 This episode of H.C.C. 788, brought to you in part by non-stop pop, non-stop pop, definitely an actual comic strip, and not just an extensive enterprise's front for a cartoonish supervillain's attempts to take over your world fools! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Pardon us? Yes. Definitely a comic. Here's H.C. 788 here, and before I get started, I want to shout out the G.I. Joe Renegade group on Facebook. That's G.I. Joe Renegade. Find them by searching for G.I. Joe Renegade on Facebook. So after spending several weeks in the sunlit meadows of the 1980s, we must now return to the dank chasms of the 1990s, the dark ages. And we will return to the 1990s by looking at the 1991 infantry squad leader, Grunt. This figure is, allegedly, the third and final version of Grunt in the vintage G.I. Joe toy line. Allegedly. There's a lot to say about this figure, so let's just jump right in. H.C.C. 788 presents the 1991 figure that claims to be version 3 of Grunt. This is Grunt G.I. Joe's infantry squad leader from 1991. This figure was only available in 1991. It was discontinued for the year 1992. And this was the last version of Grunt in the vintage line. This is Grunt version 3. Version 1 of Grunt was issued in 1982 as part of the first wave of G.I. Joe action figures when the toy line was relaunched that year. The following year, in 1983, we got version 1.5, which was almost the same as version 1, except they added a new point of articulation, the so-called swivel arm battle grip, and some other detail. But other than that, it's really the same as version 1. Version 2 of Grunt was introduced in 1983 as the pilot of the Falcon glider. Version 2 of Grunt was just a reissue of version 1.5, but with a tan color instead of green. There's a long gap between the introduction of version 2 of Grunt and the introduction of version 3, 1983 to 1991. That was probably because the character had been retired from G.I. Joe media. In the comic book, Grunt retired from the army to attend university. In the cartoon, he left G.I. Joe to fight Cobra in another dimension. Grunt is a slang term for infantrymen, and that is appropriate because Grunt is an infantry trooper. Let's take a look at Grunt's accessories, starting with what the card contents call a machine gun. This machine gun is not as far as I know based on any real world weapon. It has lots of extra detail, and on one side it has two holes, and this is so it can peg into Grunt's rocket launcher. The holes on the machine gun fit on these two pegs on the rocket launcher, and it fits in very securely. I think it would have been better if version 3 of Grunt had come with his signature M16. I really think that should be Grunt's standard weapon. Let's unpeg the machine gun so we can actually take a look at the rocket launcher. The contents list on the packaging call this a Blastum rocket launcher. That's right, that's the name they came up with for this. And it has an orange bipod, so it can stand on its own. This is a spring loaded weapon, it will fire a missile, and 1991 was early in the era of spring loaded weapons. Later a lot of figures would have them. It came with a single orange missile, and you can load the missile into the launcher, press it back until it clicks, and then you can fire it by pulling this trigger here at the back, this orange trigger, and fire the missile. The spring on my rocket launcher is not quite as powerful as it used to be. Now I was never a fan of these spring loaded missiles. When I was playing with GI Joe as a kid, I liked to guide the missiles wherever I wanted them to go. So that they would fit with the storyline that we were creating during playtime. Even though this is an oversized accessory, and a rocket launcher this size would be more than you would want one person to carry, it does have a grip on it, and you can fit that in the action figure's hand, and he can sort of hold it. Carrying this rocket launcher though, he will be top heavy, and he will fall very easily. This rocket launcher is not based on any real world weapon, but you could imagine it as an oversized, future tech M47 Dragon missile system. The Dragon was eventually replaced by the more modern Javelin missile. It doesn't really look like either the Dragon or the Javelin, but I'm just trying to give it something. Now let's look at Grunt's helmet. He had a green helmet. This is a Pazget helmet. It has black painted goggles on it, and that is really nice. It's nice to get a painted detail on an accessory like this. Unlike a lot of G.I. Joe helmets, this helmet is made of a soft, pliable plastic, and that ought to make the helmet fit more snugly on the head. There is sometimes a problem with this style of G.I. Joe helmet. Bazooka had one, Footloose, and Version 2 of Hawk. The helmet sometimes set kind of high on the action figure's head, which gave the figure kind of a Prince Valiant look. Since the helmet for Version 3 of Grunt was made of soft plastic, it should have been able to sit lower on the figure's head, fit on the head a bit more snugly, but they managed to defeat that advantage by sculpting the head with a tall, flat top. So again, the helmet rests a bit high on the head, and the figure looks like Prince Valiant. Grunt's last accessory, but not the least by any stretch, is his figure stand. And this figure stand is a black, standard figure stand, and this was a new innovation for the 1990s. Earlier in the 1980s, G.I. Joe figure stands really only came with battle gear accessory packs or small play sets, but in the 1990s they started issuing figure stands with the figures, and that was a good idea. Now let's take a look at Grunt's articulation. He had the standard articulation for G.I. Joe action figures at the time. He could turn his head from left to right and look up and down. He could swing his arm up at the shoulder and swivel at the shoulder all the way around. He had a hinge at the elbow, so he could move at the elbow about 90 degrees. He had a swivel at the bicep and could swivel his arm all the way around. The figure was held together with a rubber O-ring that looped around the inside. That allowed him to move at the torso a bit. He could move his legs apart about so far. He could move his leg at the hip about 90 degrees and bend at the knee about 90 degrees. Let's take a look at the sculpt to design a color of Grunt starting with his head, and the head probably has the most obvious problems. This is a very strange head sculpt. He has a very high flat top. He has a curl right down in the middle of his forehead. He has black hair rather than the original Grunt's brown hair. He has a very prominent chin and he has an expressive face. It's really hard to accept this head sculpt and this face as being Grunt. One of the most obvious problems being the hair color. Comparing him to the first release of Grunt, Grunt had brown hair and this version of Grunt has very dark black hair. The shape of the face is different. It really looks like an entirely different person. This isn't the first time Hasbro gave us later versions of characters that looked nothing like the original. There was a huge difference between version 1 and version 3 of low light. And not just a hair color difference. The shape of the head is entirely different. Low light version 1 could not just dye his hair black and grow a beard and look like this. It looks like a totally different person. Also between version 1 and 2 of Hawk. Again a hair color difference but also different facial features. And then of course Grunt version 1 versus version 3. Also look like entirely different people. This didn't always happen. For instance between version 1 of Rock and Roll from 1982 and version 2 from 1989. He still looks like basically the same guy. You could easily imagine this guy as just a slightly older version of this guy. Besides my general aversion to expressive faces, this one is especially bad. His mouth is frozen open like he's yelling or he's having a really hard poop. The teeth are not painted in so it's all just that Caucasian flesh tone and I think that's a very important unpainted detail. What's with the hair color change? What's with the flat top? What's with the little Superman curl? What's with the permanently open jaw? Did somebody at Hasbro really think this looked like Grunt? He looks like Rev Brown from Space Mutiny. If somebody held him upside down and dipped his head in tar. So what is that expression supposed to be? Were they trying to artfully capture a moment of severe constipation? Or maybe he's an illustration of that thing your mom used to say. If you keep making that face it'll stick that way. Ah! Moving on, his chest also has problems. He's wearing a brown shirt or sweater or jacket. I'm not really sure. But it has an open collar and he has a black undershirt. And he has dog tags but the dog tags are painted yellow. They don't really look like dog tags since they're painted yellow they look more like a disco medallion. With the open collar and the bare chest it really does have a disco look to it. All it's missing is some chest hair. Get on that customizers. On the brown shirt he has a couple blue patches and they don't contrast very well against the brown so they're kind of hard to see. Now I was able to identify this one. This is the patch of the US Army Special Forces. The insignia of the Green Berets. And Grunt is not a Green Beret so I'm not sure why he would have this patch. I haven't been able to identify the other patch. It seems to have some words on it and I think it says flying aces but I'm not sure. And I haven't been able to find a real world patch that closely matches it. So I'm not sure what this one is. Moving on to the arms. The arms have more problems. His lower arms are bare. His upper arms have the sleeves bunched up. And because of the sculpting on those sleeves his arms will not go all the way down by his side. That's actually as close as you can get to moving his arms all the way down by his side. So the brilliant sculpting on these arms interfere with the articulation. Moving down to his waist piece the weirdness does not let up. We have a bright yellow color with a bright orange belt and a teeny tiny pistol holster for a teeny tiny pistol on his left hip implying that Grunt is left-handed. If that wasn't weird enough he has a belt buckle with a sculpted anchor on it which looks navel which is totally wrong for Grunt. He is 100% army. Looking at these legs these are banana pants. They look like a banana. I think they were made out of a banana. They even have these little splits at the bottom. They look like banana peels. There are some bright orange zippers for highlights but the orange color doesn't contrast very well against the yellow so you can barely see it. And if you can barely see it really why bother. Finally we get to the only thing they got right on this figure. They gave him some boots in black. Let's take a look at Grunt's file card and his file card has his faction as G.I. Joe naturally. It has a portrait of Grunt here and this portrait is okay. I don't really have a problem with it. His codename is Grunt and he is the infantry squad leader. Grunt's original file card had him as the infantry trooper rather than the infantry squad leader and I think I prefer it this way. I like Grunt as a stand-in for the common soldier who follows orders rather than gives them. Grunt's final name is Robert W. Graves. His primary military specialty is infantry squad leader. His secondary military specialty is small arms attack specialist. This was a change from his version one file card which had his secondary military specialty as small arms armorer and artillery coordinator and his version two file card had his secondary military specialties as falcon pilot small arms armorer and artillery coordinator. His birthplace is Columbus Ohio and his grade is E5 and that's another change from his original file card. His grade was E4 so at some point Grunt got a promotion and I approve of that. As Tom Paragraph says, one of the original members of the GI Joe team Grunt left the service to get his engineering degree at Georgia Tech. Despite numerous offers in a generally depressed job market Grunt came back to GI Joe to serve one more hitch because the team needed him. A handshake and a pension plan did not mean diddly in the business world when everything bottoms out whereas in a close-knit combat team the loyalty and camaraderie only get tighter when the chips are down. The first part of this paragraph more or less follows the GI Joe comic book continuity but then it totally does away with that when he rejoins GI Joe. This bottom section has a quote. It says he's a stand-up foot slogger from way back. Oh he gripes and grumbles with the best of him but when Cobra pops some firefight on us we know that Grunt will be among the first to return fire with his blast-em-up rocket launcher. Even in the file card they call this a blast-em-up rocket launcher. They really want that name to stick. We can count on Grunt to stay chilly and do his job. That's probably the highest compliment you can give a soldier when the smoke clears he did his job. This is not a great file card but it is an improvement on the version one file card. Grunt's file card was among the first file cards that was written by Larry Hama, the writer of the GI Joe comic book and he also wrote these file cards back then. And it really is very minimal. It gives you really nothing about his background other than his training. So even though this is not a great file card at least there's something there. Grunt did have a fair number of appearances in GI Joe media. In the GI Joe cartoon series he remained behind in an alternate dimension in the world's without end story arc. He remained behind to fight Cobra in that dimension. Despite this fact he reappeared later in his version 3 uniform in the Deke animated series. I haven't seen every episode of the Deke series so I don't know if they explained how he returned. In the GI Joe comic book he first appeared in issue number one since he was one of the original team members. In the comic book he was rarely the focus of the story. Most notably he retired from the army in issue number 55. After he retired he went to Georgia Tech and he met a woman there named Lola. He appeared briefly in issue number 62 and he returned to help his comrades in issue number 78. He returned again in issue number 145 as a civilian not as a member of GI Joe. In that issue Duke encouraged him to continue his hunt for a job as an engineer. It's better to build things than to tear them down Duke said. I think that's a fitting sign off for Grunt. Like a lot of real Grunts he served his time, he did his job and he returned to his normal life. Then of course his file card throws all that out the window. Looking at this figure overall, I can't, I can't even, I can't, just ranting about this figure is not enough. I need to, I need to hit something. I need to pound my fist on something. I need a table. I'm gonna go get a table. You wait right there. I got the table. You see what you made me do? You made me get the table. Now I have to lower the camera. Hold on a minute. There I got the table. I lowered the camera. Now Grunt version three. Overall assessment. I'm not mad. I'm not mad. You know why I'm not mad? Because this is not Grunt. I refuse to accept this as Grunt. It doesn't look like Grunt. It doesn't have the character of Grunt. Grunt would not be caught dead in banana pants. I will not sit still for this. Nor will I stand for this. I don't know the history of the development of this figure but I would be shocked if I found out that this figure as it was originally conceived was intended to be Grunt. It looks like they just designed a whole new character with terrible fashion sense and just called it Grunt. But why bother to do this? We didn't have a new Grunt action figure since 1983. So the kids that were buying this in 1991 are probably not the same kids that bought Grunt in 1983. So they wouldn't have that connection to Grunt. Why bother creating this guy and then calling it Grunt? And if the designers were trying to do an homage to the original Grunt, why couldn't they at least make it look a little bit like Grunt? I mean who at Hasbro looked at this and said, yeah, that's Robert W. Graves. That's our Grunt. I love G.I. Joe. I don't criticize G.I. Joe because I hate it. I do it because it matters to me. And Grunt is not my favorite character or anything but Grunt matters to me. I understand what Grunt represents. So if you're gonna make a toy soldier and call it a G.I. Joe and he's an infantry trooper called Grunt, then that has some gravity to it. You have some history to live up to. I don't think it's too much to ask for a toyline called G.I. Joe to have some respect and reverence for the infantry and to give us a Grunt that doesn't look like a cross between Dolph Lundgren in Rocky IV and Grace Jones. This is the infantry. This is what G.I. Joe is. There is agony in your heart and you almost feel ashamed to look at them. They're just guys from Broadway and Main Street but you wouldn't remember them. They are too far away now. They are too tired. Their world can never be known to you but if you could see them just once, just for an instant, you would know that no matter how hard people work back home, they are not keeping pace with these infantrymen. Do you know who wrote that? Ernie Pyle. It was the movie about Ernie Pyle, the story of G.I. Joe that was the inspiration for calling the original toyline G.I. Joe back in 1964. Ernie Pyle understood the importance of the infantry. He knew the Grunts. He cared about them and he wrote about them. G.I. Joe has cultural significance beyond this plastic that we collect and played with as kids. It has weight, it has history, it has meaning and Grunt is at the very heart of what G.I. Joe means. For the love of G.I. Joe and for the love of Grunt, I have to take action. Grunt deserves a show of love and support both for the character of Grunt and for the real-life G.I. Joe's that he represents. When I reviewed version one of Grunt, I introduced Disgruntled. It's an acronym. It stands for Defending Infantry Soldier Grunt Rejecting Unfair Treatment for Lola's Educated Dude. Disgruntled. I'm not the best at coming up with acronyms, but that's not the point. The point is, even if Grunt is not your favorite character, I think most of us still care about Grunt, still understand his place in the G.I. Joe mythos, and Grunt just doesn't quite get the respect that he should. Now, I call on the supporters of Disgruntled to rise up. Let your voice be heard for Grunt. I want all of you to sound off right now for Grunt. Let's hear it. Grunt, Grunt, Grunt. Grunt, Grunt, Grunt, Grunt. That guy gets it. I want to hear more, everyone. Grunt, Grunt, Grunt. Grunt, Grunt, Grunt, Grunt. Grunt, Grunt, Grunt, Grunt. Grunt, Grunt, Grunt, Grunt. Be alls above. I want to hear you. I know you care. Grunt, Grunt, Grunt. Grunt, Grunt, Grunt, Grunt. Sergeant Slaughter, let's hear it. Grunt, Grunt, Grunt. Grunt, Grunt, Grunt, Grunt. Mrs. Hooten-Gorward Commander 7 and 8, let's hear it. Sarge, Sarge, Sarge, Sarge. That is incorrect. Pirate guy, show her how to do it. Grunt, Grunt, Grunt. Me love everyone. Grunt, Grunt, Grunt. That's it. More. Loud ones. Grunt, Grunt, Grunt, Grunt. Grunt, Grunt, Grunt. Grunt, Grunt, Grunt, Grunt, Grunt. Grunt, Grunt, Grunt, Grunt, Grunt, Grunt. Grunt, Grunt, Grunt, Grunt. Grunt, Grunt, Grunt. Grunt, Grunt, Grunt. Grunt, Grunt, Grunt, Grunt. Grunt, Grunt, Grunt, Grunt. Grunt, Grunt, Grunt. Grunt, Grunt, Grunt, Grunt. Grunt, Grunt, Grunt, Grunt. Frunt! Frunt! Frunt! Frunt! Frunt! Frunt! Frunt! Frunt! Frunt! Frunt! Frunt! Together we will get some respect for Frunt. We will cement his place in G.I. Joe history. We will make sure that he is recognized as the heart and soul of G.I. Joe, and Frunt will never... One grunt, grunt, grunt. Me load version one grunt, grunt, grunt. Even in our version two. Screw this, Frunt. Not really that kind of disgusting. Frunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, gr for who did Kubrick and many wants to disgrunt him to honor him so let's say grunt grunt grunt grunt grunt grunt grunt grunt grunt grunt grunt grunt grunt