Matte Plastic

Oh man! It’s a mail away figure!! It’s part of the new 25th Anniversary GIJoe line. I get so thrilled when I see them offer one of these. They used to be such a big deal when I was a kid. You’d get the little ad for a mail-away figure on your packaging. Then you had to clip and collect points off of each figure - usually around 6 of them! Back then this would take forever!! (at least for me) After you had all your points came the tough part…..convincing your mom to write a check for the shipping and handling fee! I never understood why this was such a huge dealbreaker with my mom. I guess she felt like it was a scam? Or maybe checks cost a lot of money back then, so she couldn’t waste them on a mere 2.95 for shipping and handling! Whatever the reason, if I managed to convince her to mail the order off, then came the waiting. 10 - 12 weeks! I guess for 2.95 you can’t expect a very quick “handling” of the item. I mean, there was probably only one guy in a room full of these figures, and he had to write out the shipping labels by hand, so ya know, that takes time. When you’re a kid, 10 - 12 weeks is a looong time! Heck, that’s pretty much your whole summer break!! The first half of the time, you just kind of ignore it, and forget about it. But as the time got closer, you’d go running to the mailbox as soon as you saw the mailman drive by, hoping for that plain white packaging with your name on it - YOUR name!! (you never got mail as a kid!) And then there it was, the dinged up white box - with your new figure in it, who rarely would live up to quite the hype surrounding its arrival, but still a cool toy none the less!
Sure, I only managed to get one or two of these toys - the Boba Fett, and the Anakin Skywalker ghost figure. I tried hard to get those Transformers mail aways. Man, I had all the points for them! The Omnibots and the one I REALLY wanted - REFLECTOR! Come on, how cool is a camera that turns into three Transformers!? But, no dice on getting mom convinced on the shipping charges. To this day I still have one of the mail away order forms for that figure. I still don’t have that figure….he goes for about 125 - 175 bucks on Ebay. Much more expensive than the 2.95 shipping and handling. Some day, I’ll have to get my hands on this figure set. Some day….

But that was then, and now the mail away figures seem to be coming back into full swing again! This new offer is called Rescue Doc from Cobra! I guess Cobra had him packaged up in a warehouse only agreeing to return him if you can find enough Joe points on the packages! So check out Doc here. He looks pretty cool…..I might just have to go see if I have enough points to mail in for him, and if mom will write a check for shipping!

Get out there and free those toys from that banged up shipping box!!

-Matt