Jeeps and Dangerous Activities (Action Figures, Again...)

The Official Ride of GI Joe
Back in the day...

Some of you may remember this post, (yes, you should go read it) the one about action figures. (They. Are. Not. Dolls. Dammit!) In the comments I promised a sequel. I made that promise to my brother (The Olde Vermonter) and to my childhood buddy Greg. (Who are both FRaVMotC.)

This is that sequel. As the title and the opening photo suggest, the sequel involves jeeps. GI Joe sized jeeps. And steep hills. Let your imagination ponder that for a bit. Let that thought simmer and bubble in your mind until you...

What?

Get on with it? All right. If you insist...

So one year, not long after Stony and his identical twin brother, er, Stony, had enlisted in our neighborhood forces, a Navy GI Joe had been "recruited" into service as well. Along with Chief Cherokee, Johnny West and a couple of Joes from down the street (one of whom had a funny accent and said his name was Ivan!) our forces were now fairly substantial.

Navy Joe being "recruited".

Ivan, who swears he's not a Commie...

But of course, these guys had to walk everywhere they went. Rumors were flying that the bad guys had vehicles!

Alleged "bad guy" car.

Alleged "bad guy tank 1

Alleged "bad guy tank 2

So the bad guys had tanks and cars and the like. This walking into battle just wouldn't do! We needed to equip our boys with the finest equipment we (i.e. our parents) could buy!

So what did our government (i.e. our parents) provide for our boys?

See that lead in picture? Yup, jeeps. The boys were going to have to go up against tanks with jeeps. Two of 'em. But not to worry. Here's a show that was very popular when we were kids -

That's right, The Rat Patrol. All these guys had was two jeeps and they fought tanks every week! And kicked butt. Every week. (Hhmm, everyone in The Rat Patrol had a different hat. What was up with that?)

So the jeeps shouldn't be a problem. Except we would have to go into battle short-handed. Remember Stony (and his identical twin brother, er, Stony?) Yeah, the guy who can't bend his legs and therefore cannot sit in a jeep. Yup, they'd have to stay "in the rear, with the gear."

Of course, both Stonys argued that they could stand in the back and man the searchlight! We tested that concept, Stony and, er, Stony, kept falling off the trailer. And OSHA said it wasn't safe. (OSHA?)

So the Stonys were left behind when the Joes went off to war.

Unfortunately for the Joes, we discovered that it was a lot of fun to load all the Joes in the jeeps (we had two, à la The Rat Patrol) and then roll them down the steep hill behind our house.

After witnessing the results, the Stonys didn't feel that bad about being left behind. Well, until Jack (the C.O. of Ivan's outfit) thought it would be neat to see what would happen if we drove the jeeps through the headquarters area.

Let's just say, it wasn't pretty...

Joe recovering from the ride...

Of course, nowadays the Joes have much better equipment.

That's a Marine halftrack!

So do I still play with action figures?

Of course not!

But on occasion, they do have to go out on maneuvers. Ya know, to stay current and all. But that's it, no moving them around and making machine gun noises. No, no, never.