"Army Men" page
 

What a hoot! Stumbled across this page (http://www.thortrains.net/armymen/ ) about plastic army men and had a delightful time looking around. Oh, man they were so cool to play with! No one from the late 50's through first half of the 60's could have possibly loved "Army Men" more than I did.

I must have had close to a dozen sets over the years, which numbered between 25 and 100 pieces each. I was WWII all the way, and my faves were Lido, followed closely by the Marx 54mm, with Tim Mee bringing up the rear (although I had no idea that's what they were until I found this page).

Yes, I had some GI Joes, but when it came to playing with them, all they were really good for was making a nicely heavy victim for death by hangman's noose.

I also had at least three or four Marx Civil War sets, MANY Cowboys and Indians, complete with a couple of Fort Apaches, and some farm animals to go around. I also had a Yorktown Revolutionary War set too. A younger brother had some knights and some M-16 guys by Marx. No pirates, Romans or Vikings, though.

I was definitely an outdoor scenario builder, with sandpiles soon giving way to terra-forming of dirt and building stick-and-dirt bunkers (almost impregnable!). The best sites were in the mud near a lake or creek bank - great trenches and bunkers could be made with mud of the correct consistency. But in these exotic locales stragglers were often accidentally left behind for future discovery.

If playing against at least one opponent, we would either take turns aiming at particular enemy men, or we would use "artillery" - small rocks or Lincoln Log pieces which we threw. In this way we learned about deep foxholes and not bunching up ourselves!

To add a little reality to our solo play, we would use grandmother's special gardening hoe-type instrument, which had a single narrow prong for digging. Striking at the ground near dug-in troops, this tool made extraordinarily (to us) realistic and violent artillery explosions, blasting up a foxhole-size crater i the dirt. This would obviously pepper any nearby soldiers with deadly shrapnel or, if striking too close, (horrors!) a man might be actually badly impaled and thus suffer an obvious and ghastly mortal wound. There was also BB-gun artillery, which would send men flying, sometimes pierced through and through.

But finally, in an Army man Gotterdammerung, as we got older we might introduce (ahem) a little napalm in the guise of a tad of gasoline mixed with a large amount of laundry soap. This is true, literal napalm. While not nearly as dangerous and explosive as gasoline by itself, it was still horrendously reckless of us, as the stuff could splatter. But we 11-year-olds knew it and took care -we thought. Anyway, as jaded Army Men players, we occasionally would finish a few off in a horrifying flamethrower-type death. Lotta black smoke and fire, and the men just - melted. So there was a downside. We also discovered that aerosol hairspray would turn into a literal flamethrower if it was sprayed over a lit match. Ye gods how did we not kill each other or burn down the entire state!?

Anyway, in this increasingly destructive manner we ensured that few Army Men survivors made it to the 21st century. Luckily a little bit more of our Army surplus from those years is still around I think - some packs, a few helmet liners , a few dummy frag grenades. But that stuff was never as good as the wonderful Army Men themselves.

"One could annoy Mom by adding Army men to the Yule village under the Christmas Tree."

Oh, god, memories of Christmas in the Yossarian household. We had spacemen in the attic of the barn, a Ninja Turtle riding one of the King's camels, and Joseph wearing the snake from a Jake the Snake action figure.

Never did get around to Army Men though. I had one of those Godless Commie Hippy upbringings where guns and church were frowned upon. Even water guns were too corrupting, not allowed. Shows what parents know.

Oh man i loved the little plastic army men, they were great. Me and my two brothers would have wars that went on for days in the backyard. We used pea shooters to shoot at each others men. If you knocked one over he was dead. Or a small rock flicked with the thumb for artillery.

lol great times.

I had a Gi-Joe too, i always used him as a crash test dummy in spectacular accidents!

Ahhhh army men. I often wonder if there had ever been a thought like ~ "Imagine if we could play this with 63 other people from all over the world with tanks and planes and artillary fire...". Or some such...

And now for your enjoyment, please enjoy some of stylie's favortie army men from the past...

http://www.playsetmagazine.com/photo...9_Naverone.jpg


And not so WW2-ey, but 'battle' none-the-less.

http://images.boardgamegeek.com/images/pic5628_md.jpg

I played with Micromachine for my war, I had desert/mountain bases complete with spring firing cannons, I had a ton of apaches and leopards and random bridge tanks, those were the days.

Goddamnit Moose, you beat me to it; Anyways, when I found a store, Sears I think, where the bases were about 6 bucks on sale, I went nuts and got a bunch of them. Stealth fighters and M1's and BTR72's <3. Indeed, those were the days.

Micro-machines ftw!

http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/...8L._SS400_.jpg

Does anybody know wether there is/was a mod for bf1942/bf2 in army men style? It would be sooo cool!

Seems I have a hazy recollection of an "Army man mod" for vanilla BF1942. Maybe I was just thinking of the "Army Man" game itself. Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_Men_(series)

Moosie and Coke, I forget sometimes that I'm talking to guys for whom Gulf War I is like WWII was for me!

sylie, you're exactly right. I don't how I haven't thought of it before, but this stuff I waste so much time on is just a more expensive version of playing army men in the back yard! Now I'm depressed.

Real-BadSeed, my guess is that every guy who ever had one, as he got a little older and bored with ""vanilla GI Joe", began conducting "How To Kill An Action Figure" experiments.

Yossarian - man, I am so, so sorry. NO toy guns? Not even army men, huh?

You never had any of the "Johnny Eagle" line of fine toy firearms?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...1/ToyGuns4.jpg


Not even a "Man From UNCLE" Gun set?

http://www.theunclegun.com/From_files/image005.jpg



I can't imagine life without toy guns. Are you in Vermont? Look, if you ever want to talk....

I had some great adventures when I was young in my sandbox, as it was a huge one. So many army men were down in it, but one day I lost interest apparently.

It was at my mom's house, and she has trouble with her back and so the yard eventually grew out of control, the brick patio the turtle sandbox is on is full of honeysuckle, cherry, elm, the lot. But the sandbox remains there, covered up by the tangle of trees.

One day, probably years from now, we'll cut down the forest of invasive saplings, and under them I'll find the army men, still in the same battle as I left them 15 years ago.

Please, it's much worse than Vermont. I'm Canadian.

Yeah Jum, I don't even remember the first gulf war, I'm sure coca-cola doesn't either, but I still had fun melting army men with makeshit WD40 bombs.

Well, I knew that, but were your folks refugees from Vermont to Canada? Because Vermont was too fascist?

My family is from California. So, that explains everything.

Army Men are absolutely fantastic, I remember half a decade or more ago I was playing massed battles with green, tan and purple soldiers.
I even had a crazy play-mat to put it on with a river and cool stuff like that, as always my cousin and I were storming the evil german controlled fort.
Did any of you have the invincible tanks of doom?

Shameless plug for Canada; We are much like the U.S. but with better weather and without the overcrowding. :p Not to mention loads of pure maple syrup for the pancakes in the morning. So its no wonder that some of you guys down there, make your way up here :D

Actually RBS, I think Yoss' parents wanted to smoke kind buds freely... :lol:

I'd love to live in Canada - if I thought I would be welcome. My wife and I may be looking for a big move in a few years when we get the kids college-ified. We'd absolutely love to live in a place that has a true, solid 8-12 week winter (at least I think so - they say be careful what you ask for!). My wife has MS and she's terribly bothered by heat, so we truly may go for the deep freeze! But we recognize that a lot of Canadians resent Yanks, particularly if they move North.

All the bragging about the Canadian medical system is great, but we're quite happy with our medical options and availability. We see problems with Canada's model, such as waiting lists and availability of treatment, etc., so that could be a big hurdle.

As far as area of the country, I know Montreal/Quebec would be out of the question, and probably not Toronto, Ottawa or Vancouver. Winnipeg? Maybe. I think I might like Alberta or Saskatchewan. And I like "O Canada".

Thoughts from you northerners?

Everything from Alberta east has what you think of in a Canadian winter. Most of southern B.C. is pretty much identical to Washinton/Oregon weather. So its pretty mild here in southern B.C.

Again everything from Alberta east is also pretty flat and desolate, except for certain areas here and there, and the border of B.C.. But mostly its one big prairie. I guess i feel that way because i live in B.C. and the landscape is spectacular compared to everywhere else. Ive been all across Canada, and lived back east for a few years, so i know.

Its true about our medical system, that it has certain drawbacks. However, one of them isnt the fact you pay your doctor to go on long glorious vacations worth thousands of dollars. Instead you get to go on the vacation, or buy a new boat or whatever. We also have higher taxes than the U.S., but its generally money well spent, and its mostly spent on us :D So its not so bad.

The main group resenting Americans in Canada, is generally those effected by U.S trade policies. Like anyone connected to the softwood industry, i suggest you dont mention the U.S. to them. Other then that, people are pretty neutral about Americans, as long as they dont get all uppity or anything.

Not Winnipeg. It's the most dangerous city in Canada right now, I believe because of a lot of racial tension between the Native and White populations. Alberta is nice for Yanks, it's Texas of the North. Saskatchewan is deathly boring. Even it's shape is boring. Also, I hear it has some of the same problems as Winnipeg with racial tensions. Sadly, one of Canada's most overlooked problems is the way it's Native population is handled. You see a lot of it boiling over today with violence and demonstrations, such as the one that has been going on in Caledonia.

A place you might want to look into is Prince Edward County. It's about two hours from Toronto, to the east. My parents just bought a place to retire to out there. It's pretty much on the up and up as far as development goes. A lot of wineries, golf courses, etc are being planned for the area, but it's taking pretty massive steps to keep the "quaint" feeling. It's on Lake Ontario, and has some of the nicest beaches in Ontario right there. There's pretty good fishing, and supposedly good hunting if that's your thing. I personally like Ontario, but it's the only place I've lived. Not so much the big dirty city of Toronto (which is pretty screwed as far as expenses go, major cutbacks being planned), but there's a lot of wilderness and quaint little communities as you get further into the Canadian Shield wilderness.

Also, the East Coast is gorgeous. But oh so poor.

As for medical aspects, the Canadian medical system has been good to me, but I really haven't had to lean on it too much. I'm fairly injury prone, but have the immune system of a horse (?). I don't see it working for folks as they get older, and require more expensive, complicated tests and procedures. However, for treating the small things, it's wonderful. Thankfully, if you know the right people, and have the right cash, it's pretty two-tiered.

CANADA ROOLZ

I hadn't really considered the coasts because of rain - even though I know the west particularly is wonderful country, the rain would depress the heck out of me. PEI - Anne of Green Gables country! All I know about Newfoundland and the wild sea is from Annie Proulx's The Shipping News, which did indeed make it sound bleak. As far as flat featureless plains - heck I could go to North Dakota for that. The Canadian Rockies maybe? Sounds like I need to take a coast-to-coast railroad tour to get an idea of the land.

Newfoundland is just a terrible place. Gorgeous as all getup, but since the cod moratorium, nobody has any work.

Jum, where is war eagle land? Sounds very Texas...

All of B.C. is the Rocky Mountains. Stories about lots of rain are exaggerated, except for the west coast of Vancouver Island. However, its actually nice when it does rains here, and it keeps everything beautifully green. The weather changes alot, it'll rain for an hour, then be sunny, then rain some more, then sunny again. I like it, the air always smells nice and fresh here.

East coast is severely depressing imo. I hated everything east of B.C. so im biased anyway. B.C really does spoil you for living anywhere else. And anyone who comes here for the first time doesnt want to leave. Theres tons of people from somewhere else, living here now, that would tell you the same thing. Half the people in B.C. are from somewhere else.

edit: Yeah ive always wondered where war eagle land is too.

To be honest, who the hell knows anything about Jum?

Winnepig is full of racial tension? Me and my family were going to maybe drive up there this summer, maybe not. How is Calgary, I met two girls from their in Chicago and they were cool as hell. I also know a lot about Oakville,Ontario because so many of the 130th is from there. I've heard Quebec city is nice, but then again that was from a French Can, and you know they toot their own horn :).

It IS nice. Thats why I'm moving there. I've been in a lot of places (quite a few European countries, a large number of US states and all but 2 Canadian provinces), and I can say Quebec City is amongst the "cool and nice" places of this word, certainly because it is the most european and oldest (as in XVIIth century-ish) looking place in North America. Its much different than standard cities, and nothing beats touring the old city within the walls. The citadel is nice too, and the city itself has a very good nightlife and is very well kept. I don't say that out of blind patriotism, or "we ar teh best lolz!" nationalism, because I'm incapable of doing that, and because I will readily admit I don't think Montreal is "nice" in anyways, I'll admit the road system in this province is worst than Russia's (watch out for the holes, you can fall in them and eventually reach Japan) and that the region I live in (Centre-du-Quebec, don't go near or you'll fall asleep) is of incredible boringness.

However, Quebec City IS nice, and I can also recommand the region of Charlevoix if you like forests and mountains. Mauricie national parc is very nice, altho you need to go there in summer. If anyone wishes to go in Quebec City, they might as well come tell me "hi" on the way =p

I have been in BC last winter. I planned to work in BC in the winter should I not get accepted at university. I was actually sad when I got a positive letter from them :p

130th in Oakville? Must be some smack causing agent from the Ford plant in the water. :)

:). Literally 10+ members are from oakvile or the surrounding the area, another 10 are from LA, another 10 from sweden, then the rest scattered about the world. It seems to me everybody in oakville has a swimming pool and is old :).

My grandparents lived in Oakville. Have a couple of friends there, but yeah, they're all so OLD there.

The only thing I know that's jumjum is the pet (lizard?) of Marge Simpson's sisters... thats it. On the FH forum, He is probably a famous rock star looking for some kind of anonymity...

*sigh* All this time and the answer has been before you. But if you were true college football fans you wouldn't be hanging out here as much as...uh, I do.

Texas? Texas is one of those wussy liberal places. A similar hint for location in Texas would have been, "Hook 'em 'horns!". For, say, Connecticut, at least for Yale fans, it would have been "Boola Boola". "War Eagle Land" is a reference to Auburn University, the mascot of which is the Tiger, but the "yell" of which is "War Eagle!" (Go figure.) And Auburn University is in....? Alabama, lads. At least the school is. It's fans are legion, and are spread throughout the world. ;) And we're ready for some football.

As to Alabama, unfortunately it is also the home of those curs, the Crimson Tide, also known as the University of Alabama. U of A represents everything that is low, vile, dishonorable and despicable in American life. If you happen to see the football team on tv this fall, curse them. Roundly.

Then that clearly is the place for me...

I'm from Mobile myself. And before you ask - Mom went to Auburn, Dad went to Alabama - and yes, they are divorced (wonder why). To keep the entire family happy, I went to Ole Miss.

Anyway, this thread is great. I spent hours upon hours with my Navarone playset and also a (I think) D-Day playset that had the same soldiers and such, just no mountain. I loved to take the one guy that's crawling holding his chest and put him in the concertina wire.

My only complaint was that too few of the guys were actually in shooting poses.

I use to heat them just enough to bend them into unique poses. (pot of boiling water, tongs and leather gloves :D ) Really use to throw my opponents off their game. (hehe)

Especially when i made the prone smg dudes!

Hell yeah! Did you have the two medics and the streatcher? Did you have the guy with the binocularzs and the other being shot in the head, his helmet flipping off?

Ahhh toys. I bet you youngins' never ate a candy cigarette!!!

You mean those sweet chalk sticks with the pink food coloring on the one end. :)

Candy cigs - can you even imagine! Today that would be as if the neighborhood heroin dealer was handing out shades and little toy syringes to the 7-year-olds.....

Hilarious!!! These kids have no idea...

http://www.megalink.net/~dale/candycig1.jpg

Do they make cap guns still? Remember the kind with a revolver and the gunpowder was single shots embedded in a roll of paper? Does anyone remember ever using a hammer to do the whole roll at one time?

ya they still have cap guns, but now they've moved on to airsoft, which is a cheap and retarded version of paintball

Ah, the hammer-on-the-whole-roll trick! I loved the smell of popped caps in the morning. I feel so sorry for some youngsters today because they know nothing about this kind of "real kids" fun. It has been taken from them.

There are forces at work in our society that, both intentionally and unintentionally, have worked to try to put both them and the world in a nerf suit. To hear many activist types, we have to put foam rubber on anything that the kids might come in contact with. Part of that is a response to bloodsucking lawyers willing to file suit against anyone for anything, just to try to find that deep pocket to stick their hand in.

But partly it is because of "activism" by those professional busybodies who try to be the nannies for the world. You know them - they're the ones who claim the sky is falling because we're eating or not eating something, or try to shut down businesses that use things the nannies think are unhealthy. They want to impose certain behavior or conditions on us instead of letting us decide for ourselves. They tell us we can't let kids use swing sets, or jungle gyms, or climb without a safety rope and helmet, because they might get hurt, oh my goodness.

We're doing a terrible wrong trying to smooth out the world for our kids. Real kids should get hurt - it's part of a normal, vigorous childhood. I'm not talking about letting kids skateboard behind trucks, etc., but stuff that lets them get nicked up some so they develop a tad of toughness. I and all my family and friends didn't think it was out of the ordinary for our kids to get cut and scraped and bruised, even to occasionally get some broken bones or stitches.

But there is hope: The Dangerous Book For Boys is an attempt to show today's kids (and parents) that it's okay to do rough-tough stuff. Not dangerous things, just not that flabby, namby-pamby, wishy-washy pc stuff (for example, a Colorado school has banned tag, TAG for God's sake, because some kids felt "harassed": link).

This book just tells kids pretty much what the Boy Scouts used to do, like how to use an ax, how to tie knots or whittle. Kids might read stories about battles or mythical and real heroes. Vigorous, manly stuff which kids need. Even cute little girls need to get a taste so they can understand boys a little, and also so they don't act all "eeeeeeek! a fly!". Check it out.

I agree, also, Robot Chicken made a parody of Nerf by using Nerf Stairs and Nerf doors (!!!)

Okay, the Canada move is off: I just read handguns are banned there. I hadn't realized they sere serious about all that socialist stuff. Dang. Now I gotta check out the New Zealand highlands...

your in luck old jum, don't think they've done it yet, but knowing how all those former colonies are intertwined, they will sooner or later, but ya, all of this baloney about kids getting hurt is stupid, it just a bunch of panic mongers who have watch too much of those incredibly depressing new stations(example, in 1 hour, i watch about tv's falling over and killing toddlers, 50 of the most "unsafe toys" including magnets, dead people etc.) It's not the kids fault, it's just dumbass parents who don't pay attention. If the world actually payed attention to what they where supposed to
a) new like that wouldn't exist
b)people would be politically aware of who they are voting for
c) my personal favorite, liberal democrats would be extinct in less than 3 generations

Ahhh... good old army men. I'm glad other people still like them, I thought I was the only one.

They're not banned, you just need to jump through a lot more hoops to get it.

I had mentioned using one of my grandmother's garden tools as my "artillery" against army men. It was perfect. The handle was the size of a light-duty hoe (we're talking tools, not...Oh, for God's sake, will you stop it?!). The actual metal digging part was a single "prong" or tine.

Here's a hand-held model; what I'm talking about has a 4-foot handle for use with two hands:

http://www.redpigtools.com/catalog/F...view_thumb.jpg

You needed a strong but skinny single tine so it would make a good "blast hole" and throw out a nice spray of dirt, but not just knock everything down at once.

I'd have my men spaced widely enough that I didn't just hit them with the hoe or knock a bunch down at one time. Then I'd chop down fairly hard at an empty spot in the formation and let physics do the rest by making a spray of dirt and debris fly up from the place I'd hit.

In my expert army man combat opinion, the explosion you could cause was the equivalent of something between a 60mm and 81mm mortar, throwing a "blast cone" (depending on the soil type consistency) of from 2 to 5 times the height of the army men. Any men knocked over or thrown around by the blast were casualties. Of course, there were occasionally those catastrophic injuries caused by the hoe tine hitting an army man, putting a huge hole in him, or chopping him in half, cutting off his head, arm, etc. But that was just all the more real I figured, although replacements sometimes were hard to come by. Good thing my little brothers had their own army men from which I could, uh, "draft" - secretly of course.

A word on consistency of dirt. Cultivated or plowed up soil was too loose, as was a sand pile. A grass-covered lawn was no good. Gravel driveway wouldn't really work if you wanted a nice blast hole. So we wound up making our own battlefield which had little grass but wasn't hard as concrete. When we finally got that perfect ground, where the dirt would explode like a real shell, and we'd wind up with our battleground covered by realistic craters and nice foxholes for a man or two to get into, life was pretty good.

Does that look like a meathook to anyone else? =p

I don't know why i'm asking this, but im wondering, did you ever use firecrackers and what-not for that added realism? ;)

No, it had a long handle:


http://assets.gardenocity.com/produc.../Corona051.jpg


We only fantasized about taping cherry bombs (the real ones, which were powerful enough to turn your hand into a pink mist, not the pathetic little rip-offs of today) to gasoline model Stukas. We never got past how we were going to co-ordinate the lighting of the short fuse with getting the Stuka airborne and safely away from us - actually we never got to the point of even buying a gas model Stuka, but they were to be had.

I did, however, hang, shoot and immolate a GI Joe.

I woulda used a Tester paint bomb with like two minutes of fuse

"Ooooh, yeah, and I read one time about these kids made these electronic switches and stuff, and they were like, remote controlled or something. We can do that!" That was about as realistic as our big plans were. But whatever unlikely method we came up with, it always ended with a vision of a flying, fully fueled gas-model Stuka with a cherry bomb strapped to the wing root. Thew plan was to set it off as it flew. We could not imagine any more beautifully and realistically violent scenario, complete with huge fireball and smoking wreckage.

Rivaling Stuka Burst was the the plan for a hand grenade. Take a cardboard middle from a roll of toilet paper; strengthen it by wrapping it with masking tape or duct tape; fill it with gunpowder; put glue on the outside; roll it in a pan of BBs until they completely coated the outside; insert cherry bomb fuze (they were of a little higher quality than the standard firecracker); light, and prepare to call the ambulance.