Rebuilding a Muscle Body GI Joe - Part Two

Adventure Team meeting in progress!

In the previous post, I talked about stumbling onto some muscle body GI Joes in my brother-in-law's storage locker. The action figures had suffered the same fate as so many muscle body Joes: the rubber skeleton inside the figure that held all the parts together had rotted away and the arms, legs, and head fell off the body. Since I had always wanted some muscle body Joes for my collection, I thought I could rebuild the figures with the help of some careful Internet searches. Trouble was, there was very little available online for the do-it-yourself rebuilder, so I decided to come up with my own way of rebuilding my Joes. The following is a step-by-step explanation of what I did to make my talking GI Joe Commander whole again. Only time will tell if my repairs will hold up, so I make no promises that this is the best way to go, but if you want to rebuild a muscle body Joe and have no other ideas on how to go about it, I offer my solutions as food for thought. If you did not read the first part of this post, you may want to go back and read about my thought process for these repairs. Okay, here goes:

1) I'm assuming that, like my Joe, your Joe has completely fallen apart. Therefore, let's start by separating the front body piece from the back body piece. To do that, insert a thin screwdriver into the seam between the two sections. The upper arm socket is a good place to start since there is a hole there. Gently work your way along the seam to the neck, wiggling the screwdriver a bit to widen the gap between the two halves. Go slow and don't use too much force or you'll break the body parts. It may take a few passes around the body seam to fully pry it open. Once you get one side partially open, you may also want to place a screwdriver in that side to hold it open while you work on the other side. Eventually, the pins will work loose from the holes they are seated in. With luck, the pins will not break but, in all likelihood, most if not all the pins may break. Don't panic as we will be gluing the whole thing back together with modeling glue.

3) You'll want to use this same technique to pry apart the upper arm sections and the upper leg sections. Remove any leftover rubber bits and lay the pieces on your work table where they will need to go (e.g., upper right arm sections on the upper right hand side of the body, head stalk and head at the top, etc.). You want the work table to look like an exploded drawing of your Joe. That way, you know where the parts are supposed to go back together.

Muscle body GI Joe with body section opened.

2) Once you have the two body halves apart, you can get a view of the inner workings. You will likely have bits of dried rubber inside. Carefully remove the excess rubber. Also, if you are working with a talking Joe, the talking mechanism will be in the body. The mechanism has some foam rubber attached to protect the mechanism. If it is dry rotted, delicately remove the old foam and replace it with new foam that has a sticky side. I used some insulation foam from another household project. Cut it to the size and shape of the old foam and stick it to the mechanism in the appropriate spots. Lift out the mechanism and set it aside for now.

3) With the top of the body removed, you can also see how the legs were attached. In my case, the remnants of the rubber skeleton were visible in Joe's speedo shorts. A loop of rubber still clung to the large peg in his abdomen. Remove the excess rubber bits.

4) The upper leg sections should have a semi-circular cap inside. This sat just above the rubber half-ball part of the rubber skeleton. Since we will be using shock cord to string the legs to the torso, we'll need to create a plastic ball to replace the rubber half-ball. To do this, place some plastic modeling pellets in warm water. When they have softened, remove the blob of melted pellets and begin to shape them into a ball that will sit underneath the semi-circular cap. Once you have the ball at the right size, take a wooden skewer or some other thin, pointed rod and work it through the center of the ball. This will create the hole that the shock cord will pass through. It should only be just big enough for the cord to slide through. Once you have finished creating the ball, see how it fits under the disc and within the thigh pieces. If it's too big, you won't be able to close the two upper leg sections together when you reassemble it. Repeat the process for the other side.

5) Set the balls and caps aside. Now we will concentrate on the knee pegs. The knee pegs from an original GI Joe will work for the muscle body Joe with some adjustments (replacement pegs can be obtained from Cotswold Collectibles). There's a peg and slot arrangement the two halves of the upper leg sections. If you bore out the hole in the vinyl knee peg a little bit, you should be able to fit the peg onto the slot on one half of the upper leg. To check the fit, snap the two thigh pieces together and see how the peg moves. The hole in the top of the calf piece will be too big to receive the knee peg. To make the fit tight, I put some of the soft plastic pellet material into the calf hole and jammed the knee peg into it. The plastic pellet material will fill up the excess space and form a custom hole for the peg. You may have to cut away some excess material that might ooze out the top. With the pegs fitted to size, open up the thigh pieces and set aside. Repeat the process on the other thigh.

6) You can attach the feet to the calf pieces by using a wrist peg from an original Joe. Cut the original rivet out of the foot with needle nose pliers. If you do not have pliers that are small enough, you can use a small saw but be extremely careful not to cut up the foot. With the old rivet removed, line up the wrist peg with the loop inside the opening in the top of the foot. Insert a new rivet (3/32" X 7/16") in the hole on the foot from the small toe side of the foot so that it captures the loop of the peg. Rest the head of the peg on a hard surface and place a center punch inside the tube end of the rivet. Strike carefully with a hammer. The feet might move around loosely, but they will attach to the hole in the bottom of the calf.

7) Okay, this is where it gets a little dodgy. Start with an ten-inch length of shock cord. Wrap it around the long pin in the lower abdomen of the figure, then tie a tight knot in the center, leaving equal lengths of cord on either side of the knot. Run the lengths of cord through the leg holes of the speedo shorts. Place the outer half of the right thigh into the leg hole of the shorts and let it lay flat on the table with the length of cord laying inside the piece.

View of abdomen with shock cord tied around the large peg. The cord runs through both sides of hip sockets into the semi-circular plastic caps and my custom balls that I made. The taut cord is secured with metal end crimps used in jewelry making. Note how the left thigh section fits over the cap and ball.

Thread the semi-circular plastic cap onto the cord, followed by your custom-made plastic ball. Push the two pieces up to the top of the thigh and pull the shock cord taut. While holding everything tightly in place, slide a crimp end onto the cord and up to the bottom of the ball. Then crimp the crimp end with a crimping tool (you might need an extra set of hands to pull this off). When you release the cord, everything should be held tightly in the upper part of the thigh piece. Cut off any excess cord. Be sure that the knee peg is still on the slot in the other thigh segment and glue the inner thigh piece to the outer thigh piece with modeling glue. The cord and ball arrangement, along with the knee peg, should now be securely contained between the two upper leg segments. Repeat the same process with the left thigh.

Another view of the leg repair.

8) When you have finished step 7, the thighs should be attached to the body tautly, but with some twisting movement for poseability. The knee peg which we attached earlier should be held in place by the two halves of the thigh and ready to receive the calf and foot. With legs assembled, we can move on to the top of the figure.

The upper body repair kit from Cotswold Collectibles. The "T" shaped joints fit into the shoulders, the joints with the balls on one end attach the upper arm to the forearm, and the length of elastic cord is used to attach the head plug to the body.

9) With the figure laying flat on your work table, Take one of the "T" shaped shoulder joints from your repair kit and place it in the upper left arm segment so that the top of the "T" is nestled in the appropriate slot. The disc side of the joint will be fitted into the body later.

10) Remove the rivets from the elbow area of the forearms using the same technique as we used on the feet. Take the elbow joint from the repair kit and place the disc side into the slot of the forearm. Slide a new rivet through the hole in the slot starting from the thumb side. Position the head side of the rivet against the table and tap the tube side with a center punch the same way as was done on the feet.

11) Set the ball side of the elbow joint into the bottom part of the upper arm. With the two joints in place, glue the top half of the upper arm to the bottom half with modeling glue. Repeat the same process for the right arm.

12) If you are not rebuilding a talking GI Joe, you can skip this step. For those who are, this is when you return the talking mechanism to the chest cavity. In my case, the mechanism was not working, so I replaced the speaker with a new one from Cotswold Collectibles. Simply remove the old speaker and put in the new one, making sure that the indentation in the center of the speaker is facing out toward you. Set the talking mechanism back into the chest on top of the speaker. Thread the pull cord through the grommit in the shoulder and tie the cord to GI Joe's dog tags.

Upper body with talking mechanism in place. The new speaker is underneath the mechanism. Note the shoulder pegs installed in the upper arms, the elbow pegs are in place and connected to the forearm, and the elastic cord is in place to receive the head plug.

13) We now move on to the head. Take the head plug shock cord from the repair kit and slide the eyelet end over the retaining pin closest to the neck opening in the bottom body section. Set the arms in place with the disc part of the shoulder joint set in the arm socket hole. At this point, you can glue the top half of the body section to the bottom half. Be careful to keep the head plug cord, shoulder joints, and talking mechanism in their proper places as you seal up the body. You don't want to have to crack open the body again once its glued down.

14) Once the body is glued together and the glue has fully dried, you can reattach the head plug and head. You will likely need to heat the head with a hair dryer to remove the head plug. Once you have heated the head, use a pair of needle nosed pliers to grip the head plug and pull down until the plug is removed. Thread the head plug cord through the head plug and pull the cord through the top. While holding the elastic cord taut, slide on the brass piece of tubing provided in the repair kit and crimp it to the top of the plug with a wire crimper. Cut away the excess elastic. Reheat the head with the hair dryer and slide the head over the plug.

Muscle Body Talking GI Joe Commander is fully assembled. 

At this point, you can breathe again: your muscle body Joe is fully assembled! While I can't guarantee that this repair will be strong enough to hold up to a full day on the playground with a 10-year-old, it should be sturdy enough so that a middle-aged man can dress him up in some vintage Joe duds and put him on display with the help of a doll stand.

"C'mon, the Adventure Team is needed!"

Rebuilding a Muscle Body GI Joe - Part One

Original body GI Joe compared to "Life Like" Muscle Body GI Joe

When I started collecting action figures in the late 90s, my goal was to not only acquire all the figures I owned as a kid, but to find the ones I wanted but never had. The "life like" or muscle body GI Joes from 1976 were among those figures that I just missed owning. While I liked the beefier looking bodies, I wasn't crazy about the whole trend that Joe was taking at the time with Bullet Man and the Alien Intruders, so I decided to focus on Star Trek and Space: 1999 figures instead. By the time I was back into full collecting mode at the turn of the new century, most muscle body Joes could only be found as a pile of limbs and heads, thanks to the cost-saving measures Hasbro took in making these figures. It seems that, with the cost of plastic rising due to the oil embargo, Hasbro had to come up with a way to make the big 11 ½" Joes cheaper to produce. Their solution was to make his body and most of the limbs out of hard plastic shell pieces that could be glued together like a model airplane. To attach the various limbs to the body and one another, the inside of the figure had what I can only describe as a rubber skeleton that held the arms and legs to the body and allowed the limbs to twist and bend. Sadly, after a dozen years or so, the rubber skeleton would dry rot and the figure would simply fall apart.

Given the small number of muscle body Joes made in the US (only one year of production) and the scarcity of ones that were still intact, the prices were usually more than I wanted to pay. Then last year, while I was helping my brother-in-law clean out a storage locker, I found a G.I. Joe playset filled with muscle body Joes along with a Mike Powers, Atomic Man. Of course, the muscle body figures had fallen to pieces, but all the pieces were still in the playset. Since my brother-in-law had no interest in them anymore, I was glad to take them home and try to rebuild them. This storage locker find took some of the pressure off me. I didn't have to pay for the figures on top of whatever it would cost to rebuild them and, if I damaged them in the process, it was better than if they had been thrown away.

The playset and GI Joes found in my brother-in-law's storage locker. Of course, this is after they were repaired and cleaned up.

I started researching how to rebuild muscle body Joes and, to my surprise, there was not a whole lot of information available. There were people who would rebuild them for a fee, but no instructions on the web for do-it-yourselfers. I did find a repair kit from Cotswold Collectibles which was designed to rebuild the top half of the figure. Specifically, the kit provides a thick shock cord to reattach the head to the body, special shoulder joints to reattach the upper arms, and elbow joints to connect the upper and lower arm pieces. The kit is a variation on the pieces that were used for the old Talking GI Joe Commander figure. Since the talking Joes had the talking device inside the body cavity, the head and legs could not be attached to the body with shock cord and hook-in-eye hardware like the regular Joes, so a new system of joints were used. Why the muscle body Joes didn't use a similar arrangement as the old talking Joes is unclear, but it works for them all the same.

Since my African-American Joe still had legs attached, I decided to use the repair kit on him first. The instructions provided with the kit were well detailed and the repair was faster and simpler than I anticipated. About one hour of work and I could display the figure in my case. The muscle body talking Joe was another matter altogether. Since I could not find any repair solutions for the legs online, I had to come up with a solution on my own. That meant taking the body completely apart and assessing how the thing was put together originally.

My muscle body talking GI Joe with the detached arms, legs, and head. I opened the body section and the left thigh to figure out how the guy was put together. Note: the foam rubber in the left shoulder is a replacement piece since the original piece disintegrated.

The rubber skeleton which held the legs to the torso started with a loop around a post in the lower part of the body. Two lengths of rubber extended from the loop, each length running down to the legs. When I pulled apart the two plastic shells that were glued together to create the thigh, I discovered that the rubber line that extended into the thigh grew into a rubber half-ball. This half-ball was nestled in a plastic cap at the top of the thigh. This is what kept the thigh firmly attached against the hip socket. A length of rubber continued from the bottom of the half-ball to the knee. Here the rubber was formed into a small loop which was designed to receive a pin inside the plastic shell. The solid plastic calf piece also connected to this pin. Actually, the calf piece is not completely solid as it has a hole down the center to receive the rest of the rubber skeleton. The rubber finally terminated in a loop. This loop would hold a rivet joining the foot to the bottom of the calf piece.

The semi-circular cap and rubber skeleton inside the thigh. The cap sat on top of the semi-circle of rubber, and the long piece (now dry rotted and broken) ran down the thigh to the knee joint.

So, in effect, a single, custom-made rubber skeleton held the thighs, calves, and feet of the figure to the torso. My challenge was to find a way to replace that skeleton with parts I could buy or manufacture myself. I started with the easiest part first: attaching the feet, calves, and thighs together. On the original GI Joes, these parts were connected with metal rivets and vinyl pegs (in other words, parts that were actually designed to last for a long time). I decided to see if replacement Joe pegs could do the job, so I bought some pegs of different sizes from Cotswold Collectibles. I tried various combinations, but none of the pegs fit exactly right. I decided to let that problem simmer for awhile and moved onto the hip socket.

On the original Joes, the thighs were made of solid poly-vinyl plastic and were attached to the hip sockets using metal hook-in-eye hardware. The necessary tension was provided by a thick shock cord inside the body that also held the arms and head. Shock cord could be the answer here, but since the head and arms would be attached using the repair kit, the shock cord would only be used in the lower part of the body and had to be attached in a way that would create proper tension between the socket and the thigh. I went back to the rubber skeleton for inspiration.

A view of the rubber loop that wrapped around the pin in the abdomen. The rubber skeleton (shown above) continued down into the thighs and legs. Unfortunately, I can only show you everything in pieces because the rubber dry rotted and crumbled apart.

The top of the skeleton had a loop around a pin inside the body. The shock cord could be tied around the pin and the two lengths of cord extending from the knot would go into the thighs. The rubber skeleton had a half-ball shape formed in it to hold the thigh in the socket. Perhaps I could create a ball of the same size with a hole in the middle through which I could run the shock cord. I would pull the cord tight and clamp it to the underside of the ball with a crimped clasp. That sounded good in theory, but where would the parts come from?

For the ball, I started looking at beads in craft stores. Nothing seemed to be exactly the right size. Also, the holes in the beads were so small, I would have to find shock cord that might be too thin to do the job. My wife suggested that I could make the balls myself using plastic modeling pellets. I was not aware of the product, but she ordered me some. The stuff is exactly like it sounds: little plastic beads that become soft and pliable when dropped in warm water. Once they are soft, you can pull them from the water and mold them like modeling clay into whatever shape you like. You have to work fast though, since they harden in the cool air. If you don't get it right before the stuff hardens, however, you can drop the plastic back into warm water and start again.

Another view of the abdomen and thigh. I would custom make plastic balls to replace the semi-circle of rubber holding the cap in the hip socket and replace the rest of the rubber with shock cord.

With a product to make the ball, I had to find the right shock cord. Shock cord comes in all sizes. I wanted cord that was thick enough to hold up to the tension I needed, but thin enough to tie in a knot inside the body and thread through a ball that would fit inside Joe's thigh. I settled on 3/32" thick shock cord that is sold for repairing camping tents. Once I had the shock cord, I molded my plastic balls and created holes in them that were just big enough to accept the cord. Now I needed clasps small enough to fit in the thigh but big and thick enough to hold the shock cord taut for many years to come. This proved to be the most time consuming search. I settled on some end crimps used for jewelry making that I picked up at a craft store. Not perfect, but they would do the job.

With all the pieces in place, I could now reassemble my muscle body GI Joe. In part two, I will go through the step-by-step process of rebuilding a muscle body talking GI Joe Commander.

Golden Age and Silver Age Green Lantern

Just like the Silver Age Flash, I first discovered Silver Age Green Lantern not in comic books but on the Aquaman cartoon show where he appeared in both his own solo back-up stories and as part of the Justice League of America. The thing that fascinated me about Green Lantern was that he belonged to a larger intergalactic organization designed to police all the planets in space. That imbued him with a greater calling than these other super heroes who simply got hit by radiation or fell into a pile of chemicals and gained super powers. Hal Jordan was blessed with his powers, or at least given a ring and lantern that contained powers, by a far superior group of aliens. If Superman was a veiled representation of Jesus Christ, the Green Lantern was something like a prophet.

I first learned Green Lantern's origin in one of the cartoon installments. Test pilot Hal Jordan is suddenly transported to a desert area where a UFO has crash landed. The alien belongs to the Guardians of the Universe and, now that the alien is dying, he has chosen Jordan to pass on his membership to because he is a good man without fear. The alien gives Jordan a green ring and a green device that looks like a lantern. The lantern charges the ring every 24 hours and, whitgh the ring, he can create just about anything he wishes. Its only weakness is that the ring is powerless against the color yellow. This was one of those bullshit twists that I always hated in comic books, like Superman's kryptonite. These guardians are so powerful, but all you have to do is paint your gun yellow and they're screwed. Oh well...

I discovered that there had been a Golden Age Green Lantern when DC Comics started publishing old reprints in the back pages of their comics in the early 70s. While Silver Age Green Lantern's origin was pure atomic age sci-fi, the Golden Age version had an origin borrowing more from magic, which was pretty common with those early super heroes. Alan Scott stumbles across a magic lantern made of green metal which has mysterious powers. Scott creates a ring that, when he touches it to the lantern every 24 hours, gives him great powers. While Hal Jordan's ring could not affect anything yellow, Scott's ring was defenseless against items made of wood. I think Hal Jordan had the better advantage here.

Like The Flash, Green Lantern was one of the top five super heroes of DC's powerful stable who had his own magazine in addition to appearing regularly in an anthology title (All-American) and as part of the Justice Society of America in All-Star Comics. Also like The Flash, Green Lantern faded away in the early 50s as super hero comics fell out of favor. Once The Flash was successfully resurrected in a new form in 1956, Green Lantern got his aforementioned face lift in 1959 and the Silver Age was off and running.

I wasn't a regular reader of the Green Lantern comics, but he was always a big part of my childhood through his appearances on the Aquaman show and, of course, the Super Friends. When I renewed my interest in the old Captain Action toy during the late 90s, I found there was a lot of fans online who wished Ideal had made a Silver Age Green Lantern costume for Captain Action. Indeed, had the toy line been more successful, I have no doubt that The Flash and Green Lantern would've been turned into costume sets for the trans-super hero. Of course, I had to make a costume for my own Captain Action.

The elements for the costume came from the usual suspects. The gloves and boots were courtesy of Wes McCue at Classic Plastick. To simulate the green ring, I cut out a ring shape from green electrical tape and stuck it on the right glove hand. The costume was made by Rauty, which cleverly consists of a full black leotard over which you put on the green one-piece bathing suit type of garment. The chest emblem was made by finding a copy of the logo online, adjusting it to size in Photoshop, and then printing the logo on sitcker paper.

The mask went through two versions. First, I used the mask that came with Playing Mantis's second generation Green Hornet costume over which I placed a green mask cut out of electrical tape. I had cut out the eye holes because Green Lantern was sometimes drawn with his eyes exposed. However, the Green Hornet face mask had bug eyes similar in look to Eagle Eye G.I Joe, and the hair style was all wrong. The finished mask didn't look anything like Hal Jordan.

After awhile, it occurred to me that Hal Jordan had a pile of curly hair similar to Aquaman. Since Ideal had made an Aquaman costume set for Captain Action, maybe I could repaint an Aquaman mask. One finally came on eBay for a price I was willing to pay, and I repainted Aquaman's golden locks brown. I used the same electrical tape technique for the green mask, but decided to paint the eye holes plain white. With this new face mask, I was reasonably pleased with my Silver Age Green Lantern.


A few years later, when I was making custom figures of all the Justice Society of America characters, I took on the daunting task of recreating Golden Age Green Lantern. His was one of the more audacious costumes from the era, featuring a red shirt, green pants, red boots with yellow criss-cross striping, a purple mask, and a high-collared cape with purple on the outside and chartreuse on the inner lining. In today's vernacular, he was a hot tranny mess!

Although I was no longer making costumes specifically for Captain Action figures, I decided to repaint a spare Lone Ranger face mask to use for Alan Scott's head because of the similarity. His hair went from black to yellow and his mask went from black to purple. To mitigate the extreme color pallate, I dyed a white shirt in a soft red tone and I used some olive drab pants instead of bright green tights. The chest emblem was created in the same process mentioned above. On the red boots, courtesy of Wes McCue, I created the striping pattern with yellow electrical tape. I wanted to make the cape, but I could never find the material in the right colors. For the sake of this post, I mocked up a cape with a little photoshoppery. This is a reasonable representation of what I want my finished Green Lantern to look like when I get the right cape material.


The Flash and Green Lantern survived through the 20th century by going through radical makeovers, but DC's other three big stars, Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, remained relatively unchanged throughout their careers. I'll talk about my Wonder Woman action figure next time.

ACTION FIGURE PROJECT - CAPTAIN ACTION ATV CONT'D.

The creation of the Captain Action ATV continues...


About 10 years ago, while I was attempting to quit smoking, I returned to my adolescent hobby of model building as a way to get my mind off my nicotine addiction. At the time, there were several retro model kits on the market, including the one pictured here from AMT. The kit allowed you to create a customized car by taking a generic 1964 Ford Galaxie and attaching to the body any combination of trim pieces and decals provided in the kit.


Not only did I get to play George Barris and make my very own customized car:

but I’ve continued to uses pieces from this kit to customize other models and action figure projects. The kit came in handy with my Captain Action ATV project.

With the kit, I was able to create a radar assembly on the back spoiler and add a set of brake lights. It disturbed me that this ATV toy did not come equipped with proper safety features like brake lights. I know Captain Action wouldn’t drive any vehicle without brake lights.

I also added additional side vents for the turbo-charged engine, and front fog lights. Along with the rocket launcher mentioned in my previous post, I think this ATV is starting to shape up into an appropriate action mobile for the Captain. My final step will be to add some flashy decals to jazz up the design. And I need to figure out what to do for the headlamps. More later…

NEW ACTION FIGURE PROJECT - PART TWO

In a previous post, I talked about a 1/6^th scale all-terrain vehicle (ATV) that I bought as a post-Christmas clearance item at my local drugstore. I decided it might be fun to turn this ATV into a special vehicle for Captain Action. Here’s what has happened so far:

I went to my local hobby shop and picked out a color of spray paint which I thought matched the color of blue found on many Captain Action accessories. I then removed as many parts off the body of the ATV as I thought I could without damaging the vehicle. For the rest of the parts I didn’t want to paint, I masked them with masking tape and newspaper. I caught a break with the weather and was able to spray paint the body outdoors on a nice 60 degree day. However, because I had to mask significant sections of the ATV, there were several spots where the paint spray would not go.

I checked the paint manufacturer’s Web site and discovered that the color I chose only came in spray cans; I couldn’t get a bottle of the same color for touch up. After kicking myself for not checking this sooner, I decided to try a trick from my adolescence and spray the remaining paint into a clean glass bottle to condense the liquid into a form that I could brush on. Unfortunately, the trick was not as effective as it was 25 years ago as the paint in the bottle was runny and too thin to spread. I tried adding other paint to it and attempting a close match, but that proved futile.

Back at square one, I decided to buy a couple different bottles of blue paint and mix my own color. Then I brush painted the entire ATV. Although not as smooth and professional looking as spray, I think it turned out pretty good.

My next concern was finding a device to replace the swiveling machine gun that was originally mounted on the ATV. I thought the oversized assault weapon was way too aggressive looking for Captain Action, so I rummaged through my boxes of left over action figure accessories to find something more suitable. I found a rocket launcher that came with my 12” G.I. Joe Cobra Commander figure from a few years back. The device reminded me of the rocket launchers on Captain Action’s Silver Streak vehicle. I had to modify it to fit on the front of the ATV, however. It turned out that the butt of the launcher was a separate piece from the launcher itself, so I was able to carefully remove the butt without any damage to the launcher. I then cut off the mounting stalk from the original machine gun and affixed it to the back of the rocket launcher. Once I paint it, I will mount it on the ATV.

Next, I’m going to have to come up with some additional trim pieces and stickers to jazz up the look of the vehicle and make it scream, “CAPTAIN ACTION!” Stay tuned…

NEW ACTION FIGURE PROJECT

A couple days after Christmas, I went to my local drug store to pick up a prescription. As is my habit, I walked down the toy aisle on my way to the pharmacy counter. Whenever I'm in any store that sells toys, I have to take a gander to see if there's anything I might be able to use for my custom action figure projects. During the last couple of years, toy companies have backed away from the 1/6th scale action figure format, so I usually hold out little hope that I will ever find anything interesting, but I always figure it doesn't cost anything to look.

Given my general state of cynicism, I was surprised to find a shelf full of 1/6th scale action figures with accompanying vehicles. The line was called Rescue Team, and while they won't cause anyone from Hasbro or Mattel to lose any sleep, they were still pretty serviceable toys. Each action figure was driving either an ATV or a chunky military-type vehicle complete with rocket launchers. The military styling didn't interest me that much, but I thought they could easily be modified to look like excellent vehicles for Captain Action. Still, I wasn't too keen on spending the $20 price on the box for a low-end toy I only want to experiment on. Then I noticed a tag taped to the shelf:

"All toys in this aisle 75% off!"

Of course! The after-Christmas markdowns! For five bucks each, the vehicles were looking more appealing. I still hesitated, however. For one thing, I had come on foot, and lugging one of those huge boxes home would've been a chore. Also, my house was already cluttered with lots of toys. I shouldn't add to the pile. Sullenly, I left the toy aisle, picked up my prescription, and wandered home.

During the walk back, I kept thinking about how I could repaint the body "Captain Action Blue" and jazz it up with my custom-made stickers and leftover bits and pieces from model kits. I was getting that sensation I call "toy lust," something I thought I had lost when I reached puberty and found another kind of lust. So lost was I in my reverie, I had strayed from my usual route home and had to take a lengthy detour to right myself. This gave me time to rationalize. "I can drive back to the store in my car and buy one of those vehicles," I thought. "And besides, I already sold a bunch of collectibles on eBay, so I've made plenty of room for one more new toy!" By the time I reached my front door, I had made up my mind.

After I drove back to the store, I grabbed one of the boxes from the back of the shelf without looking at which vehicle I had laid my hands on. It wasn't until I got home that I realized I had bought the ATV. Although the other vehicle had those cool rocket launchers, I thought the ATV was more suited to Captain Action and probably easier to customize. I think it was the best choice.


So now I'm embarking on a new project. Here are some shots of what it looked like in its original form. Stay tuned to see its transformation into the new Captain Action ATV!

THE 1966 DEAN MARTIN CHRISTMAS SHOW (IN MY WORLD)

"It's the Dean Martin Christmas Show! Tonight's special guest - Joey Heatherton! Also on tonight's show - Dom DeLuise and The Golddiggers!"


"Ho, ho, ho, this is your ol' pal Dino wishing you all a very merry Christmas. Later on, we'll have the beautiful Golddiggers out here to help me perform some of your favorite Christmas songs. But first, let's see who our mystery guest is behind our special Christmas go-go bead curtain!"


"Why it's Mr. Sean Connery! C'mon over Sean, and I'll mix you a vodka martini - shaken not stirred."

"Ya' know Sean, you and I are in the same line
of work now. In my latest picture, I play a suave,
hard-livin', hard-lovin' super spy like yourself."

"With all due respect Dean, I think James Bond
could kick your alcoholic as - say, I think there's
someone under this bar."

"It's the Men from U.N.C.L.E.!"

"Open channel D - we've just uncovered a spy ring.
There's two more coming through
the window right now!"

"Holy quadruple agent! Be careful, Batman,
they have more gadgets than you do!"

"Never fear, old chum. I'll fend them
off with my Explosive Christmas Bat-balls!"

"Hey, you two get outta here! You're not even on this network! In fact, everyone clear out! This bar is getting too crowded!"

"I'm sorry, ladies and gentlemen, things got a little outta hand for a moment. Let's slow things back down with some nice Christmas carols, sung with my good friend, Miss Joey Heatherton. Say, where is Miss Heatherton anyway?"


"She's down here with me. Say Dean,
where are you hiding the scotch?"

"Frank, you're not supposed to be
on this show until next week! I think
we need to take a commercial break!"

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE, AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!

A MESSAGE FROM DR. EVIL

"Jingle bells, Batman smells, Ro - oh hi, Dr. Evil here. Just putting up some Christmas decorations around the ol' Evil Sanctuary."


"I know, people think I've mellowed over the years. Why, just the other day, my neighbor Clive Arno said, 'Ev, why don't you unleash earthquakes or bring monsters to Earth through dimensional gateways like you used to?'"


"Well sir, I have to confess that I've found a new way to channel my sinister urges while also reconnecting with my inner child."


"You see, now...I EBAY VICTORIOUSLY!! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!"

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Halloween has always held a special place in my heart. Even as a middle-aged man with no children, I still get a kick out of the decorations and the costumes and the horror movies on TV. I feel sorry for those who shun the holiday as promoting devil worship and such nonsense. To me, Halloween is a celebration of that dreaded emotion: fear. I say celebration because we have to recognize that we as human beings all fear something at one time or another. Overcoming fear is a challenge we all face, so having a holiday that revels in the emotion and, in a way, belittles it is one way of breaking its hold over us. Besides, it’s all great fun!

I always feel creative right before Halloween. When I was little, I loved creating costumes, carving pumpkins, and decorating the front yard with scarecrows and ghoulish stuff. One year, my brother Craig, the electronics geek, rigged up a speaker device in our pumpkin. He situated himself in the basement so he could look out the small window next to our front steps. With the cord from the pumpkin hidden under a towel, Craig could talk through his mic and his voice would come out of the pumpkin. Since Craig couldn’t see much from his vantage point, I would whisper to him which kid was coming up the walk, and he could greet them by name. One kid in the neighborhood really believed the pumpkin was alive and kept coming back to talk to him. It was only after the blanket slipped and the wire became visible that he finally realized what was going on.

This year, the holiday had snuck up on me and by Sunday, I realized I hadn’t done anything creative this year. As I sullenly watched the football game, I remembered that I had some old action figures that I had always wanted to do something with, but they had some really ugly headsculpts. I then thought about the old monster action figures that Mego put out in the mid-70s, and I got an idea. In a burst of activity, I repainted one of the figures to look like Frankenstein and the other one I transformed into Dracula (he already had a widow's peak). Scrounging around my boxes of doll clothes, I put together a gray-and-black outfit for Frank and I used one of my James Bond tuxedos for Dracula. I also remembered that my wonderful wife had given me a cool action figure cape for Christmas, so Dracula was complete. Frank just needed a couple of bits of plastic glued to his neck to create the electrodes.

The next day, I went to the crafts store and bought a Styrofoam platform to use as a diorama for my figures. The graveyard decorations from last year came in handy, along with the mulch and sand I had from another diorama project. Now I have a little display for the porch while I sit outside and distribute candy!

Happy Halloween Everybody!