Action Force by Palitoy!!

[robomonkey]

I recently picked up a Boxed Escape Armor, the red colored version of the GI Joe SNAKE Armor. On the box, I noticed a large red and black vehicle called Roboskull. It looks pretty big and very bada$$

If any one has any good pictures of one I'd love to check it out.

Thanks!!!

[gort]

Roboskull was one of my favourite Action Force vehicles as a kid, sadly I sold mine when I was in my teens.

[10incher]

That is a pretty cool piece, I may have to hunt for a Roboskull as well! Are there any other cool vehicles like this from the line?

[gort]

I think the Roboskull was the best of the stuff that didn't seem to get a US release. The enemy escape armour was pretty neat as well but I think a varient of this was made for the cobra line (?)

The best from origional Action Force series 1 line was AF-5, a great toy as a kid as it had three modes. Truck mode (later modified for the enemy shadowtrack), boat mode (using the floatation ring from AF-7) and 'plane' mode (basicly just flip out wings, a bit like chitty chitty bang bang )

[80s Action Figures]

Does anyone collect these? If so what do you have from this line? I really like the 5 point articulation figures, and the re-coloured Joes are cool as well.

[gort]

I used to have a whole load of Action Force, right from the very first Action Man styled ones before the Z-Force, Space Force, Enemy, thing. They're almost all gone now though.

I still think that Roboskull and AF-5 were among the best vehicles from any line.

[Ghouldrool]

I just love Action Force, I've got a good deal of the figures, and only a few vehicles, but I ADORE the Red Shadow army and the Kraken used to be my favorite. They played well with Fisher Price Adventure People, Regular Joe and SW.

[neoviper76]

I have one.....just a regular Red Shadow soldier.

[skyline]

I have a complete loose collection of Action Force, plus I have alot misb to, being in the UK these are very common items.

[80s Action Figures]

Wow...I would like to see pictures of those figures...does that include the G.I.Joe repaints???

[Captainamerica]

my entire AF collection!

And a custom to join the Red Shadows: Iron Marshall and his Red Blitz:



The Blitz launches Road Rat on his triple R(Red Rat Racer):

[3 3/4"collector]

i have
baron ironblood.
muton.
kraken.
skeletron.
black major.
red shadow.
red laser.
steeler.
quarrel.

thats mostly all i want except.
hunter who i keep losing on except one i won and it never showed up.
dolphin and moondancer who i doubt i will bother with at there prices.

[rawlin]

(Please move this if in wrong section)

I got this motorcycle which I believe is called Action Force Z-Force Rapid Fire Motorcycle which came with a girl character named quarrel(I'm not sure how to spell her name).

Instead of the painted version this has stickers at the front cower. Which I have heard is rare. It says its made by HASBRO in 1982 on the inside of the gun but I do not know when this was released, I have talked about it on other forums(yojoe and bftb where I have gotten help with it) and the answear I have gotten is 1984 but not confirmed. This version was repainted from another release in 1982. But little is known about it.

I am interested in if the stickered version was common or rare and if it has a version callsign. When it was really released? Any help is greatly appreciated.

By rawlin at 2011-01-28

[BoogDoc7]

That's the British version of GI Joe, called action force. It's their version of the RAM motorcycle. Rare in the states, probably not so much in England-land.

Sweet little find, that.

[rawlin]

thanks

I knew the action force figures looked like GI Joe figures, so there was some confusion when I first started looking into this. I believe this was bought in Sweden though, since I live here.

Did all of the british versions have stickers? Because there was 2 boxed versions, one with window, where it did not have stickers, and one without window where the bike had stickers on hte cower.

[BoogDoc7]

Not sure. I've seen various ones where there generally appeared to be more stickers and a little more color on the Action Force versions as opposed to American, but there could be variants and such. It may even depend on the country - not sure if there were any produced outside of England.

[goofateer]

The "really short" history of Action Force . . . "G.I. Joe" is an intrinsically American term. So when Palitoy licensed the 12" figures for the UK market in 1966 they renamed him "Action Man." More than a decade later Palitoy was also the licence holder for distributing Kenner's Star Wars figures in the UK, and parts of Europe. With the huge success of Star Wars, Palitoy decided to apply the same format to Action Man, and released Action Force in 1981, about a year before 3 3/4" G.I. Joe figures were released in America.

To OVERLY simplify things, since Action Man was based on G.I. Joe, and Action Force was based on Action Man, Action Force was basically owned by Hasbro. I'm sure it's far more complicated than that, but that's the simple, quick way to look at it.

So when Hasbro wanted to bring the 3 3/4 inch G.I. Joe into the European market, it was slowly integrated into the existing Action Force line around 1983.

The original RAM was released in the US in olive green in 1982. It was re colored in a different green for Europe around 1983/84.

Hasbro's influence on the line grew with every year, and it slowly shed it's British root's. By 1986 Palitoy was gone, and Hasbro owned all of their assets.

Because of the transition period, and the fact that Palitoy was producing Action Force for several European countries at the time, the line is just chuck full of variations. Unfortunately it all makes it very difficult to nail down hard information on any specific variation. The Action Force Rapid Fire Motorcycle is somewhat hard to find as it is, so I didn't even know there was a version with a sticker in place of the painted Z. But 1984 is an accurate time frame for it. Though it's likely to have been available from 1983 to 1985.

I would suspect that the sticker variation is either the very first version, or the very last version released. From a quality standpoint they probably moved from a sticker to a painted version to make it look better, and there for sell better. If it was the last version released than it was probably because of the Hasbro take over. There seem's to have been a hectic period where Hasbro was liquidating Palitoy's overstock as fast as they could. This resulted in odd packaging variations like Action Force figures with Star Wars accessories, figures on the wrong cards, and even figures with no accessories what-so-ever. So it's possible that Hasbro was sitting on a few pallets of unpainted motorcycles, and it was simply cheaper and easier to put stickers on them.

Either way, it's completely theory. Just my best guess based on my experience with the line. It's entirely possible that the variation is because of the county it was released in? Germany for instance had completely different team symbols on the figures and vehicles.

Roger

[goofateer]

Actually the German idea got me thinking.

The German version had a sticker with a name printed below it:

www.bloodforthebaron.com/toys/german/002/002/index.html

It's very common to find an Action Force item with several languages on it. So it's possible that the German version came with multiple stickers to cover multiple countries. Or they just used the unpainted version for smaller markets, and included a sticker, that way it could always be used in German if it needed to be.

Roger

[rawlin]

Thank you for all in-dept information, it was very interesting When I first learned this was not the normal version, I thought it might be the first version since stickers that would later be replaced. But the other option is also possible.

It does look a bit like the german one, except that the sticker is not the same, still the shape is the same.

Edit: At closer look it's not that much same looking at all. the German one is much bigger.

[sf1378]

Action there isn't a variant of the Action Force Z-Force (sub team name for the infantry Team in Palitoys Action Force) RAM Motorcycle. Basically, the painted red Z is UNDER the stickered one, same goes for the front light sticker - theres red paint UNDER it. Kids basically put the stickes hat came with it over the tampoed decals on the bike.

I should know, I'm from the UK and was a BIG Action Force collector/fan....I own a mint out of box one and noticed the red Z under the sticker. IF however, someone has one without any stickers on it and there isn't a red Z logo on each side of the front part of the bike then I'm wrong.

[thomasseeber]

Jul 31, 2006 16:22:20 GMT -6 gort said:

I think the Roboskull was the best of the stuff that didn't seem to get a US release. The enemy escape armour was pretty neat as well but I think a varient of this was made for the cobra line (?)

yes, there was a Blue Cobra version of the SNAKE armour.

here's another good Action Force site:

www.action-force.dk/index.html

I have a few random Action Force items that are GI Joe repaints/variants, like the Whale, Havoc, missile station, and a couple of TF guys. I got some of these through mail-order here in Aus.

[volleydan]

Roboskull prices have taken off lately. I passed on multiple chances to buy one for $40-50 through the years.....but lately, I've heard stories of complete ones bringing over $150 up to almost $200.

There's been an overall surge in the popularity of international GI Joe items in the past couple of years....crazy prices have mostly been limited to the South American stuff, but some of the UK stuff has taken off too.

[tztoyz]

I have long thought about starting a loose Action Force collection, as some of those figures are just very on point.  I had a chance to buy a boxed Hyena some years back and passed on the opportunity.  Have pretty much kicked myself since.  Nice pickup, btw.

[uscmbuzz]

My favorite 5 pt figure was muton. It looks like a deep sea diver made up to look like a big eye guy. But i think he was a dpace character . The roboskull looks to be used in space too