Rolling Thunder

FLASHBACK FRIDAY!

This edition (Otherwise known as the 1st edition) of FLASHBACK FRIDAY is going to be a doozie! After sharing with everyone a box full of my childhood awhile back, I said to myself, I need to do this more often. And that’s exactly what’s going to happen. FLASHBACK FRIDAY’s are a look back into my childhood and things that impacted it. It might be a movie, cartoon, tv show, video game, toy… what have you.

I knew I needed to start off with a bang, that this 1st edition had to be huge. So, I pulled out the big guns, literally.

ROLLING MOTHERFUCKIN THUNDER BABY!

Seriously, this guy was a freakin monster. Released in 1988, retailing at only $24.95, it was a little over 3 feet long, and was only surpased in size by the USS Flagg. Rolling Thunder was the answer to, well just about any problem that GI Joe had on land. And the aircraft carrier took care of everything at sea. Thinking back I don’t know why they saw fit to even bother with any other vehicles. This was all you needed. And if you were like most kids, you probably barely had enough GI Joe’s to actually man this vehicle anyway. There’s 8 guys in the picture on the box alone. I was lucky if I could scratch up 8 GI Joe figures period. And I’ll be damned if you could fit Leonardo and Raphael in that gun turrent.

Here’s an actual picture of the toy. Glorious isn’t it? Take a minute and let’s count the guns mounted on this beast. I got 200, what’d you come up with. Oh, you must’ve forgot to count the one on the little ATV. There’s enough firepower on Rolling Thunder to demolish every Cobra vehicle twice over. And missles… don’t get me started on the missles…

The two big ones are called “Lightning Rockets” and all of those yellow missles on the right were mounted inside them. So not only were you shooting giant rockets at the Cobra A.S.P., you were also raining down 1800 little missles. And to top it off, along came a brand new Joe!

His name is Armadillo, and upon doing some research I found that he was made specifically for the Rolling Thunder vehicle. There is no other like him in the entire world. Which is probably for the best since he looks like a GI Joe shaped dildo.

His file card says it all. “He’s the most reliable driver in the whole GI Joe motor pool!” Well I’d certainly hope so, he’s driving the biggest thing on wheels. If you read down a couple of lines, you’ll find out that Armadillo is “No fun to ride with.” I can just see the arguments between Shipwreck and Lady Jaye about how sure, he’s reliable and all, but how he won’t let anyone listen to anything on the radio but News/Talk.

Easily the biggest toy that I ever owned, with the exception of a trampoline, Rolling Thunder was my key to being the coolest kid my parents had. An award that I’ve won all but two years of my life. And trust me, since I’m an only child I’m not sure how I lost either. The damn poodles aren’t that cute.

As a special bonus just for you, check out the actual commercial for Rolling Thunder… they kinda don’t give Cobra any credit at all, they get ran over alot in the spot. I can see why Rolling Thunder never made it into the show very often, it’d be 30 minutes of Destro getting crushed by giant wheels, Armadillo being an ass about the air conditioner, and Cobra Commander sobbing quietly because he doesn’t have one.