Happy Friday morning, Joe fans!
Just a reminder that the Concept Case Survey is still accepting responses, so let your voice be heard! There has already been a fantastic turn out, and I’m very excited to be getting the response that we are getting in the survey.
For all of the survey details, including how long it’s going to run and the next steps, check out the Survey Page right here.
Thanks to everyone who has participated!
And no, I’m not talking about bringing home toys. I’m talking about intangible things. Opinions, feelings, impressions, etc…
I felt quite lucky throughout the weekend to be able to spend quite a bit of time with various folks at the Convention. Whether it was speaking with Lanny or Brian from the G.I. Joe Collectors’ Club at the Golden Ticket dinner, or speaking to Hasbro at the Charity Casino Night dinner and on the sales floor. I was left with a series of impressions, both good and bad, and I’m not certain folks who weren’t there could grasp that through the convention coverage.
Yes, here is Special Edition #16…a very special edition indeed. Back when I hopped on this little internet radio show, it seemed like a very fun way to kill some time and explore the G.I. Joe fandom in different ways, but that’s really all it was. Even as it felt like our bonds were growing closer with each episode and our barriers were coming down, I never really thought the show would necessarily evolve to anything…it was still just four buddies BS’ing about G.I. Joe.
Over the next many months, the show would lose a friend to other commitments, but gain another, and along the way make connections with voice actors, G.I. Joe comic professionals, and even the director of a certain major motion picture to come in March, 2013. Through it all, it was just four guys having fun.
Well, this past weekend these four guys having fun got a very rare opportunity to sit down for a lengthy 25 minute round table discussion with several members of Hasbro’s design and marketing team. The folks directly responsible for those four inch pieces of plastic that decorate your house in such vast numbers. I can’t quite express how cool it was for Hasbro and for Justin Aclin from Hunter PR to make this all happen. In normal circumstances, even having a chance to talk with one person from the Hasbro team would have been amazing. But on Sunday morning, we were fortunate enough to sit down with not one… not two… not even three… we had a great round table discussion with four members of the Hasbro G.I. Joe team.
John Warden, designer mastermind of the G.I. Joe line. Dave Proctor, sculpting manager and the sculptor of one of everyone’s favorite G.I. Joe figures ever, the 30th Anniversary Storm Shadow. Erik Arana, an input designer, and along with Wayne Park, one of the geniuses behind the G.I. Joe: Resolute 7-Packs as well as design elements of the Slaughter’s Marauders and Dreadnoks 7-Packs. Last, but absolutely not least we spoke with Joe Del Regno, the current Marketing Director for the G.I. Joe line.
During this discussion, we covered a wealth of topics including the controversy behind the “Concept Case” as well as how fans can get their voices heard and express their desire to see certain figures come to light. We speak about G.I. Joe: Retaliation, upcoming releases for 2013, and much more. It was a very fun discussion, and was the highlight of the entire weekend for the What’s on Joe Mind team.
Cold Slither came close, but in the end, the Hasbro team won the vote.
This is a very quick episode, only about 25 minutes so even folks who don’t listen to the podcast should check it out and learn some cool things that you may not have known otherwise!
I’m certain I speak from everyone on the What’s on Joe Mind team when I say THANK YOU to John, Dave, Erik, Joe, and Justin for all working so hard together to get us that slot of time and for devoting their precious time to the show. It was extremely exciting for us, and hopefully exciting for the Joe community as well. Check it out on Podbean, or listen via the embedded players below:
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So, Joe fans got the words they were fearing via online retailers yesterday as reports emerged from all over the ‘net that G.I. Joe: Retaliation orders from Wave 2 and forward would not be fulfilled this year. According to reports from online retailers, the same product will be made available in early 2013.
CRAP.
Now before everyone rushes in and says “Oh, cool, now they can push out some more 30th Anniversary stuff! Oh, cool, now they can fix all the crappy articulation!”
Ummmm… no. I would not expect anything like that. Any toys, even ones where tooling already exists, takes far too long to produce to just be “thrown out there” within the next few months. There is way more planning, coordination, and production required than we probably think. They can’t just toss one of those Kwinn test shots in a magic machine and suddenly have 20,000 available to ship to retailers.
Same goes for articulation. “Fixing” articulation would require significant retooling, and would essentially be creating the line again from scratch. Hasbro has already invested too much money in the current figures, and already has way too short a time frame in order to make any wholesale changes to the figures as they stand.
On the good side, JoeCon is just four short weeks away, so hopefully we can all get our questions answered there. And there will be a LOT of questions, I’m sure.
You ever have one of those days? Yeah, I think pretty much the entire G.I. Joe fandom yesterday had one of those days. When I got the text message from Gary last night about possibly recording a special edition, I’ll admit, I was hesitant, as I think he was, too. We both felt like we’d been kicked in the nards, and I don’t think either one of us was much in the mood to talk about it.
But then Twitter came to the rescue… the Tweets, emails, PM’s, and text messages started flooding in…Joe fans who wanted to talk it out. Admins of websites who wanted to talk about this. Wanted an immediate reaction. So, we decided what the hell. Gathering together a veritable “who’s who” of site administrators, G.I. Joe fans, elitists podcasters, and even some industry professionals, we took to Skype and gave it to you raw.
Full credit goes to Gary Godsoe who burned the midnight oil, spending hours after we were done recording getting the audio processed and online, pretty much raw and unedited. I will admit…it was cathartic. It was a huge help to me in figuring out where Paramount was coming from and what we should look towards moving forward to March, 2013, and I want to personally thank everyone who joined us.
Now, don’t think this is the end! We are taking your voice mail messages as well in preparation for our normal recording next week. We want to hear from YOU. Let your voices be heard concerning yesterday’s movie news. For our next episode we are going to feature YOUR voicemails. All you have to do is call in and share your thoughts. Please AT LEAST tell us your first name and PLEASE keep your messages no worse than a PG-13 rating. We reserve the right not to air any hostile or vulgar messages. (262) 515-9656
As of the recording last night we had already received almost two dozen voicemails, and obviously we can’t play them all, but we will choose some best of the best and share your raw emotion as we discuss what this means for the brand. No worries, this is a story we will be talking about for a long, long time. As usual, you can hit up our Podbean page to check out last night’s special edition, or check out the embedded player below. Some brief show notes as always after the jump.
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