Let me tell you a story about a friend of mine from when I was a kid. He always dressed in black and never spoke he had a white wolf, and one of his best friends was a sailor with a parrot. No this wasn’t my imaginary friend this was Snake Eyes from GI Joe.

Ok so the year is 1984, maybe 85.
I’m your average kid, watching TV everyday after school (and before) and I have to say my favorite show is G.I. Joe; A Real American Hero. While the show is filled with awesome characters like Roadblock, Duke, Flint, even the villains were cool like Despro and Tomax and Xamot. My all time favorite Joe was (and Is) Snake Eyes.

So this was the 1980s and nothing was cooler than ninjas! Years before the teenaged amphibian ones would come roaring into popular culture Snake Eyes existed every day on my TV, and did I mention he was really awesome? Snake Eyes was Badass! He was mute and dressed in all black (like Darth Vader), wore a grenade bandoleer and a visor. He had a pet wolf named Timber and was very handy with a sword (as ALL ninjas should be).

So as many of you know G.I. Joe was more than a cartoon show, it was essentially a 30 minute commercial for a Hasbro line of toys. Since it was a commercial I basically watched religiously I have to say I loved the toys. I NEEDED them like those poor Sally Struthers’ kids needed 80 cents worth of rice a day. Since Snake Eyes was my favorite of course I desired him the most!

This was no easy task. These were the days when Toys R Us was just a mythic place I heard about that suburban kids got to visit (much like Chuck E. Cheeses) and Ebay and Amazon weren’t even a glimmer in their daddies’ eyes. Finding a Snake Eyes proved difficult. I can only imagine that every kid out there felt like me, he was the Holy Grail of Joes! (Did I mention he came with is Wolf? SOO BADASS!!!) So my mother and I set out on our long quest to find it.

The picture of him on the back of the other GI Joe action figure’s cards I showed her like it was my lost puppy. This quest employed the help of my Grandmother (on my mother’s side) whose shopping skills were always spoken of as the stuff of legends and Numerous of my Mothers friends. Friends who went on trips to Pennsylvania were asked to scour stores. Every toy store, Kmart, and Zayers near us on our Summer vacation up in Maine were searched for it, to no avail. One store up in Maine said he could probably order it, but it would take months and arrive long after we would have left.

The longer it took the less likely it would be to find, as with every new season of the show new figures were released. Oddly enough even as a kid I understood this concept. At a certain point I resigned myself to just not getting it ever. I started pretending Snake Eyes had to knock out someone and wear their uniform as he was undercover, so he could basically be any figure with a full mask. I had resolved myself to heartbreak and disappointment, like finding out you are very low on the kidney donor list with no hope of ever getting one in time.

One day we were in the little independent toy store in my neighborhood named Barr’s (which is a very long time gone and is currently a Starbucks). I don’t remember if I asked the clerk or my mother did, but either way we knew it was a long shot, as we had been there numerous times, but that fateful afternoon luck was on our side. The man behind the counter said he may have one in the basement. I think I literally held my breath in anticipation, and minutes later he emerged with our onyx hero in his hand. While I by no means had a bad childhood, this still ranks very high in my childhood (if not number one) in my all times happiest childhood moments. (ok ok i know it’s lame but gimmie a break its not like I ever hit a home run in the big game or anything)

So fast forward 20 some odd years and I’m walking through a Kaybee at a mall when I see this;

It was the 25th anniversary of the GI Joe line. It was then that all these feelings came flooding back. The way a song or a scent can trigger emotions seeing this little guy and his pet wolf reminded me of everything little John felt all those years ago and more. Needless to say I snatched him up. He’s not an exact copy of the original, but he looks great

Now this summer thanks to the success of the “Transformers” movie “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra” is hitting theaters. Snake Eyes is being played by none other than “Darth Maul” himself Ray Park. Also at this year’s New York Comic Con Snake Eyes was the hot costume, much like The Joker was last year I saw about a dozen at least walking around, some looked good, some looked bad, but all I could tell were kindred spirits, ones who played endlessly with their favorite figure in front of the TV till their mothers told them to clean up.

Below is the commercial that premiered during the Superbowl, it features some Snake Eyes badassery enjoy…

Fun Links:

The Hasbro site’s features the classic File card with all of Snake Eye’s info written by Joe creator Larry Hama

http://www.hasbro.com/gijoe/default.cfm?page=Entertainment/Bios&character=snakeeyes2

Snake Eyes on Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake-Eyes_(G.I._Joe)#Toy_History

The intro the the 1987 animated GI Joe movie
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DN034sBeF4c