The original 11.5-inch military action figure that made up over 75% of Hasbro's entire sales in its first year — before reinventing itself as a smaller figure line in the 1980s.
G.I. Joe is Hasbro's military-themed action figure line, introduced in 1964 as an 11.5-inch poseable figure with swappable uniforms — effectively the first "action figure" as a toy category distinct from a doll. It later transformed into the smaller 3.75-inch figures most associated with the brand's 1980s cartoon-driven peak.
G.I. Joe's first year on shelves was successful to an almost unusual degree for a single toy line: it accounted for more than 75% of Hasbro's entire sales in that first year, a level of concentration few individual toys in Hasbro's subsequent history have matched.
By the 1980s, the brand had reinvented its physical format entirely, shrinking from the original 11.5-inch figure down to 3.75-inch figures modeled after the accompanying cartoon and comic book characters — a format Hasbro also used for Star Wars figures around the same period, and one that made the toys cheaper to produce and easier to build large, collectible team rosters around.