Strangely alluring and more than a little creepy, I give you the French GI Joe masks.įirst up is Flint, and he’s pretty much instantly recognizable. Produced in 1987, the masks were made by a company called Cesar. As often happens with collectibles, the rest of the world received its own exclusive product.

GI Joe has had its share of costumes since the 1960s, and apparently this bit of merchandise also made its way overseas. Costumes of decades past are also a great window into the pop culture hits (and misses) of the past. Often, product was pushed out without much thought for accuracy. They hark back to a simpler time of licensed merchandise, when character portrayals weren’t scrutinized by marketing departments as they likely are now. I find the old vacu-formed Halloween masks of the 60s-80s fascinating. Either way, they’re a crazy and fun subject to cover. It’s too bad I hadn’t seen these a week before, as they would have been perfect for Halloween week. Once I got a look at them, I knew they would be gold. Inside was the strangest collection of 80s GI Joe merchandise I’ve seen: four costume masks.

At yesterday’s Assembly Required, I was talking to Steve, one of the Code Name Iowa organizers, about how the blog has been branching out into covering GI Joe merchandising, when he excused himself for a second and returned with a large figure case.

Tor johnson haloween mask