From the desk of ucsf:

“O-Ring Archives

American Defense – Remco’s chameleon brand:

It wasn’t just Lanard – watching and slowly responding to the glorious marching of the G.I. Joe brand in the mid 80’s – that had the idea of coming up with a similar figure line to get a little piece of the whole market. Remco at this time was a company with no less than 40 years of experience in the toy business. Ike Heller and Saul Robbins, two cousins founded it with a strict indication in the name. Remco was created from the words remote control, that has been a great toy format over the decades and the fathers of this establishment gained their reputation via wired toy cars. Despite some success, in the early 70’s the company almost gone smash. If it hadn’t been found by Azrak-Hamway International, Inc. the whole business would have been only part of the history books by the eighties. A new era begun and this new investment created some of the most memorable toys like Universal Monsters and the remote control version of the classic Batmobile.

After the first few years when Joes were around, Remco decided to step in with a military line, which featured not just figures, but accessories, vehicles and playsets. The piquancy about the wider release is that it was an established custom to offer toys through only one store. At the time it was K-mart which they settled with and a small advertising campaign started. The main appeal was it’s price point and nothing – even quality or availability – beats cheapness if it’s about the size of a parents wallet. A little more insight to K-Mart: it wasn’t only the vendor of this brand, it actually bought it. And if it’s not muddled enough, in 1985 – the first year when American Defense came out – Remco wasn’t around. the first waves produced by a company called Agglo. As I stated it morphed through the years, the first releases were called National Defense. It contained eight figures: Bazooka, Machine Gunner, Marine, Pilot, Commando, Leader Enemy, Enemy Weapons officer, Enemy Spy Leader. Later Remco took control and changed the name to American Defense which is by far the most known title.  With the re-release of the original characters, there was a slight expansion and they had no problem mimicking other toy lines. The later runs contained two figures on cards, for a limited time. I think nowadays it’s harder to find these versions.

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