The PopCulteer
April 10, 2026

Today I am going to take you back more than twenty years.  However, this is not a flashback to a post from twenty years ago today in this blog.

This is a photo essay that has never previously been published in PopCult.

But…it’s photos of my office, where, at the time, I was less than six months into my career as a blogger. I had this tucked away in a back-up image blog, and forgot about it until this week. I thought my readers (and my old GI Joe collecting buddies) would get a kick out of seeing these.

I made these to share in the old alt.toys.gijoe “The Sandbox” newsgroup. This was actually before my mother passed away, and I was still a full-time caregiver. Her bedroom was right next to my office, which I’d moved upstairs after my dad passed away almost three years earlier. I was just showing off some of my collection to my fellow collectors. This was back when I was still on dial-up.

The scary thing is, maybe sixty percent of the walls are still like this, with the action figures on display unmoved in more than two decades.

That’s going to change soon. I’m in the middle of a fairly extensive rearrange of the office, which will likely take months. That’s why I’m not doing “before and after” photos yet. Right now my office looks like a cyclone hit a toy warehouse.

Maybe later this year I’ll revisit this idea. For now, you get to see what my office looked like in January, 2006, back when times were simpler. We only had access to a couple hundred cable channels. Phones flipped open and had real buttons. Failed businessmen with TV shows were still only on TV. Disney hadn’t bought Lucasfilm and Marvel yet. Flying cars were just a pipe dream. Foolish people were still waging senseless wars in the Middle East. And people who were born after 9 11 weren’t in first grade yet.

The rest of the copy here is adapted from what I wrote for the Sandboxers back then…

WELCOME SANDBOXERS! THE OFFICE TOUR

Okay, so I was a bit bored, and decided to share some detailed shots of my office with you guys.

Here’s about a dozen pics I took just standing in the middle of my work space, spinning around. Just enough pictures to kill the batteries in the digital camera. Please note that the office is quite messy, due to me not having cleaned up after Christmas yet (this was first posted in January, 2006).

First up, we have a shot of what lurks behind the door, as you can see this is mostly Timeless Collection Joes, with a few odds and ends tossed in.

Aside from the TC guys, you’ll find the 35th set, John F. Kennedy, an Early Dragon dude, and an Honor Guard figure.

Looking a bit more floorward, we find even more TC Joes, plus the Hall Of Fame Rapid Fire, a cheap-o Target Classic Collection Joe, boxes from the 40th Anniversary line, and the Monty Python Knights from Sideshow. Just barely visible is the top of the Action Man croc hunter set. Under the mound of debris is my scanner. On top of the scanner you can see the side of the Billy Yank that went out to Charlie Bury the next day.

On the rest of the East Wall, we see my GI Joe Club convention sets and Club Reproduction figures. Also mixed in amongst the throng are the Playing Mantis Captain Action and Dr. Evil, A Classicos Falcon Piloto that I forogt I had, the Target Duke, and some clear and multi-colored figures from the club. That’s a Sigma Six set in the very corner of the office–the Ninja Showdown.

Next up we have the space directly over my desk, where I do all my PopCulteering.

Those are the FAO Green Beret and Jungle Fighter guys, precariously hanging over my computer. You can also see the aformentioned Sigma Six Ninja Showdown, and if you look hard, the NWA TNA Raven figure. Yes, this is so old that you’d see a CRT Monitor there if I hadn’t cropped it out. This was three, going on four PCs ago.

Here’s a shot of my desk, just to the right of my work area.

For those of you who remember ‘Highlights’ magazine, find the following:

A Land Adventurer holding a Land Adventurer
A Timeless Collection MOA that I dunked in bleach, whose hair turned red instead of white.
A Sigma Six Centurian
The Red Baron
A Halftrack
A Lunchbox
My Razor
An Arbitron ratings diary

To the right of my desk, we find the corner display table, which is usually more crowded than displayed.

It’s chock full o’ Joey goodness.

Two TC talking Pilots
Two TC talking Sailors
A MB Joe in a knockoff pilot outfit
A Kid Connection sand craft
The Jesse James cool old R/C car
A really crappy dollar-store knockoff that I hadn’t written about yet
A MOA in Lanard Adventure Gear
And partially visible on the right, my first Joe, a Talking Soldier I got for my fifth birthday in 1967

Damn, I’m old. Sadly, I am twenty years older than when I wrote that now.

More of the dispay table in the corner.

Here you can see all of my Talking Soldier, who later terrorized master Talking Joe repairman, Scott Wilde.

You also see the Power Team Lookout Tower with the Timeless Collection Space Capsule sitting atop.

Manning the tower are a 40th guy in SOTW “Snowdrop” MP gear, and a Meijer’s Air Adventurer who got a food coloring hair dye job. Until I found this photo essay this week, I’d totally forgotten that I did that.

Below that are some wine crates that make great figure storage devices (three bucks each at Family Dollar back then), and a Blue Box International WWII guy from Toys R Us.

In the lower corner you see a 40th Anniversary Sailor driving a cheap beach-toy dune buggy from K Mart.

Just barely visible is my Les Paul, wearing a 42-year old Stetson that needed re-blocked.

Looking up a bit, we see a wall of 40th guys. It’s the West Wall

Among them you’ll see a 40th soldier with Field Jacket, A Military Policeman, Sgt. Rock, and some of the stuff you’ve seen in other photos. I’d probably taken pictures of this wall a hundred times.

The rest of the West Wall.

You can see some assorted 40th, Meijers, and FAO guys there, plus a near-complete collection of those little novelty tin lunchboxes.

Blocking Access to the closet (yes, it’s full of toys), we find a mound of stuff. There are Hot Wheels Classic sets, A Sigma Six Ninja B.A.T, a couple of Wild Bills, DEVO action figures, and other goodies.

Plus you can see the world’s cheapest 12-string guitar. The Carlo Robelli (sounds like a name Chico Marx would use). 99 bucks at Sam Ash.com. No wonder they went out of business.

It sounds like a 12-string that should cost twice that much!

Finally, we wind up back near where we started, the North Wall, just to the left of the door.

You ought to be able to spot some 40th guys, Kid Action, a tiny SpongeBob Squarepants, A Polistil Action Team card that was Karma’d to me, and a display of “Pirates Of The Spanish Main”, the constructible strategy game.

I have to say that it’s sort of mind-blowing that I’ve had all this stuff at least twenty years. Even some of those books shocked the hell out of me. And all those VHS tapes…sheesh!

Anyway, that is this week’s oddly nostalgic PopCulteer. Remember to check back for fresh content every day, even though some of it is more than two decades all. We also have all our usual regular features.