Hasbro called G.I. Joe an “action figure” so it could sell boys a doll.
The toy trade held that boys would not play with dolls and that parents would not buy their sons one. So when G.I. Joe arrived in February 1964, a soldier with 21 moving parts, the word doll was never used. In his first two years he brought in $35 million to $40 million, nearly two-thirds of everything the company sold.
Hasbro on Brandseum