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How Do?

So I find myself, having drawn a blank elsewhere, turning to fellow U.K. dakkanauts of a certain vintage.

Despite no channel snobbery in my house at the time, I’ve absolutely no memory of GI Joe being aired.

He-Man, Transformers, Bravestarr, Jayce, Galaxy Rangers, Centurions et al? Hell yes I remember them.

But not GI Joe. Or indeed, Action Force as we knew the toy range.

Help a brother out!

If it was, it would have been on the armed forces channel for US service members. Did they have a US armed forces channel in the UK when you were growing up? That's mainly what we watched in Germany as a kid.

 Elbows wrote:
If it was, it would have been on the armed forces channel for US service members. Did they have a US armed forces channel in the UK when you were growing up? That's mainly what we watched in Germany as a kid.

They did when I was there as a kid, but I honestly can't remember if they showed GI Joe or not. Maybe? I didn't watch much TV in my youngest years so it's lost on me.

Thinking back now I'm trying to remember if I did see GI Joe in Germany or not...I know I saw the Transformers, He-Man, even MASK etc...

I remember watching GI Jo in Poland in early 90's. must have bene like 4-5.

Edit: Just remembered those were VHS rentals... Nvm.. lol.

Thinking about it i can’t ever remember seeing it on tv which is odd as you could get the action figures over here. Actually i even bought mine in good old woolworths as a kid. Them were the days lol.

Well, seems it’s not just me!

The first time I even knew there was a tv series was my cousin’s ‘Kiddie Kompilation’ VHS.

It’s just odd that it doesn’t seem to have aired. We got pretty much everything else, so why not GI Joe?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Elbows wrote:
If it was, it would have been on the armed forces channel for US service members. Did they have a US armed forces channel in the UK when you were growing up? That's mainly what we watched in Germany as a kid.

Mate, we had all of three channels when I was born, with the imaginatively named Channel 4 debuting a few years later.

If I’m honest, I can’t really remember which show was on which channel, but I suspect it was ITV, as those cartoons don’t really strike me as BBC stuff!

I'm 36. I remember it on VHS at Blockbuster, Ritz, and Global Video but I've no specific memories of it on tv.

Apart from the Action Man and Action Force toys, I think we only had the comics to go with them.
Being 45, and with the same restricted range of channels you did, I only knew of GI Joe from references in movies and such.

I too mostly knew them from the toy shop. And let’s face it, they were pretty ace! Loved the ‘build it yourself’ aspect to the vehicles.

And for an 80’s toyline, it took a long time to jump the shark!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Was wondering if perhaps it might’ve aired on Satellite. But Sky didn’t launch until 1989, and that strikes me as much too late?

As far as I remember they just added English voice overs to gi joe and called it action force, I had a vhs with transformers/inhumans/gi joe on and the gi joe was part 1 of a 2 part story I eventually saw the 2nd part as action force.
Action force was on itv before transformers on a sat/sun morning so something like 5.30 in the morning. Although I remember the comics better when they added Action Force to Transformers.

Oh god I feel old now, I made the mistake of looking this up and it turns out I remembered back to the 2nd wave of the original battle force until after the hasbro buy out. But yes The AF cartoon was a re dubbed GI joe.

I was massively into GI Joe when I was a kid, as were most of my friends, but I don't think the TV show ever aired here. Thinking about it, that makes the success of the toys quite weird. I was aware of and bought some comics, but I think I only became aware of the existence of the cartoon when I was in my 20s.

I remember watching bits of it (the 'mirror universe' episode and the movie) in the 80s but I couldn't say if it was on TV or tape.

I remember saving up some sort of token and sending it off to get a figure, but being sent a vhs of the GI Joe cartoon instead. Watched it til it wore out, it was pretty similar to the Transformers cartoon.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

If I’m honest, I can’t really remember which show was on which channel, but I suspect it was ITV, as those cartoons don’t really strike me as BBC stuff!

He-Man was on ITV, because it clashed with Mysterious Cities of Gold on the Beeb.

Ahhhh! Ahhh ahh ahhh! The Mysterious Cities of Gold eh?

Nope, don't remember that one at all

I don't know if it aired on TV... I mostly remember my childhood TV watching being spotty as heck. Just admit the only ones I can be sure I saw was BTAS, turtles Spider-Man and X-Men on live and kicking and the STV one.


BUT Action Force DID exist as a cartoon. I had Transformers VHSes and others I rented. In those they would have adverts for the cartoon, including the theme tune. - GI Joe... The Action FORCE!!!!!

Yeah it was called Action Force, not GI Joe.

I was going to say the same thing about Action Force. I had toys, I had comics, and I have a very vague memory of a short-lived Action Force TV show, but I am not certain I trust that memory.

I think Action Force may have aired on satellite TV during the very early days too, though I'm not 100 percent on that . I think I can recall a schoolmate's relatives sending over a VHS with taped episodes mainly of Transformer's but also some Action Force episodes too. Sky TV may not have been launched till 1989 but the Sky channel and a number of others that would eventually become Sky TV were broadcasting for a number of years prior to that.

Think yourself lucky Mad Doc Grotsnick, at about the same time on the forces bases in Germany we had a single TV channel, which was supposed to be the best of the terrestrial UK stations, although practically that just meant we got the most popular stuff about a week late.

No US equivalent, though we could listen to the American are forces radio in some places.

So, in Action Force was the enemy still Cobra or something else?

Eventually, yes.

Started off a Baron Blood or something, but he evolved into Cobra Commander before the GI Joe rebranding.

Major Blood was a Cobra henchman for many years.

This was someone different

Baron Ironblood. So I was close!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baron_Ironblood

I remember Cobra being the antagonist in the Action Force VHS I had.
They shot lasers like in Transformers rather than bullets too, I remember that.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Eventually, yes.

Started off a Baron Blood or something, but he evolved into Cobra Commander before the GI Joe rebranding.

Baron Ironblood. Dude in a white uniform with a black Ned Kelly style helmet. Big boss of the Red Shadows. Opposed by Action Force which consisted of Z-Force, Q-Force, SAS-Force and Space Force. This was back in the Star Wars style, 5 points of articulation figures and the stories were published in the Battle: Action Force comics.

It then transitioned into a line based on the GI Joe toyline (I think that it was still known as Action Force in the comics, but I could be wrong), Action Force got rid of all the separate branches business and we got the super-articulated, elastic band waist figures across the range, instead of just featuring on a couple of the old-school models.

The Red Shadows got wiped out due to Baron Ironblood's evil, backstabbing, wipe the slate clean plan and faked his own death. He re-emerged as Cobra Commander, in charge of his new terrorist army, Cobra, of course.

We used to collect the Action Force comics, alongside Transformers.

They were quite dark in comparison to the GI Joe cartoon. I remember one where I think it was Destro or Cobra Commander who was reduced to bleeding in the street, and a man mistakes him for a homeless person and gives him change and his wife scaulds him for it. Another one was Shadow Storm on an infiltration mission and a bloke is like "GASP! That door is the only way in this room but you didnt even rattle the beads! How was that possible?". Oh and Snake Eyes( omg hes unbelivably cool! ) gets killed in a home invasion and his wolf morns him and disappears into the woods?

Must have been late 80s...

Yeah, the old G.I. Joe comics got pretty crazy at times. I seem to recall the introduction of the SAW Viper saw several Joes killed in an ambush.

They were actually killed, not just jump out of your vehicle before it explodes killed.