been packed with new toys coming my way, it has been very calm these last few days. Sure, I pre-ordered the new Funko Pops (Leatherneck and Dr. Mindbender) and there are still some Classified and Retro Line figures that I have pre-ordered as well, but it all seems to have calmed down for now. Naturally, in a few hours, Habro Pulse is going live and lots of new and exciting toys will be announced. I’ll try and watch it, or watch it later when I can. December is traditionally a very expensive month with gifts and this year, we have the extra cost of putting a new roof on our house. If you have been reading along with the blog, you’ll know that we moved 2 years ago and that we’re building 2 new rooms on the attic. One for my daughter to use as bedroom, the other one will be my office/G.I. Joe museum 😊. While we were preparing to put up isolation, we noticed quite some issues with the roof and it was so severe that we have to renew the roof. The works should begin by the end of the month. After that, we can start with isolating and building walls, putting in the wires for lights and outlets, flooring,… A lot of work and a lot of costs, and I may have been stretching my budget to buy new toys quite a bit already. So here I am, waiting to see what new toys are being announced and fearing that I may never be able to have the money for them.

In any case, let’s hope the end of the year will be brighter and healthier than it is right now.

Happy Collecting and YoJoe!

Well, I’ve been working from my home office since March and in those 33 weeks, I’ve been expanding my collection with a lot of the new Classified line, the Retro line and Funko Pops. Today however, I have something vintage. And it’s in French.

Yes, it’s the 7″ vinyl of the cartoon’s theme song in French.

Alors, copains & héros, chante avec moi!

No seriously, I didn’t know these even existed until I came across it on a marketplace app. And right on time too, because you can now order the original music on a 12″ full album (see here).

And also vinyl related, Wordburglar will be releasing the amazing Welcome to Cobra Island album on a 12″ as well. The campaign has ended, so if you’re too late, sucks to be you I guess. Grab a digital copy or a cd on bandcamp if you haven’t done so already.

Until next time! Happy Collecting and YoJoe!

Well, we’re back with a new addition to the collection. No Retro Line or Classified figure, but a new Funko Pop figure. Let’s take a look at Shipwreck!

As with all Funko Pop figures, the resemblance is there and the vinyl figure that has the same height as a 3.75″ G.I. Joe figure looks really good. They designed him with his grappling hook and rope in hand and that is a nice detail to his original figure. There is one big downside on the figure and that is the fact that he is missing his – and our – beloved parrot Polly. How did this get through quality control? If you say Shipwreck, you say Polly. It’s like Bert and Ernie, Simon and Garfunkel, Yin and Yang. To make matters worse, on the box art on the back, they display his classic box art with the parrot!

I already had collected the previous G.I. Joe Funko pop figures (see here and here, but I also have the others: Snake-Eyes, Roadblock (again him), Storm Shadow (the white one) and Cobra Commander (the helmet version)). Next to that, I have a whole load of other Funko Pops from all types of geeky culture (from Star Trek to Thunderbirds, from Boy meet World to Care Bears, from Back to the Future to Ghostbusters). I also have one of the Sarge (see here). They are milking it for everything it’s worth with all the possible franchises you can think of, but hey, I’m a sucker for them. The next one I need to track down is the Beachhead NYCC exclusive one and the Zartan one that is coming out soon. Keep you posted.

Until next time! Happy Collecting and YoJoe!