Action Man - servant of the military industrial complex or eco-warrior?

[vin_petrol]

A drunken steer was ranting on about Action Man last night, and was somewhat disbelieving about how "modern" Action Man has had something of an image change since the seventies and eighties. Since his relaunch in 1996, the militaristic aspect has been de-emphasised, and modern Action Man really does save the Amazonian rain forest and ride a sports bike.

Bah! It's not like in my day, when Action Man wore a proper uniform...

Comments

[ms-siobhan.livejournal.com]

I have a proper action man complete with gripping hands, eagel eyes, fuzzy hair, no genitals and best of all a green tag on his neck, when you pull it the voice of Patrick Allen says 'enemy tanks approaching' or 'advance in single file' or somesuch. I love it.
I don't think that Amazon action man looks like he's going to save the forest though - more like chop it down and set up sniper nests instead.

[vin_petrol]

I don't think that Amazon action man looks like he's going to save the forest though - more like chop it down and set up sniper nests instead.

Actually, I suspect that's exactly what will happen in the games young boys (and some girls) actually play. No matter what the *ahem* honourable intentions of parents and toy manufacturers, children themselves can quite easily turn their creations into gruesome, violent, dangerous games ... I used to.

[blue-condition.livejournal.com]

Non-representational non-militaristic Action Man is not right.

Although apparently the most popular Action Man outfit ever wasn't the expected Waffen-SS one, but the England footballer.

Patrick Allen is God.

[vin_petrol]

Waffen-SS

Ah, now, I'm not convinced there was actually ever a 'proper' Waffen-SS uniform available for Action Man. That black uniform I've linked too *looks* kinda like one, but it's a black Panzer uniform, and so could easily be Wermacht. There's a scripted cuff which reminds me of the one worn by theGroßdeutschland Division.

Of course, you're right in so far as I'm sure we all called them Nazi Killer Stormtrooper SS Death Commandoes" back in the seventies! :-)

[rosamicula.livejournal.com]

Hey I read an article about the bloke who was the model for the UK Action man and how he had left his macho days behind and become some sort of tree-hugging hippy type and wa involved in promoting seminars empowering men to be able to express their emotions. Yee-uk.

_{I read this article in the Saga Magazine.}

[vin_petrol]

Hmmmm. Life imitating art?

Don't worry. Even now, there are some sprogs squirting tomato ketchup all over one of their Action Man and pretending he's saying "I'll never make it sarge ... you go on without me ... I'll hold the Nips off here..."

[cyberspice.livejournal.com]

What a wonderful uniform. They could relaunch him, dye his hair purple, put some metally bits on his boots and sell him as WGT Action Man.

[vin_petrol]

Can you display the death's head collar tabs of the Panzerwaffe in Germany today? Did you see any? They're not (strictly speaking) Nazi, but I find that disctinction is lost on most people.

[steer.livejournal.com]

He says he's saving the rain forest. Actually, he's under deep cover for the CIA trading drugs to destabilise US hostile governments.

[vin_petrol]

Did anyone play with you when you were a boy? :-P

[steer.livejournal.com]

You're just upset because you were taken in by totalitarian action man the oppressive tool of the fascist state.

[vin_petrol]

How do you know *my* Action Man weren't freedom fighters for the rights of workers, taking on the forces of capitalist oppression? Perhaps my friends and I regularly restaged the October Revolution? ("take that, servant of the corrupt Tsarist regime.")

[steer.livejournal.com]

Hah... I bet your action man machine-gunned the bad guys and then sold coca-cola to the survivors.

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

Perhaps my friends and I regularly restaged the October Revolution?

My friends and I were anarchists so we regularly restaged the Kronstadt Rebellion. But I bet Action Man was with the Bolsheviks all the way, the evil proto-Stalinist. *grin*

[rich-r.livejournal.com]

I thought you grew up far too poor to have toys?

[vin_petrol]

I thought you grew up far too poor to have toys?

Ooh, fair point! However, when it came to Action Man, I got lucky. They were made at Palitoy's factory in Coalville, Leicestershire, all of four miles away from Ashby de la Zouch where I grew up (poor). This meant (a) there was a factory shop where slightly broken bits of Action Man kit were cheaply available, and (b) everyone knew someone who worked there. I have a vague memory of an APC being acquired for all of 50p.

[cazzioc.livejournal.com]

all of four miles away from Ashby de la Zouch where I grew up (poor).

1) pedantic moment - 5 miles (don't want to be too closely associated with such a highly salubrious area)

2) All this 'poor' bit - me thinks he doth protest too much ;P

[jozafeen.livejournal.com]

My Action Men were there simply to undertake the brainless muscleman bits involved in assisting Action Girl to fight crime. There were three of them and only one of her so the cardcoard box with windows drawn on luxury home living arrangements were quite 'modern' for the early 1970's.

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

"Dr X is testing a new machine capable of clearing forests [...] Action Man must [...] ambush the deforestation device"

Er ... that would be a chainsaw, then?

So Action Man's new challenges are riding a bicycle on the pavement without lights and taking on Dr X - and let's be honest here, people with doctorates are not generally the handiest in a physical tussle - who is armed with a chainsaw. Bit of a step down from single-handedly taking on entire divisions of Nazis bristling with tanks, artillery and aeroplanes.

[vin_petrol]

True, but Doctor X has all manner of henchmen to do his dirty work. According to Wikipedia:

Doctor X's henchmen have included: Professor Gangrene, Tempest, Anti-Freeze,The Man with no name, No Face and Plague locust.

Oooh, what a classy assortment of villains there, worthy of an evil mad scientist super villain.


I still preferred him when he was taking on the Nazis though.

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

I dunno, they all seem a bit rubbish - if unsavoury - to me.

Professor Gangrene isn't going to pose a big challenge to a beefy chap like Action Man (particularly with his medi-kit). Tempest sounds terribly Shakespearean, and luvvies doing The Bard are even less tidy in a scrap than scientists. Anti-Freeze is only a threat if you use him to flavour Austrian wine - otherwise he's actually useful in keeping windscreens and runways clear in the winter. The Man With No Name sounds sinister, but if the scariest thing about him is that he lacks a moniker, he's not going to be keeping you up at night. With No Face the danger would presumably be that Action Man waits to shoot until he can see the whites of his eyes ... which of course he can't because No Face doesn't have any. I'd still fancy Action Man's chances in hand-to-hand with his knife against a guy with no eyes, ears or nose. Plague Locust has some good Old-Testament cred as a threat, but in a non-agrarian trading society the impact is a lot less devastating.

[steer.livejournal.com]

Frankly I think it would be easy to fight someone with no face because they would have no vision, taste, smell or hearing. They would also have no inner-ear and hence no sense of balance. However, their other sense, "touch" would become preternaturally acute to make up for this. You could probably beat "No Face" by tickling him.

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

Another thought - you'd have to be careful when fighting Professor Gangrene if it was close-up knife work, so you don't accidentally chop off his rotting extremities and thereby save him from septicemia.

[steer.livejournal.com]

You know I wonder if he does actually hold a chair? Or is it an Ian Paisley/Paul McKenna type title?

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

I think you're right - he's probably only a North American sort of Professor and his formal academic accomplishments are limited to having taught one semester of Threatening Behaviour 101 in a high school, which he had to give up half way through because the streetwise kids were far more threatening than he was.

[steer.livejournal.com]

Threatening Behaviour 101

Assessed by open examination, two submissions or a knockout.