"Civil War, Revolutionary War and Pirate cannons

February 6, 2002 7:25 PM

"Civil War, Revolutionary War and Pirate cannons could not harm tanks, half tracks, armored cars or self-propelled guns." Army Men, my friends, Army Men.
posted by rodii (21 comments total)

We used to have a rule (somewhat suspect, I thought at the time) about the Army Men who lay supine, firing those machine guns that were supported on what I guess you'd call duopods. If you bit the legs off the duopods, then the Army Men could fly. As I said, somewhat suspect, but then we were 8 years old.

Also, when we played soldier (where we actually ran around with toy guns, not just using Army Men) and we "shot" at each other, for some reason we said "Dow! Dow! Dow!"

Nice link, rodii.
posted by diddlegnome at 7:42 PM on February 6, 2002

Actually, since they were on their stomachs, not their backs, they were prone, not supine.
posted by diddlegnome at 7:50 PM on February 6, 2002

I bet my Army men weren't the only ones who met an untimely death from model glue napalm.
posted by bondcliff at 8:11 PM on February 6, 2002

little known facts about army men:

an army man, when held close to an open flame, will eventually catch on fire. if you do it right.

an army man, while being consumed by fire and held at a height of two feet or more, will drip little waxy/rubbery balls of flame. this makes a very interesting, and satisfying 'whiirrthpthp' sound.

flaming waxy/rubbery pellets should be kept off carpet, bedding, most floors, and definitely your skin.

various sized rubber bands and star trek tracer guns are excellent tools for resolving any particular army man battle.
posted by lescour at 8:11 PM on February 6, 2002

A medic can heal a man who was shot by taking out the bullet.  He cannot do this if the guy was bayonetted or bombed or fired up.

Soldier: Let me at 'em! Let me at 'em!

Medic: Triage! I can't help this one, he's too fired up.
posted by mattpfeff at 8:12 PM on February 6, 2002

I have such a hard time finding these little plastic things. Noone seems to carry them anymore!
posted by geoff. at 8:13 PM on February 6, 2002

Hey! Why no ladies in this thread? Oh, wait...I think I understand.
posted by ColdChef at 8:16 PM on February 6, 2002

If you use tanks with spacemen ... their cannons automatically become super ray guns.

Alright. I'm outta here.
posted by ColdChef at 8:19 PM on February 6, 2002

Some people like their army men more than others.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 8:22 PM on February 6, 2002

Here's a top-secret ordnance fact from the early 70's, discovered in our hidden army-man torture fort: the spray from a can of Lysol, when ignited, can wipe out an entire battalion in a hellbroth of screaming death.

Man... the good ol' days.
posted by apollo at 8:29 PM on February 6, 2002

Okay, ColdChef, a female response. I still have some little green army men. I use one at work to protect one of our instruments from a over zealous follow employee who likes to clean it too often.

My favorite were the big bags of cowboys and Indians with the little plastic fort included.
posted by bjgeiger at 8:32 PM on February 6, 2002

mr_crash_davis an interesting link and on my server. Yipes!
posted by bjgeiger at 8:36 PM on February 6, 2002

Noone seems to carry them anymore!

I see them in little mesh bags down at the Cumberland Farms, along with other delights like the toy dune-buggy and Mark McGwire bobbin-head doll I bought the other day when my girlfreind sent me out for milk.

I used to love playing with them too. And Micronauts as well. What the hell became of them?
posted by jonmc at 8:40 PM on February 6, 2002

Man, the Micronauts piss me off because I could never afford them, so I always got leftover ones at tag sales, and they'd always be missing their hands, heads, feet, ect...
I had a horrorshow collection of bomb victim Micronauts.
posted by dong_resin at 9:33 PM on February 6, 2002

Me too, dong. Times were hard then, I even had to play with used Shrinky Dinks. Ah, the humanity...
posted by jonmc at 9:40 PM on February 6, 2002

I never had any army men, but I also have experience with the cowboys and Indians sets, and I remember some of the more interesting molding errors, like the six-legged horses and the one-legged cowboys (they were supposed to have two legs, so they could ride the horses in the sets, and they didn't stand up).
posted by Electric Elf at 10:02 PM on February 6, 2002

Shoot, I thought I was the only one who liked Micronauts. Acroyear rocks! Acroyear 2 was useless, what with those metal spheres for hands.

What? Why are you all looking at me that way?
posted by Tacodog at 10:19 PM on February 6, 2002

"Nancy toys," we used to call 'em.
Ahhh, the good ole days of firing the pellets, pouring the molds and painting the suckers. Barbie dolls with tinfoil bikinis were the Greek godesses masterminding the foreplay of it all. Boys had it so easy!
posted by G_Ask at 10:25 PM on February 6, 2002

my mother complains that she still digs pieces of army men out of the garden.

the superglue napalm idea is brilliant. we just used to light the army men themselves on fire, and dribble them on one another; so you could use napalm, but you had to sacrifice one of your guys to get it.

we lived at the end of a caul-de-sac which was at the bottom of a very slight hill, so when everybody watered their lawns on saturday the gutters filled up, making the driveways into a series of lakes connected by sheer-cliffed river canyons filled with grass clippings, for a real "apocolypse now" sort of flavor. build your army men a raft out of wrecked balsa gliders and see if you can get it past your enemy's forces which line the cliffs!
posted by hob at 11:03 PM on February 6, 2002

I never played with army men, but for each toy system my brothers and I had rules like those discussed in the link. For example, with legos, the smooth blue capping pieces, usually two or four lego bumps per, were "power pieces" that would add special abilities to whatever lego character or entity was displaying them.
posted by bingo at 1:14 AM on February 7, 2002

I used to dip a few of my brother's army men in a can of tuna when he went to the bathroom. The cats would then ally themselves to my cause with predictable results.
posted by Cyrano at 6:28 AM on February 7, 2002