Steve's Favourite Non-G.I. Joe Playsets

Steve gives a rundown of his favourite non-G.I. Joe playsets from his youth... plus one or two other surprises!
PLEASE NOTE This is a re-upload! The previous upload had some issues, we decided to pull it! Apologies for the double-up, we are especially sad to lose the 35+ comments we had! Feel free to comment again, we love responding!
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[@humblefam6462]

“Millennials, they’re called VHS tapes.” 😂

[@gijoburg]

Haha! Yep. We're dinosaurs.

[@jasoncaldwell5627]

I've seen that Starriors Cobra head mated to an Avengers Helicarrier to make an insanely cool flying Cobra battleship!

[@gijoburg]

Yes! I do recall seeing that myself. Probs the best use of that base to date.

[@derekwilliams1660]

When I was a kid,my mom bought doll house kits and my dad would put them together. I would use them as safe houses for my joes.

[@gijoburg]

Ah yes, the all-important safe house. A place for the heroes to catch their breath and have a bit of plot exposition. Those were always such great scenes. I'm glad you had a cool set for them!

[@Tom_Van_Zandt]

I remember when I was about 10 years old a friend of mine had a playset that had a gold Cobra head on it that he told me was a Cobra base, so for many many years I always assumed he was telling the truth, but I could never find any information on it or remember what it was. I think the playset in this video is the one from my memory. It would have been about 1986'ish, so the date is correct, as this playset was released in 1985. I'm almost positive that's the one. Wow...30+ years of trying to figure out what this damn thing was and I finally found it.

[@Tom_Van_Zandt]

I enjoyed using the Star Wars Death Star playset and, since I never had a Cobra HQ or base, I would often use my MotU Snake Mountain as the perfect playset for Cobra.

[@gijoburg]

Jeez. Snake Mountain. I never considered that but that is a terrific idea! Why the heck did all the kids I know only have Grayskull?!

[@lonesquiff6551]

I used Snake Mountain for Cobra as well. Until that fateful day I agreed my mom could sell my motu stuff in a garage sale not realizing I'd lose that too!

[@charleshunterii7157]

Aww man you just took me back. I thought I was the only one who used video tapes to build bases lol. You've just earned a subscriber sir..

[@gijoburg]

Stoke! Yep, VHS tapes. Very abundant building blocks those. Now? Total waste of space. My folks still have about 200 of them.

[@Bendejo301]

Aaahhh, the soundtrack to Elevator Action. One of my favorite NES games.

[@gijoburg]

Funny how a repetitive piece of music like that never seemed to bother us. It just worked.

[@humblefam6462]

“Millennials, they’re called VHS tapes.” Classic line!

[@gijoburg]

😀

[@MCDJACDC]

1988 I believe it was, I got the G1 Fortress Maximus Transformer and I remember using the styrofoam insert that he came with for an Autobot space shuttle. It was a pretty good size. Also Linking Logs made a good woodland fort. Awesome childhood memories.

[@gijoburg]

The right shape of polystyrene packaging really just set my imagination aflight. Fort Max you say? Awesome. And especially since having that piece of packaging meant you had the big guy to boot!

[@22steve5150]

cool shaped foam packaging is kinda like getting 2 toys for the price of one, especially when you combine them with elements of the GI Joe HQ set and some of the sub-sets like the watchtowers, MG posts, and alpha checkpoint.

[@indynimm]

Any time someone bought something that came packaged in styrofoam, suddenly there was a new base.

[@josephd27]

I remember building trenches in the dirt and using random things we found around the house for walls and roofs. A friend of mine had that cobra thing

[@gijoburg]

Ah cool! The improvised fortification. It's a goody!

[@bravoproductions1792]

I use bricks

[@josephd27]

Snake-eyes 06 good choice

[@bravoproductions1792]

josephd27 thank you

[@gijoburg]

Oh yeah! Me too!

[@SonicPAJ]

That opening shot was AMAZING!

[@thebluelibra5686]

Over the years, Santa did bring a Terror Drome and a MCC, but I made very good use of my wooden blocks to build several Cobra bases, and later in my childhood, I had several sets of Construx, which I used to build stand alone bases, as well battlefield pieces, a motor pool cage for the backside of the MCC, and several add-ons for the Terror Drome, including a long dock (coming off of one of the fold down side doors) for all the Cobra water craft. Made good use of old slinkies as well, they made great spans of giant barbed wire on the battlefield.

[@gijoburg]

What a great use of a slinky! I'm inspired. I'm glad you touched on augmenting toys like the TD - large as they are, they can never be large enough to be a major Cobra Base. But all you need do then is plonk it on the Couch and push the couches together, am I right?!

[@gijoburg]

A motor pool cage for the MCC? I'd be curious to see how that assembled. Very industrious lad you are!

[@thebluelibra5686]

GI Joburg I was lucky that when my parents got a new dining room table, my dad cut the legs short on the old dining room table and gave it to me as a play table...and I had free reign of the family room, as long as I cleaned up my mess after a long day of battles. ☺️

[@thebluelibra5686]

GI Joburg the motor pool cage was a necessity for the MCC. I always played with it in the open position as a permanent HQ for my Joes, but that backside seemed highly vulnerable to Cobra attack and sabotage. Luckily Construx were the perfect size to build a secure enclosure, with a large door on wheels that could be opened to move small equipment and personnel in and out of the cage. I could always add a guard shack to the cage, and/or protect its flanks with some of my Joe vehicles. Construx were my go-to building set, because I could build almost anything I wanted for Cobra or the Joes...my versions of bases and vehicles I didn't have...even a giant weaponized robot that could smash thru the Joe front lines and deliver Cobra troops deep inside the Joes defenses...hours of fun and epic battles for my friends and I...kids don't know what they're missing out on today.

[@hillbillyharper4008]

Git r done son. I never had the play sets. I had to improvise like you. I used action people vehicles and any other thing i could get my hands on

[@gijoburg]

Fisher Price toys were wonderful ways of filling in the reality. Yeah man, I firmly believe we had a better playtime BECAUSE we didn't have all the toys.

[@hillbillyharper4008]

GI Joburg your right. We had to use something called our imagination. It was a blast

[@martinwhipkey9343]

Never seen a better use for old VHS tapes! LoL! I had that Starriors Cobra Battle station too...hours of fun!! I used it with Star Wars figures back in the day too. I use to love that scorpion vehicle. Thanks for this!!

[@dalesanteford7432]

That is very impressive with the video cassettes really looks like a cool maze

[@gijoburg]

Aw man, and so easy. An office block set up in mere seconds! Perfect if you and your friends need some quick run & gun action.

[@chadkimmel8957]

Kind of related because of the 3 3/4 hight, my cousin used an old school desk they got some where for his Star Wars figures. The desk portion was our ship bridge, seat portion was our sick bay or character quarters, and the area below the seat designed for books made the perfect launch bay for a X-wing.

[@gijoburg]

Too cool! Man, it trips me out to remember how we used to view the world. All the nooks of a day-to-day piece of furniture held so much potential for our imaginative kid-brains!

[@KINGSTONEWALL1999]

I love this channel!! It brings back so many memories from my childhood. I watched a video you did with toys you played with that wasn't gi joe with your Joe's, and I was thinking that I used to use tonka vehicles, transformers, robo cop (ed 209),and these helicopters that I can't think of right now. Thanks for creating this channel

[@mattleuty5285]

I remember building huge robots out of cardboard boxes that my G.I Joe's (or Action Force as I knew them) and StarWars figures could occupy. There used to be a show that I loved called Starfleet and the characters each controlled the head,arms and legs of the Dai-X robot and this is what I often used to try and recreate in my play time. Good memories and thanks for sharing.

[@gijoburg]

Now that's a novel idea. By my Era, Power Rangers was en vogue and we should have done something similar to give Joe robot mecha... but instead we had they damn Power Ranger toys which we'd use with Transformers for zoomed-out giant robot action. But giant cardboard box stand-ins? Awesome. Huge!

[@darkphoenix3781]

I was bigger on TF than on GIJ's while a kid. I made my Transformers out of small cardboard boxes and they could transform too.

[@gijoburg]

Whaaaaat?! Now that is impressive. Are YOU an engineer?

[@darkphoenix3781]

GI Joburg I am today. When I was a kid we had little money, so I found myself making my own toys. I did have two or three Hasbro originals, but that was about it.

[@lonesquiff6551]

That's awesome

[@Th3Xp3rt]

Had a friend like that. Genius with lego, had very few GIJoes or Xformers, grew up to build drones.

[@jasonschreiner772]

Bricks, but mostly vintage Fisher-Price Little People Play Family Castle, Town, etc. Weebles Tree House.

[@michaelhackett8430]

Lots of playmobil stuff is great and there's some awesome imaginext and fisher price play sets that are totally GI Joe scale

[@ralang999]

great video, loved the brilliant intro scene! I had that playset with the cobra too, and yes I agree even though its on a smaller scale than the ARAH figures, it was a perfect base for Cobra!

[@gijoburg]

Just so iconic! What a great look. Thanks so much for commenting!

[@ryansargent661]

I had a dirt pile in my yard that was the mountainous terrain I needed for adventures. I dug all sorts of caves and trenches in it. Indoors I would use paper cups to build walls for my bases and then knock them over to represent battle damage. Sometimes a random character would be hit by “debris “ in the mayhem. All the fun was had by me .

[@gijoburg]

Sweet man. And people applauded destructible environments when they appeared in videogames. Our playtime is where they were pioneered!

[@jaxom]

vhs tapes were my go-to building blocks for tructures. the fact that they can be giant dominoes, added so much demolition play to my builds. also, i ued a gutted TV as a hangar. and a gutter stereo as a bunker

[@gijoburg]

Aw that's so great. One man's trash is another man's... bunker. I think I often fantasized about plastic wrecks like old hi-fi's and thought "Can I make a Rolling Thunder out of this?" I could not. Because I am a rubbish customizer, not a rubbish customizer.

[@jaxom]

oh speaking of vehicles, i spent years using a car shaped tape rewinder as a supercar for my figures.

[@glennrobbins2372]

Great video Steve. My son used Lincoln Logs and Lego knockoff playsets that had a medieval theme and dragons with gems.(mind you this was 02/03). A cool vehicle playset was an ambulance that came with scaled accessories perfect for the Joes. During his time there was the Bionicles from Lego which he had many. They served as aliens that would attack the Joe and Cobra army. As a kid, with the 12" Army and later Adventure team Joes I used several things as play sets including our pool table as either a bunker, boat, aircraft or spacecraft depending on the adventure.

[@gijoburg]

Thanks Glenn! Lincoln Logs ey? Popular choice for building material, it seems! Too bad they never made it as far as us. Lego definitely did play a role; I would make computers by sticking a printed QWERTY keyboard on a angled brick and a screen printout on a pair of stacked four-stud rectangular bricks, mount that on a pillar and make computer consoles that way! And I imagine 12” Joes made a whole new vista of real world props seem scale accurate. What a time.

[@grantwelsh7594]

We eventually had the MCC, Terrordrome and Defiant Complex. Never had the original HQ or the Flagg. I made the HQ from cereal boxes and cardboard different times along the way. I want to tell 8 year old me about the VHS trick you\e shown here, very clever! Our most often used "playset" was nature. We had snow in the winter and dirt in the summer. I didn't ever have a pool but wow that Flagg would look amazing floating on the water all set up!

[@gijoburg]

Wow wow wow! Who needs VHS tapes with those monsters?! And while I envy you cats for having snowy winters, having experienced snow as an adult I wonder if I'd be tenacious enough as a child to stay out long enough to convincingly play. Cold hurts exposed fingers! And playing with Joes through gloves ain't practical. And as I say, it's only a matter of time before the Flagg sets sail...

[@slurmz123]

Every one of your videos make me smile. I love it

[@gijoburg]

Awwwww! I’m so happy to hear that! For real.

[@jeffphillips1798]

Hey I think one of those vhs tapes is my copy of the 4th season of Dynasty. I subbed to keep an eye on that tape. Seriously though you guys are great. Your POC VAMP review is my favorite GI Joe Review of all time. I've watched it and many other reviews multiple times. Nobody does it better. Keep up the good work!

[@gijoburg]

Aw Jeff!!! Thanks dude. We're not a polished channel by any stretch but if our style is to your liking, I pleased as punch! Thanks for commenting! It means so much. For reals.

[@Robocline]

Oh yeah. The playmospace station. That’s the best toy I ever had for my HQ. I also used to make blanket mountains and arrange my figures in entrenched positions and let them battle it out. For a long time I had a very thin plastic castle that I think was designed for the little solid mold army men. I had to create a game to see who got shot in our battles with my friends. Just a simple high roll dice game solved a lot of fights before they got out of hand. Outside tree roots made great cover and pine straw foxholes were favorites of mine. Imagination is a gift poor kids get that rich kids never understood.

[@gijoburg]

I’m glad you found this vid! We absolutely used dice and measuring tape too! But I think we favoured co-op play over deathmatch before long. And yep, I do recall blue blankets, green blankets and yellow blankets being used to create Cobra Island. And white sheets for a frozen tundra!

[@superermac55]

Man you just brought back so many memories when you mentioned VHS tapes. As a kid i used them to makes mazes, stairways and race tracks for action figues and hot wheels.

[@zobladar]

Ours was bars of soap, My Dad was a Doctor and hospital administrator, he used to keep them in our home for a while before shifting them to the hostpital.

[@gijoburg]

Oh wow! Must have been a lot of soap. Nifty size that!

[@zobladar]

We had a blast. But unfortunately, we lived in North eastern India (hardly accessibly those days with no airports, and the roads were treacherous), and GI joes were distributed by "funskool India" in the nineties...we never had all the figures you guys had....just the ones funskool feels like releasing hehehehe, would've blown our minds if we had half the figures and vehicles/playsets i saw in ur vid...anyways, awesome vid.

[@timsgta]

Rich kid lol

[@timsgta]

Just move like all the other doctors that came to NA from India...

[@NodDisciple1]

03:31 Beautiful. Reminds me so much of how fx was done back in the 80s. Miniatures made out of model kits and storage parts. You could put the Terrordome on top of it or in it to give it some bulk. Especially if you "open" it up and need a backside to cover it. You could even go bigger by adding the old Cobra Bunker, Surveillance Post, Firing Range and sandbags, and the man-portable battle packs that unpacked into weapons stations on it. 07:00 The ladder...yeah. But the stairs are impressive. Just needs a coat of paint and maybe something to fill in the gaps on the cardboard.

[@gijoburg]

Man, I had forgotten this little exposé on my setbuilding. I must say, these were more suggestions of what they needed to be as opposed to photo-real diorama pieces. All in the service of action! If I had smaller playsets, sure, I’d add them into the setup. If not, no biggie. And the unpainted stairs never bothered me!

[@NodDisciple1]

@@gijoburg Yes, I get that. It was just a stop-gap while playing. I did the same stuff as a kid. I was just giving kudos on the better looking stuff.

[@Starbug360]

I generally used my somewhat battered Millennium Falcon as a mobile base, but I had such a mismatch of GI Joe, Action Force (being British) and Star Wars that it all got mashed together

[@gijoburg]

I like that. A Falcon didn't have to be a space ship. It's a great environment for a battlefield HQ! I'm sure I would have done the same if I had one as a kid!

[@Starbug360]

GI Joburg my Falcon was missing so many bits that I doubt she was spaceworthy anymore. Ended up getting a second one with broken landing gear to use for parts. But that never stopped me from sending a motorcycle riding Snake-Eyes down the ramp to fight Cobra allied Storm Troopers

[@3Storms]

The Starriors battle station is the perfect Cobra outpost. Since it was made by Tomy which is now owned by Takara, and Hasbro's been friends with Takara for a long time, I am surprised no one at Hasbro thought of reissuing it for GI Joe. The scaling was fine when you use the upper deck as a storage shelf for Cobra gear, and see it as a single-story outpost. Also Star Wars playsets like Ewok treehouse work as a hidden place in the swamp for the Dreadnoks.

[@gijoburg]

I always mourned that the front ramp was just ever so slightly too low for the figures, but apart from that, such a cool, detailed chamber. A real gem for Cobra Command!

[@lonesquiff6551]

Oh good I'm not the only one who preferred space adventures! I used a Playmobil craft often. I think it was some sort of rover but with the wheels off it made for an excellent shuttle/hovercraft with seats that held Joes!. I remember building elaborate undersea Cobra bases (mostly to incorporate my Cobra Hammerhead vehicle which would guard it) that were a hodge podge of pieces from various toy lines. The Castle Grayskull elevator became a computer station. The base plate from M.A.S.K. Boulder Hill became a lab. Those fake rocks from the aquarium became cover outside the base. Construx were often used as hallways. I even remember using a base plate from my younger sister's Barbie Hawaiian hut as a dojo/training area. The ones I was really proud of I would use graph paper and map it all out so I could build it again. There was just something about doing stuff like that that was exciting. I feel toy lines started to embrace it but now shy away from these days. I'd no idea vhs tapes were scaled so well as walls! Probably for the best lol

[@gijoburg]

What a great time to have so many resources at our disposal. And I like the mapping idea! Don’t suppose those still exist?!

[@lonesquiff6551]

I remember coming across one a few years back. I think I have it tucked away with the file card for my personalized Joe mail-in figure. Not sure where either of those are since our last move.

[@dshafterh3897]

You and the guy at the flea market are the only people who still have that many VHS cassettes

[@gijoburg]

How sad is that? I always feel bad for those dudes.

[@toddsperling2047]

The Star Wars Death Star made a very good Cobra Base. That gun really made the Joe's nervous....

[@gijoburg]

Had to be a baddie base. Nice!

[@Alverant]

Great video! I remember Elevator Action too!

[@MrSophistication]

Not particularly a G.i. Joe fan or collector but your passion and story telling talent is entertaining and made me subscribe. Cheers!

[@gijoburg]

Thanks bro! Welcome to Joburg! Maybe we can convert you to craving these awesome toys some more...

[@22steve5150]

I used to buy old broken GI Joe vehicles (for scenery and background of destroyed vehicles) and compatable military themed toys from garage sales, and i extensively used MEGA FORCE and micro machine military vehicles and zbots (for armies of little cobra controlled drones), a couple of exo-squad mechs (Joe figures were just a tiny bit too big to fit inside them though), and a lot of things like those decorative yard edging bricks and small wood panel and other things like diorama sandbags and stuff you can buy at a hobby shop (bought myself since I had a part time job from the age of 6 onwards)......and of course anything I could build with my erector set and with legos.

[@gijoburg]

Z-Bots! Nice integration! I never thought to use them with Joes. And your dios sound amazing. I've gotta admit to being a lazy dio builder; wanted to just build something quick that fulfilled a specific purpose. I would always have a friend or two waiting on me to finish the setup so we could play! Oh the pressure...

[@TheLordUrban]

Wow, I thought I was the only one who used vhs tapes to build play environments. I used bookshelves for multi level bases and skyscrapers.

[@gijoburg]

Haha! A kindred spirit! We had such an abundance of them by the 90's it made the most sense. But boy did my mother give me hell for "messing up the order" of how she categorized them!

[@SICMetal74]

I also had the elevator from my old Kenner Death Star play set. Also the GI Joe Tactical Battle Platform.

[@ralphsdad1693]

My Death Star playset was my Cobra base. It had control stations for Televipers, gunner stations, and my Moccasin fit in the area that the trash compactor normally would. Nine Death Stars make a niceTerrordrome.

[@gijoburg]

Don't tell me you had another 8 Deathstars? Yikes, now that is something I want to trawl the internet for pictures!

[@dannyramirez8428]

Captain Power. Castle Grey Skull. Fisher Price Action Adventure. I remember there was a camper van. A dirt bike. And a parachute. Any toy motorcycle that my Joes would fit in I'd get. I too had that cobra thing. As a playset as a kid. Your videos are epic. Thanks again for memories.

[@gijoburg]

Thanks for commenting Danny! I longed for the Power Jet XT-7 as a kid after I saw it advertised in comics. Finally got one as an adult. And I must say Maverick of the Battle Force 2000 looks pretty good flying it. Fisher Price was also an early fave for me too. I had no Joe Jeeps or planes!

[@wrp4955]

Great video. It's all about imagination. I grew up on a farm, so I used to build playsets from just digging up ground and using broken trees to make forts. Inside I also had the entire basement as my playroom. Using old 2 liters and taking styrofoam cups as the engine, and making it a roket. I just let my imagination take over.

[@gijoburg]

Wild-child, farmboy! Sounds like a childhood well spent. Thanks for commenting!

[@stephenmiller4091]

VHS tapes were the best building blocks for joes or transformer/BeastWars. We used an old oval shaped universal remote as a stasis pod for our BeastWars.

[@gijoburg]

Sweet! So cool for the show to inspire your play pattern. The hunt for the stasis pods… gives the whole thing some urgency!

[@stephenmiller4091]

@@gijoburg Oh. I should have mentioned i was referring to when about 10. Over 20 years ago now.

[@gijoburg]

@@stephenmiller4091 don’t you worry, I wasn’t assuming otherwise! Though the new Kingdom TFs aren’t too shabby. I’d still take the originals mind you.

[@tattoodfreeek]

Awesome opening. I used to do the same sort of thing, and used to use music cassette tapes too

[@gijoburg]

Great minds! Thanks Aaron.

[@ooplasticjunkiesoo8936]

Lol! I use to build forts out of vhs tapes when I was a wee lad!! Epic

[@gijoburg]

Nice! Great minds...

[@robertlogan5354]

The starriors cobra thing was great. A friend of mine had it (and most everything gi joe), we used it as a mobile c&c, usually commanded by major bludd. Never seen those other sets before, but they are really cool. The cockpit is neat in the sense of giving you a small set to build limitless grand adventures from.

[@gijoburg]

Ha! I suppose Bludd was the only Cobra that matched the colour scheme! And yes, I think I mentioned it in the vid but the iconic cockpit shot of the Millennium Falcon totally elevated that piece to being the center of any sci-fi toy adventure.

[@robertlogan5354]

@@gijoburg before mindbender came along, we treated coco as the head, destro as the mad scientist, and baroness as head of intelligence. Bludd was the military commander. My friend's dad was an avid military historian (he ran a small museum), and while he would not always play with us, he would kind of guide our play, making sure we used things like battlefield communications, paid attention to character specialties, etc. He would also set missions for us. About the only times he played was when we were doing naval battles. My buddy was spoiled when it came to gi joe, he had two or three of some things, including the devilfish, manta, and water mocassin, so our sea battles got pretty exciting

[@jksiege110]

Had the cobra like playset. Also made alot of bases out of washer, dryer, and rifrgerator boxes🎓

[@gijoburg]

Man oh man. I wished my imagination still worked like that. Yo Joe!

[@Th3Xp3rt]

The Starriors base was awesome. The Fortress of Fangs from Dungeons and Dragons was by far the best secret lair of Serpentor, especially if you stuck some vehicles out front. It had a flying-escape-monster throne!

[@gijoburg]

Dang! Missed that one. I shall look it up!

[@Th3Xp3rt]

@@gijoburg Pretty marvelous, eh? SPIKE WALL OF DEATH!

[@goldeaglekroll1596]

Cardboard furniture bumper pads what great for fort building. Outside of the standard Lincoln log, bricks, and scrap materials I can get my hands on.

[@badongbadong5571]

I used Bamboo to make ladders. Bamboo is very abundant in my backyard.

[@gijoburg]

Nice! Strong and flexible!

[@George-lm8md]

I had all 3 of those playsets too...my playmobil saucer was missing the top and all the windows but I loved it very much anyways.

[@thunderrobots1980s]

thanks for the idea about the stairs , I've been looking for a way to make stairs for the ghostbusters fire house , that space station could pass for the enterprise bridge

[@gijoburg]

You’re welcome! And I must be honest, I was thinking more about the Millenium Falcon when playing with that playset!

[@Transfixed]

Great stuff. I used cardboard boxes for everything from garrisoned buildings to my Defiant stand-in 🤩 Playmobil always had awesome civilian vehicles but frustratingly just out of scale.

[@gijoburg]

Cardboard was the shit! Foldable and cut-able. Tho I must admit, not my first choice for spacecraft. I’d be curious to see your Defiant stand-in!

[@roberth.9664]

I only started getting into Joes a few years back so I have know crazy child hood stories to tell about them other then that I had one Built To Rule set of a cobra boat, but I my sister and I used to use Jenga to build homes for your different toys and when my sister got older and stop play with toy I would use her old Barbie doll house with 2007 movie Transformers. Because my rule when playing with toys has always been be silly with the serious franchises and be super serious with the silly franchises.

[@gijoburg]

Sounds sensible! As long as you have a good time! Sisters are great. You can troll them without ruining your chances with the opposite sex! Haha.

[@argusprimus]

oh my gosh, i thought i was the only kid that used tapes and Styrofoam for G.I. Joe bases. hahaha that is awesome. I had that playmobil spaceship too lol

[@franciscoriveroCobraCommander]

Amazing video

[@christopherbrown1371]

ayy man i just want to say i really appreaciate you leaning into your imagination. it truly inspires me. ive been trying to unlock my inner kid again for years now lol

[@gijoburg]

Thanks Chris. If nothing else it’s a good refuge from reality. Now I just need my son to grow a touch more and I’ll have my own playmate… assuming he doesn’t snub me for a damn tablet!

[@ryanedwards7487]

My favorite playset in this video: The one you made at the start.... that was fantastic!

[@gijoburg]

Ta! Yep, function over form; instantly modular and custom fit to whatever passage/tabletop/nook you found yourself in. Instant maze!

[@ryanedwards7487]

@@gijoburg Or you could be like me and use M80s to blow a trench for warfare in your yard and use Lincoln Logs and have a front line firebase...and then get grounded for the trench in the yard. Hahah!

[@gijoburg]

Whew. I started a trench in the yard once. Totally thought I’d be able to convince my dad I was excavating him a lap pool.

[@MakinHicks]

Yes. I totally used VHS and cassette tapes to build ruins and forts for my joes. Serpentor often had a throne made from cassette tapes.

[@TerryTurner]

Built mines out of Legos, lots of Legos. #YoJoe 👍😎

[@gijoburg]

I would often attempt it, and then run out of pieces for the kind of scale I wanted to build at. So I resorted to just making dio pieces with Lego. A lot of computer consoles and gizmos...

[@gijoburg]

#YoJoe

[@grantwelsh7594]

I tried to build vehicles from LEGO with varied success. 80's LEGO was pretty basic.

[@Th3Xp3rt]

I got lego baseplates and put them in place of the old millenium Falcon's interior cardboard. I then added a bunch of various colored pieces and some levers and such. I tiled the floor, put an Emperor style black lego chair in there. The whole thing went tits up when I dremel cut the ceiling to pieces intending to add lego joints with epoxy to make the inaccessible parts accessible, and also tiled them with legos. I just couldn't get the hacked up ceiling back in order.

[@lazarus30001]

I had the Starriors playset when I was a child, it was a blast!

[@gijoburg]

Yeah man. I’ve got so many memories tied up with that thing.

[@CabanaBoss]

My brother and I had the Starriors base (a clearance item missing the claw arm I recall), I had the Playmobil space station and that astro station! Never used the playmobil station with Joes though. Lost the astro station's stasis pod whatever at some point. Only one battered broken Microman survived. Micronauts was a strange line. The best non-Joe playset of all time was the 80's Playmobil castle, since it would rebuilt so many ways. Modern playmobil castles aren't like that anymore or not as much. A shame.

[@gijoburg]

Wow! I can barely recall the Playmobil castle from a single catalogue image! I think a little bit of Googling is in order. Thanks for the info!

[@jasonstanley3970]

elevator Action...was elevator reference:)

[@gijoburg]

Nice! What a great game! What an inspiration for similar sneak and shoot GI Joe adventures. I used to use a bookcase as a vertical environment and remove books to make up doorways.

[@victoriansword]

I love the styrofoam playset pieces. I'll have to show this to my son. When I was a kid we would use cardboard boxes, the spaces underneath sofas, and when we played outside we would use sticks, bark, grass, leaves, and stones to create camps. The garden made for a good jungle. We would use the hose to make quicksand in the mud and swamps and marshes in the grass.

[@gijoburg]

Excellent! What a great parent. GI Joburg salutes you!

[@victoriansword]

Aw, thanks! We are currently making camps with green and black plastic flower containers from the garden center. I have cut doors and windows into them, and depending on the size they can be used to house small vehicles, figures, or act as guard posts with slits for rifles.

[@22steve5150]

That's awesome. If you have them, you could try making building framework out of erector set or k'nex pieces, and use plastic bag twist ties or cut down pipe cleaner wires or something like that to hold cardboard or thin posterboard to the frames to make for walls and platforms. Best part is you can cut windows and doorways out and of course paint or color the cardboard/posterboard however you like and even draw on details.

[@gazz_N7]

Legos, Tupperware, bricks, wood, dirt, practically anything we could find. Built some glorious Joe bases. Love the video!

[@gijoburg]

What a charmed childhood we had? I wonder if there was an era of kids in existence that had it as good as us?! Thanks for commenting! (Again?)

[@gazz_N7]

GI Joburg I don't think any kids had as good as us. We had cool toys, wild imaginations, and video games that weren't half as good as today. Hours playing Joe's was a normal activity for back then. Yes, I've commented a few times now. I enjoy your content. Thanks 😁

[@msanseverino78]

I used to use packing peanuts and glue to make sand bag forts For joes to have has cover. I used to tip my mom's foot stool over and use it as a ring for them to have fights in. I use the kitchen table and the whole house till dad came home. We had a lot of fun.

[@gijoburg]

Funny, foot stools always were tipped onto their sides for me and used as space shuttle interiors. I liked how they started wide for cargo and tapered into a command section. But a ring?! Genius. And I like the sandbag idea too. At least you're not likely to have a shortage. Cos there's nothing sadder than too few sandbags for your fort. And they must have been spectacularly destroyable!

[@jonathanwilson8161]

Fisher Price Space Station. Totally out of scale, but it had a rotating laser turret on the top and you could get the Joes to observe out the clear windows in front so long as they were kneeling.

[@gijoburg]

Was that an Adventure People toy? I need to do my research on this, it sounds awesome!

[@jonathanwilson8161]

@@gijoburg Li'l Playmates actually.

[@chadkimmel8957]

I used the styrofoam pieces from my NES box. I remember using a red sharpie to ad details.

[@gijoburg]

Aw excellent man. Red, you say? Was it a horror scene? Haha!

[@tklkw]

The 2 toys I always wanted, would still buy if I found them really cheap, mellineium falcon and the at-at...

[@BayushiGemma]

I too used Styrofoam pieces for whatever they could resemble mostly bases, egg cartons cutting a windshield for vehicles, and home made wrestling rings. It sucks that you only got hand me downs cause you missed so much but your love for the Joes is so transparent still. I had always wanted that Starriors base for use as a Cobra one but never got it, one of my greatest misses in the 80s. I enjoy watching your love for the Joes and will continue watching your videos! How old are you cause you look too young to be a child of the 80s?

[@gijoburg]

Born in '84, so I'm not that young! And there were a few factors - I had older siblings that got me hooked on Star Wars and He-Man; we also had a bit of a product lag in South Africa, so the first series of Joes I encountered in 1990 was the 1986 guys in the US series, with a few earlier big sellers thrown in for good measure like Shipwreck and Storm Shadow and '85 Snake Eyes (tho annoyingly I never saw HIM!) And thanks to the miracle of the internet I've been able to keep collecting. So all those classic toys are now mine! Joe never went away, there was a smooth transition from them drying up as retail and ebay becoming a thing.

[@BayushiGemma]

Your young to me, I was born in 1972 so I'm part of the older fan base.

[@geekydaddy5183]

I used polystyrafoam as bases as well. Easy for battle damage as well!

[@gijoburg]

Whew! And messy. Instant snowy environment!

[@skabcat242]

I used to do the same thing with vhs tapes too.

[@gijoburg]

Nice! So important for pop-in/pop-out gun fighting to have enough corridors and doorways!

[@BurlySauce]

Obviously the greatest non toy playset was your imagination! I have the 83 GI Joe HQ and if you position it in front of a wall, BOOM it is right in front of a mountain! Now those slithering snakes wont be able to have a sneak attack right behind the joes. Want a cobra playset? A table or a couch will do! In the basement the couch and a table in between there was a perfect place for the joes to carry supplies through. But oh no! Cobra was expecting the joes to come through and positioned themselves on top of the mountains! Hours of fun.

[@cyberfrank-bx2nv]

woah, these tapes reminds me bases I did with books, then, used the mobat to make the walls collapse, and bring the whole structure down. the books were about as thick as those tapes. I built vertically though, I never thought of doing mazes like you, the poses were fab! well done! I liked mine totally sealed, with roofs for helicopters. mostly 'rescue prisoners missions'. I did nt have much other toys mixed with my Joes. I asked and later on purchased GI Joes only, to make sure to have all the collection, and a decent Cobra army. I would have liked to have 'adventure people', A team, dukes of Hazard, ect, figs and vehicles. in retrospective, the apex of my skills were when I used cardboard, and cut some part trees molds. clear plastic packages for windows ect, making both furniture, computer consoles, with color markers, and fill whole stove or fridge boxes. including armories, prison, beds, cafeteria, control room... if I still had my collection, and gone on, I d have pretty cool dioramas to take pictures of. of what you showed, only the cobra would be interesting, the playmo s seat problem is too much for me. the micronaut set would be good for parts, I d repaint, and use as props on a cardboard box. it would of course, be sacrilege for collection s sake, and would prefer to sell. the micro fig, if complete, would make an interesting base computer android, like Data. I like your script - mission concept, while I can t send money for the moment, I totally support you! I love your movies, with a few more tricks, improvements, a solid script, the future will be rockin! I can can offer these few ideas as contribution; building a prop, in the likes of 'the mass device' with cut - painted plastic bottles - cardboard. starting with a tactical mission briefing, and state status mission with objectives a la mission impossible. disclose enemy opposition using the dossiers, including estimation of expected vehicles involved. choose the team of interception for the mission, and roles according to their skills. a puppeteer cross with fishing cable, and pull vehicles with strings would be a great improvement to suspend disbelief, a few cardboard - painted explosions like a comic would be a nice addition and add color. cardboard city facades are also reusable, think of thunderbirds... and would not go to waste. any convincing, and scaled other brand civilians are quite welcome to add diversity and realism of the story. thunderbirds , look, and feel would be where I d aim in my movie if I d done this, seeing human interaction can be acceptable, because animation is too long to produce. but it would be kept to a minimum. there are plenty of tricks to find just by looking for it on the net. finally, your contribution to the fans s community is amazing, and shows real promise. MISSION; suspension of disbelief. OBJECTIVE; to push the boundaries of action figures movies. good luck guys!!!

[@gijoburg]

Aw thank you so much for your detailed and well written comment! Wow. Taking the time to write such a note is so appreciated so much. Really. It's the reason we do this! But I'm pretty confident the live, hands in the shot-style puppetry will be our ongoing style. For good or ill, we're not quite proficient enough to do it any other way! But I do like the buildup to the mission approach you mentioned. It also propels story without time consuming action sequences and location changes. BUUUUT instead of cardboard cityscapes, I'll just take my toys downtown! What's the worst that could happen, right?! Ha ha ha.

[@22steve5150]

my first thought was it looked like a larger version of one of my old dungeons and dragons dungeon maps.

[@gijoburg]

It used to be a way for me to slow the action down for my friends and I. To sweep and clear and fight our way through the floor of a building was an important action set piece. And you could just reshuffle the config and it was a new floor!

[@cyberfrank-bx2nv]

I can t wait to see it!

[@noserex9695]

Don't worry, I caught that Elevator Action reference

[@gijoburg]

NICE! Rad game. Wanna play it right now.

[@jonathanmarois9009]

Anything made of cardboard... ANYTHING!

[@dalesanteford7432]

I remember being in my grandfather's house Playland pool table I use it as a GI Joe headquarters cobra and for my army men toys

[@gijoburg]

Excellent! I hope you didn't lose your prisoners down the pockets!

[@parahthemad]

Polistirene and cardboard were my battlegrounds as well!

[@gijoburg]

Great minds...

[@dalesanteford7432]

the bionic six van with shockwave driving that would be perfect for you video

[@gijoburg]

That was a scenario I played out often. With Low Light v2 in the passenger seat and Mainframe and Sci Fi v2 in the back.

[@elel.]

See madelman's playsets, my friend. You gonna love them!

[@PauloOliveira-ti2co]

Good!!!!!

[@bccoulombe]

So much fun. I would make buildings out of cardboard boxes. Cutting windows and doors out with a box cutter, promising my parents I wouldn't cut myself with it. Scotch tape, magic markers, string and packaging materials to augment my play set. ROBOTECH vehicles worked well with Joes. Playmobile is fantastic. I made a wooden castle for my oldest son years ago. I Would love to share some pics of it.

[@phillipdry3696]

I would use brown boxes as star cruisers

[@pedroalmeida3474]

I made rafts with wood fruit crates, transformers with cloths pegs, painted styrofoam with buttons and screens, mines with pillows, camouflage nets that my grandma knitted for me. I dreamt of having a pool to use the rafts...

[@ivoryscratch6000]

I used to use old empty computer cases for my Joes and Transformers

[@gijoburg]

Very nice! My kinda toy guy: innovative.

[@ivoryscratch6000]

well, actually I'm a girl, realized that in high school, but thanks!

[@gijoburg]

I see! Put my foot in my mouth again! 🤦🏻‍♂️

[@NodDisciple1]

You ever experimented with Lincoln Logs? Yes, I know they are predominantly for the Old West setting, but if you remove some of the retro signs, they can easily be converted into improvised backwoods shelters for the various sides of G.I. Joe. Or just simply modern log cabins since some people are into living in those sort of houses.

[@gijoburg]

So this is a product I have no recollection of; but it has been mentioned a handful of times. I guess it wasn’t available here when I was growing up. But I’m sure they’d make for perfect cabins!

[@NodDisciple1]

@@gijoburg Oddly enough, it reminds me of accounts from the early Yugoslavia collapse, where one faction of rebels was using a network of connected logs (log cabin style construction) to set up barrier in roadways. Of course, the other factions mocked it. But as we know now, the laughter turned to tears soon afterwards.

[@jesusfrancisco1287]

LMAO, I would do the exact same thing to make forts, I would use vhs tapes for walls and casette tape cases as the doors. They were lighter and could be blown open with any spring fired weapon, memories...

[@gijoburg]

Yeah! I seem to remember using audio tapes too; tho they would have been superb doors. I wished I had done that. Instead I just used them in the same way as the VHS cassettes! Which was pretty tedious...

[@natas8256]

when gi joe commandeered any of my non-joe toy vehicles the original drivers mysteriously disappeared never to be seen again!

[@gijoburg]

Yeesh. Made the drivers “disappear”?! Merciless!

[@skunk7560]

Actually just a few days ago I made a 6 foot uss flagg out of cardboard

[@gijoburg]

Truly in the spirit of this vid! Well done. And I’m sure it’s just as fun as the insanely expensive official one. 😁

[@robertoarias1629]

We used to build forts and space ships with blankets best times ever

[@gijoburg]

Malleable, morphing, constantly evolving ships? Sounds like some super advanced alien tech! Awesome.

[@corneliussmithgijoe702]

All i had was the G.I.JOE JEEP & The COBRA HISS and i always took my battles out side in the allies of the Ghetto , rain, sleet, or snow . i used liquor bottles, beer cans, red bricks and dope needles for cover and i saved my 4th of july bottle rockets for a big bang. So today i have No G.I.JOES to play with because back then i really played the GAME OF DEATH with them toys........man those were the good-ole days😅

[@gijoburg]

AWESOME comment. GI Joburg approves of playing out-of-doors. You got ALL the mileage out of your toys. Did you start re-collecting as an adult?

[@ThePolishBader]

Amazing video my man Something I tried to do but never finished and pretty soon I'll give it another go in taking some of those like cupcake or pastry boxes like Little Debbie brand and things like that and pretty much in case it in duct tape to use some sort of landing craft or transport boat or even one of those modular military Bridges and recently I rediscovered this channel that makes these all these military vehicles out of cardboard sure they're meant for those little green and tan army men and similar sized figures but I like them and maybe I'll try experiment using larger pieces of cardboard and if not I like army men anyway and he's even made at-at and TIE fighter from Star Wars so that's cool and when it comes to other action figure lines I like using for GI Joes sure I wasn't thinking about it when watching this but luckily another commenter remind me that I wanted to try to use Lincoln Logs with my Joe's another thing that I don't have but I do think would work great with GI Joe is the Lanard Jurassic Clash Dino bunker I believe it's called it's a little hard to find but I do think it would look really good with GI Joe time reminds me of some sort of DIY salvaged Outpost kind of thing or even a old beaten up checkpoint also today I'm going to my local comic shop to pick up a complete cobra night Raven so really excited for that anyway great video and hope you and your folks are doing swell.

[@ericemme747]

Barbarella on VHS? Top Notch!

[@gijoburg]

Retro bewbs. What a whacky film that is.

[@dalesanteford7432]

With GI Joe imagination with the 90s in the 80s I know I'm just a fan watching them on KZbin but they like my suggestions as well please promote these guys and Michael Mercy I enjoy that show too I'm talking about GI Joe

[@gijoburg]

Mike is great! Really nicely done vids by a really nice guy! We've collaborated a handful of times and we should do so again.

[@thomasdodson7375]

Wood and nails did my joes and star wars figs wonder

[@gijoburg]

Haha! Impressive. I had no idea how to work a hammer until I was about 16! Lame!

[@dalesanteford7432]

Always use alien predator with Marvel superheroes and DC heroes but we could add a GI Joe fighting alien predator that would be cool the show that you guys would do a predator hunting down after the g i Joe's and cobra

[@gijoburg]

Too cool. I think all of us imprinted Joe characters onto Dutch's team from Predator... or was it GI Joe that they were copying in the first place?!

[@shockwave8948]

My uss flagg was 2 and 1 haf cenderblocks

[@gijoburg]

Awesome. Now that’s GI Joe Tough!