Toy caskets now available for G.I. Joe action figures
Pawtucket, R.I. – Officials at Hasbro, the world’s second largest toy manufacturer and original creator of the action figure, unveiled Monday a new line of accessories for the company’s ever-popular G.I. Joe action figures: the G.I. Joe Strongbox®, a toy casket children can use to bury an action figure that has been slain during mock combat.
“Children the world over have played with G.I. Joe since the sixties, and they know that even though Joe is one awfully darn durable soldier of justice, the fact is that whether you’re made of flesh and blood – or plastic and some mysterious gelatinous compound – nobody lives forever,” Hasbro’s vice president of marketing Bradley Nabulsi said at a recent press conference. “That’s especially true for a G.I. Joe action figure, which can really take some damage since it spends a majority of its existence buried up to its neck in sand, held underwater, or bound and dragged behind a child’s remote controlled jeep.”
Bearing the classic G.I. Joe “Real American Hero” slogan, the Strongbox® series is a line of coffins ranging in style and price from simple and inexpensive miniature pinewood boxes that closely resemble the coffins of the Old West to ornately decorated mahogany and teakwood caskets that can cost nearly as much as a G.I. Joe Humvee Armament Carrier®. Each style of casket is specifically designed to provide a comfortable everlasting resting place for either Hasbro’s classic 12-inch G.I. Joe action figures or its 8-inch Sigma series of soldiers, so long as the cause of the action figure’s expiration has not caused G.I. Joe’s plastic body to become radically mutilated or deformed.
Nabulsi explained that a senior Hasbro toy developer came up with the idea for the Strongbox® – as well as the G.I. Joe Military Funeral Action Playset®, sold separately – after seeing his nine-year-old son struggle to construct a makeshift coffin out of popsicle sticks and model airplane glue in order to properly bury a G.I. Joe soldier whose skull was crushed when his Desert Patrol Attack Jeep® overturned unexpectedly at the top of a large sandpile.
“Until now, a child wishing to properly bury a dead G.I. Joe would have to either try to make one or use a shoebox or something, or just dig a hole and throw the G.I. Joe in it – hardly a fitting tribute for such a brave and formidable soldier,” said Hasbro’s Tony Barger, who developed the Strongbox®. “The Strongbox® is meant not only to be a fun G.I. Joe accessory, but also to teach children about showing proper respect for those who have had their guts ripped out by a crazed enemy soldier’s machete and bled to death on the battlefield while watching an entire village being burned to the ground by terrorist extremists.”
According to Barger, children wishing to recreate a military burial to full effect will enjoy the G.I. Joe Military Funeral Action Playset®, which will be on retail shelves before the end of the month.
“The Funeral Playset® comes with a miniature American flag which can be used to cover the coffin while one action figure (not included) can use the tiny trumpet that’s included to play “Taps” before using the three stationary action figures to fire off a twenty-one gun salute,” said Barger. “The playset also includes a military headstone, a Congressional Medal of Honor that can be buried with the dead G.I. Joe and five tiny white hankerchiefs that funeral-goers can cry or blow their nose into.”
Barger explained that modifications currently being made in the production of the actual G.I. Joe action figure itself will help children be able to more accurately recreate the experience of the death of a soldier.
“Designers are modifying G.I. Joe’s famous Kung-Fu Grip so when the action figure sustains a fatal injury, the Kung-Fu Grip locks down on the action figure’s rifle, simulating rigor mortis,” said Barger. “So now the child will get to recreate the experience of field medics having to pry the soldier’s cold, dead fingers from around his weapon.”
February 2008
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