Action Man Photo Mission UK TV toy advert

There's a lot of unpack here. First you've got Action Man - a highly trained agent of the state - moonlighting as, essentially, a paparazzi. He's not dressed up like he's doing military recon or anything, that's a straight-up pap costume. That's hardly a glamorous, aspirational role for the kids. But this is in 1999, so this product must have been in development not long after Princess Diana died, hounded by paparazzi and/or secretly killed by an embarrassed British monarchy (depending how into conspiracy theories you are). That's a weird area to be willingly edging towards. Frankly, I'm amazed this didn't come with a scooter. Secondly, Dr X has stolen a load of gold and instead of getting it back or sending a trained puma to maul him or whatever, Action Man is now just taking photos of it all? And weirdest of all, why is Dr X trying to eat the gold?! Biting gold coins to check for purity is a thing, sure, but chomping down on a bullion bar like it's a chunky Kit Kat? Are we sure these photos are for the intelligence services and not being sold to some tabloid rag to kink-shame Dr X? Man I love these ridiculous ads. And all that's without getting to the fact that someone at Hasbro thought it'd be cool to sell an Action Man with a camera bolted into it! No Snappy Snaps plastic camera with a tampographed logo for them. Clipped from an off-air recording of GMTV circa 1999. Part of the old UK and Irish toy advert playlist:    • Old Toy Adverts