The original G.I. Joe toyline was conceived in 1963 by designer Stanley Weston and was meant to serve as a more "masculine" counterpart to the female dolls designed for girls. Indeed, the word "doll" was used by marketers to describe babies or dress-up miniature women, not soldiers or men of action. Hasbro came up with the term "action figure" to refer to its G.I. Joes, and the term stuck. For several generations, children's toys were heavily gendered along those lines, with "girl" toys encouraging motherhood, domesticity, and fashion, while "boy" toys encouraged combat and violence.

By 1982, the G.I. Joe brand had become moribund and was in need of a sprucing up. A new line of toys was launched under the new name G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero. These figures were only 3.75 inches high (the older ones were 12 inches) and were composed of 11 cartoony characters. They were American soldiers ... kind of.