Evan Ratliff

do this enormous undertaking and do it in an hour kind of thing.

Well, it was a huge hit though.

It says here that they accounted for almost 66% of Hasbro's profits in 1964.

He seems to have had a sense that there was a really narrow window that was open right now that could close at any time and that they needed to get this stuff done, but they also needed to do it really well and really right basically out of the gate.

That's insane.

That is nuts.

And that was the year it came out, right?

Yeah, like right out of the gate it was a really big deal.

And, again, one of the reasons why was because you had toy soldiers before, but this guy could move.

They actually managed to because in 1983, after just a couple of years of research and development, they released what's called the Famicom or the family computer.

He had, I think, like 28 or 29 moving parts or different parts.

And he was articulated so he could lift up his hand and karate chop you, although he didn't get the kung fu grip until the mid-'70s.

which was essentially the direct predecessor of the Nintendo Entertainment System that they released a couple years later in North America.

Yeah, that's where I came in.

Okay.

Yeah, I mean, it's not very often that a head of a company or a boss comes along and says, I want to do something better and cheaper than what is currently out there, and it actually happened.

So he had kung fu grip when you knew G.I.

Joe?

Yeah, very much.

It was so kung fu.