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GET TO THE CHOPPAH!!! Celebrating 2023 Yo Joe June with Hasbro's Emily and Lenny
793 Plays2 years ago
You wanted a Dragonfly, well you're GETTING a Dragonfly! Joining us this week on the show following yet another slam dunk HasLab announcement are returning guests and friends of the pod Emily Bader and Lenny Panzica from Hasbro's GI Joe team! We discuss the latest releases, reveals, and answer some of your burning questions!
Follow Emily, Lenny, and Hasbro on Instagram @morphinomenally_emily, @weatherdominator and @hasbropulse and visit hasbropulse.com for the latest news across the brand!
Ready to shop better hydration, use our special link https://zen.ai/aicpod20 to save 20% off anything you order.
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Intro and other voices by Joe Azzari
https://www.instagram.com/voicesbyjoe/
Theme Music is "Game Boy Horror" by the Zombie Dandies
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Transcript
Introduction to Summer Activities and Sponsorship
00:00:01
Speaker
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Speaker
and use code AICPOD at checkout. That's 20% off anything you order when you shop better hydration today using promo code AICPOD at liquidiv.com.
00:01:17
Speaker
Are you ready, kids? Get your parents' permission, check your mailbox, and grab your shopping cart.
Introduction to Hosts and Podcast Theme
00:01:24
Speaker
It's time for the Adventures in Collecting podcast. I'm Eric. And I'm Dave. Welcome to Adventures in Collecting, where we talk toy news, culture, and halls, along with our journeys as collectors. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Adventures in Collecting.
00:01:47
Speaker
Hi, everyone. Dave, we have a packed agenda ahead of us today.
Yo-Yo June Theme and Guest Introduction
00:01:53
Speaker
It is Yo-Yo June. It is. And we have two returning guests that I'm just realizing have never been on the show together. No. No, not in this capacity. They haven't. Since we have so much to cover. Not at the same time. They've both been on. Yes.
00:02:16
Speaker
far beyond not burying the lead. We are going to jump right in. As I just mentioned, it's Yo-Yo June. There's a lot of GI Joe news to talk about. So we are joined by returning guests, friends of the pod, Emily and Lenny from Hasbro's GI Joe team. Guys, welcome back to Adventures in Collecting. Hi. Thanks for having us. My mind is kind of blown that we really haven't been on the show at the same time before.
00:02:42
Speaker
Well, if you count like the round table segments that we've aired, like we've done a couple of those, but like we haven't done like a proper episode with the two of you together. And we haven't said each for a very long time, I think maybe a year and a half, maybe two years.
00:02:59
Speaker
It's been a while. I think Emily, yeah, you were the last one on that ZapCon, which is our very first live show. Which speaking of, it's been a long time since you guys have been
Emily's Role in Hasbro's Consumer Marketing
00:03:14
Speaker
on. Emily, since the last time you were here, your role has changed. It has, bro. So before we jump straight into the GI Joe stuff, tell us a little bit about your recent promotion. Oh, thanks. Technically, it was lateral, but I appreciate the term promotion.
00:03:29
Speaker
So I know semantics. Um, so I am on kind of a new team at Hasbro. That is our new consumer marketing team. So we're kind of splitting out how we're handling marketing. Now there were marketers were doing so many things across all of their brands. And so the hope is that we'll be able to do kind of a little bit more of a comprehensive marketing. So I am now the, the fan marketer for our non Disney brands.
00:03:56
Speaker
which is basically a catch-all for anything that is not a Disney brand. I'm on seven brands right now. Not all of them have product in the market right now. Some of them are coming, some of them are kind of phasing out, but it's been really cool to get to work with a lot of different teams and try some new things. I miss seeing Lenny every day and getting to work on the development side of things, but it's been a really fun challenge. We're having a good time. Plus, you get to go play with Power Rangers again, right?
00:04:24
Speaker
It's true. I get to play with Power Rangers. I'm learning about Transformers, kind of getting to play around, keep playing around with Dungeons and Dragons and G.A. Joe. And I have that one magic gathering item
Enhancing GI Joe Experience at Comic-Con
00:04:35
Speaker
I've been working on.
00:04:36
Speaker
starting lineup, so I've been having fun. I've been learning a lot. Oh, and Ghostbusters, we're just talking, I'm in the middle of my first watch through of all the Ghostbusters movies, which I think I really needed to start watching about 20 years ago to appreciate them the way that everybody else on this podcast right now appreciates them, but I'm gonna get there. Emily, I will say this as much as I do miss you, your talents are very well served to all the other teams, I must say.
00:05:02
Speaker
Thank you. Very sweet. We are we're having my big challenge right now is we're getting ready for San Diego Comic Con and trying to kind of figure out how to plus up our experience this year and really make it more of a an immersive must not miss experience for fans. So people will have to stay tuned to see what that is like at San Diego this year. Awesome. I mean, last year you guys recreated a tavern from
00:05:32
Speaker
I would just like to very much clarify that was paramount and paramount money that paid for that effort execution and it was it was absolutely beautiful I went on preview night it was so cool and it was so much fun to get to see and then there's
00:05:49
Speaker
modular versions of the tavern experience that actually traveled to other comic cons around the world. So it was really cool when I was at other events to see like little baby versions of the tavern. But it's been great. Lenny and I are both going to be there this year. We're going to talk GI Joe. We'll have some more people there with us and we'll have a good time. Awesome.
00:06:10
Speaker
So, you know, June, of course, means that it is yo-jo June. And you both... Exactly. Sorry. I'm so tired. It's almost like you did that, like, as reactionary as breathing. Yeah.
00:06:27
Speaker
Yeah. Lenny and I are now very good at doing very synchronized either Yo-Jos or Cobras because we've trained ourselves after fan streams, which is nice. You should have seen in the last Power Rangers fan stream we did, it was
00:06:43
Speaker
John and Jarrett and myself. And there was, when we were kind of talking through 30th anniversary, we did the It's Morphin Time, like actual morphing sequence with our hands. And you should have seen the number of times, A, that we had to practice all the hand motions, and B, trying to get synchronized enough where we didn't look like idiots on camera. It was truly magical experience.
00:07:08
Speaker
Well, Yojo rose off the tongue. It does. Yeah, it's morphin' time. There's more of a commitment to that. It's like a three-step hand movement that you have to do and your fingers do things and it's a lot. Yojo is like a whammy bar on a guitar and then it's morphin' time. It's like a drum fill. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. So it's like, there you go.
00:07:31
Speaker
And I'm not sure that It's Morphin' Time translates as well as our emotional theory of Yo-jo, that you can do a Yo-jo for any emotional tone in any situation. My favorite is- Yo-jo. Yeah, always add Yo-jo's the best. Or like, oh no, my team lead has gone into a coma in an animated movie. Yo-jo.
00:07:53
Speaker
She's been talking about this scene ever since we saw it in the theater. It obviously made quite the impression on me. When Hawk goes, yo, Joe Hawk.
00:08:04
Speaker
It's so good. It's so good. First of all, it's incredible. Second of all, the fact that she couldn't get over it, it was amazing. I was cracking up because she was cracking up about it. We did it for like two weeks at work. It was amazing. Literally every situation that we could insert a Yo-Jo in, we did. And then we added it to our mental catalog of different like,
00:08:24
Speaker
Intonations of saying yo joe like yo joe i love that that's the thing you walked away from that movie and not the unsubstantiated fantasy for weeks after you were saying it everywhere i could everywhere i could.
00:08:43
Speaker
I feel like that's less applicable in a wide range of situations though. How many times do you get to throw that out in something? There's really only one place for it. The amount of, I guess, phrases or quotes from GR Joe are incredible and we were making team shirts and I was asking Emily to put on, what is Desi? He says,
00:09:05
Speaker
Premature panic is a sign of an immature mind. And I'm like, I want that on a shirt. Can you put that on a shirt? It didn't fit. I think it was a lot. I'll figure out how to get that under a shirt for you. We, as a spoiler alert, when we are doing fan streams and we don't have corresponding fan merch up on Pulse yet, I actually make the shirts that Lettie and I wear on the show. Um, usually at 2 AM the morning before the show is actually happening.
00:09:33
Speaker
So I have a stash of shirts in both of our sizes in black and I use my Cricut. They are technically officially licensed GI Joe merchandise because they're like official logos, but it's also like kind of bootleg merch. But literally Emily made them on a Cricut. Perfect. My Cricut is basically a work expense at this point. I got it for Comic Con actually when we were doing all of our his tank lab coats. She also made them.
00:10:03
Speaker
And Lenny actually bartered with one of them and traded it to some guy at Kavacot, and we got this huge stash of enamel pins from it. It was awesome. Way to go, Lenny. Not bad. Well, speaking of Yo-Yo June.
Arctic Environments in GI Joe
00:10:16
Speaker
Yeah. You know, we've seen some pre-orders. We've seen some renders. The story aspect is very critical in how these characters find their way into the line. So why was now the right time to bring the arctic bat and the televiper with
00:10:32
Speaker
trouble bubble into the line. Um, I'd say let's talk, I think speak to the Arctic back first, like snow job needs some water, right? So I think we also want to start getting into like different environments because GI Joe was so much about that back in the day and has always been about that the roles that iterations. So, um, it's just fun to get into all the different sort of.
00:10:55
Speaker
environments that we can do and like terrains that GI Joe's are going through because, you know, wherever there's trouble GI Joe's there. So with having snow job, we had to get snow job into line. We needed to get some fodder for snow job. So that's where the Arctic backs came from. Um, and then the trouble bubbles, we had to make trouble bubbles. We need an air threat, right? So trouble bubbles are so iconic to Cobra that we need to get them in there. They're also kind of ridiculous and, uh,
00:11:24
Speaker
I mean, the trouble bubbles we made, just like the old school ones, took out three Sky Strikers. So, which I think is the most ridiculous thing in the world and I love every bit of. But, you know, we needed to get that kind of troop buildery Cobra vehicle in there that was just so iconic to the line, you know. And I think that it's also, you know,
00:11:47
Speaker
Lenny and the entire team are so careful about kind of walking that fine line between, okay, what is a very cool, modern version of this? And how do we stay kind of true to the absolutely ludicrous roots of GI Joe? And to me, both the Arctic Bats and the Trouble Bubble kind of walk that line really nicely, combining some of the more ridiculous aspects of the show, but bringing them into a way that makes them feel really modern and fresh and like they could really exist in
00:12:31
Speaker
kind of like production movie style with them and get a little more encapsulated. But the more we looked at it, it's such an iconic vehicle. It's kind of like the his tank or like the rattler or something like that. You don't want to mess with it too much. If you do look at them, there's a lot of bells and whistles and switches and telemetry gauges and stuff like that inside of them. But again, they were so iconic. Didn't want to mess with them too much. We had fun making other designs for it.
00:12:38
Speaker
a wide variety of different places.
00:12:57
Speaker
But at the end of the day, it was like sometimes certain things are sacred, like Tomax and Xamont, they were sacred. Like you can't really mess with them. We may in the future do other versions of them, which would be super exciting to do, but it wasn't time for that yet. So we're like, let's go up the old school. It's sci-fi enough where like that could have been developed now. It could have been developed 30 years ago. It could be developed 40 years from now that it felt like it made sense with a classified line.
00:13:23
Speaker
So in that same vein of kind of paying homage to the roots and kind of putting that, what really the community kind of calls like the classified spin, right? Like that's part of the process now with these 112 scale figures. The Arctic bat in particular comes with a pretty unique loadout. What went into deciding what he would come with? Again, that vein of,
00:13:51
Speaker
paying homage and doing something different at the same time. I think at the time, forget movie I was watching, but like there was like sentry set up in like a mountain. And I had been thinking like if we're going to do an Arctic bat or an Arctic type unit, they're not going to be the most
00:14:09
Speaker
Nimble or mobile like they're not gonna be able to like run through the trees granted Yeah, they're robots and stuff, but the snow gets pretty heavy So I was thinking that they are snipers first and foremost and then they're bats so close combat is they can do that as well But I had this idea that like they would use like this crazy kitted out altered like sniper rifle and They would need Like they would need a chainsaw for the elements they were in right so the chainsaw would help them like create
00:14:38
Speaker
Like a like a like a spot to shoot from or to create cover to kind of like build with the with the ice in the snow in the permafrost or cut down a tree to like set up a barracks or something like that or make shiv. A makeshift kind of like like barrier or something like that. So they needed tools so they can deal with the environment that they are in. And then you also notice on this on the swappable head.
00:15:03
Speaker
I added a polarized mask because all the gizmos inside didn't want them to get all messed up by the sun glare. So we were playing around with what would they need. And it's part of the classified thing. On the trouble bubble, we had a lot of rivets and stuff like that. We looked at jets and how they were riveted together. So again, that's that classified spin. It's like, how do you
00:15:29
Speaker
Pay respect to the old, but update it. And then sometimes, how do you just completely flip it on top of itself and do something brand new? But it's always got the beat or the essence of what it was. So when you squint at it, it passes a squint test, but it tells a full story of what it's supposed to do. I feel a good character designer tells you what they do, but doesn't overly hit you over the head.
00:15:56
Speaker
You know what I mean? It's like you can like get there as you study the toy or study the character on the TV show. Like they tell a story and then it unfolds with the more and more you hear about it or the more you play with it, you kind of get more out of it. So, um, yeah, so basically they're in a harsh terrain and they need harsh tools, like crazy sci-fi sniper rifles and chainsaw hands. You know, it's, it's.
00:16:22
Speaker
It's great hearing you talk about it because it's almost like, not to compare you to like one of the toys that you made, but like, it's almost like you have to put like a mind bender hat on and it's like, what would, what, like, there's, it's a twofold question.
00:16:37
Speaker
What would Mindbender and Destro, like, pragmatically want to include with this character? And what's Cobra Commander demanding that they include? So it's like the Sharks with Lasers. Lasers, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And it's like, you want it ridiculous, right? It should be ridiculous. And whenever I say ridiculous, it's like, it means awesome. That's my kind of term. But like, you want it ridiculous, but then the practical,
00:17:06
Speaker
This of the adding pouches and stuff like that that actually have straps that actually have rivets to hold it on it kind of like it takes your mind there and makes it more real even though he has a chainsaw hand in a futuristic sniper rifle.
00:17:25
Speaker
Yeah, it's that great kind of, if this were something you'd come up on, what would he need? Yeah, it could work. If that's the idea, it could work, but it's like, it's crazy. Like, um, like Croc Master, we gave him a hook. So he needs a hook. He's got a hole in his mouth open. Originally, Croc Master was going to come with it. I had it on the board and everything. I presented it to the team.
00:17:47
Speaker
came with a giant cow thigh, but you could feed Fiona. I never saw that. Before you tried, Emily, it was, and I was like, yeah, we're going to make it like bloody. It's going to be awesome. Um, but we costed it out because of the really big piece of material and the pricing was getting a little high, but like, again, like.
00:18:07
Speaker
thinking about what the character would need and he needs the cow hook to, I mean the meat hook to then get the piece of the cow to feed to the crocodile. He also uses to open the crocodile's mouth or fight GI Joes. So it's like kind of playing around with that stuff to see how the world can expand itself almost like naturally and serendipitously a little bit. Like what does a character lend that we can add to and embellish to make this GI Joe character a little more crazy?
00:18:36
Speaker
Now, of course, the marquee news is yet another massive HasLab success.
Success of Dragonfly HasLab Campaign
00:18:43
Speaker
The Dragonfly was funded in just over 24 hours. 26 hours, 23 minutes. 26 hours, 23 minutes. Thank you. Congratulations, of course. How did you land on the iconic chopper as the next project?
00:18:59
Speaker
I think part of it is continuing that storytelling for us and we knew that we wanted to do to follow up the hiss. We didn't want to do another Cobra vehicle. We wanted to do a Joe vehicle and trying to figure out kind of
00:19:15
Speaker
where it makes sense made sense from a storytelling perspective. And I mean, one of the big limitations around has labs is what is feasible to move from three and three quarter and scale to six inch scale? What is what is pushing the limits of shelf space availability and practicality for houses?
00:19:32
Speaker
I mean you really want a rolling thunder and six inch scale. I mean you don't you do but your house. It's like whenever somebody is like you gonna do a USS flag and six inch and we're like yeah I'd be like twenty feet long and like I could stand in it pretty easily.
00:19:50
Speaker
If it was a true 1 8th 1 12th scale flag, it would be 80 feet long. Oh, 1 12th scale. But if it was the flag ground, it'd probably be about 25 feet long. Yeah, which which is code for we're not doing it. Yeah, but it would come with divorce papers included in the package either that or a mortgage. Yes. It comes with an addition.
00:20:20
Speaker
So these are kind of the parameters that we're working with so that kind of automatically kind of moves a lot of vehicles off of our list of things that are
00:20:28
Speaker
that are feasible because we want to make sure that we're making things that are affordable for fans. They're on the more expensive end of toys, but we're not going to put out like a $2,000 Hazlab for you to buy. We actually want people to be able to enjoy these things. And so kind of looking in these parameters, we talk through story beats and kind of figure out what makes sense and what we think people would be the most excited about and what would be something that is
00:20:56
Speaker
uniquely and identifiably GI Joe to us. That's something that's really important for our has labs is we don't want you to be able to like go out on Amazon and buy something that looks like this from another retailer. Like what is it that makes ours special? That is something that you can't get anywhere else. And I feel like we kind of nailed it with the dragonfly. Yeah, so it's so iconic to the brand to especially with wild bill, right? Like it's like,
00:21:22
Speaker
It's literally two iconic characters in one, right? The vehicle's a character as well, right? So it's like it just kind of made sense. There was a lot of other options we had been looking at, some really cool stuff, but it just felt like
00:21:36
Speaker
You got to cover the basics a little bit, not to call it basic, but it's kind of like a, it's one of the, it's, it's very important to the line. So we needed to get it out there. And I think in the upfront brand, the line is young. So what are we three years old? Maybe. Yeah. This podcast launched like right before classified did at toy fair.
00:21:59
Speaker
Yeah. So 2020 toy fair. Cause that was 2020. Yeah. So again, like it's the beginning. It's exciting. Like I get the, I have the privilege of working with Dwight and a lot of the guys have worked on like black series and stuff like that. And like.
00:22:17
Speaker
uh, you know, legends is 15 years old, older because of toy biz days, right? So it's like, just chit chat with him the other day. And I was like, wow, you guys are 15 years in on the Hasbro side. Like it's incredible. And I think about like, Oh, I'm we're only three years in. Like we got, we got a, we got a lot to cover. You know what I mean? So it's, it's really exciting to think about. And it was also humbling to be like, Oh wow, those guys are deep in their lines. It's awesome.
00:22:47
Speaker
Um, and then like, it's like, we, uh, we're like the little brother. You know what I mean? You know what though? The, uh, Cosmo, the, uh, the space dog, uh, awesome, awesome figure, but, uh, would, would not exist in that form without, without a certain, uh, a certain companion to snake eyes. Uh, timber. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The Cosmo is awesome. And, uh, that's crazy to think about. It's weird because again, we're the little brother brand, um, figuratively from a design standpoint.
00:23:17
Speaker
Um, actually we're the older row, the brand thing about it. Just for tax figure line. You just went away to college for a long time. Hey back. Hey, what's up guys? I'm back and I'm taller now. I have my room back. It's been, one of the things that's been really fun for us is as the line is starting to mature is figuring out kind of what we get to do next and expanding into different offerings and
00:23:47
Speaker
Maybe you're going to start seeing some not quite as small, a little bit larger, but not has lab scale vehicles coming down the line.
00:23:55
Speaker
We really want to make sure that we are, we're continuing those storytelling elements now that we have covered like the real basic basis upfront to kind of continue that, that story expansion. Cause that is just so vital to how we view the brand is that especially we are, we are creating our own story on classified, but while still honoring the roots of this wonderful franchise.
00:24:21
Speaker
Yeah, it's funny. It's a lot that, uh, John, my boss, we talk about a lot and it's like, we want to honor the past, but we also want to push the brand forward. Right. So it's like, I actually think it would kind of be a disservice just to like reiterate it.
00:24:35
Speaker
and not update it, right? Because we've all had those figures in multiple iterations or different scales. So it's kind of like what, how can we, how can Hasbro, Shepherd, the GI Joe brand, and bring it forward? At the same time, you can still pay respect to what we've done before and also do things that are in a way larger recreations. It doesn't have to be all in one way or the other, which is really cool about toys in general, right? Now you can, you can do,
00:25:04
Speaker
replicas, you can do new storytelling stuff. It's just a matter of where we place them and how we tell that story and how it develops. So along those lines, uh, you know, clearly there's a lot in the base offering of, of the dragon fly that pays tribute to that, that original 1983 release, like, you know, the inclusion of wild bill, which, which we talked about, um, balanced with some modern, distinctively classified touches. Uh, what were some of the most important aspects of the dragon
00:25:31
Speaker
Dragonfly to hit for for you from a design standpoint. So the Dragonfly is very iconic. I actually have one sitting on the table right over there and
00:25:45
Speaker
We talked about updating the body a lot. So just so you guys know, Mark is our designer on the vehicles for the Hazlabs. He does a phenomenal job. We work very closely with Mark to kind of like make sure that we're still on brand. And on the Hazlab vehicles, I do the mainline vehicles, but Mark does the Hazlab vehicles. So my job is more like a licenser on those.
00:26:09
Speaker
But I think we had some other designs that we were exploring because you never want to go in and be like, this is what we're doing. And that's how it's going to be handled. And that's it. You want to explore, get all the sketches going and stuff like that. We had seen other sketches that were a little more, some a little more, how should I describe it? Softer. Others that were more sci-fi. Others that were a little more modern.
00:26:33
Speaker
A little more modern, yeah. And then where we knitted out was kind of a modern take, but with some of the edging out that the original one had, like the cockpit. So for me in particular, I really wanted to make sure that cockpit had that kind of like rectangular shape to it on top. In some iterations, it was getting too round and bubbly, and it was just losing the feel of what it needed to look like. So for me, I needed,
00:27:01
Speaker
it to have an angled out aggressiveness to it, but at the same time, from a modernization standpoint, it needs to have some of those modernization aerodynamic features that as you see in the iteration that it is today. We also wanted to kind of like, plus it up with some of the armaments. We wanted to add a lot more armaments to it. I love the idea of being able to take a vehicle or a character. If you notice in G.I. Joe's, a lot of parts are modular.
00:27:27
Speaker
Um, want to be able to do that on the vehicles as well. Cause how are you going to outfit it for your mission? You're going to go on. So again, for the most part, it's like we wanted to keep the silhouette there, but we did feel like we needed to add the technology that that type of helicopter has so that it looks believable. Otherwise it'll look like.
00:27:46
Speaker
a 40-year-old helicopter. We didn't want to do a 40-year-old helicopter. We wanted to do a modern helicopter that has some cues from the dragonfly. Because the dragonfly, the cockpit and stuff like that, that's not what Cobra helicopters look like on the shape, that boxiness, and then the back thrusters. Cobra helicopters don't look like that either in an old school 40 years ago.
00:28:10
Speaker
Um, so Mark did a really good job of redesigning that and kind of exploring where it needed to go. And for the whole team, once, once Mark got it, we were like, yep, that's it. It looks beautiful. It's a nice modernization. That's a classified version of the dragon fly. It felt right. And I think so much of not to, to discount all of the other things that make something classified, but to me, classified figures thrive in the details.
00:28:37
Speaker
It is those little tiny things that are that attention to detail.
00:28:41
Speaker
that you don't always see on other toy brands that exist in the universe that I think really sets us apart. And that on all of our hazard projects, we pay particular attention to that. And so when you get your his tanks in hand, you'll be able to see that. When you get your dragonflies in hand, you'll be able to see that. And I think that that just adds to kind of the, in my mind, like the magical amount of realism that we can get in these vehicles and figures is just amazing.
00:29:10
Speaker
I'm in my happy place when I'm doing the sculpt and put for any toy, particularly GI Joes. When I can really get in there and the Grebel that Mark Boudreau used to say, that's where I'm in my happy place.
00:29:26
Speaker
Um, being able to put that into classified figures and then working with Mark and Mark also starting to be like, I really like getting into the details. I'm like, yeah. Cause you're, you're, I feel like the deep God is in the details, right? That expression. So it's like, you're kind of breathing the life into it a little bit. And it's like, you're putting those buckles and, and.
00:29:47
Speaker
and buttons and creases and patches and stuff like that. And the same can be said for a vehicle. You're putting on the rivets, you're putting, you're putting on the scribe lines that insinuate that there's a panel there that can come off and then inside of there, there's something, it allows your imagination to like run. And first and foremost, as a toy designer,
00:30:06
Speaker
I went to school for toy design. They trained us to be like, all right, you want a kid to pick up the toy and have their imagination go wild. And the toy kind of tells them instructs, how do I play with this thing or instructs your imagination to spark and then go play and have fun and then go create and be merry.
00:30:24
Speaker
So that's why classified is so exciting for me and a happy place for me. And I think it's fun to see other designers start to do that too, because it's like you start remembering the basics of toy design and it's all in those little details. I mean, hell, I've been looking at some of these classified figures that I have in front of me on my desk. Like I've been looking at them now for three years, which is crazy. But like, you know, there are times where I'll pick up somebody and like, who was I looking at the other day? Um,
00:30:53
Speaker
I forget, I forget who it was. It might have been Stalker? I forget. I was looking at somebody though and I noticed that there was detail sculpted underneath something and like you couldn't actually see it you know like a normal inspection but I happened to just move it a certain way and I was like wait a second and like I moved like the vest aside and I was like oh there's there's stuff going on under here.
00:31:17
Speaker
Well, it's funny, too, because like if we don't put the vest on and we use that body every toy design we're using bodies. Yeah, that's stuff like that later on. Like you got to account for it. So it's like design the whole thing. You know, it gets it's a lot a lot to do, but it's fun. So it's like, why not? I mean, think about when you were a kid and you got an action figure. I mean, I would sit there with like it's funny. I have them right here. My version four snake eyes. I love my version four snake eyes as a kid. I remember.
00:31:46
Speaker
I was sitting on the stoop one day and just like sit in the sun and just looking at all the pouches. And I'll never forget it. I must have been like five or six years old at the time. And I was just like so cool. I was just looking at all like the attention to detail. And I think I think that's what it sparks something in humans. You know what I mean? Like to see the detail. What story? Why is that there? What does that do? So we want to do that in our toys, because I think that's kind of like
00:32:16
Speaker
That's the starting point, right? And then you have all your accessories and stuff like that that attach properly and then you have your bullet ribbons that connect in. It's a cool brand. It's fun to do because we get to play with our imaginations and make them into 3D things that other people can hopefully get inspired by.
00:32:37
Speaker
I mean, who else is going to ask the question, does bazooka wax his mustache? Like, I just, you know, like, how does he get it looking so great? He probably greases it, right? Like he probably uses beard wax on it. It's a little bit like inside the helmet and he like just
00:32:55
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Oh, I should have sculpted like like a little Little like he's a future like your oil. Yeah, you got to keep that He keeps going to the hat Yeah, it's right in the strap on his helmet he could pull right off I dropped the yeah, I mean like one of the and when I was a kid it was the thing that I always I
00:33:19
Speaker
always most fascinated by, I think it was my favorite GI Joe accessory, um, were the little land mines and then the, I always called it the, the mine finder, but like a little mine sweeper and the pack and the mines went in the pack and like the, it unhooked. It was just the thing I was most fascinated by. I thought it was the coolest thing. Everybody got a turn with it.
00:33:44
Speaker
We were particularly impressed getting back to the Dragonfly with the FX pieces. Was there anything you learned? Huge. Yeah, they're huge. Even looking at them in just clear plastic, they're very big. Yeah. Was there anything you learned from the development of the effects, the effect pieces that came with the his tank that informed kind of the design decisions on these effects pieces? I'm trying to recount my conversations with Mark.
00:34:14
Speaker
Uh, one thing that Mark was talking about on them was we, I usually call them blast effects. Um, he wanted to call them like, like rocket effects or like, um, he was playing chips and salsa. Yeah. Right. But, um, he was talking to how he wanted to be more like a trail, like a rocket trail. And, uh, you guys kind of see that on, um, scrap irons blast effects is, or it's almost like a rocket trail, less, less of a, um,
00:34:42
Speaker
Projection as more of an it's more of exhaust. Right. And on this one, I think the learning was to put connection pieces in more spots than one. Right. So typically there'll be a five, a six millimeter, I'm sorry, six millimeter peg.
00:34:59
Speaker
on one end or a 1.5 millimeter peg on one end, and then it gets plugged into the gun or it gets plugged into the back of the rocket or whatever. Mark had this really cool idea to use the dog bones because the dog bones are strong. That's why we use them. It can hold heavier weight. If you notice on Skystriker, the rockets are bigger. It's also old school. Yeah. It was a nice nod to that. But using a sort of dog bone pin on these, don't quote me on it. Sometimes in production, we're going to change some stuff.
00:35:27
Speaker
Um, but currently it's a dog bone pin that it's in the sides of the, um, exhaust effect or rocket effect. And that way you can kind of put it, the idea was a counter lever, the timing of the shot. And that's when I was talking to the video and like, look at it. It looks like a sculpture. It really does because you can like kind of set up the blast effect, however you want or the rocket effect, however you want.
00:35:50
Speaker
And I actually thought that was really cool and very clever of Mark to do to kind of add that connection point mid spot of the blast effect because it's like, yeah, this rocket shot off first and the other rockets coming next.
00:36:05
Speaker
It adds movement to it, right? And that's the fine art and design. We're like looking at how do you kind of like make a silhouette speak, right? And I think he nailed it. So I'm going to try to put that into some other mainline vehicles when we eventually get there.
00:36:22
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, once those things are casted and like that translucent plastic too, like lighting on them is going to be fun. You know, they'll, they'll really kind of jump and Oh yeah. Yeah. Well, we originally talked about trying to get, uh, them to light up somehow, but it was just costs were creeping. So when you light a toy, you got to remember the.
00:36:45
Speaker
The wires need to go all the way through the toy. So the wires are going in particular spots. So from a production standpoint, the people on the production line, it makes their life easier, less difficult. It's more efficient. They can get more out. There's also the amount of time you can get them out. So it costs creeps when you start putting lights all over the place on the toy.
00:37:09
Speaker
we had to not do that it was gonna we there was a thought though like those are gonna have lighting effects on the flame effect and then you know the back would be painted uh you know with smoke trail and stuff like that it was gonna look cool but it was one of those things that ultimately like those little things that we've got to take out in production that doesn't harm the overall toy but it's like man that would have been rad you know so um
00:37:34
Speaker
going on a tangent, I think about lighting, but no, no, I mean, that's one of those things where like, I, you know, it comes up and, you know, not to, not to mention, you know, uh, other has labs, but you know, like. Everyone was kind of wondering why prices were a certain way on, on like the, the, the, the Marvel legends, the ghost rider, uh, you know, vehicle with all those lights and like the fact that, you know,
00:38:01
Speaker
They have to run throughout the entire vehicle in order to achieve that effect. And it's, and again, this is one of those things where we love, you know, when we have the creative folks from the team on, on the show, because it's, it's one of those things where like, you guys have a certain amount of time with kind of like the general public when you're talking about these things. And like, there are things that you have to cover and like the minutia of.
00:38:27
Speaker
you know, the assembly line and how wiring works is not one of those things that's often covered. So, I mean, I think it's a cool distinction, you know, that you're calling out.
00:38:40
Speaker
since we're on the it's it's one they're not not everything's apples to apples in toys even figure to figure um things are just made differently like a tank is completely different from a helicopter whether the masses are similar or not it's just like everything is made not everything everything but
00:39:01
Speaker
You have to handle everything differently, right? There's a method, right? There's a know-how, there's an experience, but not everything can be compared apples to apples. There are some things and beyond that, beyond what the thing is, it's who is doing the thing. And now, a word from our sponsors.
00:39:28
Speaker
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Speaker
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Favorite Features of the Dragonfly
00:42:31
Speaker
So, Emily, Lenny, what is your favorite feature of the Dragonfly? Oh, snap. Oh, mine is without a doubt chips and salsa.
00:42:42
Speaker
What a what a beautiful and ridiculous edition, you know, that was a majestic helicopter. There's a little bit of an adorable story that Mark was coming up. The designer was coming up with what he wanted to call them. And he sends me this list and it was like chips and salsa. Hall and Oates Hall and Oates Hall and Oates is my favorite, but yeah.
00:43:08
Speaker
But it was all like these like awesome, like duos. And I actually wanted Hall and Oates, but then I was like, yeah. And then I had picked something else. I can't remember what it was. And then he goes, Lenny, it's got to be like Southwestern. Yeah. Cause wild Bill. And I'm like, Oh yeah. What am I thinking?
00:43:33
Speaker
And it was like, yes, chips and sauce is perfect. Let's do it. And, uh, yeah, it was, it was awesome. Um, yeah, adorable story with that. Um, for me, favorite feature is, um,
00:43:46
Speaker
I think the gel's on the dash. I'm just going to pick one. It looks so nice. It looks so cool. And we're working on the lighting on the his tank currently. So it's really cool to see what Mark learned on that. And he's applying it to the Dragonfly. The model we showed you has a crazy hotspot on it. And what we're doing on the his tank right now is working it out so the hotspot isn't so heavy, so the light's more uniformed.
00:44:16
Speaker
It's kind of cool to see how, we had a couple of options we were looking at to see how to get that light to diffuse better so it looks less like a...
00:44:24
Speaker
like a light bright. And kind of like it like there's anything wrong with the light bright. We were going for going for a more digital screen. So it'd be fun to see that on this process too. And actually with LEDs, what's crazy is the color of the light matters too. So it's like you have to diffuse the light a little differently for a green light than for a red light than for a blue light than for a white light. It's bananas and some of the lights don't diffuse.
00:44:50
Speaker
Um, so I'm very tough. Yeah, a blue one. That one's it's nasty. And they are pricey. Um, so I'm excited to see how we knit out with that one because I'm really liking the way the his tanks coming out. Um, the solve for the his tank was really cool. So I'm hoping that solve can work for this one. And if it doesn't, I'm excited to see how we do solve it. And then we'll learn something for the next one. Correct. Yep.
00:45:16
Speaker
You guys took a unique approach to the marketing leading up to this project's announcement. It was fun to watch those little teasers, those little briefs. What inspired you guys to tell the story that way? All credit on the marketing teasers go to our branding human, Jonathan, and our writer, Mark, who is different than our product designer, Mark.
00:45:44
Speaker
And so the way that we kind of structure our How's That marketing campaigns is I'll go in and do kind of a bare bones, like, okay, these are the key beats that I would like to hit for this. I think I had said something like, let's do two teasers that sounds sufficient. And so Jonathan and Mark come back and they're like, we have this plan and we're going to tell this story and it's going to be beautiful. I'm just like, go for it, guys. This sounds amazing. And so they came up with the story and all the visuals for it. And I helped to route it through legal and get it up, but it was
00:46:12
Speaker
it was so much fun. And I think that one of the one of the perks of kind of being on a smaller scrappier team is that we really are at all times basically like an all hands on deck team of like anything that we can help with to make happen, let's do it. And so I really appreciated them saying, you know, we have an idea for this if we want to see
00:46:35
Speaker
how this is going to pan out. And I don't think that I saw a single person who was like, why are you telling us this story? This is stupid. And so I'm really excited to see kind of what the implication is of this on Future Has Labs and how it may play out in different ways across different campaigns in the future. But absolutely all credit to Jonathan and Mark. They did such a wonderful job on this. Yeah, it was refreshing. And I mean, honestly, it's like,
00:47:04
Speaker
It just, it gelled really well with the brand too. Cause like it felt kind of like, and you guys have, have kind of, I don't want to say left bread crumbs or like planted the seed, but in a certain way, in a certain sense you have, you know, using the videos in, in prior launch material with, you know, with the Cobra commander voice and, you know, uh, you know, kind of like.
00:47:26
Speaker
even with the hiss, like the emails are written as Destro writing the emails. Like it's just, it's as ridiculous as the show. And I mean, that just speaks to the fandom. It's what the line's known for is that storytelling aspect. And, you know, if it was just like, here's a helicopter, like you would be like,
00:47:52
Speaker
A little disappointed. We love it. The story part is almost...
00:48:00
Speaker
just as fun as what it's presenting. We love it. We really do. And I think even the teammates who don't know the lore as much come on and love it too. I think because we try to be as creative as possible. And then I think it inspires people to go all in when they're doing their project and doing their part of the project.
00:48:25
Speaker
And like Emily said, our brand writer and our brand creative, Jonathan and Mark, when they were working on it, like you can see it, like, like they got excited. And it was just like.
00:48:38
Speaker
Oh, awesome. And then what they came back with got us excited about the thing we made. You know what I mean? It was like this, like we're excited to make the thing. They're excited to kind of like add this contextual story to it. And it just got more and more. And then you want to go back to the drawing board. Oh, I could push this. You make it even better. So I think that's what. Yeah, that's my favorite thing about our team. Right. It's like we all kind of like we all get the high on being creative. It's really cool. And then like we kind of push it. And then what else can we do? Right. So
00:49:08
Speaker
And I think it's Mark loves any opportunity like this. He is a nerds nerd for GI Joe and I get messages from him after his kids are asleep at night and he's like, all right, I just watched three hours of GI Joe cartoons to get Hawks voice down so that I really feel like I can embody this for, you know, writing the copy for this.
00:49:28
Speaker
But that that is something that brings him so much joy and I feel like that is that's really only something you get when you have like a a true fan working on something like this like it it brings him joy to be able to bring this to life and kind of make this a
00:49:44
Speaker
this kind of contribution to GI Joe lore. While not necessarily everybody has to come into the brand as a fan, I do think that everybody on the GI Joe team has done a really wonderful job of embracing this brand and figuring out how they can contribute to
00:50:05
Speaker
kind of continue the ridiculousness, as Lenny was talking about earlier, that makes G.I. Joe so unique and special. It's great because it's addition to this long-standing historical lore that exists just through the cartoons and through past lines and everything like that, but you're also creating your own
00:50:34
Speaker
and it's like this kind of new branch to it. It really is kind of what sets for me the line apart from a lot of other stuff because it's just like, it's not just here's a thing, it's here's why this matters and here's what it brings to the table. And I think that's really cool. And it's not to, you know, here's a thing works for a lot of stuff, but it kind of is
00:51:03
Speaker
Like I was saying before, it's part of what makes finding out about any new classified stuff more fun. Yeah, I mean, that's a really good day. I never really thought about it that way. But if you think of even like, you name some of the top toy brands. So whether it's stuff that's going on with DC, stuff that's going on with Marvel, stuff that's going on with wrestling, it's literally like, here's a wrestler. Yeah, the story is happening.
00:51:27
Speaker
in some other form of media. And it's just like, here's the thing that you saw on TV two weeks ago, or here's the thing you saw on the screen or on a comic book. But you guys are literally telling a new story through these toys. It really is a unique factor of what you're doing.
00:51:49
Speaker
That is awesome to hear because it's kind of part of our mission. So it's kind of cool to hear that we're executing on it, right? And it's working. A lot of the time we count ourselves so lucky that we have the creative freedom
00:52:09
Speaker
of not doing entertainment accurate figures which is something that not every toy brand gets to have as a luxury and so money really has so much more wiggle room when it comes to making creative design decisions than he would or than anybody else on the team would if we were doing verbatim like
00:52:31
Speaker
verbatim references from something that was very specific from entertainment. But because we really kind of look at the majority of classified at the exception of the G.I. Joe movie figures as kind of a hodgepodge of retro and modern that is kind of fused together to create these new interpretations, I think it leaves us with a lot of wiggle room for interpretation and kind of how we want to bring that to life and ultimately what that looks like.
00:52:57
Speaker
Yeah, and it really does lead like it's, you know, the whole cheesy four meets function kind of thing. It does unclassified four meets function, but then I think there's another tier and it's like to tell the story. Like I'm actually looking at a figure right now. We haven't showed you guys yet, but I'm like, Oh yeah, I did all that. So that would connect there and that would go there. And then he would be able to hold that.
00:53:19
Speaker
And it's like, oh, yeah, yeah, that's that's yes. We do it so that the toy can be all encompassed. Right. Like we do. We try our hardest to make all the all the weapons holster. Sometimes you can't. That is one of the goals. But again, that's forming its function. And then it tells the story of who the character is and what they do with their job is because she had Jozo with the character's job. They're all archetypal. Right. It's like you got your demolition guy, you got your pilot guy. But then you throw that extra twist on it. Pilot cowboy guy.
00:53:47
Speaker
And then it creates an extra special thing about it. So one of the other big parts of the marketing of this, of course, is the tier structure and the unlockable aspect of it. And at the time of this recording, we know that Night Force Ripcord will be joining Big Ben on that sub team at the 13K unlock, which I have not checked the tally and the last
00:54:17
Speaker
15 minutes, but I know we're getting close. Tell us a little bit about how are those tiers structured? How do you determine we're getting a tier at 13, we're getting a tier at 16, we're getting a tier at 19. How do you determine where to place those tiers and generally speaking what you want to include at them?
00:54:46
Speaker
I think for us, we keep refining our HasLab approach with every HasLab. So we took all the learnings that we had from SkyStriker, we applied them to the Hiss, took all the learnings that we had from the Hiss and really applied them to the Dragonfly. And it has been made abundantly clear by fans that what they want on GI Joe HasLabs are figures as unlocked years. We heard you, we listened, we're getting figures as your unlocked years. And so because of that, you know, when we're doing
00:55:16
Speaker
So when we're doing accessory pieces for tiers instead of figures, it is less plastic weight and ultimately usually less cost because we are, as some would say unnecessarily, doing full packaging for all of our figures. That's an additional cost. We have to pay for artwork. We have to pay for the packaging. It takes up more room in the overall box.
00:55:35
Speaker
But that to us, that is, that's part of the overall experience and that's really important to us. We've set a precedent and we want to make sure that we're still matching that so that you know kind of what you can continue to expect because of the kind of additional costs of what does it mean to be putting in all of these extra figures with Hazlabs as opposed to potentially like smaller accessories. We have started to space our unlocks out a little bit more so that it takes a little bit more to get to each of them.
00:56:04
Speaker
We have every full confidence that we will reach all three of our unlocks for this, which are 13, 16, 19 this time around. But that it is, you know, we want to make sure that we're delivering on what fans are hoping for and excited about. And it's a great opportunity to bring figures into the line that perhaps we wouldn't have, there wouldn't have gotten to for a while or kind of add to the story or in a way that
00:56:32
Speaker
maybe they're not necessarily integral to the mainline story right now, but it's a fun way to get to add them in. Very cool. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, and just real quick before we dive into our Q&A section, let's go back to last year's HasLab.
Showcasing HISS Tank at Comic-Con
00:56:55
Speaker
You mentioned that you guys were still making some fine-tuning work on the hiss, but
00:57:01
Speaker
Is there a general update? Can we expect to see something, an update on the HISS soon, an official update?
00:57:08
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So official update on the Hiss will be coming soon. We will actually the first time people will be able to see the final Hiss in person will be at San Diego Comic Con this year. So we will have one of we will have one of our final models. Actually, our final like it's actually what is shipping to people, which is really exciting in our Comic Con display case this year. So we were really, really excited to get to show that off. And we hope that everybody is
00:57:36
Speaker
I was thrilled with it as we are you should have seen our faces the first time we unboxed one there is so there's video that we took of so i was taping when he was doing the unboxing for us when you're unboxing this today i'm like okay on camera.
00:57:52
Speaker
Can I sit crisscross applesauce? So it wasn't like kind of one of the usual videos that we had done. It was in one of our basically engineering for view meetings. And so we're in this big conference room. I have a camera focused on Blenny.
00:58:08
Speaker
You can hear me talking at him from behind the camera, but you can't see me. But you can also hear all the other people that are talking in the room because this is a live review session of everybody kind of critiquing final things about the HIST tank. And it was so much fun. There was such
00:58:27
Speaker
happiness in the room and actually my mom was here visiting and I got to bring her in and she got to actually sit in the meeting room with us while we were going through this and for her, you know, Lenny and I are both quite close to our moms and we spend a lot of time talking with them and they watch all of the fan streams that we do and it's very, very cute. And so for her to get to sit there and kind of watch what we were doing and experience it
00:58:51
Speaker
First hand was really really fun and i'm glad that i got to share that with her but it's pretty special it was awesome and it's funny when i review toys. I use a lot of superlatives but it was on camera so i couldn't.
00:59:14
Speaker
We were sharing, basically it was like, Lenny, you're going to share because it was the final sample. We go through a lot of things. Especially on Hazlabs. Yeah. And especially on Joe. We want them to be just right. As bright as we can get them.
00:59:29
Speaker
Oh, I'm like, I'm like, Oh, you're gonna have me look at this thing and on camera? Are you sure? You know, I'm from Jersey, right? Jersey like guy. So, but it ended up being fine because it was one of the later samples and I think they had we had planned it.
00:59:51
Speaker
For that, like it's like, all right, it's a later sample should be in a really good spot. If it had anything on it, it would be things that were like we were would adjust. On the production line, so it was wonderful and I can't wait to show that video because man, it like Emily's right. The joy in the room because the amount of time that goes into a typical figure is more than a year. The amount of time that goes into a has lab is more than that by a few months.
01:00:21
Speaker
So it's like a lot of time spent on this stuff between us at Hasbro in New England and then our Hasbro partners over in China, right? So it's like a lot of people are working on this thing and then our partners at the vendors. So it's a lot that goes into one of these things. So to like, when we get a product,
01:00:45
Speaker
To close to launch it's super exciting and then especially on something like this, it's so complicated again has labs are a wave. In a box right so it's like you get your fit you get your giant vehicle that is very complicated. And then you get your figures and our figures are not simple figures on classified so it's like you're getting a wave of. Four figures essentially any very complicated vehicle.
01:01:09
Speaker
so it's like a lot goes into that one particular thing and on top of that you're working on your waves through the year so um to see it at that level get there and then we're actually we're here we're gonna ship it soon it's super exciting and emily's right there's a lot of joy in the room and it was actually really awesome to meet your mom for the first time and have her see when we go through this stuff and
01:01:29
Speaker
We really do enjoy making the stuff, man. And I think that with Hazlabs, there's also that extra element of emotional investment. So traditionally, when you make something, we go through all of our kind of gate review processes to get everything checked off, and then it goes to tool start, and then you start getting physical samples in. But with Hazlabs, the whole process is kind of backwards, because we don't start
01:01:54
Speaker
tooling until the project has been funded. But in order to get the project funded, we need a physical model to show people what they're getting. And so we make this kind of one-off resin model so that we can actually show you what it will look like in order to get you to buy into this thing. So by the time the resin model shows up, we have been talking about this for nine months, 12 months. We have been sitting in multiple meetings a week about this. We have been putting our blood, sweat, and tears into it.
01:02:23
Speaker
we're emotionally invested and so excited to see it come to life. But his tank in particular I had designed a his tank a year before
01:02:34
Speaker
We had done one. We had done a full design and full renders done. We did all sorts of like digital. I guess 3d sketches you would, if you would. So the his tank was even more crazy because like we've done it. And then we, um, I got another direction. So it was like, it was like a long period of time. So that his tank means a lot to us as a brand. It's just like.
01:02:56
Speaker
That's for the classified brand, not for the entire G.I. Joe brand, but classified. The HISS tank is a lot for us and it's a milestone and it means so much. So to see it get funded the way it did. Oh my God. None of us were. So we, I mean, and Lenny can.
01:03:13
Speaker
I will speak for both of us in this. When the Sky Striker campaign was going, we spent 44 days and 16 hours in a mild panic that this project was not going to fund. We were emotionally like we had kind of steeled ourselves. We were resolved to be like, okay, if this happens again, it's okay. We will get funded.
01:03:37
Speaker
And so to have kind of emotionally prepared ourselves for a month and a half of like kind of like what's happening and then to have the his fund in less than nine hours and then to have the dragonfly fund in less than twenty seven hours it is so wildly humbling and we are so appreciative of the community and
01:03:58
Speaker
that everybody is excited about what we're doing because we get excited about this stuff, but we just hope that other people get excited about
Emotional Investment in HasLab Projects
01:04:07
Speaker
it too. So we just feel very, very honored. And thank you for not making us wait for 44 days and 16 hours to fund.
01:04:15
Speaker
Because again, like I mentioned, a lot of time goes into this before anybody sees it. So even to sculpt the vehicle, the vehicle has to be done from an aesthetic standpoint. Or I would say this, it has to be 95% done so that what we show you is very close to what you'll be purchasing. This or something better. This or something better because we don't want to let anybody down or
01:04:44
Speaker
offset expectations. So we got to be done with the thing. And that's before we even are done with the thing. So it's usually in toy design, like we're in sketch and sculpt, digital sculpt phase. And then we go back and forth with our partners over in the Far East to engineer it properly for QA and QC issues. And then we work through it
01:05:12
Speaker
Nobody in the public sees it. It's all internal. We get to work through all of the kinks and all of the problems, and then we reveal it when it is done. This is being showed to everybody before it will ever be done, and it aesthetically has to be done.
01:05:32
Speaker
before we even started. So that's kind of crazy. So that's why these has labs on all brands and all teams. It's a lot. It's a lot. It's a lot from a work and from an emotional standpoint. We're very invested in them.
01:05:47
Speaker
so we're like watching with bated breath right and like even if it does seem like like the perception is of the short bet we still don't think it's going to be a short bet right so that's why emily's mentioning the tears earlier we got to make sure those tears make sense right and if they're special things um because if the tier is something that needs to be in the main line and then we don't get to that tier we can't make that thing yeah so
01:06:11
Speaker
So yeah, so there's a lot that goes into it from the tears to the amount of time we put into it to what has to be shown to everybody as labs or their their high stakes high stakes toy, you know, I think we don't need any tier tiers.
01:06:26
Speaker
Nope. Yes. That's nice. Trying to avoid the tears of the tears. I like that. So Emily, before you mentioned the community at large and everything, and our next section here is our Q&A section. So as we usually like to say, for those that are listening to us for the first time, welcome. We hope you are enjoying this episode of Adventures in Collecting, and we hope you listen to some more. Dave, what should they do?
01:06:52
Speaker
Make sure to smash that subscribe button and hit those likes and follow us on the Instagram because that's where in the story the Q&A is listed and you can ask your questions.
01:07:07
Speaker
Or is it just a post? I think there was a post this time and it was a story one other time. It's both. But it's going to be either or both. So as Dave is alluding to, yes, at AIC underscore podcast on Instagram. Every time we have a guest on, we do not take it for granted. We understand that our guests have very short blocks of time with the community. So we want to give people the opportunity to ask their questions. So we have three for you today. Dave, would you like to go ahead with the first one?
01:07:37
Speaker
I would love to. At action figure picked asks, since we've now seen vehicles of various sizes in the line, has there been any talk of small play sets like a Cobra bunker or checkpoint alpha? Yeah, I think we can say that there have been. I mean, we're,
01:07:59
Speaker
We're constantly trying to figure out, you know, we've been talking so much about what makes sense from a story perspective to have in this line, right? And so from a story perspective, when is the right time to start to see if we want to start expanding into playsets into some of those more accessory building kind of things that really will allow you to continue kind of fleshing out that story of the GI Joe classified universe. And so I feel like that's an answer that we can give.
01:08:27
Speaker
Yeah, it's the beauty of the line, right? Like, um, Joe's... Oh, I'm having a cave-in behind me, it sounds like.
01:08:35
Speaker
Um, Joe's are characters that do things and they need gear to do things. So, and they're not really necessarily relying on superpowers. So they need, um, give a wax and they need stations and camps to set up. So I also think from a collector standpoint, it would enrich the shelf. Like having like little rich the shelf. I should do that.
01:09:04
Speaker
But yeah, that's nice. I like that. Yeah, I'm gonna use that a pitch with management like rich. That's a shirt. Yeah, rich. Yeah, it'll set the scene. Right? Like I I want to try to start getting into like adding food to figures like a little cheeseburger would be incredible. I would once again, as I as I often do would like to pitch my my holiday exclusive chef roadblock.
01:09:31
Speaker
idea would make a great exclusive somewhere. He just comes with a bunch of food. He's got the apron. Mm hmm. It'd be amazing. It would be. We go mess hall roadblock.
01:09:45
Speaker
It'd be incredible. There's other things I feel like you can do with that to add another level of ridiculousness to it. It's not just food. I feel like you can. Sorry. Yes. All right. So our next question was, I think we can call that one answered. Uh, next question comes from at grownup kiddo. Great, great username. Um, is there any update or news that you can share on the comics and or animated content?
01:10:16
Speaker
No, we can't. Stay tuned for more news when we can share it. There we go. Unfortunately not our... So basically the business is split out. So Lenny and I work specifically on the toy team. We have another team that kind of handles the licensed content of the brand. So somebody specifically for publishing, then we have our franchise team that kind of handles all of our additional content. And so unfortunately they will be the ones that will be sharing that news when they have it.
01:10:45
Speaker
And now you know. I know exactly. Battle. Yeah. There we go. All right. Strong work team. Dave, let's do the last one. OK. This one is something a bunch of people asked. So what does the news that broke earlier this year about Hasbro and Mattel partnering for some cross-licensing products mean for classified? Great question. Nothing yet.
01:11:13
Speaker
When we, I'm sorry, this is like the worst Q&A. Emily, are you sure you're not from Jersey? Cause that was blunt. I loved it. We're going to keep calling you Emily. You're the real Emily blunt. So unfortunately nothing to announce yet, but I mean, we'll, we'll let you know if we have something.
01:11:32
Speaker
There are other questions maybe that we can make up another question that we might be able to answer or one that I can very bluntly look at you and go, no comment. People like that on the internet. All right. So we, we, we usually, I mean, I always ask about fridge, but
01:11:49
Speaker
Dave wants to know when the fridge is coming. That's your other question. I do too. Dave, you know we can't talk about upcoming figures that we haven't announced yet. Which is just a fancy way of saying no comment. And therein lies why I have no other questions. That was an example of why
01:12:11
Speaker
We only have three. It's funny. Actually, there was one. I don't remember who. I actually think it was the same guy that asked the guy, the same account that asked the first question. So, at action figure picks. And if it wasn't you, you're getting credit for it anyway.
01:12:30
Speaker
So you mentioned, and you guys had kind of alluded to this actually earlier in the conversation, that there were other vehicles that were up for contention, right? When you were, before you decided on the dragonfly, how far along do you get in kind of like that vetting process where like, you're like, actually, no, we're not going to go with this one. We're going to go with something else. Like how, like, how does that, how far does something get along?
01:12:59
Speaker
concept board, I'd say. Yeah, because you got to think about time and effort put in. You want to make sure that the concept board is very understandable and really conveys the idea because the people who are showing it to
01:13:18
Speaker
are not necessarily marketers and toy designers all the time. So to get proper feedback from them, you need to make sure it kind of gets across what you're making. The value is there. So yeah, concept boards. And then we go from there. Hey, that was more than a no comment for an answer. There you go. Yeah. There we go.
01:13:42
Speaker
it's tough you know it's one of those things where everybody wants to know when they're getting their favorite character and you know and I come I'm coming from a place of feeling very spoiled because this year I'm getting my two favorite Joes of all time and snow job and shipwreck I can't wait to have them awesome
01:13:59
Speaker
Yeah so I get I get it I get why everyone wants to know when they're when they're getting their favorite shows cuz I'm getting mine really is all about the it's all it's all about it's it's all about the figure you know me like it's it's.
01:14:13
Speaker
I'm always thinking about who who can I make next and I get it's funny like this might be too much inside baseball but like I'll make a plan I have this plan in my head that I want to do and I get so frustrated when I have to kill some of the plan it drives me crazy because I'm a fan too and I want to make them
01:14:31
Speaker
It's like selfishly, I'm like, I want to make this character. Um, but then when I can't drives me crazy. So I can totally see why a lot of the questions are, who are you making? Because in the beginning of the onset of the, I guess I'll say fiscal year of the brand that each year, it's like, that's what we're doing. You know, we're checking with our teammates. We're checking, like, I'm looking to see what a fulfill the line or enrich the shelf. Um,
01:14:54
Speaker
And then I vet it with my peers. Like, hey, guys, does this list look cool to you? So then we have this cool list that's incredible. And sometimes we can't go follow through with everybody. But long story short, it's all about the characters. Because what can you do with that character? How crazy is it going to look? Is it going to come out more than you expected? So I can see why that question comes up all the time. Because if you're an action figure person, don't care.
01:15:22
Speaker
Yeah, it's the thing you want to know. We get it, which is rather than peppering you with, you know, when's this guy coming? When's this gal coming? That answer is enough of it. And you know what? With that, you've survived the Q&A section, so congratulations. Yeah, we did it. We did it. Which before we say good night, good evening and good night, we do have a tradition on this podcast where we have a final question now.
01:15:50
Speaker
Both of you have had the opportunity to answer this podcast's traditional final question. So Dave, would you like to fulfill your role as this shows James Lipton and ask our alternate final question? Why, yes, I would. Since you have both appeared on the show previously and have had the opportunity to answer the standard final question,
01:16:19
Speaker
We've prepared a special one for you both to answer. If you could have one Joe or Cobra over for dinner, who would it be and what would be for dinner? I actually have an answer for this. Do you want me to go first, Lenny, so you can think about it?
01:16:35
Speaker
This is not shocking that you already have an answer plan. I know. Part of it is motivated by fashion. I know. Shocker. Lenny's trying to figure out who I'm talking about based on that answer. My dinner guest would be Piphona because now we share a hair color scheme and I feel like that would be fun to talk about.
01:16:58
Speaker
I also really respect her is it are they claws are they artificial nails that are poison tips she's got strong fashion game that high pony she's rocking that jumpsuit she like cape on that we can get along. In as an homage to her poison tips fake nails or claws would be serving sushi specifically for the opportunity for her to be poisoned like she poisons other people thank you thank you i will see myself out.
01:17:27
Speaker
That was incredible. I think she's biologically enhanced actually. So they're not artificial nails that she pumps pointed into every morning. They are bio biotech, right? Okay. But are they biotech acrylics or like biotech claws? Like, like keratin that will grow. All right. Or maybe, I don't know, it's kind of, they grow.
01:17:53
Speaker
But do they grow pre poisoned or does she like dip them in poison in the morning to say like hello as part of her morning makeup routine? I envision it actually is like they come out and then like somehow some way, like almost like a nerve kicks and like like a snake's poison, it then runs down and then goes to the tip kind of like a snake thing. I think it's they were getting it. It's almost like I've been thinking about designing this figure.
01:18:22
Speaker
No comment. To come with artificially, like, to come with poison in her fingers? Yes. OK, please. And Sousa would just have a field day. And now Sushi. And now she comes with Sushi. Yeah. She would be rad. Part of the line. Who do I want? I'm actually looking at a cool poster I have, and it's got everybody on it. I'd say Scarlett, but my wife would get mad. That's on a podcast now? I'm an idiot.
01:18:52
Speaker
I think Metalhead. I think I'd want to party with Metalhead because he's an idiot.
01:19:00
Speaker
And we would, I think, Metalhead and I would go to a thrash show. Okay. Right. We'd go to a thrash show. We'd both be too old to be there. We'd go in the pit, then our backs would hurt after it, and we would go get Wawa at like two o'clock in the morning. Yeah. That's what we would do. Sandwiches, ibuprofen. Ibuprofen, sandwiches, you
Fantasy Characters and Surprising Conversations
01:19:22
Speaker
know. Pretzels, pretzels, materialistic. But he's a fantasy cartoon character, so he'd be fine.
01:19:29
Speaker
But I think Metalhead would be fun because he's just a knucklehead. I think it'd be fun to hang out with that knucklehead, you know? There we go. Two great answers. I'm very on brand for both of you. Didn't think we were going to go to Cobra La and Deke. And yet here we are. As soon as you said Python, I was like, where the hell is she going with this? I like that you want Sushi because she shows up in the clam.
01:19:59
Speaker
I'm like, I know all the connections are there. Perfect. Perfect answer.
Campaign Success and Follow-up
01:20:07
Speaker
Well, guys, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us tonight. And again, a huge congratulations on the campaign. I know it's only a couple of days old.
01:20:20
Speaker
You know, still some ways to go for the rest of the unlocks, but at least everyone will be getting their chopper. Remind our listeners where can they follow the latest on GI Joe on the interwebs and where can they find you both on the internet as well.
01:20:36
Speaker
So for the latest HasLab updates, make sure that you're following the Hasbro Pulse social accounts and following along for any of our fan streams on the Hasbro Pulse YouTube channel. On Instagram, I am more phenomenally Emily. That's right, figure I had to spell more phenomenally. And the general note is that no new information will ever come from our personal accounts, but that we kind of post behind the scenes stuff and encouragement for whatever's happening, keeping people in the loop.
01:21:04
Speaker
And for design stuff, you can check out Weather Dominator. Like Emily said, all GI Joe stuff will be on those accounts. Yep. Perfect. And we'll, and we'll put links to all of those in the show
Playful Sign-off and Subscription Encouragement
01:21:16
Speaker
notes. That way you don't have to try to spell more phenomenally, more phenomenally Emily. More phenomenal. If you just search for my whole name, it shows up too, but you know, that's too easy.
01:21:32
Speaker
We'll make sure we put links to that in the description and guys thank you again so much and I Think the most appropriate way to send us off tonight would be a yo-jo right if we all do a yo-jo together What is the mood temperament Oh
01:21:52
Speaker
I think my yo-jo has to be low because of sleeping people. Oh, is it sleepy yo-jo? It's sleepy yo-jo. Bedtime, bedtime yo-jo. All right, on three. Ready? One, two, three. Yo.
01:22:12
Speaker
Thank you for hanging out with us today. Subscribe, rate, and review this podcast wherever you listen, and then tell your friends to do it. Thanks also to Joe Azari, the golden voice behind our intro. Learn more about him in the show notes. Our music is Game Boy Horror by The Zombie Danes. Follow us on Instagram and TikTok at adventuresandcollecting and on Twitter at AIC underscore podcast.
01:22:38
Speaker
Stop by and say hi. Show us your hauls and photos. Tell us your toy stories. Maybe we'll talk about it on a future episode.
01:22:58
Speaker
This has been a non-productive media presentation. Executive producer, Franca Blaui. This program and many others like it on the non-productive network is distributed under a Creative Commons attribution non-commercial no derivatives license. Please share it, but ask before trying to change it or sell it. For more information, visit non-productive.com.