This is from an amazing thread inviting people to divulge what the public doesn't know about their industries:

–]jzzsxm 133 points 1 day ago*(last edited 1 day ago)

This isn't controversial and it's going to be buried, but I thought it was hilarious.

I worked for Hasbro for a while, specifically with GI Joe and Star Wars figurines. During my time there I learned that Hasbro does NOT keep an archive of past toys. No warehouse, no expanse of shelves and containers, nothing. What do they have? A tiny dingey basement where they keep all of the toys they buy on ebay when they need to reboot a series.

Yes, that's right, whenever you see a "Top 10 GI Joe Re-release!" or "Best of past Star Wars figures!" there's no magical place where they go to dust off the old master molds. Nope! They hit ebay and the GI Joe forums, buy up the old toys, re-sculpt, re-cast, repaint based on the old figures, and then re-release them.

I couldn't believe it when I found out.

Source: http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comme ... _about_an/

On second thought, I guess most people here would know this.

Yeah I kind of did know this. Hasbro had all of the vintage tooling destroyed because it was cheaper to make the tooling over again than to keep storing it. They said that part themselves I believe at a JoeCon. So when it was time to remake the Skystriker and Tomahawk, what would be the most obvious thing to do? Buy vintage off ebay and use them as a reference model. It has proven to work as both the new Skystriker and Tomahawk are every bit as good, if not better, than the original.

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I find it interesting that no one at Hasbro has a personal collection large enough to provide the necessary models or that they are unwilling to part with them for such a reason.

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Who the hell calls them "figurines"?

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Perhaps the process to reverse engineer a toy may harm it so no one wants to do that.

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People who collect My Little Pony: Friendship is magic paraphernalia

http://www.hasbro.com/mylittlepony/en_us/

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I remember reports from Joe-Con that they bought up vintage boxed Tomahawks to cut up and retool for the new Eaglehawk.

With 3d scanners, why keep the inventory. As long as you can find one now, I'm pretty sure you'll be able to scan a copy.

Heck If I were them, I would be buying up the toys now and scanning them, then keeping a library of the scans, rather than having any hardcopies at all.

That plastic crap is brittle and takes up a lot of space.

- R

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True story -- when the 1997-98 line was first in the works, I was one of a handful of collectors contacted by Hasbro to offer some measure of assistance. In my case, I ended up writing a number of file cards. But that wasn't all.

Along the way, I was asked if I had a figure of Blizzard -- still on its card. At that time, I did. They weren't so much interested in the figure. They needed the artwork for the new package. They didn't have the artwork on file.

So, I sent them my Blizzard. They had to remove him from his card, which I wasn't entirely happy with, but really, how many collectors get to assist Hasbro that directly?

So if you have that 1997 set that includes Blizzard -- that one portion of artwork came from a figure's package that I loaned them.

Did you let Hasbro know they used the wrong figure for Blizzard?

Actually, that's a cool bit of trivia. What else did you have a hand in, other than the Blizzard artwork and Volga?

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NOT my department...



In 1997, I wrote the file cards for the following individuals -- Duke, Snake-Eyes, Storm Shadow, Baroness, Destro, Lady Jaye, and Cobra Commander. Yeah, seven heavy hitters. No pressure, right? Fortunately, there was plenty of resource material to work with. I also came up with that little blurb on the back of the packages that talks about how "several years have passed", etc, and now Cobra is back. I just sort of threw it in with the file cards, and Hasbro liked it so well they used it.

In 1998, of course, was the Volga character, etc, a story I've told several times in here. I also wrote the file cards for the Oktober Guard, Navy SEAL, and Cobra Infantry sets, and came up with the character name and file card for Vypra. For those who might not be that fond of the name, I had to come up with four different names, and whichever one passed legal checks first, that was the one that would get used. The others I came up with were Vypera, Serpenta, and I honestly don't recall the fourth.

And since I wrote her file card, yes, I am responsible for her real name being "Ann A. Conda". After Hasbro's "Skip A. Stone" for Cutter, and "Albert M. Pine" for Alpine, I thought it was time for a little payback. I figured they'd hate it. Turned out they loved it.

All in all, my "fifteen minutes of fame". And if anyone had told me when I started collecting G.I. Joes in 1982, that fifteen years later I'd be writing their character profiles and getting my name on the packages, I'd've called for a big net and some tranquilizer darts.

It's very cool that they needed help from collectors but what happened to all the Hasbro employees that worked on the GI Joe line before that? Were they all fired and/or unavailable for consultation?

Honestly, I don't know. I know that some of the Hasbro people that I worked with had been working on the line pretty much since its inception. But also keep in mind that during this time, there had been some changes as a result of Hasbro's acquisition of Kenner. Beyond that, I really don't have any details as to who was available and who wasn't.

As much as anything, I think it was Hasbro wanting to find some way to involve a handful of collectors. At that point in time, there had been several early G.I. Joe Conventions. I recall at one of the first ones, that the Hasbro personnel who attended were rather surprised at the near-celebrity status they were afforded. I don't think they'd expected to encounter that. So I think the collector participation that occurred in the 1997-98 line was a result of the impression that had been made on a number of them at the earlier conventions. However, this is purely speculation on my part.

As to my own involvement, I'd made a decent enough impression at the 1997 Convention with some custom Oktober Guard figures (most of which can be seen right here on JoeCustoms), that Hasbro actually asked me which Oktober Guard characters would be the easiest to "frankenstein" from existing parts, since they needed a third character beyond the molds for Red Star and Big Bear to fill out a three-pack. Their choice, as it was one of mine, was to use the Lady Jaye body to pull off Daina/Volga, although I was impressed with the fact that they went so far as to sculpt an entirely new head.

Kenner was in charge of the line at that point. If you look at the backs of cards and boxes, there is the Kenner logo.

Gi trekker, thanks for your contributes to the line. Always did get a kick out of the Ann A Conda name.