Ski-bi dibby dib yo da dub dub Yo da dub dub Ski-bi dibby dib yo da dub dub Yo da dub dub (I’m the B.A.T. man) Ski-bi dibby dib yo da dub dub Yo da dub dub Ski-bi dibby dib yo da dub dub Yo da dub dub
It has been a while since I got to add a new figure from the Classified series to my collection, but today is the day I can add my first B.A.T. figure.
I’m B.A.T.man!
This is one of my favorite Classified figures so far. It really closely resembles the original 3.75” figure and is just very, very cool looking.
I’m number 33.
As I mentioned before, this is one of the figures that I will be getting more than one of. Just because it’s such a cool looking figure really, no other reason than that honestly. The 1986 figure (called B.A.T.S.) was one of my favorites too. I still have my original one from a kid somewhere in a box. The attic is beginning to look like an attic instead of a building site. We’ve hit some issues along the way and now we can finally start building. I’m hoping to get to decorating by the end of the year, then I can display my figures and vehicles.
A.R.T.
The artwork is yet again really nice. This time around, it’s showing a battle damaged B.A.T. The shot-up head is also included with the figure, so you can switch the regular head out for this one.
G.U.T.S.
Looking up close at the figure, the chest part really does closely match the original figure. The 3D effect that was on the 3.75” figure has been replaced by 3D molds of tubing and transistors. There are 2 chest plates included – one prestine and one showing damage – to cover his inner workings, but frankly, I prefer them showing.
That’s it for now. I’m expecting a rather large delivery of new figures pretty soon. So I’ll be back soon. Until then…
‘Cause to lose all my senses, that is just so typically me.
I recently came across another 7″ vinyl record that had a French version of the Cartoon Intro on it. This time around, it had a different artwork, so I snatched it up.
Vinyl
Now, I remembered seeing this cover art somewhere before, but I couldn’t find it at first. Finally, it came back to me. It was on one of the VHS tapes I had when I was a kid and watched over and over. I still have those tapes somewhere in a box in storage, but thanks to GIJOE.NL, I was able to find an image of the VHS case in their large media library. The image was cropped to fit the VHS case and mirrored as well. I guess my memory could see past that mirroring 🙂
VHS Dromen zijn Bedrog
The tape only had one episode on it. “Dromen zijn bedrog”, a Dutch dubbed version of Nightmare Assault. I’m gonna have to rewatch those episodes, again, I can do so on GIJOE.NL. For those of you that don’t understand Dutch, the English version is available on Youtube.
Occasionally I come across something Joe related that is so absurd or weird that I just can’t help myself and I need to get it. Last time around, it was a book filled with all the file cards. This time, I found a book that has all the G.I. Joe trivia a true fan should know… And we all know what knowing is.
What follows now is the product description on the Amazon page. Fairly generic (ready to copy & paste for any subject), but still very well written. /s
If you’re worried about anything, pass the time with this trivia book. It will bring you joy, make you smile, and assist you in relaxing. A number of quizzes may also be useful in learning more about the series or characters. This trivia book is just what you’ve been looking for to relax with! This trivia book will put your world knowledge to the test while also instructing you on dozens of new facts. There are a lot of interesting things to learn from issues and questions that will make you better your reasoning and problem-solving skills. There is always something new to discover! This Trivia Book is formatted into short quizzes followed by their answers to make it quick and easy to test yourself before seeing the answers first, and specific details are usually to enlarge the basic answer and add even more to your insight. Stop hesitating and choose it now because it is worth buying. There are over a thousand questions in this Trivia Book organized into a range of subjects. To make it efficient to test yourself without first seeing the answers, the categories are classified as short question quizzes that are accompanied by their explanations, and additional information is regularly added to help expand on the basic solution and add even more to your understanding.
If this hasn’t gotten you excited for this book, I don’t know what will. Maybe some pictures?
Trivia Book Cover
As you can see, the cover image is not an original image, but a recycling of the cover of the G.I. Joe Operation Blackout game cover art. Can you spot the minimal differences below? (Spoilers: The title is the biggest difference).
Xbox One G.I. Joe Operation Blackout Game Cover
The back cover is yet another sales pitch copy/paste text where they simply change the subject title if you ask me. But please, enjoy this lovely written proze.
Trivia Book Back Cover
Unlike some other fan books – this book does come with a title page and some sort of introduction. Ok, it’s asking to leave a positive review on Amazon, but hey, it’s progress I guess.
There is a preface of sorts.
The author is named as Morioka Ryoichi and you may know him/her from other masterpieces as the Mortal Kombat Cookbook, the Power Rangers Cookbook, the Joe Biden Coloring Book and How To Draw: 30 Minute Drawing For Beginners With Mindfulness: The Walking Dead. After all, nothing screams Mindfulness better than zombies!
Safe to say , my expectations were not very high. And I was not disappointed. The trivia is very mixed. Some questions (all multiple choice by the way) are extremely easy, some are really detailed questions. The book is split up in several chapters.
Trivia Book Table of Content
Chapter 1 called “Overview” contains questions fairly general questions. At the end of each chapter, there is an answers page. I did say answers page, not a correct answers page unfortunately. The answer on the question What was the name of Zartan’s gang? is given as Cobra L.A. Dreadnoks is one of the possibilities though. On another question the Crimson Guard is called the Crimson Wars… The disappointment only grows.
Chapter 2, “Famous details of the series” goes into more detail. Such details as “On which day was G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra was released?”(I kept the error from the book) and “Who leads the Crimson Guard?” – Hey, they got it right this time around.
Chapter 3 is called “The Comics”. It contains such comic related questions as: When was the original design of G.I. Joe designed by Stan Weston? and When was “G.I. Joe Extreme” figures were introduced by Kenner Toys? (actual question, I’ve kept the error.
Chapter 4 is titled “The movies #1” and all questions relate to the Rise of Cobra movie. Enough has been said about this movie. It would appear, the author is a fan though.
Chapter 5 has the title “The movies #2” and you guessed it, has questions on Retaliation. As with the previous chapter, not going to spend more time on it than needed.
On to Chapter 6, “The Characters”. It starts of strong-ish with questions about Snake-Eyes and Destro, but then comes the awful important character question of “How many effects companies handled the VFX of the 2013 G.I. Joe movie?”
After each chapter is an answers page as I said before, but there is also a page with some “Did you know?” trivia tidbits. The best one for me is: “Bullet Man, the weirdest G.I. Joe ever.” Now you know!
After 6 trivia filled chapters, we arrive at page 66 of 90. The rest of the book is filled with ruled pages. Yes, 12 ruled double pages to add your own questions and corrections to the book most likely.
That’s it for now. Time to put this Collection of Amazing Trivia Quizzes and Fun Facts in my bookcase and probably never take it out again. Unless you want to plan a Trivia Evening, shoot me a DM and I can send you the questions.
Occasionally, I come across something Joe related that is weird or special. This time around, I was browsing Amazon to see if I could find something to add to my curiosity collection of G.I. Joe related items. The first one was an easy buy, a simple ruled notebook to keep track of my posts on the blog seemed like a good idea.
My new notebook
I’ve been using many Moleskine notebooks over the years and I still prefer their notebooks above any other ones, but when I saw this one for cheap on Amazon, I ordered it. It’s a softcover notebook with ruled pages. The G.I. Joe print on the front is destressed, but also not of very high quality. Needless to say, this isn’t Hasbro licensed. The softcover is smooth, not shiny. It has a nice feel to it, which is important for a notebook. The notebook contains 60 ruled pages (front and back), so plenty of space to keep track of my posts and scribble down the ideas I may have for future posts. In the back of the book, it is stated that it was printed in Italy (so are Moleskines) by Amazon Italia Logistica. For those of you that are interested, the ISBN number given is 9798798260430.
The next item is something even more obscure and definitely not licensed by Hasbro. It’s the G.I. Joe Filecards Unofficial Fan Edition 1982-1994 by Jackson Robinson.
Who is Jackson Robinson?
This truly is a gem for every G.I. Joe collector. The book lists all filecards from 1982 through to 1994. I have no idea who this Jackson Robinson is. I’ve searched through the dozens of Facebooks groups, Hisstank forum and many more places and the only useable reference I could find is on a personal resume page of a man named Jackson Robinson. The site mentions that he has worked on the Hasbro team as Principle Illustrator & 3D Artist and that he “Concepted, Pitched and created the new character line look for the GIJOE Action Battlers Toy Line.” I actually have one of those figures (see Instagram). Not the best figures out there if you ask me. And truth be told, neither is this book.
Unofficial, that I can believe.
Yes, it does contain all the filecards (as far as I can tell), but the scan quality is not that high for all the cards and the layout is – well, quite frankly – not existing.
Page 1
As you can see above, the scans are not perfect (even worse examples follow below). This is the first page of the book. No intro, no title page, just straight into the file cards. I can forgive that though. It does show what the title implies, but still. Some little intro text might be nice.
A random page
As you can see in the picture above, the scans sometime come with tape on them and the resolution of each scan does seem to be different a lot too.
Another random page
I bought this book from Amazon (printed in Italy again by Amazon Italia Logistica – ISBN 979878665415). I’m a bit disappointed in the quality, not of the book, but of the contents. It’s a great concept and easy to look something up in a book rather than to go check online (I do recommend 3Djoes over this book though). Great idea, not so great result unfortunately. Like I said, the book could do with some intro (Why this book? Who is the author? – I use this term very loosely, because everything is just scanned/stolen from other sites I think.) and a table of contents would also be nice. A decent layout would also help.
Even though this is not up to the G.I. Joe standards of other guides and books, I’m not sorry I bought it as it’s a great subject for a post and some conversation. As I mentioned before, I like to just browse online to see what strange stuff I can find that is Joe related. Lately, I’ve been seeing a lot of unofficial coloring books appear online. There are also a number of G.I. Joe cooking books. Did anyone ever buy one of those? Let me know if you did. I’m holding off on those purchases for now. Stay tuned, because maybe some future post will continue this bizarre book collection.
That’s it for now. Until next time. Happy Collecting and YoJoe!
