Rudy Panucci On Pop Culture

2023 GI Joe Winterfest Part One

The PopCult Toybox

Your PopCulteer and his lovely wife spent last weekend enjoying our first visit to The Kentuckiana GI Joe Winterfest, a toy show produced by the fine folks being The Kentuckiana GI Joe Toy Expo (which happens at the end of July).  We had a blast, and I took tons of photos. Today we are bringing you the first big batch of them.

GI Joe Winterfest happened at the Paroquet Springs Conference Centre, at 395 Paroquet Springs Drive, in Shepherdsville, KY.  It’s not far at all from the South Louisville Antique Toy Mall, so most toy collectors ought to have an easy time finding it. This will be the new location for The Kentuckiana GI Joe Toy Expo in July and it’s a big upgrade. The previous location at the Hilton Garden Inn was great in the beginning, but the show outgrew the hotel’s exhibit space, and this conference center allows everyone to be in the same, huge room.

Today we’re going to bring you pictures from the show in general, and we’re going to focus on the offerings for the 12″ GI Joe, the original action figure. In the coming day or two we’ll look at the more modern GI Joes as well as the multitude of other cool toys at the show, including Marx figures, Batman, He Man, Barbie and more.

Tomorrow’s PopCulteer will have photos and news of the new Super Joe Unlimited figures.  There’s about a 50/50 chance that I’ll have some video to share on Sunday.

But now, let’s dive in to the first set of Winterfest photos…

The new space is amazing.

The wall and ceiling treatments made it seem like a toy prom.

This is the view right when you walk in the door. There are four or five rows of vendors behing all this.

Most of these photos were taken during the Friday preview and early admission on Saturday, which is why it doesn’t look that crowded. The general admission turnout was pretty huge.

A view from another angle. There were also dealers behind me.

The show’s organizer, Steve Stovall, talking with Scott and Charlotte Beckman from The Trenches Forum.

GI Joe collectrs may have needed a drool cup.

Matt Stevenson from Mattsquatch Customs describing one of his really cool custom sets to a customer.

Master Talking Joe Doctor, Scott Wilde and Sgt. Van himself (AKA Chuck Van Voorhees) with their joint table. Scott still has PTSD from the Talking GI Joe I had him repair a few years ago.

Ace Allgood hamming it up in front of his table of immaculate rarities.

A vintage GI Joe pup tent, displayed right past the ticket desk. You don’t often see these set up so well.

I think these guys and that race car were tucked away in the corner of Ace’s booth.

More Joe goodness, with a Lost In Space lunchbox hiding in the middle.

There was cool GI Joe stuff around every corner.

And then there were the extremely cool pieces that were too big to even consider adding to the collection.

More gems, I think from Ace’s booth again.

Another great piece that’s just too big to display properly in my house.

A great mix of Joe stuff and general vintage toy coolness.

Our last photo in this essay is a display case filled with everything from Bulletman to pygmy gorillas to rescue rafts and more.

Friday we’ll have a Super Joe Unlimited update in The PopCulteer, and another big photo essay with modern-era GI Joe, Marx figures and more.

6 Comments

  1. Thomas Wheeler

    WOW!

  2. Tom Sandelin

    Great pictures.

  3. Queli

    Thanks for taking me there. Loved the photos!

  4. Rob Buchanan

    where was the Master of ceremonies Joe Zeta? and loved seeing Ace…bought a lot of JOE GOODNESS from him at TOYLANTA a few years back …..thank you for sharing, and when is the show again?

    • Rudy Panucci

      I’m not sure if Joe was there or not. The big Kentuckiana show is Saturday, July 29. There will likely be a preview night on Friday.

  5. Mark Henderson

    Ironically, we collectors of original Joes are approaching a time we may in fact need drool cups. 🤤

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