The success of this formula led Hasbro to repeat it a year later when the Transformers property was developed, having Marvel create the universe and print a comic while Sunbow produced a cartoon based on Marvel's premise. The ban on toy-promoting cartoons was eventually lifted in 1984.)

(Since advertising toys through cartoons was still frowned upon-if not outright banned-by that point, Hasbro circumvented that limitation by declaring the cartoon an advertisement for the comic books instead. Joe: A Real American Hero', proved massively popular, and Hasbro quickly expanded the scope of their marketing to include a television cartoon by Sunbow Productions in 1983. The resulting comic book and toyline, dubbed 'G.I. In 1982, Hasbro decided to try a complete overhaul, drastically reducing the size of the figures, broadening the cast, and commissioning the advertising agency Griffin Bacal and Marvel Comics to develop a brand-new universe for them to occupy. Joe line underwent several rebrandings and redesigns in the '70s with varying degrees of success. In 2011, Hasbro finally did crossover toys and the fact that they are just exclusives to San Diego Comic-Con has probably inspired more terrorism than Cobra ever committed.įollowing its initial popularity in the mid to late 1960s, the G.I. From the late 80s, Hasbro repeatedly tried to make a Joe/Transformers combo pack with Joes that fight inside vehicle Transformers, but the timing never worked out one franchise would be popular and the other wouldn't be. The fictional universes of the two franchises have also overlapped on several occasions, originally due to pure marketing but more recently due to nostalgia. Joe and Transformers share much of the same fanbase. In part because of the nature of the franchise and in part because of similarities in presentation, G.I.

Joe, sometimes called Action Force in Europe, is one of Hasbro's most long-lived franchises, originating in 1964 as the very first line of 'action figures.' Though it has undergone many revisions and relaunches since then, it has always maintained a military theme, often with a science-fiction edge.

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