The Villages - July 2018 - 26

G.i. Joe

First appearance: 1964

Then:
First introduced in 1964
and marketed with
the tagline "America's
movable fighting
man," G.I. Joe is an
American toy icon.
Toy maker Hasbro
first used the term
"action figure" with
G.I. Joe toys as they did
not want to call the
toys "dolls." The initial
product line featured
four action figures
- Action Soldier, Action Sailor,
Action Pilot and Action Marine.

Fisher-Price
LittLe PeoPLe

roz Fox

Then:

Toy design is not a simple
process. Designers spend hours
upon hours designing and refining toys - many of which may
not ever see the light of day.
Villager Roz Fox recounts the
time she spent working for toy
company Fisher-Price in the 1960s.
"When I worked for FisherPrice, (the engineers) gave me
a block of wood and said, 'Work
around this. This is a mechanism
that will go inside, so whatever
you design has to comfortably fit
around this block of wood.'
They (also) gave me a big
pad of layout paper and I did
every animal I could think of.
When I finished, they picked out
four or five they really liked, and
(Herman Fisher) was still alive
then. So Mr. Fisher looked at
me and said, 'Which one do you
like?' And I said, 'Well, I like teddy
bears. They're just fat and chunky
and cute and they are neutral -
boys and girls like them too.'"

First appearance: 1959

Introduced as the "Play Family,"
the Fisher-Price "Little People"
are instantly recognizable toys
around the world. Originally
made from wood and rolled
cardboard, the figures featured
various colors, outfits and
vehicles as part of the play sets.
The first such play set, the "Safety
School Bus," could easily fetch
well into six figures for a mint
condition set still in the box.

Now:

Sources: gijoeclub.com; toytales.ca; fisher-price.mattel.com

G.I. Joe action figures encompass
other, non-military roles,
including astronauts, underwater
explorers, sports figures, aliens
and more. G.I. Joe spawned an
incredibly popular television
show in the 1980s, as well as
numerous comics and video
games. Two G.I. Joe live-action
films also were released - "G.I.
Joe: The Rise of Cobra" in 2009
and "G.I. Joe: Retaliation" in 2013.

26

JULY 2018

Now:
Made from plastic and designed
for younger children, the FisherPrice "Little People" line now
features large play sets including
a farm, school bus, jet and more.
There also is a Disney-themed
castle featuring characters
from Disney animated movies.
"Little People" also is a children's
television show, currently airing
on the Universal Kids channel.

Former Fisher-Price
Toy Designer

Roz Fox
http://fisher-price.mattel.com http://www.toytales.ca http://www.gijoeclub.com
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The Villages - July 2018
