The creator of 'GI Joe' and co-creator of 'Thundercats,' Stanley Weston has died at age 84.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Stanley Weston, inventor of the G.I. Joe action figure, died on May 1 in Los Angeles.
His daughter, Cindy Winebaum, announced his death.
Weston was born in Brooklyn in 1933 and served in the army shortly after the Korean War ended.
He found a job with the advertising agency McCann Erickson and enrolled in night courses for an MBA at New York University, where he had studied as an undergraduate.
When Mattel's Barbie dolls were introduced in 1960, Weston realized boys were an untapped market for the doll industry after noting that many of them played with Ken dolls.
He conceived of the idea of a military action figure and in 1963 sold what would become 'G.I. Joe' to Hasbro.
In 1989, he was among the inaugural class for the Licensing Industry Hall of Fame, which includes notables Walt Disney, George Lucas and Jim Henson.
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