Which is my face, which is a buiding which is on fire: 1985 Barbecue

From The Desk Of The Esteemed Doctor Henry Edward Miller

1985 is considered a banner year for Hasbro and the GI Joe toyline, many of the fan favorite figures who's characters are etched into the very core of Joe mythos, figures like Shipwreck, Crimson Guard and Lady Jaye (Favorite of 25 year old sexless dorks) are considered to go hand in hand with the GI Joe line. Now the good doctor doesn't understand the infatuation with this year among fans, the figures are, lets be honest here: Average. You got a couple of kick ass figures like Footloose, Flint, The Dreadnoks, the Crimson Guard and a couple of really nice drivers, but other then that the figures go from plain average figures like Dusty, Tomax and Xamot and Frostbite (Who would be totally forgettable without his m-16). Some forgettable ones like Tollbooth and Alpine to straight down lame street: Quick Kick, Airtight, Bazooka (Why does every Joe missile specialist have to look like a pedo?) Shipwreck, Lady Jaye and Snake Eyes (Yes I went there you fanboy jerks). But today we profile perhaps the most useless Joe made as of 85': Barbecue

I first got Barbecue along with Airtight and Dusty, Dusty got regulated to the desert VAMP and only came out when I needed to do some battlin' in the pile of sand in the backyard, Airtight was killed off on his first mission and Barbecue I didn't know what to do with. He had a really cool axe, which I gave to Ripper so he could hit jerks with it, but his job was a firefighter. Why the heck would a special forces team need a firefighter? I tossed BBQ's weapons into a drawer and stuck him on my shelf and wondered what to do with him. I never needed my Joes to put out fires, so why would I need some asshole wearing a orange suit with a stupid helmet?

Then it hit me: Team him up with Blowtorch and have my very own situational comedy: Blowtorch lights fires and BBQ puts them out but what happens when they share an apartment together? Comedic conflict! Well accually I stuck BBQ and Blowtorch in the back room of the HQ and pretended they were playing Nintendo all the time with Bazooka and all the other Joe's that never went on missions.

Barbecue continued to be a background character in my childhood Joe-verse, sometimes he'd be hanging out on the Flagg or a gunner on a vehicle that would get ambushed. The much superior 1986 figures like Beachhead and Mr Fuji Roadblock got all the time on the important missions. And by the time 87 and 88 rolled around poor Barbecue was regulated to some bottom of the barrel duty like the secret shoebox base in my closet.

But why was Barbecue so forgotten and thrown to the side?

Well maybe it was his bright color, like Airtight, he conflicted with the rest of the realistically colored Joe's. It could have been his forgettable accessories, a tiny water pistol and a water tank backpack is not exactly what I call "timeless". Or maybe it was just his facelessness, the guy was wearing a sliver helmet all the time, one of the reasons I don't like Airtight. Up until then every Joe had a face, and a distinct headmold, even the repainted heads from 82 were distinct in a way, and here you have a brightly colored guy wearing a sliver helmet that looks like it belongs on a Cobra, and he's here to put out you're fires. It just did not work back then and I cannot justify having this guy in my GI Joe team now. There may not be a place for this figure in the lines history other then "Uninteresting background character" but alas, so many figures fall under that moniker, and somehow, thats fitting for this figure who was just another figure in the line, just another piece of plastic for you're parents to spend money on, just another goofy toy to talk about 23 years after the fact, but hey, any figure that allows me to use a Talking Heads lyric in the title has to be worth something right?

The Doctors Final Thoughts: It amazes me that this mold was repainted, and fittingly in one of the lines most forgettable if not the worst subset ever, It's one of those great mysteries: like having 3 different Tripwires by 1990 or the fact the Hit N Run mold was never used again or just why was 86 Roadblock smiling? We may never know, but rest assured The Doctor will not rest until these mysteries are solved. Or not.