1995 Star Brigade War Dog
Before anyone gets too excited, I don’t own a War Dog prototype or anything as fantastic as that. But ever since I got deep into GI Joe collecting over a decade ago, this item has fascinated me more than a lot of other unreleased items from 1995. You rarely see much about this concept, and my blog provides me with a platform to ramble about it, so I will.
For the longest time, I only knew about this figure through it’s pages on Yo Joe!, featuring it’s official (or is it just more concept?) art, and an early mock-up figure that existed of it. The mock-up figure is a particularly interesting piece showcasing the early design phase of the more abstract entries into the line like this. It’s made from a few different toys that came out in 1993, mostly from Mattel. The majority of the figure was made from a Jurassic Park Dimetrodon. Heavy Duty’s gun is also quite noticeable on him.
The prototype is basically meant for showcasing the concept in an utmost basic physical form. I have to say it’s quite ugly, maybe even silly looking like this, and a far cry from the monster portrayed in the art above.
Much to my surprise, an actual newly sculpted hard copy does exist. The only way I know of it is through the article on the Star Brigade from Joe Declassified, featuring a picture of it you can see here. Seeing it’s size next to Duke makes me really curious how they would have planned to sell this thing. Would it have come out blister-carded at a normal price-point? Or would they have sold it in a box more like a small vehicle?
This prototype is a lot closer to the art, and a lot better looking. I’d be curious if me or my brother would have bought it had it come out to retail, but somehow I doubt we would have. My novel interest in this piece aside, this was firmly the wrong direction for GI Joe. I get that the design team was trying to keep the brand relevant with pop culture and the tastes of children at the time. However, in the pursuit of that it diluted the brand with strange products and moved towards imitating, not innovating.
But among the myriad of terrible, strange ideas they’d have attempted, the War Dog strikes me simply as the most interesting. So many questions that could be asked about it. There’s very little content about him on the internet, and if you know of anything I missed or any other prototypes of War Dog, please feel free to let me know in the comments.
I’ve never seen that video. The next 30 years haven’t gone as planned. Quite a few hiatuses in there.
War Dog is kinda neat. In that “Hasbro could make original toy lines” way, like the did with Inhumanoids, Visionaries, etc. It’s no big loss the space pooch wasn’t made or the Replicators for that matter. I do feel we are lacking an armored walking Firefly.
I love Star Brigade. I do not love this concept, though. The aliens work since they are, basically, the same construction. But, I wouldn’t have bought these.
That commercial is interesting. The 50,000 adult collector number seems terribly misguided for 1994. Star Wars in its heyday wasn’t believed to have much more than that. So, that number seems really, really optimistic and high.