He was the little green army man in plastic, cast-lead soldiers. if you were playing soldiers, they were faceless. and now you could identify with this action figure soldier. let s take a look now at a commercial from back in the day, this was in the 70s. g.i. joe underwent major changes. let s take a look. and here is g.i. joe with kung fu grip. g.i. joe has hands that grip, fingers you hold open and let close, hands that hold on with a kung fu grip. a lot of changes to the image over the year. why were many of these necessary? it kind of became this all-american guy. the reaction to the vietnam war turned people against the military. there were people protesting g.i. joe. so he sort of mustered out of his military role and became part of an action team so that he is going on adventures rather than being part of a military