Inspiration is a rabbit hole. You stumble across one thing that makes you feel nostalgic, and the next thing you know you’re up all night exploring a new world. This happened to me recently with action figures.

My kids have become seasoned pros at diverting us to the toy aisle when we run errands. On a recent trip to Target, I noticed a lot of familiar action figures from my own childhood: Ninja Turtles, Star Wars, G.I. Joe, Transformers, etc. It felt like a bit of a time warp. That night I started looking up old action figures and stumbled upon the FigureRealm site. FigureRealm is a community that has been documenting and classifying action figures since 2002. These kind of sites are the best part of the internet.

Although there were a ton of figures made in the 80s, I found that a majority were knockoffs. When anything became popular, some other toy maker tried to get a piece of it (Who you gonna call? Spook Chasers!). I felt like this blog post was just the tip of the rabbit hole, though. I could read a 500 page book right now on the evolution of G.I. Joe. and I’d happily kickstart a coffee table book with a complete toy archive of Kenner or Mattel. There seems to be so much to unpack here, but for now enjoy these 80s action figure logos.