What if Habro never brought the 3 3/4 back?

[frozentundra]

I hit the TRU in Fargo yesterday. The 3 3/4 will not be coming back on the shelves, they were almost completely cleaned out. The only exception was a couple of lonely Morays, tucked away on the bottom shelf. The display was set up for Sigma 6 only. I was walking out and thought "what if Hasbro never brought back the 3 3/4 figure back?" What if the line never came back in the late 90s? Would the some of the collectors have less grievances with Hasbro? What if the 3 3/4 line was only one run? Would there be less of the "Hasbro isn't making ME happy, Hasbro isn't catering to MY needs?"

[GI Trekker]

Honestly, I expect that except for what I imagine will be a short-lived 25th Anniversary product, and whatever the Collectors' Club continues to produce for Conventions and such, the 3-3/4" G.I.Joes WON'T be back.

And it surprises even me that I'm not more bothered by it.

In 1994, when the line was first scrapped, I was one of a handful of people that went to work to get it brought back. I ran petitions, surveys, sent the whole lot of it to Hasbro, and did as much as I could. I wasn't alone in this.

And -- it worked -- sort of. I don't think any one of us who have been in the hobby in the long term would claim that the product that ran from 1997-2006 -- with a few skips along the way -- was entirely on a par with the original line, and some of it was vastly inferior.

That's not to say we didn't get some cool stuff along the way. There were a handful of new interesting characters. We finally got figures of all of the Oktober Guard, and even Kwinn. These were certainly long overdue, and the figures are excellent. And I certainly was pleased with the Viper Pit set.

There was other new stuff that was cool. The Crimson Shadow Guard. The new Tiger Force and Python Patrol sets. I was even pleased to see Action Man turn up in the line in the Night Force Set.

But there was an awful lot of garbage, too. I don't know too many people that think the G.I.Joe Infantry "Greenshirts" set is a work of art. A number of the comic-based three-packs were less than stellar, thanks to poor quality controls on paint and molding, if nothing else. Some of the six-packs seemed less than inspired.

Honestly, I don't expect the 3-3/4" line to return anytime soon. And if the powers-that-be at Hasbro can't treat it with more respect and regard than they have at times in the past several years, I'm okay with that. I've got a good collection here. There's a few more things I'd like to have, but I can work on that on my own as I am able. It's been a good run for the most part, and I'm content with it.

[Shogi]

I imagine that if the line was never brought back, then sure we wouldn't be complaining about how Hasbro doesn't make what we want, we'd just complain about how Hasbro doesn't make GI Joes Also I believe there would be less collectors around. I'm sure there are a good number of kids who got brought into GI Joe collecting because of JvC, VvV and Spytroops

[Dreadnok4life]

People like to complain. So whether or not 3 3/4" Joe was brought back or not, there would still be complaining. The typical "Damned if you do, damned if you don't" approach. Personally I enjoyed most of the VvV, JvC, Etc. line. There were a few mis-steps but I thought there were some really cool items released. Unfortunately many collectors wanted only old school style figures. And the figures that were released were examined like each one was a diamond, and there flaws were magnified. I think Hasbro tried.

[GI Trekker]

Regardless of one's opinion of certain aspects of the recent years of the G.I.Joe line -- newsculpt, traditional-style, whatever -- I think we can all agree that the CONSISTENCY of the line suffered pretty severely. You had two different types of figures, and the newsculpts themselves underwent a fair number of structural and even appearance changes in their relatively short history. Throw in the comics packs, the TRU 6-packs, the 12" line based on 3-3/4" characters, and the fact that the underlying concept -- SpyTroops, Valor vs. Venom, whatever -- changed every year... and if you throw in the radical changes made from the 2000-2002 line to the so-called "relaunch" in 2002, I think that the sheer chaos of it all did no favors to G.I.Joe.

I think one of the things that hurt the ORIGINAL line late on was the fact that it went from being a trend-SETTER to being a trend-FOLLOWER. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are popular? Okay, let's do Ninja Force -- three years later. The environment is popular and there's a cartoon called Captain Planet? Let's do the Eco-Warriors. And let's not forget that the basic Joes in 1995 would've been called Battle Corps RANGERS had they come out. Gee, what other popular line with the name "Rangers" in it had just come on the scene about then?

It's a popular thing these days for toy lines to overhaul themselves as much as possible on an annual basis. Power Rangers has kept itself fresh with this concept, but it's also been imitated by Transformers, and at least with regard to packaging styles, a number of other toy lines, including Star Wars and Justice League.

I honestly don't think it worked all that well with G.I.Joe, because there was already such a diversity of product out there -- comics packs, six-packs, newsculpts, whatever -- that when the toys switched from Joe vs Cobra to SpyTroops to Valor vs. Venom to the DTC stuff that turned up at TRU, it only seemed to add to the chaos, rather than be perceived as a "new concept" -- and for the most part, the figures all looked the same anyway.

While there were certainly changes in the package design of the original line over the years, and no shortage of special teams later on, there was still a greater level of consistency in GENERAL appearance on the shelves that I think was sorely lacking in more recent years. And I think that really hurt it.

[Bravo]

*shrug*

I challenge anyone to find a fanbase that doesn't have noticable complaining. That's part of being a fan(atic).

I suspect if the internet had been widely available in the 1980's, we as kids would've been online saying "Serpentor sux, Cobra Commander is much kewler!". Even as kids many of us were opinionated and fickle.

[DPrime]

People like to complain. So whether or not 3 3/4" Joe was brought back or not, there would still be complaining. The typical "Damned if you do, damned if you don't" approach. Personally I enjoyed most of the VvV, JvC, Etc. line. There were a few mis-steps but I thought there were some really cool items released. Unfortunately many collectors wanted only old school style figures. And the figures that were released were examined like each one was a diamond, and there flaws were magnified. I think Hasbro tried.

Fair enough, with regards to complaints, but I don't think Hasbro really tried at all. It really couldn't have been THAT cost-prohibitive to remold or fix small body parts or accessories that weren't there. If the line was aimed at collectors anyway, a few extra bucks wouldn't have made a difference to us, if that was how it'd have to be.

Hasbro was pretty lazy, as far as I'm concerned. I understand that emphasis had to be made on the Star Wars movie, in order to capitalize on the hype the prequels were generating, but making a few extra molds of designs that already exist shouldn't have been too much to ask (I mean, we're talking about crotches, arms, and tiny weapons here).

All the new sculpt stuff, that was primarily aimed at kids, so I don't have a lot ot say there. It would have been nice if we had some RAH-style designs in there and better sculpting, but whatever... I'm mainly interested in RAH stuff. However, I also think they screwed the pooch on the new stuff because they just didn't back it enough - without a major TV series, a good advertising campaing or a comic from a major publisher I'm not surprised it never came close to RAH of the '80s. They seemed to have learned their lesson there, but it's a shame they thought the scale of the figures were part of the problem - Star Wars continues to prove that it's not.

[Soundwave Viper]

I actually hope that they don't for awhile...... I mean it will give alot of people a chance to get what they still don't have ....and for guys like me who collect several other toylines..... it will give us a chance to spend more on them aswell.

[Currahee_Chris]

I think that Hasbro has also had a bit of a problem coming up with something innovative that makes people want to collect the line. It's obvious they tried with the Collector's Edition in 00, then VvV, JvC, and none of those really hit it off like they were probably hoping it would. I think they should have tried a little harder coming up with a new angle on the figure line- certainly WW2 material has been super hot- especially in 99-00 when they relaunched. Why not do a market study and revamp the Joes as a WW2 stike force? True, that would be following in the lines of "The current trend" but hey, it would be different. How cool would a new MOBAT be sculped on a Sherman chassis- or the new HISS as a King Tiger? Sort of a quasi nazi/COBRA regime fantasy/reality gambit? ACE streaking through the sky in a P-51D?

Anyway, that is just one angle. I am sure those people at HASBRO could have come up with something a little more invigorating. The point is, there wasn't a new concept and it just didn't launch.

I did enjoy the new figs for the most part- disappointed with some of it, but for the most part it was kind of cool. I also think that they are still kind of playing follow the leader. Manga and that genre has taken off like gangbusters over the last 15 years- especially with younger kids vis-a-vis the Pokemon/Yugioh infestation. Why not revamp Joes to have a more "MANGA" feel to them through Sig 6?- which is what they obviously did.

[DPrime]

I think that Hasbro has also had a bit of a problem coming up with something innovative that makes people want to collect the line. It's obvious they tried with the Collector's Edition in 00, then VvV, JvC, and none of those really hit it off like they were probably hoping it would. I think they should have tried a little harder coming up with a new angle on the figure line- certainly WW2 material has been super hot- especially in 99-00 when they relaunched. Why not do a market study and revamp the Joes as a WW2 stike force? True, that would be following in the lines of "The current trend" but hey, it would be different. How cool would a new MOBAT be sculped on a Sherman chassis- or the new HISS as a King Tiger? Sort of a quasi nazi/COBRA regime fantasy/reality gambit? ACE streaking through the sky in a P-51D?

I don't like the idea of "transporting" the current Joe characters back to WWII, but I do like the idea of a WWII-era GI Joe team. In fact, why not bring back Sgt Savage but in 3 3/4" form? The original line would have been awesome if they hadn't made the figures bigger than the RAH Joes...