JFK: The Action Figure
Hasbro Teams with JFK Library and Museum
To Create JFK GI Joe Action Figure
Dateline: 03/02/00
With the cooperation and support of the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum in Boston, Hasbro has announced it will add war hero and former president John F. Kennedy to its line of GI Joe action figures. The new toy will debut this September.
The toy commemorates Kennedy’s World War II heroism—his
PT-109 was sunk by a Japanese warship, and he and his crew swam to safety. The
doll will be dressed in fatigues and will depict Kennedy carving a message into
a coconut describing his crew’s predicament. Fortunately, Kennedy and his crew
were rescued from their island refuge a week later without having to wait for
the coconut to fetch help! The 12-inch doll will retail for $30.
Kennedy joins two other former presidents, George Washington and Dwight Eisenhower, who are also part of the GI Joe series of collectible action figures.
The action figure was created with the permission of the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, the only presidential library in New England. Hasbro will make a donation to the museum, which plans to sell the doll in its museum store.
More than 5 million people have visited the Kennedy Library since it opened on October 20, 1979--it's one of Boston's most popular tourist attractions. The John F. Kennedy Library and Museum overlooks Boston Harbor at Columbia Point. Directions are available online.
The library's collection includes 8.4 million pages of the personal, congressional, and presidential papers of John F. Kennedy; 180,000 photographs; 11,000 audio recordings; 70,000 volumes of printed materials; and 8 million feet of film. It also houses more than 26 million pages of the papers of Robert F. Kennedy and more than 300 other individuals associated with the Kennedy administration and era. The Library is also the archive for 95 percent of all of Nobel prize-winning author Ernest Hemingway's manuscripts and correspondence.
The museum is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily except for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's Day. For more information, call the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum at (617) 929-4523.
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