I know the feeling. I've been keeping an eye out for a second Obstacle Course for several years now, and I've never once seen it for sale. Yours is the first brush with one that I've heard of on the secondary market, although given how long they were on the shelves for, it's hard to imagine that there aren't a few of them in the hands of collectors (or, more likely, somebody's parent who has no idea what that weird plastic net is supposed to be). By the way, if the obstacle course was already pretty worn, you were smart to pass on it: it was a fairly fragile toy to begin with, and I'm sure 20-plus years hasn't made the plastic any less brittle.

The figures themselves have actually aged well, appearance-wise: their relatively simple designs and color schemes might have looked plain in the mid-80's, but they still catch my eye every time I see one in a lot of figures or in a vintage toy store.

Oh, and a warning for anyone thinking about starting up a Remco collection: if you find a Combat King figure (the fellow with the gold flight-suit-looking uniform and helmet), do not move his joints, touch him, or even look at him for too long. The gold plastic that they used to make him (and probably any of the other gold figures in the line) is possibly the most fragile material ever conceived by humanity.

I recall when those old Lanard Star Corps sets almost had their own aisle at TRU.

I remember selling a couple of older Corps vehicles on ebay 10 years ago. I regret it now.

The closest thing today is Power Team World Peacekeepers, they have great vehicles/gear but the figures lack personality (and o-rings).

The rest of the modern knock-offs have poor articulation.

MarkM - those customs take me back a long way! I still have a lot of the old Sgt. Rock figs, plus the Rock HQ and machine gun nest. If anyone is interested, I can take some pix and scan in the card backs. I've also got some of the American Defense figs. One year at Christmas my mom and I found a bunch of them at a Sears Surplus store. We got the watchtower, bunker and some vehicles. Wish I still had those pieces. I was lucky enough to pick up one of the three-pack Joes in the cardboard mailer at the Sears Surplus store. I know it had Tripwire and Torpedo. Can't remember the third fig.

I also remember the Christmas that Revco Drugstore had Joes for 99-cents each. Man, I miss being a kid!

Great images of all of the old Joe KO's we loved (and some i dont recognize . The "Flamboyantly dressed drag queen pirates" for example). Most are towards the bottom half of the page.

http://treasuresntoys.com/webcampko.htm

Something DJ posted on the 13 fig thread that is related to KOff's http://www.joeaday.com/knock-off-figure ... ment-plan/

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I loved the Remco toys. They were great for cannon fodder since I didn't want to kill off any real joe's as a kid. Many had holes on their chest that made for great gun shot wounds.

Airman John was one of my favorites, I had three or four of him and used the figure as a generic pilot to ride shotgun in my Phantom, or Ghoststriker.

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I think it's because these days no one wants to make a line that's not backed by a cartoon or movie because most stores won't even touch it.The stuff made without a TV series backing it up is going to go to cheap dollar stores and those companies are just going to make whatever costs less. Yes, it'd be nice if Lanard could go back to the RAH style Crops figures, but as long as the cheapo versions that cost them less money to make sell, they have no need.

This is why the stores barely carry Joes because there's no major cartoon backing it. Renegades wasn't very popular, probably won't get a second season and the toys are coming out after the show's done with(which is really Hasbro's fault for trying to get the Hub on the air before they were even ready to do so). But be guaranteed the stores will take the movie line. And I don't think I ever see any major lines in the big stores that aren't backed by some sort of media.

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