50 years of G.I. Joe w/ Larry Hama & more

I arrive in the lobby furiously looking around because I do not want to be late for the day’s first panel for reasons other than the obvious I will disclose soon enough.
For now, let’s break down the three main tiers that make up Joe lore that brought everyone here today and would inspire me, a grown man to run furiously though a hotel lobby and take public transportation on a Sunday morning to be a part of.1) The Action Figures       – From the 1960’s and the boom in the 80s & 90s
2) The Comic Book           – Original Marvel run from 1982-1995
3) The Cartoon & Beyond – A huge hit in the 80s and many remakes later.

Their will be panels covering all three of these sub-interests as well as offering many other attractions to make it a complete weekend.
Over the weekend the convention held costume contests, a casino night, a film fest, naturally a sales room, autographs and photo ops with the creators of all the mediums and the aforementioned panel discussions.

Panel:
Battleplan G.I.Joe: G.I. Joe . . . The Battle Begins!
w/  Kirk Bozigian & Larry Hama

So in spite of missing the previous three days of the convention, I am her now, again in my opinion on the most important day to see a very important man.
I run up the escalator & find that I’m the first person in Reunion Ballroom to the point that I’m worried that I’m in the wrong place.
Their was no one here except for me, and it felt like I had arrived at the party just as it had ended. All that was left was just me,  the smell of spilled salsa and a discarded (but yet impressive) costume of Lego Zartan (that I heard later had won the previous night’s contest) –

Where is everyone? More importantly, where is Ryan Buchanan? Did he not tell me about this convention for the same reasons I hadn’t mentioned it to him (in the mere 48 hrs prior since I’ve been aware) out of just assumption that he already knew?
He and I met almost 20 years ago and quickly bonded over all things G.I. Joe and today we are still thick as thieves & still quote Joe lore like scripture (& the proud, shameless nerds we are).
As it occurs to me to text him, as I’m doing so it was similar to raising the Batman signal (the Joe signal?) as before I can hit send, in he walks, gives me a knowing smile and sits down next to me.
A few dozen others follow before the program starts but not near the attendance I had expected nor feel deserved of the man of the hour, Larry Hama, that soon trickled in behind them.

Seated in the middle is Larry Hama, who filed in here, very unassuming, walking slowly with a cane & very shaky and fragile (he recently had hip replacement surgery).
Since this is my first time seeing him in person, I forget how much time as passed and slowly have to put his age into perspective.I’m assuming if your reading this your already familiar with who he is naturally, but if you are not I could spend the rest of this post listing his bona fides.
In short, of the three tiers mentioned above, I’m a comic guy and Larry Hama is responsible for practically single-handedly creating the G.I. Joe universe as we know it. The comic book was created to help sell the relaunch of the toy line that transitioned from GI Joe being a single person to being the GI Joe Team, a team with individual charachters, most or all of which he created. Most toy line based comics last less than a year and the original run of GI Joe lasted 12 years and a staggering #155 issues all but two of which he wrote. To me and to most, he is GI Joe incarnate.

Leading the panel was Kirk Bozigian, the original product manager for Hasbro’s G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero toy line.
He’s the pioneer of modern action figure marketing strategy and developed the ‘weapons and tactics’ that are still used by action figure marketers today.
What Hama brought to the table artistically, Bozigian was the crucial counterpart on the business end to make it all happen.

What he was presenting today was an update of his 2004 lecture G.I. Joe . . . The Battle Begins!  – A text version which can be found in last year’s
GI Joe: The Complete Collection Volume I –

But here today, what a treat, are the two masters side-by-side detailing the plan and that unleashed something into the world that made my life and millions of other kids from my generation, happier – better.

After it was over, Hama slowly started shuffling out, as casual and anonymous as he had came in as a dozen or so fan boys, mouth agape start to circle him.
I try not to be one too but I couldn’t help get into as much proximity at least when I hear the following:
Apparently if you got $30 bucks and he’s got the time, Hama will do a sketch of your choice of any Joe characther you want, right there on the spot!
I reached for my wallet like I was about to receive a lapdance when I’m crushed to learn that he only does so many a day and wasn’t taking anymore on today.
So, not being here the whole weekend did indeed cost me, and can you believe it? I would pay any price he asked for something like that, let alone $30 bucks.
Also, there was something simultaenously awesome about how causal this was, while being horrified that my idol is seemingly on the grift doing cash deals in hotel lobbys for services a fraction of their actual worth.

___________

Before the next panel started I wanted to go take a look at the sales floor and that’s also where Ryan was headed. He was actually here helping a close friend of his Rich, who is a toy vendor, is the only person I know perhaps more obsessed with Joe than Ryan & I and just an overall really swell dude.
So I was excited to share my enthusiasm with these guys and catch up a bit as I hadn’t seen either of them in too long and see what was on the sales floor.

Lots of great, great stuff – our friend Rich’s booth was really impressive as well – rows and rows of stuff I haven’t seen since I was a kid and alot of stuff I’ve never even seen before. Met a few cosplayers like this really awesome gal in a homemade-yet-movie-grade Baroness costume that was here with her husband who was also a vendor. The podcast teams from What’s On Joe Mind? & Regular Joes (yes, their are multiple GI Joe podcasts) had joined forces to celebrate the 50th anniversary with a live podcast from the sales room floor.
Other than those & and a few other extra cirricluar activities, it didn’t much seem much different than other toy fares I’ve been to. Ryan told me that for reasons that were unclear that Hasbro had recently pulled their support from the convention.
I heading back upstairs for the next panel –Panel:
A Real American Hero: An Archaeological look:
w/ Sam Damon, Gary Head, & James Kavanaugh Jr

So as I file back into Reunion Ballroom where the previous panel had taken place, it’s a different scene here altogether.
I don’t know, if it’s because it’s later and people are finally getting up and around, were still hungover from the previous night’s vendor party etc but the place is now packed, like almost to capacity.

As I mentioned above in this medium there are the “action figure guys” and their are the “comic guys” – I’m most certainly one of the comic guys but it occurs to me that I am most certainly the minority here. And that ‘s fine as this is largely what I will discover to be more of an expo for the toys.
Which makes perfect sense as the curators of this conference are the producer’s of the GI Joe Collector’s Club who make new sets every year exclusive to this festival.

Now to be clear, of course I played with the toys – the launch of the Real American Hero line started in 1982 when I was 8 years old – it was my life. When I wasn’t playing with my Joes, I was reading the comic or watching the cartoon that started the following year.However, in my adult life, its just too much of an expensive and time consuming practice for me. I LOVE looking at the old stuff naturally and I have an obvious affliction for the stuff that I once owned & played with but as an adult, I don’t feel the need to own any of them – if anything its because I can’t answer the question:
What would I do with all of them?

As cool as all of this setup is, Hama’s involvement & the voice actors from the cartoon is why I’m here and is what legitimizes the event for me.
And speaking of which I bailed early on this panel to get back downstairs to the sales floor for autographs & pictures with said special guests.

____________

I must disclaim that as an adult I don’t participate in the autograph & photo op hunting of others, for many reasons, however I do not look down on (anybody) those that do. Some of my reasons are:

1) I work in the entertainment industry and it would compromise my position.
2) I harbor delusions of grandeur that I am somehow special and it’s only a matter of time before they will know my name as I know theirs and would prefer to wait until then to meet them as equals.
3) (and really the only valid one) is that its a total racket that offends me.

Let me elaborate on that last one:

I wouldn’t dream of squashing any young person’s enthusiasms but all too often I have adults name-dropping to me about how they met someone famous that is the object of their interest.
However, as the story pans out when they met, say Ozzy Ozbourne – they talk like they went bowling with him and Sharon and split a pizza afterwards but in turn it stands that they:

a) Stood in a line for hours
b) Paid money to stand in said line
c) Took a picture of them leaning across a table near said person in a desperate attempt at proximity and now there is prosterior evidence of said desperation that they share with everyone, totally clueless or tolerant of the fact that they didn’t actually meet this person – They just simply leaned on a table that person was sitting behind. A completely forgettable experience/transaction that they paid for with time and actual money.

Yet, I’m still actually torn as, for me, if theirs a way, after all these years that these artists & voice actors can make some money off of their invaluable contributions to my childhood – I say pay them double.

Today my adult self was not in the autograph line – my 8 year-old self, my mother’s son – a wide-eyed boy from rural Arkansas was and I was completely fine with that.

The first round of those granting autographs were some of the voice actors that made up the cast of the original cartoon from the 1980’s.  –

In attendance today were:

Morgan Lofting (the Baroness)
Michael Bell (Duke)
B.J. Ward (Scarlett)
Michael  McConnohie (Cross-Country)
Michael Dobson (Cobra Commander) * only in the 2004 direct-to-DVD films.

Some of my favorite memories from that golden Joe time 1982-1986 is when the cartoon debuted as a 5-episode mini-series that began the same week school started my 4th grade year in 1983.
Really it was a Ron Friedman written feature length movie, broken down into 5 episodes unofficially nicknamed The Mass Device.
My friends & I had seen ads for it all Summer and I fondly remember us literally running home in time to catch it.
Five episodes/five week days that just repeated it every week for the entire school year and we would still religiously watch it everyday that by next Summer we could do the whole dialogue in our sleep, something I can claim that I still can do to this day.
To meet the actors that voiced that dialogue that is as much a part of me as anything is a thrill beyond words.

By the time I get back down to the sales floor Ryan & Rich are already in line and almost to the front to which gratefully they welcomed me into.
Thankfully, it’s extremely lax & I really couldn’t see it being this way anywhere else geographically that I was totally grateful for.
No long lines, though each actor was seated at a table their was no table or concernable barrier between them and us. They were charging $20 for a wristband to have this priveledge but I was able to also by-pass that by being with Rich because of his vendor status combined with the lackasadaisical nature of this being final day, they weren’t checking for wristbands anyway.
Rich had already established a healthy rapport with them this weekend and in past conventions that he’s practically on a first name basis with this cast so I had yet another advantage thanks to him

The first person we meet is Michael Bell (Duke) and what I chose to have signed was something very special to me –
In 2010, I was gifted a monstrous box set that contained every episode of the show that even came in a military foot locker.
One of my favorite photos ever is of my nephews presenting said gift to me at my birthday that year.

As you can see Bell, John Hancocked that shit large, so much so that when we get over to Morgan Lofting who was positioned adjacent to Bell she teasingly chastised him that their was no room for her signature, to wit after some prodding from us she did in THE VOICE OF THE BARONESS!!
Bell’s response:

 “Didn’t you read my greensheet?……I’m a man of action”

As silly as it sounds I really began to become concerned that I was actually going to cry – What an amazing moment!

The voice actors were all so gracious, generous with their time & happy for the recognition and made for such an enjoyable, unforgettable experience.
B.J. Ward (voice of Scarlett) & I would have totally dated in High School & she’s still got that nerd-hot thing going.
I was now eager to attend their panel as they were finishing up with us to head upstairs for it. Ryan & Rich had to get back to their booth as I soon made my way up for the panel.

Panel:
Voicing G.I. Joe:  Personal Stories
w/ Michael  McConnohie, Michael Bell, Michael Dobson, BJ Ward & Morgan Lofting 

Again, it’s easy to forget how much time has gone by, so when you see these actors for the first time and their all in their late 50s/early 60s it really puts it into perspective.

Something else that you don’t anticipate until your in the room with all of them at once, is the rapport & commaraderie they share.
Because this was my first Joe Convention, I was just shot out of a cannon, but these people have been inexplicably linked to each other and been doing these types of events for 30 years so you felt like you were kinda just eavesdropping on a private party.
They spoke less about their experiences working on the Joe cartoon oddly (their was no moderator) than they did about simply what’s it like to be a voice actor.
They shared stories about Mel Blanc (another major influence on me) and simply the hustle of the entertainment business.
It was more than enjoyable and my adult self sat there mesmerized, while my 8 year-old self felt that it kinda took the piss out of it and I wasn’t ready to unsuspend my disbelief just yet.

__________________

Ok so now it was time to get back down to the sales floor for me personally the main event, a chance to finally meet Larry Hama.
I suspect that the organizers purposely seperated the events as such in order to help dudes like me work off some of that middle-aged spread and they would be right to have done so.
Just like before when I get down there, Ryan & Rich are already in line & once again graciously welcome me into it.
Rich was telling me that on the first day of the convention Hama was actually looking for a figure of the Wild Bill charachter that of all the vendors, only Rich had and though he offered to pay, Rich naturally insisted that he gift it to him which Hama only accepted after much protest.
So this is probably the closest I’ll ever get to being introduced to Hama by a mutual colleague and I will take it haha
I’ve already disclaimed enough about my stance on autographs etc but none of that mattered to me, IT was about to happen.

Hama & I finally face to face –

I was so happy & thrilled to be doing this with Ryan instead of us having seperate experiences and telling the other via phone or text.
Even though we didn’t meet until I was 21, right when the original comic run ended, its been such a huge part of our friendship and a language that only he, Rich & I speak among my friends.
As we were in line preparing to meet Hama, it was so funny seeing all of us, without any prior discussion pulling out our GI Joe #1 or some other jewel that in spite of almost 20 years of friendship, we’ve never actually seen from the other as it was stored away in some really safe place.

Above comic GI Joe #1 – Bought in the Summer of 1982 at Blanton’s Grocery store in Little Rock, Arkansas – through dozens of moves across many States in time zones, I’ve cherished it and kept it safe for 32 years – now with Hama’s stamp on it, it is complete.

There was a kid that lived above us that was actually about 4-5 years older than me that I think about sometimes. You know how in the movie Office Space they work in a gag that one of the characters’ name is Michael Bolton so he has to deal with unnecessary, daily shock & awe over it?
Well his name was Ricky Martin & was the first person I thought of when I saw that movie and can only imagine what he goes through now everyday with that.
At the time, I thought his name was so cool because it was so close to being Ricky Morton, a wrestler I idolized at the time from the tag-team the Rock & Roll Express.
I mention him because he was the one that taught me that comics had issue numbers & its function in the collectibility.
Before Joe, I only read Richie Rich (where the issue number is essentially worthless as continuity is non-descript in that title.)
Apparently I had been reading Joe for about a year by the time we met as I remember being on the phone with him when I had that Aha! moment & understood what he was talking about holding issue #14.
He seemed to get new figures every week and had all the big, expensive vehicles – I wasn’t envious or competitive because that’s not my nature, not even then & also because I looked up to him so much.
He only lived there for a short time & our parents had arranged for a few play dates after he moved but shortly after we never saw each other again.
As an adult, I’m able to see what was really going on – the reason Ricky and his family only lived there for a short time was because they were wealthy & it’s where his father’s employer placed them temporarily while their permanent accommodations were being completed & that would explain how & why they were spoiling Ricky with new toys each week.
When I went over to visit him the few times after, his place seemed like a mansion – having no concept of commerce or class systems & my mother’s constant brave face, I had no idea how poor we were. A fact I’m sure not lost on his parents & would explain why their would be no more future playdates.

I share this to tell you that when I look at that issue I think about that time & all I feel is pure joy – I don’t feel sad about the realities that I’ve come to know, I feel grateful to my mother and happy to have had something so special like Joe to come into my life at just the right time & age.

And not just Joe – when I look at it, I think of that magical time – my favorite time as a kid – I think of endless Summers watching early MTV – Prince & Michael Jackson, my two all-time favorite performers both releasing monster, landmark records that year – The territory days of wrestling, getting an Atari for Christmas – and most importantly my innocence still in tact.

That’s why Hama has to deal with the surreal nature of 40 year old men coming up to him in droves, crying their eyes out in gratitude because for what he created, is the best that time had to offer.
Full disclosure, Hama, as I could tell, while totally gracious and appreciative is totally over it and while the notion that I was merely the 212th love-sick fanboy he had to deal with that weekend, doesn’t please me, after over 30 years of it, I totally get it and it did nothing to compromise my experience.

It was incredibly surreal a bit later when Ryan and I, though still standing on the sales room floor had moved on to another topic, again catching up as we hadn’t seen each other in awhile – I, ripe with stories as after just returning from a week in New Orleans for Wrestlemania XXX – & while we just stood there idly chatting, I would ocassionally look over Ryan’s shoulder and see Hama just kinda hanging out – I would have to pause every few minutes to acknowledge that while Ryan & I were shooting the shit as we have done millions of times in 20 years, this time Hama, as casual as an old man waiting for a bus was in my perrepheral vision.
Good times –

I will leave you with this – To illustrate that I am still an adult and that I later found boobs to be more entertaining –
During the last half hour of the festival, the owner of a local Breastaurant thought it smart to market his wares upon this group of bruisers & he was right to do it.
Who by design genuinely come to these things? Over or under weight men that don’t get laid – nerds with no game. The fact that they were exploiting this fact and perpetuating that stereotype was hilarious with no end.
In spite of being a geek, before I found Jess, I had a reputation as a troubadour without equal, a personality that I no longer get to entertain my friends with, so when these two minxs walked in, they were practically pushing me over there to greet them – And greet them I did – Yo Joe!