G.I. Joe Classified Series

Damien said:
He was a Walmart Exclusive and, for whatever reason, didn't seem to show up anywhere. I'd love to own one myself, but Walmarts in this part of Canada straight up barely carry Joe at all, barely carry any Walmart exclusives of any kind, and therefore never got a single Range Viper as far as I'm aware.
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He was on the CA website. I didn't want one, but a friend's order came through.
 
I think I just hammered the Walmart site back in the day to get the Rangeys. I know I had multiple preorders and like half were canceled, but the other half did go through.

Nothing is as crazy as Cobra Island, though. I remember sitting in the bathroom at like 5 in the morning, constantly pounding the “add to cart” button on target for like over an hour at a time to try to get pickups for Cobra Troopers. I do not know how or why that worked at the time, but it totally did, eventually. Those were some STRANGE times. I remember coming home after a VERY early line-up outside target to get a Viper one January morning in 2021, and my wife had the TV on and some very crazy shit was going on in Washington DC. Totally surreal to watch the insurrection while sleep-deprived from getting up at 4:30 am to wait for the chance to buy a tiny terrorist.
 
Man, fuck Cobra Island.

Firefly in particular, I was there standing out in the cold on New Year's Day at 5:30am, in line for them to open at 6 to then hand us new release figures at the door.

I do NOT miss that.
 
Ohh one time I was waiting for a Firefly, they came to the door with the case, opened it, and inside were a bunch of Beyblade things. The case had been mislabeled. Shit almost got REAL with some of those guys standing around for hours and VERY pissed.
I also remember standing in the electronics section for over two hours while we waited, with numbered tickets, while some poor stock person was in the back trying to find the case with Baroness and the Coil in it. We didn’t even know how many there were or how many of us would get one. Just absolutely fucking nuts, especially since it was the height of the pandemic and I was dressed like a plague doctor.
 
I lucked out on a Baroness, Beachhead, and Cobra Trooper just by going to random stores at random times in the afternoons. I don't remember how I got a Viper. Someone from message boards or Facebook helped me with a Major Bludd (I don't remember who, and I feel bad, cuz he was cool).
 
Bludd was my “pay it forward” figure: there was some weird small window of time when he was easy for me to order for shipping (and by “small”, I mean like five minutes I happened to be online between clients one afternoon), so I grabbed several to spread out amongst local collectors, a couple folks got them gratis as holiday presents just ‘cuz.

Beach-Head I remember ordering for pickup while sitting in my car after a workout on a random afternoon, and I was able to physically go grab him before I even went home, he was the ONLY easy one. I say “only” because I found “Heavy Duty” Roadblock on the shelf but then some weird Target “associate manager” followed me through the store trying to get me to give it to him, like actually physically threatened me. I bought the figure at self checkout, put it in my car, then went back in and found the actual manager and told her what went down. She was like “ohhhh uh yeah that’s not good we’ll go try to find him”. That was a very weird day.
 
I had pretty good luck with Cobra Island, but really had to work at it. Used popfinder and some of those kind of apps that could tell you the store’s inventory and was strategically going to the ones that showed in stock.

I think my greatest moment was hitting a store about 20 minutes from me, outside my usual hunting zone, just before they closed and were bringing out the stocking carts. I turned down an aisle and saw on the cart 4 cobra troopers, two on each side, sandwiching a lone Beachhead. I swear I saw them glowing there haha. I picked up that whole beachhead sandwich and b-lined it to the self check out. Felt like I got away with something illegal with that move, what a rush :LOL:

It was craziness for sure. Hasbro severely underestimated the demand for the line and idiotically put some figures in that never should have been exclusives. The Roadblock variant was a good choice but main versions of Cobra Troopers, Beach Head, Vipers, Baroness, etc was a bad move. We still haven’t got some of those in a normal wave. Bludd is only just happening. Baroness and Beachhead have only had retro card releases. Vipers were multipacks and retro.

I do NOT miss those days at all! I was luckier than most and was able to help out some board members for cost plus shipping. I did enjoy the paying it forward aspect but could have done without the whole ordeal.

Also, I never heard a reasoning behind the blue eyed and brown eyed Beachhead variants. Took some effort in tracking down both versions. My head cannon is one is Zartan making an error on the eye color. The red dot Snake Eyes and Circle Destro are the only early running change variants we never hear about, since the live streams weren’t a thing then.
 
I overpaid for Baroness on the Coil and I'm still mad at myself for it. Not even sure how I got Beachhead, full Gandalf "I have no memory of this place" there. I was doing real estate photography part time on the side and I was building out fifteen minutes of drive time if I knew the property I was photographing had a Target nearby. What a miserable time to be a collector trying to find such a great line of figures.

They reissued Snake Eyes without the red dot? And now I can't remember if I have circle-Destro or not. I definitely have the NOT rare Beachhead, and for all the effort I went through to find one, I use the retro Beachhead as my go-to these days.
 
I remember having to show the Target employee the post from Hasbro that Beachhead was not in fact street dated and then had to convince the manager it was legit. One other guy was there asking for the same thing. She had 3. I felt like a shitheel buying two because a friend in Targetless Mississippi wanted one, but they would never believe me. I also got one dressed in my pj's one day from the electronics employee. When I left he said "have fun selling it on ebay." So frustrating being labeled a scalper when you just want to buy a damn toy.
 
The first bunch of Toon Turtle Target exclusives were impossible to find around me, because TARGET EMPLOYEES WERE SCALPING THEM... :mad:

I went in one store, asking about them, got told they were sold out, and as I walked away, the little teen bitches started laughing...
 
docsilence said:
They reissued Snake Eyes without the red dot? And now I can't remember if I have circle-Destro or not. I definitely have the NOT rare Beachhead, and for all the effort I went through to find one, I use the retro Beachhead as my go-to these days.
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Yeah, it was another quiet release and I only got one by ordering it. I never saw one in stores.

I think only the muted colors on Duke, Scarlett, and Roadblock were the only advertised running changes in those early waves. Well, there was that whole Cobra Commander fiasco on that app too with the brighter regal colors.
 
I had Range Viper for what the kids refer to as a "hot minute", I think I was able to get him online, don't really remember. Then I was in one of those moments where I didn't want the collection to get too out of control, did some trimming, sold him for cost.
 
Buttmunch said:
Well, there was that whole Cobra Commander fiasco on that app too with the brighter regal colors.
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Fuckin' RSVLTS.

I never managed to get one (prefer the darker anyway - though I regret passing on the black & red Pulsecon version), but I still get junk from them, and I've unsubscribed every which way, blocked, reported as spam, it's so annoying...
 
I don’t think I had ever experienced so much attention in the toy isles than those Cobra Island days. I regularly ran into people looking for the same things, which never happens to me. Probably would have made some good friends had the pandemic not been keeping us in a weird standoffish state. I certainly had the mentality that everyone else was either a scalper or had Covid, or both haha. Never did get COVID on those Cobra Island missions, thankfully.

I still wonder if all that extra attend the line got increased interest more than it would have gotten or if the line was always just going to be this popular. For a modern retail line without a major media tie-in, Classified has done far better than anyone expected. The only wave that really bombed was, ironically, the Snake Eyes movie tie-in wave.
 
Buttmunch said:
Yeah, it was another quiet release and I only got one by ordering it. I never saw one in stores.

I think only the muted colors on Duke, Scarlett, and Roadblock were the only advertised running changes in those early waves. Well, there was that whole Cobra Commander fiasco on that app too with the brighter regal colors.
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Those three I did know about - I actually picked up Scarlett hoping the new one would have smoother hip joints (my original was a bit... clicky?). I actually prefer the vibrant version though, but the paint difference was enough to make it nice to have both.

TENIME said:
RSVLTS
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Oh, THOSE MFers. HATE those guys. Nothing good came of that.

Buttmunch said:
I don’t think I had ever experienced so much attention in the toy isles than those Cobra Island days. I regularly ran into people looking for the same things, which never happens to me. Probably would have made some good friends had the pandemic not been keeping us in a weird standoffish state. I certainly had the mentality that everyone else was either a scalper or had Covid, or both haha. Never did get COVID on those Cobra Island missions, thankfully.
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That really was a surreal time to be a collector, wasn't it? I felt like every trip to Target was a search and destroy mission. Only time I felt more sketchy shopping for figures was with Walgreens exclusives because running in and out of a pharmacy without buying anything made me feel like I was scoping the place to to rob it for narcotics.
 
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