On Christmas Day 1983 when I woke up and went to the Christmas tree I was devistated to not see the G.I. Joe ‘Headquarters’ that I had asked for. There was a big assortment of other G.I. Joe toys, but not the one I wanted the most. Once all the presents were opened we headed to my grandmothers for more presents and dinner so I HOPED that the G.I. Joe base was there…. it wasn’t and I was even more devistated. I was an only child so I got A LOT of toys for Christmas, but not the one I wanted most… that is until my God Mother came to my grandmothers house with one giant box. I pulled back that paper and there it was!! I’m sure I screamed from excitment!
I also remember being SUPER anal retentive about all the stickers being propperly placed and making sure my dad didn’t screw up any of them while he put it all together (the G.I. Joe plans were the worst for sticker placement!). Once it was all together, stickers and all we realized that the cover for the non garage lift side of the base was missing. We didnt get one in the box! After some phone calls my dad was able to get one sent to us by Hasbro and I was a VERY happy camper!
Here is a G.I. Joe Headquarters thats missing only one part and looks like its in real good shape. It even comes with a (worn) box. Awesome toy and a good price!
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I wanted the Joe HQ so bad when I was little, but alas, I never got it. Instead my mother, in her infinite wisdom, decided to help me build one out of boxes. We grabbed every shoebox and paper towel tube we could find. I designed it and she helped be glue it all up and stuff and I painted it grey. It even had a trap door jail like the real thing. At first I was bummed because I thought making one out of boxes was going to be lame, but my custom HQ ended up being twice as big as the real thing and frankly, twice as cool. Of course, mine didn’t have cool map stickers or a flag.
I don’t know what the HQ cost back then but as an adult, I now see how smart my mom really was about it. She saved who knows how much for a toy that was inferior to one we could make together.
That being said, the day mom bought me the Action Corps action figures instead of real GI Joe figures…that was a day she found out there’s a big difference between accessories and action figures. You can survive with rip-off accessories, but not the figures.
I had this! I remember I thought the jail cell was the best thing ever. Finally a place to lock up the bad guys.
I used to lock up bad guys and then tie a string around the back bars and attach it to the back of the Cobra HISS and have them ‘break the guys out’. That was my favorite part!!