With your PopCulteer headed out of town for a pre-birthday trip while also being way behind schedule on bringing you images from last month’s Kentuckiana GI Joe Toy Expo, today and tommorrow we’ll be presenting some short photo essays from that show.

Today we have the newest creation of Cindy Scott.  I first told you about Cindy a couple of years ago when we covered her diormas in depth, and this year she’s added a really impressive new display that we’ll look take a look at here.

Cindy Scott is a proud member of the Sixth Scale Collector’s Club of Ohio and she has built an amazing recreation of a WWII-era USO stage from one of Bob Hope’s legendary tours to raise the spirits of our fighting forces in the Pacific.

Hope, of course, extensively toured war zones with his USO tours, not just during World War II, but also in Korea and Vietnam.

The detail is amazing, even the things you can’t see.  Cindy built the stage herself using hobby wood, and it’s constructed exactly like a real stage of the era, with joists and braces underneath and tiny nails, pushed in rather than hammered, holding it all together.

We have a few close ups (like the newsreel cameraman seen above left) and some cool notes about the figures and accessories.

In the captions we’ll go over the details…

It’s a Pacific Theater USO stage from World War Two, with Bob Hope front and center, and loads of cool details.

Bob Hope’s USO efforts were celebrated with a Hasbro GI Joe back in 1998. The facial likeness is amazing, which I should have made more of an effort to catch on camera. The Barbie represents Frances Langford (If I remember correctly) and Hope’s manager and guitarist are historically accurate.

Another angle of this cool diorama

Another cameraman, and seated on the end of the row, John F. Kennedy (Hasbro released a GI Joe figure of him as Captainh of the PT Boat). JFK was known to have attended one of Hope’s USO shows.

Cindy built the stage herself, using designs from the era.

Some detail elements were cleverly repurposed, like this Christmas ornament horn, which became a loudspeaker.

Cindy with her latest masterpiece.

We’ll also show you a couple of shots of Cindy’s other dioramas, on display again after debuting in previous years. This log cabin is remarkable.

The level of detail in Joe’s Garage is mind-blowing. I think she’s added to this since last year.

We leave you with another shot of the garage, complete with the tool rack. Tomorrow we’ll meet some more of the people at Kentuckiana.