Video: A Favorite Toy of Christmas Past Gets A Special Showing in Tupelo

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TUPELO, Miss. (WCBI) — With Christmas approaching, many parents are looking for the hottest toys for their kids. But there is one popular toy that is celebrating its 50th birthday, and the well known action figure is on display at a local museum.

If there’s one thing that Joey Tutor knows about, it is GI Joe.

Tutor is 51 and when he was growing up, the must have toy for boys was GI Joe .

As a young adult, Tutor’s fascination with the Hasbro action figure was rekindled when his son, Joseph, started playing with the adventure hero. Now, the Tupelo resident has brought most of his collection to the Oren Dunn Museum where it is on display.

It’s called “50 Years With GI Joe”.

“GI Joe started in 1964, and continued so far to 2014. He has been one of the most popular action figures since the sixties.”

Tutor’s collection features some of those first GI Joes, representing the four branches of the military. As the sixties turned into the seventies, and public support of the Vietnam war dropped, GI Joe became more of an adventure hero.

“They were digging up mummies from the desert, or capturing white tigers or doing environmental stuff to save the world.”

And going into space.Tutor scours yard sales, flea markets and of course eBay for new additions to his collection.

When it comes to value, GI Joe vintage figures can go for several hundred dollars, if they are in good condition, in the original box. But the most sought after piece is not an alpha male, but a nurse, marketed to the untapped female market.

“It was a total flop, girls wanted nothing that had GI Joe on it, boys wanted nothing to do with a girl toy and it flopped. Now, amongst collectors, it is the most valuable GI Joe on the market, mint in a box can go up to 7 thousand dollar range.”

Tutor doesn’t have that figure, but he does have hundreds of other GI Joes that he hopes will help others understand how kids played, before the days of iphones and xboxes.

“The memory of having fun as a kid, maybe younger people seeing the type of toys we had growing up, where you actually had to get down to play and not electronic stuff, you went outside and you made your own adventures.”

The GI Joe exhibit will run from December first through the end of January at Tupelo’s Oren Dunn Museum.