*or "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Just Grew a Beard"I've had the opportunity to blow some dust off some of my old toys, and in doing so have come to terms with profound sociological truths and pivotal moments not only in American culture but also in my own personal developme... Wait. I can tell already that your eyes are glazing over. Let me back up.
As the 1960s turned into the 1970s, and the culture changed and the war in Vietnam became increasingly unpopular, GI Joe adjusted to the times in the same ways many men his age did at the time. He let his hair grow out, he took early retirement from the military, he turned his attention to trapping pygmy animals, and he started wearing big round metal medallions. Okay, actually the medallion thing wouldn't be popular for another six years or so when disco hit it big, and I could probably go on and on about how ahead-of-his time he was there, but I'll let some Cultural Studies grad student write their thesis on that medallion thing instead. But we all know I got there first.
Of course, Joe couldn't just turn his back on the regimented life he'd come to know in 'Nam, and he needed some discipline and meaning to his existence. Oh sure, he'd tried going it alone there for a while, but he was an action figure adrift without purpose, often showing up at Barbie's Malibu Dream House in the middle of the night ranting drunkenly about how he never got a parade and how America had turned its back on him and stuff. Not pretty. Joe cried out for structure.
And so the Adventure Team was born. Their missions often had nebulous and questionable goals, like raiding mummys' tombs and tranquilizing albino tigers, but that scarcely mattered. The point was that Joe had something to do now (there's still some debate on whether or not the Adventure Team was a front for the CIA, but again, that's beside the point. Also, that lady at the Freedom of Information Act office thinks I'm unhinged and told me to stop pestering her about "those stupid dolls again". But I'll let you know if I learn anything more on that front).
So then, the Adventure Team consisted of the Land Adventurer, the Sea Adventurer (with his groovy bellbottom jeans - once again setting the trend), the Air Adventurer, and the... um... just plain old Adventurer.
Wait. What's with that fourth guy? That generic Adventurer there?
Okay, now admittedly, after land, sea and air, there really weren't any good areas of specialization left for the guy. I suppose he could have been the "Magma Adventurer" or the "Glacier Adventurer", but both positions sound like hours and hours of tedium punctuated by short bursts of life-threatening horror. So instead, he was just the generic Adventurer, with nothing to do I suppose but to sit around waiting for one of the other three guys to die in a hideous cave-in or mid-air explosion or tsunami or whatever so he could move into their position. I shouldn't even think such things, and I'm sure he was too good a toy to even consider it himself. The guilt would have eaten him up inside if he had. But still, what's a guy gotta do to fit in?
He obviously had gone through the same initiation ritual the others had, seeing as how he had that telltale scar on his face, and yet somehow he was different, left out, and set apart from the others. Why do you suppose that was? Let's take another look at this "odd Adventurer out" of ours:
Yeah. You noticed that too huh? I get it now. Yeah. Don't need to tell me twice how things are going to be. I think we all see what's going on here. For all their talk of bravery and honor, the rest of the Adventure Team was clearly a bunch of small-minded bigots discriminating against the Adventurer simply because his skin was shaved!
You know what though? I gotta hand it to the Adventurer. In the end, he chose his battles wisely. Sure, he could have confronted the rest of the group, but in doing so he would have hurt the morale of the Team. And for what? Heck, the others probably weren't even aware of their own ignorant prejudices against the unbearded. That's how subtle and internalized these things can be you know.
So, for the good of the group, he decided that if you can't beat them, join them. He grew his beard out, and soon after that he got promoted to Talking Team Commander!
And what had been his burden before - his lack of specialization - had actually become his strength. He had an ability to view the "Big Picture" beyond what the others were capable of seeing since they were bogged down in their own little worlds, and the other members of the Team admired him for his grand vision.
The point of all of this? None really. I suppose you could say that he totally sold out and that he just went along and assimilated by letting his beard grow, and that, in the end, no minds were changed and no wrongs were righted and nobody's fundamental assumptions were challenged and so nothing really was accomplished. But you know what? Screw that! He's just one action figure! One action figure isn't going to change the world and besides, he had his brothers to think about. They needed each other. They all remembered their crazy, out-of-control days in Malibu back in '69, and none of them wanted to go back to that life ever again. It was teamwork that had saved them from that, and so the Team came first.
The Talking Team Commander would eventually settle down with a nice fashion doll and together they would raise several adorable Cabbage Patch Kids. He's not completely out of action though. Today he's still commanding - commanding about $400 a pop on E-Bay, that is.
Oh yeah... I nearly forgot:
And that's the story of why I have a beard.
COMING SOON!
"The Assasination of Johnny West by the Coward Sam Cobra"
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