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Fall in, Maggots! A G.I. Joe Special with Emily, Lenny, and Tony!
707 Plays7 months ago
Reveals! Details! Answers to burning questions! Our friends Emily, Lenny, and Tony from Hasbro's G.I. Joe team return to the show and hold very little back! In this nearly 90-minute epic, we're talking all about G.I. Joe Classified Series and it's one you don't want to miss!
Stay up-to-date with G.I. Joe Classified through @hasbropulse on Instagram, and be sure to follow Emily @morphinomenally_emily, Lenny @weatherdominator, and Tony @thegreattonino for inside looks and more!
Save 20% on Liquid I.V. by using our offer code at liquid-iv.com
Follow us @aic_podcast on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube
Intro and other voices by Joe Azzari
https://www.instagram.com/voicesbyjoe/
Theme Music is "Game Boy Horror" by the Zombie Dandies
Proudly part of the Non-Productive Network
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Transcript
Introduction to Adventures in Collecting
00:00:03
Speaker
Are you ready, kids? Get your parents' permission, check your mailbox, and grab your shopping cart. 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.
Recap of Previous Episode
00:00:27
Speaker
Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Adventures in Collecting.
00:00:33
Speaker
Hi. Dave, we're back. We're here. We are. Hope everyone enjoyed the...
00:00:43
Speaker
premium toyetic event last week. Yeah, that's been a lot of fun. I hope I hope I hope everyone's enjoying our new little kind of like sub episode. This this exploration of the toyetic nature of professional wrestling events. Yeah, professional wrestling attire, attire. Yeah. Yeah. Who is the most toyetic? Well, speaking of things that are toyetic, Dave, I should not bury the lead today, right?
Hasbro GI Joe Team: Recent Events
00:01:09
Speaker
Like it's like not. No, I don't think you ever should. Yeah.
00:01:12
Speaker
Well, I'm going to do my best here with this impersonation with my little bit of a cold that I'm fighting, but fall in maggots. Returning to the pod this week on the heels of an action-packed livestream a couple of weeks ago are our friends from Asbro's GI Joe team. Folks, welcome back to the show, Emily, Lenny, and Tony. Welcome back, guys. Howdy. Hi. Hello. Nice to see you guys again.
00:01:41
Speaker
It's always a pleasure to have you guys here. And as people who have actually met and or possibly have been put in the Cobra clutch by Sarge, how did I do with my maggots? It was good. I thought he was here with us. Yeah. Yeah. For a second, I was like, Sarge? They got Sarge to do the open? Yeah. The budget's always increasing here. Yeah. It's gone up over the years.
00:02:10
Speaker
So before we jump into everything, we always like to get a quick update on the collections. So Emily, Lenny, Tony, what is the thing you picked up most recently that's resonating with you for your collections?
Emily's Shopping Adventures
00:02:25
Speaker
I can start. I mentioned while we were talking before that episode that I recently went to the Dartmouth Mall for the first time, which if you aren't familiar with the area is a fascinating mall. It's basically a hallway with stores on either side of it. Absolutely fascinating to me.
00:02:42
Speaker
But more importantly, there was a hot topic which allowed me to get the new plush, stay-puffed Marshmallow Man backpack for me to wear on some Ghostbusters-related shenanigans later this month, which I am quite excited for. I think I might be able to get my phone in it. It's enormous, but the pocket to actually put stuff in it is tiny.
00:03:06
Speaker
Perfectly impractical. Well just like marshmallow man himself Flawless nicely done I Can go next yeah,
New Toy Line: Must Go
00:03:17
Speaker
go ahead. Oh So I buy everything as you guys probably can see everyone at home obviously can't because this is all audio but so I buy all everything but I
00:03:30
Speaker
I'm going to give a shout out to the little guys here. I just got this, uh, must go. Whoa, which if you haven't heard, they're incredible. They're kind of like a, a nod to human, I would say. Uh, but, um, super cool. They're on big, bad toy store.
00:03:46
Speaker
from MF Gallery, but they're just these jacked up, super weird. Oh, Lenny's got one too. Their muscles have muscles. Their muscles have muscles and those have muscles too. That's incredible. They're super fun and ridiculous. I love how gross they are. They're sick. That's awesome.
00:04:08
Speaker
So actually, Lenny, question.
Metal Slug Figure Details
00:04:10
Speaker
So I know that you describe details as like the greeble on things. Is it still greeble if it's on something that is like alive? Like the detail on like that figure? No, I don't think so. I don't think so. That's inanimate detail. It's a Star Wars term and I think they use it for like vehicles. I think that's just like
00:04:31
Speaker
Gross, I don't know. I don't have a good word for it, but I think it's just gross veins and sinew. Visera and sinew. Yeah. Visera and sinew. Love it. We're off to a real strong start. I'm going to pull out is a complete opposite of a muscleoid, but she's awesome. I always love metal slug as a kids. We're my favorite video games. Awesome. All right. And I got the file figure. I think that's how you say her name.
00:04:58
Speaker
She's awesome as the boxes on my shelves right now, but I just loved the loadout. It's crazy. She came with all sorts of accessories, all sorts of updates for her accessories. She also had like a, like there's a crate and inside the crate was other accessories and there was foam in the crate. And the one thing about her that was so crazy to me was her glasses are pressed metal. So cool. Let me see if I can show you guys.
00:05:27
Speaker
with like that thin wall thickness and stuff. Yeah. Check this out. It's crazy. It's crazy. So I don't know if it'll come up with the camera. Yeah. No, no, no. This is the weird head. I'm not really. Oh yeah. That's cool. The heads are really cool, but the expression, the head is wildly questionable.
00:05:51
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. I think she's yawning. I think she's like sleepy in the game if I remember correctly or something. Is that what that face is? We'll go with that. We'll go with sleepy. We're going to go with sleepy.
00:06:02
Speaker
But look at the metal. It's crazy. That is wild. Pretty awesome. Yeah, that's amazing. So I'm like, I'm going to go away with that. If you like to put your nail on it, does it warp at all or is it? It would. It would. Yeah, it would. Definitely. But you can probably work it back to back into shape, but I just thought it looks great, though. Yeah, I was just like, that's crazy looking. I mean, there's no lens, but I mean, it's still she has metal glasses on. Yeah, it's crazy.
00:06:30
Speaker
Well, all three, three very, very fun, fun and very on brand picks for you guys. Like very, like in your, your respective wheelhouses and dig it, dig
New GI Joe Character: Blowtorch
00:06:40
Speaker
it. No surprises, no surprises. Very cool.
00:06:43
Speaker
So there was a pulse livestream recently and I feel it's only fitting that we start off our GI Joe conversation properly the same way you all do. So let's kick things off if it's okay with a name only reveal. Is there a name that you would be willing to share with our listeners?
00:07:05
Speaker
Yes, I think we said it the one that we I think the one we settled on we said it already Then it's you know, they'll know Then we can do a different one when you say it blowtorch. No you So very
00:07:28
Speaker
Yeah, it's super cool that the blowtorch is coming I mean we can without without revealing too much later in the Q&A section But you know, we don't a favorite of mine from my childhood of the attachable flamethrower Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yep, and he's got all of his bells and whistles we updated him a little bit nothing too crazy, but like just kind of like realizing some of his armor if you guys recall it had like those like kind of like
00:07:57
Speaker
circular medallions all over it. So kind of like leaning into it a little bit. Yeah. It felt like very like gaugy, like lots of gauges. Yes. Yes. So, so to bring them to the point. Very cool. Yeah. That that's one that too, you know, again, we, we don't get into like the, for the Q and a stuff. We, we avoid the questions that you guys are not going to be able to answer such as when are you making blowtorch?
00:08:22
Speaker
But that was a very popular question submitted for the Q&A by lots of people. So soon. Congratulations. The one time we don't ask the question, that's the answer for it. Your question has been answered. Dreams and wishes do come true. Wait, do people actually ask specifically for blowtorch? Yes, we had a lot of requests for blowtorch. Yeah, blowtorch is a staple. All right, good for us. And it wasn't just Dave writing in over and over again.
00:08:47
Speaker
Yeah, no, it was not. It was not. It wasn't like when I was it wasn't like when I was. Although he would be he would be he would be a funny character to have burner accounts for. I know. I was just going to say it wasn't like that time I was creating burner accounts to keep requesting shipwreck. That was definitely not. I mean, that worked out pretty well for you, though. It did. It did. It worked out great. I'm looking at it right now. It's great.
00:09:15
Speaker
Speaking of the recent livestream, you guys had quite a bit to show off and put up for pre-order. Seven new items to be exact. This question goes out to each of you. Which was your favorite reveal from the stream?
Livestream Highlights: HIST Tank
00:09:33
Speaker
Oh, mine was definitely the SMS slash HMS. Oh, pre-orders are reveals. The old reveals are the ones that were pre-ordered. No, that works too. Yeah, you could totally take that. So we started the development on that item when we were developing the HIST tank. So for a brief, beautiful moment in time, the original HIST tank offering actually included the HMS.
00:09:59
Speaker
But the price point on it was much higher to accommodate for the extra plastic and all of the extra pieces and so ultimately we made the decision to say you know we'd rather be able to have people get the has lab for a lower price point so that they can trip build with it you know it was our first
00:10:17
Speaker
classified HasLab offering and then do the HMS later as an add-on so that if you want it, you can buy it. But if you buy five his tanks and you don't necessarily want five HMSes, you can buy however many you want. So keeping that a secret for as long as we did, I think was absolutely incredible on the work of the team. I think in the fan stream, Lenny mentioned this, but the original design of this was even bigger than this was. The first time we saw, I think we all kind of went,
00:10:47
Speaker
Oh my god, that's so big. Weren't you saying that the rockets were originally designed to be like a foot long each?
00:10:57
Speaker
They were no joke. It was it was so the original model used to sit in our old has lab lab office and we would look at it and we just be like there was a figure that was sitting next to it. I think it was profit director Destro because we needed somebody who had a bigger torso. We just happened to have one sitting around.
00:11:17
Speaker
And so it i always smile and i looked at it because i was like oh my god that thing is so huge so i'm glad that we brought the size down a little bit to make it you know it's not that it's reasonably sized it's still very large but it's you know a little more reasonably sized. I would say it's it's like a if you take the rocket spoon in front of it it's a full hoagie.
00:11:41
Speaker
If you, look at this thing. Yeah, it's big. So I'm excited about it. And I had a grind. Did you just say a grind? A hoagie.
00:11:58
Speaker
Blenny speaking our language. It's a hoagie. A submarine sandwich. Is that what we're saying? We can call it a sub. We can call it a sub. I'll accept it. Can you call it a sub? But can you call it a submarine sandwich? My mom would call it a submarine sandwich. A submarine sandwich. I packed you a submarine sandwich for lunch, Blenny. It's fabulous. My mom would say everything's fabulous. A fabulous submarine sandwich. We got to pull out the middle. Everybody needs to know this. We make a good hoagie.
00:12:27
Speaker
Gotta carve out. Gotta carve out the middle of the bread so you can get more meat in there. Gotta scoop. Oh, smart. Yeah. So carve out the middle. And on this edition of Adventures in Eating, we're going to talk about bread scooping. That's also one brand for us, I feel. Yes.
Naga-hide Figure Design
00:12:47
Speaker
So Lenny, Tony, what about you guys? Which was your favorite? Oh, you go first. All right. But I'm going to say Naga-hide. So you better get ready.
00:12:57
Speaker
Say it. You can head it. You already said it. Yeah, there it is. All right. Naga hide. Yeah. That figure is, uh, deluxe to the max. It's got, uh, the, the hog has so much deco on it. And let me just let me keep putting more and more on it, which is amazing. I was like, are we sure we can put this much on there? Um,
00:13:23
Speaker
Yeah, it's beautiful. Um, and he was also one of my, I probably say this every time I talk about a GI Joe, but they are literally all my favorites, but I always liked this guy. Obviously being a wrestling fan, I liked the, uh, super jacked up dudes. Hence the musculoid I just showed you earlier. Uh, but, um, he was part of like the strong team. Shout out to our friend Chris that also had the strong team, but it was like salvo naga hide all like these, like.
00:13:48
Speaker
crazy looking dudes. But, um, yeah, he's, he's my favorite amongst all the others that we revealed, but I gotta give plenty of choice. I mean, on pork belly, we even got the, uh, we got like, if you ever looked at like, like wild animals and they have like the tear duct and there's like the tear coming out of the, right. We even got that deco on there. I saw that there's like light.
00:14:09
Speaker
Yeah. There's light over sprays on the nose and like, uh, over the eyes, there's dark overspray sprays on the eyes. Then there's that tear duct thing that Lenny, uh, told me to throw in there. It's, it's insane. How I just started doing it. When I was doing the spec sheet, I just started going, I said, I'll make it look real. And then my engineer was like, yeah, you're fine. I was like, where am I right now? And it's not like we took any off of Naga hide.
00:14:36
Speaker
the figure itself either, or the monkey. They all just got ridiculous on a deco, which was awesome.
00:14:43
Speaker
It was super fun. I love when it works out like that because they look more real that way and you were pointing out to the the Farron Naga hides back like you when you were talking about like the ombre of like the leopard in and every like it really does and the pictures exact was that matter Corey that took those those pictures Corey Beautiful beautiful photos. I mean they brought out all he brought out all those details and yeah fantastic
00:15:08
Speaker
Yeah, it was awesome. That was a good, that was a good shoot. And so it's a hard one to pick, but I think doc, this could just staple. Yeah. Um, his, uh, stretcher came out awesome. Uh, he's got a lot of cool gear. Um, it was really fun to kind of get into the stuff he would have on him. I loved keeping the pill, uh, jars on his helmet, which I thought was, it was so crazy that he had those back in the day. Yeah.
00:15:34
Speaker
Jynx is a very close second. Torch is a very close second. I love the whole wave. Torch's accessories are very important for us too from an engineering standpoint because we got them to a good place. Yeah, those translucent flame effects can be challenging. Is that there are some out there that are a little droopy?
00:15:56
Speaker
Yeah, we, um, we went through a lot of what I'm showing you right here is like the first round. Uh, we went through a lot of stages of color and, and dorometer and all that sort of stuff. So, uh, the wave is an important wave. Um, so, but I think doc just because doc came out. Awesome. Got a lot of stuff with them. It's cool. What's the collapse of the gurney or, or, uh, the stretchers, the stretchers. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing.
00:16:22
Speaker
Yeah. And the fact that he can, he can hold all of it too. I mean, that that's been one of the thing, the hallmarks of the, you know, of the line is like, can everybody carry their stuff like their loadout? You know, he can, he can do it all. It's the goal. Uh, you know, not going to happen all the time because, you know,
00:16:38
Speaker
Sometimes it's a little engineering. Uh, sometimes some of those things are a little hard to do, but that's the goal. We're trying to get every figure to hold what they can. You know what I mean? So, uh, but sometimes it's like, you know, you gotta, you gotta, you know, push and pull. Yeah. Well, Emily brought it up as part of her answer to the quite this question, but the, uh, you know, we, we got our chance to see the HMS in hand and how it plays with the his tank. And it's incredible.
HasLab Project Insights
00:17:05
Speaker
I can't wait to attach one to mine.
00:17:07
Speaker
Um, you guys didn't answer part of this. I'm so sorry. I should know it's okay. You guys have been, um, you know, storytelling with this line and, and, and this is a great example of like paying that off, seeing that image of like the fire team and the HMS and like the, like that whole thing in front of you guys, like build out was, you know, it was fantastic.
00:17:31
Speaker
And and you talked a little bit about the the development But like tell us a little bit more about the actual story elements of this like what like what's going on? In your minds to kind of bring these pieces together and and and tell a cohesive story with the his tank
00:17:46
Speaker
The His Tank was so special to us and so exciting. We did the Sky Striker. It was a lovely first HasLab in a product that, in retrospect, had absolutely no business being a HasLab. We have learned so much from
00:18:08
Speaker
kind of the HasLab process from when we did that project to now, that I believe that if it is a product that you can buy on eBay in roughly the same kind of condition or roughly the same size, roughly the same product, that it is not a HasLab. And that is kind of a learning that I have gotten to over the course of the last couple of years. But for all intents and purposes, it was a delightful first HasLab campaign for us, and we are incredibly proud of it.
00:18:38
Speaker
But we knew that we wanted to follow that up with something that was magical. And so it was, I mean, from the get go, it was the his tank and it was, you know, we are going to knock this thing out of the park. It is going to be absolutely incredible. The development timeline on it was ludicrous in terms of toy development because you saw how close those campaigns were together. We're never doing that again. But it was.
00:19:04
Speaker
There's always, Hazlabs are really, really scary because when you do a pre-order product, like just a regular product in a line, it's gonna come out. And people may like it, they may not like it, but ultimately it's still gonna come out, right? Hazlabs are make or break. Like it can fail from the get go. It can be a, it is a very anxiety inducing thing. And we didn't really know how the his tank was going to hit. And it hit like, whew,
00:19:33
Speaker
Nobody could have predicted how well that project was going to go. And so I think that there was part of what we wanted to do was celebrate that success and celebrate the excitement around the his tank by really kind of building an ecosystem out around it to help you to tell more of that story, which is, you know, there's so many different characters and variants of characters in GI Joe that can work with different terrains and different themes that this was kind of a unique opportunity for us to say like, okay, we have a
00:20:03
Speaker
flagship item in this line right like this is up and to date like this is our flagship item for GI Joe classified how can we blow that out but also kind of parse the story beats out around it so that people get to enjoy this and kind of keep adding to that story does that seem okay did I do that okay also I don't want to like disparage the spice Riker campaign like it was
00:20:26
Speaker
beautiful campaign. It was great, but we have learned a lot about the world of HasLabs in the last three years, four years.
00:20:35
Speaker
Oh my God, was that three years ago? Do you want to have three years ago? Three years ago, yeah. Thinking back to the story, I'm like, I needed you to say the marketing stuff to remind me. Did I do a good job though? Did that spark something for you? It was an amazing job. I think it really kind of sums up, like we're always learning from our past products. And I think which that leads into the storytelling as where we wanted to come up with a, we wanted to do a quintessential vehicle for GI Joe.
00:21:04
Speaker
A lot of the other vehicles in G.I. Joe, although very quintessential like the Vamp, the Dragonfly, the Mobat, a lot of those vehicles, they are very G.I. Joe. However, they are based very real world.
00:21:18
Speaker
So for the first Haslab, we wanted to do something that was very ownable. Iconic. Iconic, the G.I. Joe and particularly real American hero, which classified gross troops from. So we went with the his tank. Also, it's funny that the his tank is one of the most iconic G.I. Joe vehicles and it's a Cobra vehicle. Right. So it's kind of like our TIE fighter. Yeah, exactly.
00:21:41
Speaker
So it's like we want to do something when the fan would see it and immediately know, oh, that's a his tank. And there is nothing else in the market like it. Right. So it's like you are getting a quintessential his tank from us. And it kind of like helps tell the story.
00:21:55
Speaker
on your classified shelf. Also, it had to be big, right? It had to be something that had presence on the shelf.
GI Joe Vehicle Design Decisions
00:22:01
Speaker
So we were going through a lot of stuff that we have that would fit within the price point too, because we do cost studies to see what we can afford to give the people and for a fair price. I think that his tank really fits that bill.
00:22:13
Speaker
I mean again like who doesn't remember corporate commander yelling at destro is all driving his tanks and going in the battle in that desert scene a little dust behind them. And this kind of like really resonates with what the battle encompasses but it's what's also cool about it is it had a lot of iterations of it and it had a lot of like.
00:22:33
Speaker
the SMS or HMS as we're calling it now how that connected to the back so then there's line extension opportunity there because for me the GI Joe line is very archetypal and utility based so if we're gonna make characters and figures they should kind of
00:22:53
Speaker
compliment each other, right? So if you're gonna make a tank, how can you a compliment the tank? You give the tank a group that protects the tank. It starts that's why GI Joe for me is like the coolest brand because it's like world building you are
00:23:06
Speaker
making the figures for a reason and whether or not the aesthetic is, the aesthetic, the form follows function, essentially on GI Joe, right? And that's been since day one. So if you're a big lob, you're gonna look like, you know what I mean? So like it all kind of like forms follow function and the story then enhances it even further. So I think that that's why the his tank was such a good choice for the first one.
00:23:35
Speaker
And the dragonfly, I can't wait to be able to dragonfly. We learned so much from the his tank and put that into the dragonfly. And the story we're able to tell there with all the unlocks, with Wild Bill and everybody, again, it's the little details that kind of bring these has-lebs to life. So again, I think the short of it is, can we world build, offer the thing that we're going to offer in a big bombastic way, like in a has-leb?
00:24:03
Speaker
Yeah, and then I mean, before we kind of move away from the design aspect, one of the things that jumped out at me about the HMS was how you kind of have that ratcheting height different
00:24:13
Speaker
differentiating toe from that. It's like future proofing, right? Like if you wanted to tow it to something else, or, you know, if you're a customizer or like whatever it is, like there's like options and it's so utilitarian and like so perfectly, you know, cobra, you know, like it's, it's just a great little touch. So shout out. Thank you. And that joint's actually a transformer's joint. I forget what figure I was, I think it was blitz wing as those joints in his shoulders. And I remember working on that figure.
00:24:43
Speaker
And then when we were working on the SMS, I was like, HMS, sorry. I was like.
00:24:49
Speaker
But what if we do a black Jeep-like vehicle that might want to tow this someday? In the Energon universe, there are different heights. So I remember that joint from that Blitzwing figure and it worked perfectly for this too.
00:25:14
Speaker
You learn, you learn from things. And I think, uh, again, it's that back and forth future grouping, engineering world building as well as story and design world building that makes GI Joe so cool. Ain't nobody beat GI Joe. Like you guys were saying, we put it all together on that turntable.
00:25:33
Speaker
And you have the fire team, you have the HMS, you've got the his tank. It just looks so incredible together. And I guess I'll ask you guys and your listeners, of course, would you want to see more of that world building for
Expanding GI Joe World-building
00:25:45
Speaker
fire team? You know, I've seen some incredible customs already matching some of those color schemes and building out that squad. But, um, I know I would certainly love more, more world building on top of that. Yeah. I mean, I mean, just think about, you know, the,
00:26:01
Speaker
Kind of the history of GI Joe, right? All those sub teams and the importance of like the different sub teams and everything. Um, so absolutely. I think, you know, for going further with the, uh, the fire team is definitely a good idea, especially for, you know, the, the people who backed the project.
00:26:19
Speaker
Or even if you just have everything like out together, you know, you always back when it was the bring through quarter inch figures, you know, you had the ability to kind of have this like massive display of like, Oh, look, here's everything together. And it looks like a world. So just to kind of see that continue here is, is awesome. Like, you know, I think there's always that potential for it.
00:26:45
Speaker
or that need for it. It is one of the things that's been important to us too is without any kind of a caveat during the HasLab campaign, if we do add-ons that match themes
00:26:59
Speaker
They will be available to everyone. It won't be limited to HasLab backers unless it is something that is denoted during a HasLab campaign. That's me future-proofing something. We don't have that capacity right now, but it is. That's something that's important because we don't want to say the fire team came out, which.
00:27:17
Speaker
Nobody knew about during the actual his campaign and we said this is actually limited to only the people that shelled out for this very expensive item and if you didn't buy that not knowing that these figures were gonna come out in the future you can't have that because it's
00:27:33
Speaker
It's really important to us that our fans and the people that are buying the product are having a good experience. And that would have been a terrible experience. So we try to the absolute best of our abilities to create products and kind of strategies for those products with fans in mind. We heard about it. Lenny mentioned it a couple minutes ago.
Dragonfly Model Updates
00:28:02
Speaker
From one Hazlab to another, when can fans expect the next update on the Dragonfly? Soon. I'm behind. I apologize. It's on me. The Ghostbusters movie is coming out at the end of the month. And so that's kind of what is taking over my life right now. But we did get in prototypes. Are they EP2s or EP1s? We are very far along. We're at EP2 and we're doing some
00:28:29
Speaker
on a Hazlab on, especially, you guys wouldn't know this, but on a vehicle that looks like it can fly, goes through different testing. Interesting. Yeah, so we gotta drop it. We gotta drop the shit out of it. Oh my God. Yeah, you have to beat it up. So basically we're going through some testing. We've had no problems really, but it goes through a little bit more rigor and we're making sure, like actually I just saw the chain gun
00:28:58
Speaker
They, we just updated the attachment and we got a video today. I haven't gotten the updated model yet. So basically they sent me a video. We comment on what we can tentatively. I'm like, these comments don't really resonate until we get the model. Cause we want to see everything in hand. Um, but a way that everything was snapping in and the snap from the video, you guys know what I'm talking about. It looked like it was magnetic.
00:29:23
Speaker
the way it was going in. It's not, but like the tolerance levels are really nice on it. So I'm super excited about it. Even the, even the EP one that we have right now is really good. So that the EP two is going to be good. And on a has lab, we'll go deep into the EP. Like we might even get like an EP three. Um, sometimes you'll do an EP four on some items, but that's, that means you're getting late. You get really late.
00:29:49
Speaker
So we don't have footage of the video of the Dragonfly models being dropped, but I did take pictures of Lenny doing model review. I think it was with Matt. And so when I have a little bit more brain capacity, I will get those sent over to our Pulse marketing team and we will get those out to fans so that everybody can see them.
00:30:11
Speaker
We didn't even fake pose, too. I think you came over while we were actually reviewing the model. Yes, no. We were actually reviewing the products. I showed up. I stuck my camera in front of them. I took like 50 pictures from different angles. And then I said bye. And I left.
00:30:27
Speaker
Unlike the paratroopers, you didn't have to drop the dragonfly out the factory window outside. That's one of my favorite memories. I still get people who bring up that video and are just like, I can't believe you did that. I was like, yep, we sure did. We had a lot of fun on that campaign.
00:30:47
Speaker
That was so funny. I remember when you went and did that. Things I'm probably not allowed to do again, but, you know, we had a good time. There were a lot of disclaimers on that video. I was going to say, is the drop test more like fun or nerve wracking or? Oh, we don't do it here. It happens at a lab actually in over in China. So there's like a.
00:31:11
Speaker
particular amount of tests and rigor that products go through the vamp actually went through a lot of drop testing too, surprisingly. Um, and then we, it's funny you, you're at like, uh, an engineering pilot stage. I won't say which one. Um, but then you learn that you have to make some adjustments to the thing that's already molded. You're like, Oh no, so that you had to do all these changes. Uh, and it's amazing to me what our team, uh, over in China can do.
00:31:37
Speaker
Like it's like, we can fix it. That's doable. And it's like, they're like, yeah, no problem. We got it. And it's like what that team can do. And I think I don't think enough credit of how much good work they do over there and how much they're able to kind of make our dreams come reality. But yeah, to the key team.
00:31:58
Speaker
Oh, for sure. We all have our counterparts. Uh, there's a, you know, PDE, Lenny and a PDE, uh, Tony, you know, probably a PDE Emily over there. Probably. I don't know if we have marketing. No, I don't know. I'm sure that there's somebody over there that I could be BFFs with though. They're, they're just as incredibly talented and focused on a lot, uh, of the detail work and, um, function. Uh, obviously Lenny and our engineers here.
00:32:27
Speaker
do a lot of that stuff in-house too, but it's always great to have a second, third, fourth set of eyes watching all that stuff for us. Yeah, it's amazing the level of knowledge they have to take it through the production process. So there's things that you're thinking of in a toy, the features it should have, the details it should have, but then it's like, how does that get molded? What will that do to the mold itself? Will it come out of the mold? Will it cause issues for the factory workers?
00:32:56
Speaker
Glue on action figures is a big deal for an assembly line, right? So it's like, imagine having 70 people have to glue a little piece of glue onto an action figure that can make a mess, right? So it's like, there's a lot of stuff that gets taken into consideration that these guys do, that they do such a good job. And I think it kind of goes on unsung, but man, thank God for them, you know?
Sponsor Messages
00:33:22
Speaker
You know, it takes a village or in the case of Hasbro, it takes almost a city size group of people. And now a word from our sponsors.
00:33:36
Speaker
This segment is brought to you by our friends at Chubsy Wubsy Toys. A traditional mom and pop toy store in Little Falls, New Jersey, Chubsy Wubsy Toys brings you the best new toys from the brands you love without the hassle of pounding the pavement searching for them at larger retail stores.
00:33:53
Speaker
Visit them in person at their brand new home at 101 Newark Pompton Turnpike Suite 1 in Little Falls, New Jersey, or online at ChubsyWubsy.com. That's C-H-U-B-Z-Z-Y-W-U-B-Z-Z-Y.com. And tell them Adventures in Collecting sent you.
00:34:18
Speaker
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00:34:43
Speaker
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00:35:05
Speaker
Get 20% off when you go to liquidiv.com 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. And now back to the show.
Complexities of Toy Mold Design
00:35:33
Speaker
So you bring up an interesting point. And it's something that the Transformers team has gone into a couple times. And I think actually in the past, when we first had you on, we were talking about molds and kind of sneaking other heads and things onto molds with other projects. But with something like a Dragonfly or a Hiss tank, do you have to factor in the same kind of size mold? Is there a standard size mold? Bigger.
00:36:02
Speaker
that you just make bigger molds and fit more on and like... Yeah, it's crazy. So action figure molds are a particular size. We call them cavities, right? So it's like, and it's the mold cavity, but then like a vehicle cavity. Just imagine a fuselage of the SkyStryker, for instance, like that's all one solid piece. Yeah. So now imagine the metal that goes around that. So you're making like a Ford resin mold, like you see on Instagram sometimes or like toy kit bashers do.
00:36:31
Speaker
Imagine the amount of that rubber that's around that form made of steel and a square, not the shape of a cup. And it's like for the sky striker. So it would be like, you know, probably like a foot by like a foot or maybe two feet by two feet. So like it depends on what you're making. Right. And it's like just the engineering. It always it always fascinates me. The engineering that goes into like
00:36:56
Speaker
I guess they call it molding science and plastic science and what it takes and what kind of plastics to make. We're dorking out a little bit. I'm dorking out a little bit, but just to like how to make the stuff. Do you use nylon for the elbows? Do you use the poly, like what do you use so it doesn't break over time, so it doesn't snap? And a lot of the, with the weapon stuff, when it was softer, a lot of that was because if it snaps, it makes a sharp edge and our toy is four plus.
00:37:23
Speaker
So if it snaps, it makes a sharp edge because the durometer is too hard. You have problem. So you have to design the weapons so that if it does snap, then you won't have a sharp edge. So it's a lot that goes into the back and forth and all that sort of stuff that we kind of don't really talk about too much, but it is. It's a lot that goes into that and kind of like the parameters are going to fall within.
00:37:48
Speaker
And it's what makes the job fun for me, honestly, to take the nitty gritty getting into how you do the thing or make the thing. So aside from drawing cool pictures of action figures, the science and being there for the ride with your engineering team is kind of fun.
00:38:04
Speaker
And Tony, from that point- It's the most fun math and science. It's the only fun math and science. Well, math, science is dope. Toy math. And Tony, in the process now, with the paints and the colors and everything, in that EP process, does the digitization of things, has that made that process a little bit easier? Or are you still pulling out Pantone books and making sure that the colors are matching?
00:38:31
Speaker
talking about cool grays. Yeah. A Pantone book is always the Rosetta Stone. That's the, uh, the, the word key. Look at Lenny's Pantone books. Swatches.
00:38:44
Speaker
Yeah. Back in the paint room, we used to do the paint room clap, and if anyone said something great, we would just kind of fan these things around. But no, it's the Rosetta Stone between design, our paint department, and then our partners in PDE, and then the vendor. So it's super important to still have the Pantone books. Digital's been great just because
00:39:08
Speaker
I got to learn a new skill set, which is great. But our partners adapted to it pretty quickly. And you're really kind of keeping some costs down by not generating full prototypes every time you make one figure. And you can use that figure for presentations instead. It's a very smart move.
00:39:30
Speaker
But key is the Pantone book. We'll never get away from that just because, again, it's that language that's always constant. Everyone's screens are different, especially if they're not calibrated or if you're on a Mac or if you're on a PC. We have special monitors that do have some incredible color balancing, and they actually are on a network that can sync, so make sure that everybody's monitors aren't
00:39:53
Speaker
Oh wow, that's awesome. Yeah, it's EZO monitors. They're really incredible. But again, on the network, so you know, someone on your team isn't slacking, it'll go in and like calibrate their screen for them. But again, not all our partners have invested in that technology. So it's, it's still Pantone is best. Yeah. But then again, now you need the best lighting for that. So are you getting the D 50 lighting? I don't know.
00:40:18
Speaker
You want to know something crazy when I reached my office because of colors and matching I got these lights You can change the We go hard Tony and I go hard when it comes like we we won't use colors from a screen like we won't we do that No, we do the digital
00:40:39
Speaker
Paint but then we check our payment. We check our Pantone books like crazy next to our figures as well. So it's like I Mean, you know your first shots you're not gonna get the best colors our factories really doing a great job Yeah, but
00:40:58
Speaker
The you know that first round is gonna be a little bit off maybe there's not enough saturation in the reds or the greens looking, maybe a little too blue instead of a little more yellow that we want and then you get to a second round and hopefully not third round but you can really fine tune these things and.
00:41:17
Speaker
Me and Lenny go to town. They're patient though. They're patient. He's a very patient man. We should get him a, we should get him a plaque. Man of great wisdom and patience. We want things as perfect as we can.
00:41:37
Speaker
Sticking in the world of art, specifically, when the newest pre-orders went up, we got to look at some of the new packaging.
GI Joe Packaging Evolution
00:41:46
Speaker
And the classified line has gone through some visual changes over the years. But what led to the step away from bringing in those artists to do the one-off card art for the mainline figures?
00:41:59
Speaker
There was, so with kind of the, the success and the widening of the line, shall we say, there's, I think we can all admit you get a whole lot more classified figures now in a year than you did in previous years. And so we had a, we had a full team that was dedicated to managing that process. And ultimately, uh, they got kind of shuffled. And when our, when there was some E1 things going on, they got shuffled with E1.
00:42:29
Speaker
And so kind of a new team came on to lead packaging. And so they decided that they wanted to go in a kind of a more cohesive direction. And I mean, I think the packaging looks beautiful. Stacy and Julian are doing an incredible job. And I think the
00:42:47
Speaker
the wave that we just pre-ordered is the first of the new kind of modular packaging that's being rolled out. And so the sizing is a tiny bit different than you're used to with the regular GI Joe window boxes. It got a little bit complicated, so when we made the move to
00:43:06
Speaker
step away from plastic-free packaging. So you'll remember that the GI Joe line looks switched from our original window boxes to when we went to plastic-free packaging. So for like Black Series and Legends, they were able, when we decided to go back to window boxes, they went back to their old window boxes because they still had them and the dye lines were the same, all the patterns were the same. Great. We didn't have that because
00:43:31
Speaker
when we had switched line looks. So we didn't want to switch back to an old line look, only to switch back to the new line look. So we're trying to keep it as minimally inconvenient as humanly possible for collectors. So there are a couple of figures that came out within what we have been referring to as the intermediary step box, where it's the old window box dye line, but with the new line look on it.
00:43:57
Speaker
And now we are going into the new modular packaging where everything will match, will all be cohesive, but will look lovely on your shelf. So that is kind of a new process change for us, but a welcome one, I think, to get back into the world of window boxes. Very cool. And with that, I think we're ready for some Q&A, guys. Oh, it's time.
00:44:39
Speaker
How can they submit questions for these Q&A sections of our interviews?
00:44:45
Speaker
I would love to. First off, thank you for listening. If you are listening on your favorite podcast location, do make sure you subscribe. I'm told it helps with a algorithm and that you automatically get every episode delivered to you on a weekly basis. Now, if you follow on the social medias, then you're aware of this Q&A process, but if not,
00:45:15
Speaker
Go to your Instagrams, go to your Twitters, go to your YouTubes.
Listener Q&A Submissions
00:45:20
Speaker
Specifically on Instagram though, you'll see us at AIC underscore podcast. And in the story, we're gonna have a story that says like, hey, Tony, Lenny and Emily are coming on. Do you have any questions for them? And there'll be a little box that you can tap on and you type in your question. And then Eric,
00:45:41
Speaker
where I get those questions sent to us. We read them and we put them in this next list that's coming up. And the folks that are guesting on the show, the guests for that week will answer. And yeah, I think I did it. Bravo. You did a great job, nailed it. It's the perfect system. Every time I can't keep myself together when he does that, it just makes me
00:46:11
Speaker
It makes me cry, I'm laughing so hard. And if you're on YouTube, smash that subscribe button and hit that bell. They made us say that when we were doing fan streams, there was like a three month period of time where they were like, Emily, at the end of all the fan streams, you have to make sure to say like, share and subscribe for more great news from Hasbro Pulse. I was like, but do I have to? Gotta smash that subscribe button, gotta smash it.
00:46:37
Speaker
Gotta hit that bell so you know. There's a new video. So let's dive into the Q&A. We've got a bunch to go through today. Anytime you guys are on, the fans are always submitting questions. So shouts to everybody that submitted. Shouts to everybody. Unfortunately, we can't get to everybody. So Dave, do you want to go with the first one? I would love to.
00:47:06
Speaker
And these all look easy, so I won't be apologizing to anybody's username this time. At literally underscore action underscore figs on Instagram asks, now that the community has proven there's a hunger for larger classified pieces, has the team started to think about any more about how playsets might fit into the plan?
Integrating Playsets in GI Joe Line
00:47:30
Speaker
Yes. Yes.
00:47:34
Speaker
Great answer. Next question. You can elaborate a little bit. I mean, do you have to, though? I'm just kidding. Please, go ahead and elaborate. Don't say too much, but please elaborate. I think to give a little more...
00:47:50
Speaker
juice to the squeeze. Um, you got to see what is viable. Again, price point wise, what are people willing to spend for it? What figure that are they willing to swap out for it? If that is so not in their budget to get everything, you gotta, you gotta kind of like think about people's wallets. Um, and then what is something that can enhance the shelf, not eat the shelf.
00:48:16
Speaker
So as we think about that stuff, I don't think we're going to go full pour in and you're going to get a pit, but we're going to think about what would be feasible and not crazy, but still awesome. Very cool. I like that. Enhance the shelf versus eat the shelf because you kind of think of it, but that's a really good way of describing it.
00:48:43
Speaker
Yeah, like make your life a little easier kind of thing. Like, you know, I know for me, even my stuff falls down all the time. So it's like, how do you do it where you can help that problem or you can make the shelf look cooler. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, one of my favorite things to, you know, in terms of play sets of recent time have been some of the things that the vintage collection has been putting out like hallways, dioramas, like pieces that are kind of like,
00:49:08
Speaker
Modular but almost shell like so that way you can kind of you know You can set up a little scene and it doesn't like destroy any it actually takes up barely any space on your shelf your existing shelf. It just kind of enhances it All right, that's a t-shirt too by the way that is enhance your shelf GI Joe classified series If listen if Ryan can have his mints on card shirt
00:49:34
Speaker
on Hasbro pulse.com. You guys can get your, your enhance yourself. That's an order. It's just, yeah, Joe classified has nothing to do with the license. It's just, yeah. And your show. Yeah. There you go. Yeah. Make it, make it cool.
00:49:50
Speaker
All right. So this, this next question comes from this next question. I have one caveat. I had to heavily edit it, edit the, uh, the verbiage used for our next question comes from at Jersey maniac on Instagram.
GI Joe Wave Size Changes
00:50:04
Speaker
Uh, the team announced last year that future waves would be five figures deep, but we're still seeing waves of four. What happened?
00:50:12
Speaker
That is a super solid question. Thank you for editing whatever the original verbiage of that was. Same question, just lots of Fs.
00:50:29
Speaker
We've all gotten those messages. So the reason why waves are now five instead of four, or four instead of five, so when we originally were doing five-figure waves, you'll remember that the Retro Cardback Collection was a Walmart exclusive and the 60th anniversary figures did not exist in the line. So we had to reallocate some of the item count away from our kind of what we refer to as the mainline classified collection. So that's our classic, you know,
00:51:00
Speaker
standard box size 24.99 kind of modernized figures. We had to allocate some of the item count away from those figures to supplement the retro card back in the 60th anniversary figures. So your trade off for having four figure waves instead of five figure waves is now you get retro figures and 60th anniversary figures. And I actually feel like that was a pretty solid answer.
00:51:22
Speaker
Definitely. Yeah, it's funny. That makes it all make so much more sense now because we make our rollouts for the year. I'm like, oh yeah. I'm seeing the spreadsheet in my head. I'm like, that totally lines up. Right? Yep, exactly. It's still a huge amount of figures, mind you. It's still a lot of figures. Yeah, it's crazy sometimes.
00:51:42
Speaker
From a development standpoint to the four figures is actually easier than obviously than the five figures away because you're actually working on exclusives at the same time you're working on retro cardbacks at the same time so it does alleviate us a little bit too which is great so we can and we just spread the cheese out a little bit more throughout the year. And will it kind of stay that way go well obviously once the 60th anniversary figures are kind of
00:52:09
Speaker
Like you're past that, uh, that program or that execution is the plan to kind of stick with the four figure waves moving forward or is, you know, just solid question. Please ask us again in the future when our 2025 product line is locked and loaded. Dave, you're up. All right. At the mass device on Instagram asks, why are certain GI Joes not paired with their iconic weapons?
00:52:37
Speaker
when those weapons already exist in the line? The weather dominator will answer that question. Sorry. I think for the most part, we try to get as many accessory, iconic accessories with their particular character or figure. In some cases, there is usage, tooling usage, tools.
00:53:02
Speaker
not done being processed, so then we don't have it. So it's in the line. So it's nice that it's in the line. I look at the brand as a total whole. So it's like you have the parts and pieces to give to said figure. So essentially, it's usage. And when we can use the tool, we might have a character lineup that somehow, some way throughout production, we do have to shuffle things and things get a little squirrely. So we try our best for that not to happen. But when you're working on
00:53:32
Speaker
I don't know if you can include the two packs working on close to 70 action figures a year. Things do happen. So sometimes things get a little shuffle, have to be planned like that, essentially. So sort of what happens. Next question comes from at Cincinnati Chama on Instagram.
00:53:51
Speaker
Chama Chama like like a New England Chama. I don't know why I guess president I had to go with the New England Chama. Yeah. Yeah. I figured I would have done that first. Are there any chances you guys would consider selling packs of the Cobra Joe stands?
00:54:15
Speaker
Yes. So yeah, so we talk about it a lot. We're trying to kind of figure out, you know, what makes sense from a world building standpoint for GI Joe. Where do we go next? And we know accessory packs. We know kind of the stands. We know there's a lot of people that have a lot of things that they're very excited about in the line. But for the time being, please feel free to check out our retro card back figures that come with delightful GI Joe and Cobra stands that you could use with your classified figures.
00:54:45
Speaker
Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Bye.
00:54:54
Speaker
Dave, you're up. Fun fact, I had the chance to, well, we don't have the, we're not supporting the selfie series anymore, but I got to design all the selfie series exclusive stands for the San Diego and the Paulscon exclusives. Yeah, they were beautiful. Yeah. We run through a lot of examples and stuff that me and Lenny like, this could be kind of cool, but
00:55:19
Speaker
A few things. You had some pretty cool innovations in there and I would love to use them. I'm just jealous at everybody that has room for stands for each of their figures on display. I know. I'll say this. So Joe stands in general, the original Joe stand, the classified Joe stand, which is based on the Real American Hero one.
00:55:42
Speaker
It's a nice stand because it fits directly under the figure. So it's like, it's not like eating up the rest of the shelf. So it's like, it is the, what is it? I think it's like a one by two. And it's like, that's pretty much a figure area, you know? It rocks a low profile.
00:55:58
Speaker
It does a lot. I can't talk, but I think I'm tired. We lost an hour. Everybody's still recovering. We sprung ahead. Yeah. It's the worst one. BMac and I were saying today that the Monday after spring ahead should be a holiday so that we can all recover in peace and then come back on Tuesday when we're like, right. Okay. This is really the time now. Yep. Yep.
00:56:25
Speaker
All right, friend of the pod and a previous guest at Just Jay Hernandez. Hi, Jay Hernandez. On Instagram asks, with more Joes coming with swappable hands and fists, are you moving to that becoming the norm? Depending on the character, right? So if the character needs fists, yes. If the character needs a chop hand, yes. If the character has a loadout of
00:56:54
Speaker
gear that is, I don't know, sabotage gear, but they need all the sabotage gear over the hands. There will be more sabotage gear and no extra hands, right? So it's like we have to budget what's going in the box.
00:57:10
Speaker
A lot of times right so it's like it's like killing your darlings like well I design them we put them in the input and then it's like we can't afford it so we take them out so that's basically joe design 101 we overdo it and then we cut out and it just it just depends on what makes the most enriching experience for the for the figure for the user right so it's like uh i think on the character i think
00:57:35
Speaker
Like frag viper, it's more important for frag viper to have his load out than fists and chop hands and stuff like that, or blast effects even. So it's just a matter of like, to measuring what you're going to put in there and what you can afford and what, what looks like a good value as well. Ask for forgiveness, not permission. My engineer is a saint man. He's the best. Let's be, let's be designed to grab out of this stuff.
00:58:04
Speaker
Tony, what were you going to say? You were about to say something. Oh, sorry. Yeah. And also, you know, Lenny did an incredible job with the mutton junkyard too, where it's a little more purposeful, right? Very meaningful hands and doing the call signs for the dog. And that's where I really think that's super impactful too.
00:58:26
Speaker
And what a gorgeous looking two pack just on even on the shelf like I was just going away. I love that two pack. Well, the two two of them is a very good boy. He's the goodest boy. He's a good boy. I got to tell you, I am. I saw one in Target. It was literally just sitting. I'm like, it's just how are you not drawn to it? Like, it's just a even in the packaging. It's a it's a great looking two pack.
00:58:51
Speaker
I, uh, we're, uh, currently thinking of getting a new dog. And, uh, I, I gotta tell you, I'm like, I think I want a Rottweiler. Like after working on that, like they're great. See now it would be great as if, you know, maybe you guys did a certain German Shepherd.
00:59:11
Speaker
His handler, just saying. Whenever we can do an animal, we will do an animal in the line. Animal action figures are awesome. They're just unique. You know what I mean? Like you don't really get the opportunity on a lot of lines to do a crocodile.
00:59:25
Speaker
or a Rottweiler or Warpog, right? So it's like, yeah, the opportunity arises. We will do them. So that means they're all on the table and we want to get to them sooner than later. It's just a matter of time and money and slots. You know what I mean?
00:59:41
Speaker
To this day, I still can't believe you were able to include such a cool accessory with Fiona. I mean, the fact that she came with a whole other Croc Master figure is just, it's wild. One hell of an accessory. I know, I know. That figure, what a good accessory. Very articulated one at that too. Yeah. All of the baby's names, all I remember is El Diablo, but there was another one. El Diablo and it was Georgie.
01:00:12
Speaker
Yeah, I know one right little yeah Tony even got really cute little like blushes if you ever look at a albino Crockett have like a blush of paint on their front of their nose and stuff like that So that's that thing came out
01:00:28
Speaker
I love, I love that. And that was like one of the first, I was like, we gotta do Croc master start. I remember that when we were getting into all that, like, we gotta, we gotta, we gotta, now you build the babies in the Laura. I think everyone would like to see what they look like when they are, they're fully grown. I do too. I very much so have an idea for what that pack would be. And maybe it's, maybe it's an opportunity to introduce Croc mistress.
01:00:58
Speaker
I don't want that out there. I love it. Nobody can see me shrugging him. I was going to say we were all doing this. I was like, I don't know. You know, I got to say, though, in that exploration, we did lose the coolest accessory. An actual accessory was going to be a giant slab of meat that the hook could connect to so that he could throw the meat to the crocodile. We had to cost it out because it needed its own mold, and I was already overspending.
01:01:28
Speaker
Who is this guy? Who is this guy? Lenny? Why does he have me molding meat? Got to get a good marbleization to it. You know, it's all about that distribution of fat. It's really, really important. Yeah. Yeah. We're talking like 80, 20, none of this like
01:01:43
Speaker
90-10 crap. You know what I mean? We need some good fat levels in there. You know what I'm saying? Is Croc Master sourcing? Absolutely. Is he sourcing like Angus? Is he sourcing like Wagyu? What's he? Yeah, is it like A5? Well, if you guys have noticed, Croc Master's croc training facility is on Cobra Island on that painting we did. Yeah.
01:02:05
Speaker
I don't think, I don't know if we ever talked about it on a, on a stream, but like we definitely put a crocodile training facility on Cobra Island because we were thinking about like, what is on the island? Um, and there's a place where he's training. So if it's on Cobra Island and Cobra commander has unlimited funds, he's given those crocodiles wagoo.
01:02:25
Speaker
uh, cows, man, those things are, uh, they're marbleized, you know, but not too much though. You gotta be careful. You don't want to, you don't want to, you don't want them to get, you know, you gotta like, you gotta keep them, you gotta keep them a little lean, a little crazy. Yeah. So you gotta, it's, it's, it's a rich, it's a rich steak. You can't eat it all. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Those crocodiles are sauced up.
01:02:53
Speaker
So our, our final question from Q and a comes from at rec ship underscore 85. Uh, how do you decide which figures fit into a wave, a retro or a retro wave? Is it driven purely by story or do you have some sort of character ranking system? Combination. Um, we want it to be all driven by story, but a lot of times it can be driven by finances, who you can get to and what you could afford to make properly.
01:03:22
Speaker
who can get an update properly, who doesn't need an update. Ultimately, if I could, I would do it all story-based, but a lot of it is story-based, but then, like, did you dream, we're going to doing this, and then you're like, ooh, that figure, I'm not gonna be able to have enough to make that figure look awesome, so then we have to go another direction that I could make that figure look awesome, right, so it's like that.
01:03:47
Speaker
Again, it's not like moving the gauges around. Um, that's kind of like the, the, the realest answer. Um, but I think a lot of it is we could be more story driven. Um, but I don't know if I'm butchering this answer, Emily, but, uh,
01:04:06
Speaker
It's a beautiful statement of reality. It's a beautiful statement of reality. I think that, and it is, you know, we are grounded in reality, but I mean, we do have character ranking documents and we, one of the things that we also take into account is, you know, what do we hear fans really saying that they want next? Who do we hear the most that, you know, is missing from your collections and is, who is the next iconic character that you need to complete your shelf?
Completing Character Teams
01:04:34
Speaker
Yeah, those top 10 lists, a lot of fans do just like scrolling through Instagram and you're seeing people's like random list. Like you'll see a lot of correlation. So those lists are super helpful because we want to make you guys stuff that you're like interested into. Yeah. So like seeing those lists, super hot finishing teams.
01:04:52
Speaker
Um, definitely priority knowing that we've started something and we want to finish it as well. Um, that doesn't go unnoticed. It's just the right time and the right place to be able to put them. Um, can't do them all at once. Unfortunately, uh, cause there's so many other things that, uh, people want as well. So, you know, the dread knocks are getting filled out pretty nice though. I gotta say, gosh, there's a whole lot of dread knocks. If I could, I want to make some new dread knocks eventually. I want to get, I want to get silly with it. Get some grape soda in there.
01:05:21
Speaker
Yeah, we got a good group. So you know, it's funny. You got quick pick quick kick his ice cream bar. So I did. I did. But it's so because sometimes you do something, you sculpt something and then you can't keep the thing. Well, I'm glad you brought up lists because this is an opportunity for us to kind of reveal something to our audience and also to you guys because we haven't discussed it with you yet.
01:05:47
Speaker
Um, right now we're, we're running currently as this show is airing is we'll be in March and we're running our March first ever March madness for Marvel legends. So we're running March, Marvel legends, March madness. Um, well we're going to do, we've had such a great response. Uh, we're going to do the same thing in June for GI Joe.
GI Joe March Madness Tournament
01:06:07
Speaker
So we're going to do a Joe June, a 64 character tournament where we'll let everybody, everybody vote.
01:06:16
Speaker
And we'll have a number one pick coming your way. I already know who's going to win.
01:06:24
Speaker
Oh, it's absolutely going to be ice cream soldier. What did you think? I thought you were going to say sespool because I want sespool to win. Sespool is awesome. I thought you were going to vote for ice cream soldier in every round against whoever he's up against. You just got to come in a bunch of different flavors. Do a Neapolitan pack. So it comes in strawberry, chocolate and vanilla.
01:06:49
Speaker
Oh, or do a Spimoni pack. So you do a chocolate pistachio. And what is it? Cherry? Oh, that'd be great. Pistachio. Pistachio is the sophisticated ice cream. Honestly, I will be quietly pulling for road pig to win the win. We soft announced road pig. Did we? I don't think I mean, I think you just did.
01:07:16
Speaker
Can I just do that on us? Yeah, we did. We said road pig. No, do you just see Eric's face? You haven't announced this yet. See how excited this man is? You just made his night. I did? Wow, we got two in one episode. No way. All right. You can knock that one out, but road pig, yes. And he looks awesome. No, he doesn't have to cut it out. Just let him keep it in. It's fine. Are you sure? Yeah, what do we care?
01:07:42
Speaker
He wants don't make him pretend like it didn't happen Oh Man I'm a silly one information I'm given. All right. Well, what a way to end the Q&A segment
01:08:06
Speaker
um road pig all right can't guess i guess we don't have to put him on the list dave no congratulations well uh you guys road pig you're the winner you've already won we're all winners here we're all winners um so you you survived i guess we'll do air quotes you survived the q and a segment with only minimal
01:08:35
Speaker
only minimal damage. Um, so since you guys have all been guests on the show before, before we let you go, you know, we have our, our final question that we ask all of our guests. Um, we have an alternate question for you. Dave, would you like to fulfill your role as this podcasts James Lipton and ask our final question? Why? Yes, I would. Our final question.
01:09:00
Speaker
Since you've all been on the show multiple times and have all been asked our standard final question, we present you with this alternate question. If you were a GI Joe or a Cobra, what would be your ideal assignment? Clarifying question. Are we talking realism or are we talking like ideal? I think ideal. Ideal. Yeah, ideal is the way to go.
01:09:29
Speaker
I have an answer, unless Tony, you're looking like you might have an answer too. You want to go first? I'll start, yeah. I'm not doing that. So first, get to identify COBRA or GI Joe.
01:09:43
Speaker
We're going cobra. I think I may have said this before but I'm sticking with it and Emily So delightfully actually even put it on one of my GI Joe hoodies for me but Cobra paint viper would be pretty sweet where I get to go in and paint up all the his tanks and someone's gonna do all those Python patrol redecos and Do all that? So hopefully I get to be the lead master painter of the of the
01:10:12
Speaker
You know, Vehicle Force. Master Paint Viper. What a... Yeah. That's awesome. That's beautiful. I love it. So 2027 for that one? Yeah. I'm holding out for my other character. I'm not going to say on air. I thought you were going to do it, man. Don't do it. Don't do it. Well, that's going to be a reveal on the next AIC podcast. I'm waiting for that to be a real reveal. Yeah. He's really going to change the game.
01:10:40
Speaker
That's for sure. That character's gonna change the game. Oh my god, I can't wait. Who's next? We can never tell the people. Before he slips and says it, who's next? Who wants to go next? Emily, you go. So, if I was going for...
01:10:57
Speaker
Ideal skill set, it would be Cobra, and I would definitely be a sneaky assassin, like I play in Assassin's Creed, and I would just, we'd be in a world of G.I. Joe where it's not the Sunbow world where nobody dies, I would just be really, really good at mercilessly assassinating people.
01:11:14
Speaker
in a more realistic world, probably also for Cobra, but I would be in charge of scheduling and doing spread sheeting that involved color coding and organizing people's schedules. I would organize, these are all of the Vipers that are on shift right now and they need to figure out when they get to go on lunch and when.
01:11:36
Speaker
Are they working swing shift? Are they working night shift? Great question. Why don't you go ask the, uh, what would that be? The, the schedule something? I don't know. The logistics for that schedule. Yeah. I'd be the schedule viper. I kind of love that. These, these are all legit figures that no one knew they needed until like today. I need, I need like, but like, it's like,
01:11:59
Speaker
They still have to wear the helmet, but they have like a business suit on. But it comes with like a physical spreadsheet as well as a laptop. Yes. Love it. It's very key. You gotta be able to write on it as a tangent to give Lenny more time. When I was, when I got my GI Joe job, one of the questions that I was actually asked was if you were an action figure, what are two accessories that you would come with? A spreadsheet and coffee?
01:12:30
Speaker
Fascinatingly, I don't drink coffee. Oh. I know, right? I'm just like this without any caffeine. I don't want to see that with a coffee. That would be... That's just... Sometimes we all drink energy drinks before fan streams, but we have to make sure that all three of us do it so that all of our energy is notched up obnoxiously and we match each other.
01:12:53
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Got it. Got it. Equally obnoxious. Yeah. So what were the two accessories?
01:13:02
Speaker
Oh God, that was a long time ago. I think at one point it was definitely, I would come with highlighters so that I can color code everything that I'm doing and make sure that it's nicely organized. And I may have said like a cat or something, you know, equally charming, something clever and non-work related. She says with her dog, literally like a sleep over her shoulder during this interview. I love it. He is out to the count.
01:13:29
Speaker
It's past our bedtime, so she's letting me know that it's really like, she'd really like me to speed this up so we can go to bed. I think I'm gonna jump in because she looks like she's pretty tired. I guess, it's funny, I don't think about this all the time of who I would be. I think maybe I'd want to be like a demolition dude.
01:13:54
Speaker
You know what I mean? Like, like not saboteur, not, not firefly, but I want to be like a demolition due with like, like a, like a, like
01:14:04
Speaker
Like a sledgehammer, you know what I mean? Like sledgehammers and stuff like that. Just bring it in, bring it in the heavy. You know what I mean? Like, it's like wreck and shop somehow. All, all brawn, no brains. This would be funny character. Wasn't it a joke or a cobra? And that's, that's where I'm going. I think, I think we need that on Joe. Yeah. So many of these kind of goes into reckless abandon and it's just like, Leroy Jenkins. And it's just like,
01:14:32
Speaker
Things are going to break. You know what I mean? I think that'd be fun. And then from a design standpoint too, I think it got to be cool to be like this kind of going in there and just making a mess and seeing what comes out of it. You know what I mean? Like too late. So I'm having trouble formulating thoughts.
01:14:53
Speaker
You know, like go in and be a little more dreamy with it, right? So it's just like break it down and see the pieces and make something new out of it kind of thing. You could be like codename Meat Hooks. Meat Hooks? Yeah, that's incredible. Just like with like massive like hands and sledgehammers and just you know, you could that would be like Hulk hands. Yeah.
01:15:17
Speaker
It's like, it's like how they portrayed bazooka in the cartoon, but like actually wrecking stuff. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like imagine like pneumatic, like Hulk hands. Yeah. No, he's old school. He uses a sledgehammer straight up. Like it's all sweat of the brow. Wait, but Eric and Dave, what would you be? So I would definitely be a Joe. Um, I mean, listen, like,
01:15:49
Speaker
G.I. Joe, they need marketing support. They need the guy that's writing.
01:15:55
Speaker
writing the copy, they need like the guy who's writing like the internal documents. Um, you know, like they need, they need that guy. They need the technical writer. They need the copywriter. Um, they need the voice of the brand. So I would have to go, I would have to lean on my professional skillset outside of doing this wonderful podcast and say that I would be, uh, I would be like the marketing officer at, at, uh, at GI Joe.
01:16:23
Speaker
Beautiful. I guess I'd be like, it would make more sense for, for it to be a Cobra job, but I'd be like the guy who like cuts promos on people. That's amazing. Like I'm just going to, I, I, I, the all talk like guy, you know, and then everyone else just, yeah, you, you can take care of that. No, you can take care of that mess I made. Um, you can be Cobra. Like WWE style, like cutting promos on fools, like just like talking smack.
01:16:53
Speaker
Yeah, pretty
Playful GI Joe Codenames
01:16:54
Speaker
much. I love that. What a great job. It's like the opposite of Eric's, like I'm the evil Eric. And your code name could be like motor mouth or like mouthpiece or something like that. Yeah, mouthpiece would be good. Mouthpiece is really good. That's great.
New Figure Themes: Financial Backers
01:17:14
Speaker
So, uh, this, this six figure way or five figure wave will be speaking of, we can put in an ice cream soldier. Definitely. There you go. Done. We should make a judge Joe named six figures and he's got all the money. Well, that's true. I always got all the money, but like, you know what I mean? Like somebody named like, like kind of like, uh, like head man. You know what I mean? Like he's got skin in the game.
01:17:38
Speaker
The financier finance, financial backer, like that's the thing with GI Joe. It's hard for me to come up with it. Cause it's like, they've got it all covered, man.
Q&A Wrap-up and Social Media Info
01:17:48
Speaker
They got it all. But there's so many like potential jobs in there for like anything works. Yep. Yeah, it's true. It's true.
01:17:59
Speaker
Well, with that, we've done our final question. We've done our Q&A. Guys, before we let you go, where can we get the latest and greatest news about GI Joe Classified? Tell our listeners where they can find you guys and find the GI Joe Classified stuff on the interwebs.
01:18:18
Speaker
On the interwebs for official things, you can find GI Joe updates on the at Hasbro pulse channels across Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, I don't know, threads if we're still active on that. And then personally, I am at more phenomenally Emily on Instagram. Boys. And I am at weather dominator on Instagram.
01:18:47
Speaker
And I'm the great Tonino on Instagram. It's the place to be. I will make sure that we put links to all of those accounts in the show notes.
01:19:07
Speaker
You don't have to try to figure out how to spell more phenomenally Emily. I'll make sure that we have clickable links.
Conclusion and Thanks
01:19:17
Speaker
That way everybody can follow you guys if they're not already and stay up to date on the latest GI Joe news. Guys, thank you so much for joining us tonight. This was so much fun. Thank you for having us. Yes, thank you. Thank you, guys.
01:19:34
Speaker
Oh, you're welcome. Thanks for coming back.
Outro and Credits
01:19:36
Speaker
But, uh, I feel like is there any other way to go out?
01:20:13
Speaker
Thank you, dear listener, for hanging out with us today. Subscribe, rate, and review us wherever you listen, and then tell your friends to do it. Thanks also to Joe Azari, the golden voice behind our intro. Our music is Game Boy Horror by the Zombie Dandies. Find more about them both on our show notes.
01:20:29
Speaker
Follow us on social media at AIC underscore podcast on Instagram and Twitter. Stop by and say hi. Show us your toy hauls and share your toy stories. Maybe we'll talk about it in a future episode.
01:20:53
Speaker
This has been a non-productive media presentation. Executive producer Frank Kablaui. 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.