Sam Speers, designer
I was working at Hassenfeld Brothers, later Hasbro, when a guy called Stanley Weston came to see us with a proposition for a rugged-looking doll for boys. Most of the company thought it was nonsensical: girls played with dolls, not boys. But my boss, Don Levine, liked the idea of a toy soldier, the same scale – 1/6th – as Mattel’s successful Barbie.
I’d been in the US navy, so was keen, too. As a youngster, my toy soldiers had been rigid. I wanted to design a better one, the best toy soldier ever, with fully movable joints. Don was browsing in an artshop when he spied a wooden mannequin, which gave us the basis for a figure. I came up with rubberball hip joints, made from the cores of golfballs, which gave much more flexibility. It had 21 movable parts, but we couldn’t get the head right. It just looked ugly.
Then a young artist, Phil Kraczkowski, sculpted us a head that looked like President John Kennedy. We added the famous facial scar as a design registration, to deter copying, but it also made him look more like a soldier. We scoured the country for uniforms and made perfect miniature copies. We launched him as GI Joe: the Movable Fighting Man.
Joe swept America and Britain, where he was called Action Man. But then the Vietnam war damaged the appetite for the military. So we relaunched him as an adventurer, a deep-sea diver and the like. I scoured National Geographic to get ideas for adventures, accessories and scenarios for him. One, called The Capture of the Pygmy Gorilla, came with a motorboat, a net and a little plastic monkey.
I was just trying to inspire children’s imaginations. Parents are always telling me: “Our son played with GI Joe.” Kids would put him into battle apart, pull him apart and throw him out of windows.
Bob Brechin, Palitoy designer
GI Joe was launched at the 1964 New York toy fair. Palitoy’s sales manager, Hal Belton, brought one back for his grandson, who loved it, and soon Palitoy had negotiated a deal to make a British version. Action Man launched in 1966.
We wanted to kit him out with British outfits. At first, we kept the figure the same. But with toys, that initial burst of popularity tends to level off, so we’d make changes to keep sales up. First, borrowing from America, we added a voice box and turned him into The Talking Commander. Then came “realistic hair”. Our design director was watching Tomorrow’s World when they demonstrated “flocking”, a way of producing velvet-like patterns on wallpaper or cloth. We arranged a meeting with the company owner and he turned up in a multi-coloured, fully flocked car. “Can you put hair on this?” we said, holding up an Action Man. The Americans loved it and did the same for GI Joe.
The “gripping hands” were next. The Americans copied that, too, but called theirs “the kung-fu grip”. Other changes included “eagle eyes” and the more muscular “dynamic physique”, while the outfits ranged from a Red Devil complete with parachute to football kits. I even designed a Scorpion Tank for him after taking a ride on the real thing.
We sold a million in the first year and, by the end of the 1970s, had won toy of the decade. In 1984, Action Man was finally seen off by Star Wars toys. The “vintage” stuff is still highly collectible, though. A judo outfit recently sold for £6,000. If I’d known, I’d have filled my loft.
• The 50th-birthday Action Man is on sale now. Palitoy’s archive is at the V&A Museum of Childhood, London.
