 Hey, HTC here. I'm in the mudfighter. Whenever I review a GI Joe airplane, I like to fly him. I like to test him out. Wait, what's that? MUD! DIE, MUDS! DIE! I fight all the MUDS! There's more MUD over there! I MUD DIE! Hello everybody, HoodedCobraCommander788 here. This is the show where we review every vintage GI Joe toy from 1982 to 1994. When you think of GI Joe airplanes, you think of the Skystriker, the Conquest X-30, the Phantom X-19, the MUD Fighter? Why is it called the MUD Fighter? Why does it fight MUD? Well, MUD can be rather infuriating. That's why you need dogfight with MUD fighting action. I honestly can't think of anything else to say and I have nothing else written on this page. So let's just do it. HTC 788 presents the MUD Fighter and Dogfight. This is the MUD Fighter and Pilot Dogfight from 1989. This vehicle and figure set were first introduced in 1989. They were also available in 1990. They were discontinued for 1991. MUD Fighter and Dogfight were only sold together. They were not sold separately. During their retail run, in addition to being broadly available at retail, they were also released as an exclusive to Benny's, packaged with the His2, the Track Viper, and two bonus figures. Benny's was a retailer based in New England. We never had a Benny's in my state, so I never would have seen that exclusive. There were no later versions of the MUD Fighter or Dogfight in the vintage or any other era. I don't know if that's indicative of them not being popular or if the molds just were not available later. We will take a thorough look at Dogfight later, but I'm going to set him aside for now so we can take a closer look at the MUD Fighter. The name MUD Fighter has always been a puzzle. It's an aircraft. You would expect a MUD Fighter to be a land vehicle. There is a real aircraft called a MUD Fighter, the Aries MUD Fighter. The Aries was a close support aircraft designed for the U.S. Army. That aircraft, though, didn't fly until 1990. The G.I. Joe MUD Fighter couldn't have been directly inspired by it. That seems to be the role of G.I. Joe's MUD Fighter. It provides air support for ground forces. It flies in the air, but it still plays in the mud. Don't confuse it with the MUD Buster, which was a four-wheel drive land rover from 1993. You see, the MUD Fighter fights mud, and the MUD Buster busts mud. Two totally different things. Either way, MUD's name is MUD. The MUD Fighter is a propeller-driven aircraft, not a jet. That makes it unique in the vintage era of the G.I. Joe toy line. Most fixed-wing aircraft were jets, as you would expect. There was another G.I. Joe propeller aircraft after the vintage era, the Sargent Savage P-40 Warhawk. When lined up with G.I. Joe's other aircraft, the MUD Fighter is rather small and underpowered, being a prop plane in the era of jets. There are propeller-driven aircraft used by the U.S. Armed Forces even today. Cargo planes and gunships such as the AC-130 variants are turboprops. The C-12 is a small turboprop aircraft like the MUD Fighter. Even though the MUD Fighter isn't quite the high-performance jet fighter that the Sky Striker is, it isn't necessarily unrealistic. Let's look at the parts and the features of the MUD Fighter. I have the blueprints for the MUD Fighter, and I will use this to describe some of the features on this vehicle. Let's start with this overall green body. This fits its role as a close support fighter. It's camouflaged for the ground against attacks from above. On the port side of the fuselage next to the canopy, we have four Cobra kill marks. On the front underside of the MUD Fighter, we have two machine guns. These are not named on the blueprints, surprisingly. They are most likely 20 or 25mm Gatling guns, like the M61 Vulcan Cannon or the GAU-12 Equalizer. I would guess the smaller, lighter weight Vulcan. These are molded into the hull, so they are the same green color as the body. They would look pretty fierce if they didn't blend in with the body of the plane. There are also black wheels on the front for landing gear. They are not retractable. Back on the top, we have this black canopy. The blueprints call this an anti-laser, puncture-proof titanium shield. There are cut-out windows. There is no clear plastic over those windows, so you just have to imagine windows on this canopy. It is hinged at the back, and it clips at the front, so you can pull it up to open it. It doesn't open very far. In fact, there's a stopper here to prevent it opening any farther. If you push up too far on it, it will just pop off. Opening the canopy reveals a single seat cockpit. There is a texture pattern on that seat. There is some technical detail on each side of the seat and a minimal control panel. No control stick. You can place Dogfight in the cockpit and close the canopy, and he fits completely in there, and the canopy clips closed so he should not fall out. Since there is no control stick, Dogfight has to control the mudfighter with his mind. On that green body of the mudfighter on the top and on the bottom, there are some cut-out vents. There are even some cut-out vents at the back. There is some additional panel and technical detail on the top and on the bottom. There are some stickers. There's a GI Joe logo. There is a number eight, and there is the Mudfighter Library, this crest, with a banner that says, Ground Assault Wing. There are also these clips for the bomb racks that are visible from the top of the plane. These are a little unsightly, but we'll get to those in a moment when we talk about the bomb racks. On each side, there are these black winglets. The blueprints call these flexi-steel vehicle winglet with computer-enhanced aerodynamics. On the underside of those winglets, there are fins with attached wheels that serve as the landing gear. They are always deployed. That means the landing gear for the mudfighter do not retract. There should be some additional stickers on these winglets that are missing on my example. Most of the action is on the underside, where the Mudfighter has an unbelievable number of bombs. There are 16 bombs total. Each wing has a black plastic bomb rack, and each of those holds four bombs, and there's an additional eight bombs on the belly of the plane. These 16 bombs are all the same. They peg onto the plane or the bomb racks with these dumbbell-shaped pegs. They are in silver plastic. They are football-shaped with small fins. What are these bombs exactly? The blueprints are not very helpful. All 16 bombs are exactly the same, but the blueprints have two listings for them. They are either AS-99 2000 pound delayed detonation air-to-surface bombs, or they are M7A 1500 pound cluster bombs with pre-contact detonation mechanism. The best I can tell is the bombs on the belly are supposed to be the 2000 pound bombs, and the bombs on the wings are supposed to be the 1500 pound bombs. That would be a total of 28,000 pounds of bombs on this plane. It's amazing it can get off the ground. Here's what the Mudfighter looks like without the bombs. These black bomb racks are, of course, removable. Let's flip the plane back over to the top and take a look at that for a moment. Of these unsightly clips for the bomb racks, the back of the box for the Mudfighter says, bomb release mechanism drops bombs from racks. It doesn't seem to really work that way because if you squeeze these clips, it doesn't drop the bombs off the rack. It drops the entire rack. Does that really count as a feature? In the TV commercial for the Mudfighter, this clip that drops the entire bomb rack is advertised like a feature, but I don't think I buy it. Here is the bottom of the Mudfighter with everything removed, so you can see some of the details that are covered up with the bombs and the racks. There is this ridge portion here at the tail. The blueprints describe this as low-angle assault fan with infrared tracking beam capability. I have no idea what that means. Finally, we get to the very back, which is where the propeller is attached. It is in black plastic. It does spin. The blueprints call this 1000 FW 1670 pounds unducted propeller with forward slash reverse power modes. It's a black propeller. It looks like a screw for a watercraft. These may be scimitar propeller blades, but the curve is extreme even for that type of curved propeller blade. Is the propeller 1670 pounds or the engine? I assume this means the engine is that weight, not just the propeller itself. The blueprints give a lot of weight measurements for components of the Mudfighter. The bombs total 28,000 pounds altogether depending on how you count it. The engine seems to weigh 1670 pounds. If the Gatling guns are M61 Vulcans, the lightest variation of that weapon is 202 pounds. That's 404 pounds total since there are two of them. So there's at least 30,074 pounds hanging off of this aircraft, not counting the ammunition, the airframe itself, the pilot, and the fuel. For reference, the Beechcraft C12 Huron has a max takeoff weight of 12,500 pounds. Some of the military variants have a max weight of 16,500 pounds. The Mudfighter nearly doubles that. Now let's look at Dogfight, the Mudfighter pilot. There isn't much written about Dogfight in the various G.I. Joe reference sources. He looks a little bit like Jamie Heineman from Mythbusters. A Dogfight is an aerial battle between fighter aircraft. While that seems like a good code name for a pilot, the Mudfighter is not designed for aerial combat. It is a close air support aircraft for ground forces and a bomber. When writing this episode, how many times did I accidentally type Dongfight instead of Dogfight? A lot. Let's take a look at Dogfight's only accessory, his pistol. The pistol is in black plastic. It has a long barrel and a scope. I do not know if this is based on any real world weapon. It is very small and it is frequently missing. It often gets lost so you'll see a lot of Dogfight action figures without the pistol. Dogfight probably doesn't need this pistol. It's something to lose inside the Mudfighter and rattle around in there forever. But of course we wouldn't want to leave Dogfight unarmed. After he runs out of ammunition in the Mudfighter's two Gatling guns and after he drops the Mudfighter's 16 bombs, he would be totally unarmed without his hand cannon. Let's take a look at Dogfight's articulation. He had the articulation that was standard for GI Joe figures well before 1989 so 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 that allowed him to bend his arm at the elbow about 90 degrees. He had a swivel at the bicep so he could swivel his arm all the way around. This was an O-ring figure meaning 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 bend his legs at the hip about 90 degrees and bend at the knee about 90 degrees. Let's take a look at the sculpt design and color of Dogfight starting with his head. On his head he has a brown cap with a black band and a black visor and a silver wing badge on the front. He has silver headset and silver sunglasses and orange hair and an orange handlebar mustache. This cap looks like a World War II US Army Air Corps war training service visor cap and badge. This would have been anachronistic by the time Dogfight wore it in the late 1980s but perhaps he wanted to honor a relative who served in World War II. On his chest he has a brown flight jacket that is open in the front to reveal a white button-up shirt. There's an additional detail on that shirt. I'm not sure what it's supposed to be. It may be a microphone, but it's not picked out in a different color plastic so it kind of blends in with the white shirt. On the left side of the jacket he has a silver wing badge and on the right side he has a blank silver disc. On the artwork on the card there is some detail on that disc but not on the figure. The blank disc on the chest makes the figure feel a little blank. This chest reminds me a bit of the Lannard Core Figure Gunner O'Grady. That's not a good thing. A G.I. Joe figure shouldn't compare to the cheaper and generally less detailed core figures. This relatively plain chest is acceptable for the core but not for G.I. Joe. We expect it and usually got more for G.I. Joe. The arms have long brown sleeves for that jacket and bare hands. The arms are rather plain. Dogfight is made up of all unique parts but the arms are so generic they could have been used on numerous other figures. The waist piece is in blue plastic. He has a black belt with a silver belt buckle. There is a strip of that black belt that runs down the right side to the holster that is on the right leg. There is a texture pattern all over that belt. His legs feature blue trousers. The left leg is rather plain but on the right leg there is a black pistol holster with a texture pattern on it and there is a silver pistol in the holster. His lower legs he has unpainted knee pads and it's the type of knee pad that extends above the knee a bit. I do like those. I don't know why he needs that detail but I do like them. And we finish up with some black standard combat boots. The blank silver circle on the chest, the minimally detailed torso, the generic arms, the unpainted knee pads. These all make the figure feel a little cheap. Is this a G.I. Joe figure? We tend to expect higher quality from G.I. Joe figures. At least he has some character with that hat and that crazy mustache. Let's take a look at Dogfight's file card. It has his faction as G.I. Joe. It has a portrait of Dogfight here and this portrait is not taken from the Mudfighter box art. The box art doesn't actually show Dogfight. His codename is Dogfight. He is the Mudfighter pilot. His filename is James R. King. There's a missed opportunity not naming him Harry. Harry, bud. Incorrect. Primary military specialty Mudfighter pilot, secondary military specialty electronics technician, birthplace Providence, Rhode Island and grade is 02. Most G.I. Joe file cards were written by Larry Hamma but not all. On a few occasions, Hasbro tried to produce the file cards in-house. When that happened, they often placed the character's birthplace in New England because that's where Hasbro headquarters is located. In this case, despite Dogfight being from Rhode Island, I think this is still a Larry Hamma file card. This paragraph says, Dogfight was permanently 86 from every carnival and county fair in Alabama for winning too many stuffed bears. Alabama? How did he get there? 86 has an asterisk. It means forcibly ejected and forbidden to return. 86 does sound like something Larry would write. The combination of his uncanny depth perception, precise hand-eye coordination and powerful throwing arm enabled him to knock down all the wooden bottles with just one pitch every time. Now he uses the same skills to destroy Cobra, his two tanks and maggots. So does he throw the bombs with his powerful throwing arms? Also, is this a reference to the Benny's his two-two pack? This bottom paragraph has a quote. It says, The Cobra is here the mudfighter first. That big bladed, unducted fan makes a racket like a giant muted lawnmower. Chances are good that Dogfight will be diving out of the sun with his thumb dancing a Fandango on his bomb release trigger and all the mudfighters guns blazing. By that time, it's far too late for evasive action or return fire. This is a common trope for GI Joe file cards. He has an innate ability. He's just born with it and he applies that ability to his job. Looking at how the mudfighter and dogfight were used in GI Joe media, the mudfighter was animated for a TV commercial, but dogfight was not. Dogfight was never animated, not for the animated series and not for a TV commercial. If he were animated, he would talk like Looking at how the mudfighter and dogfight are used in the GI Joe comic book series, in the main GI Joe series, they first appeared in issue number 111 in the Benzine War story arc. Well, the mudfighter appears and dogfight is flying it, but dogfight is barely seen. The mudfighter assisted in delivering Ninja Force on an infiltration mission. In issue number 115, dogfight appears as a co-pilot for ace in a sky striker during a crash landing on the USS flag. Dogfight had his most significant appearance in the special mission series in issue number 28, which was the final issue of that series. The mudfighter takes off from the deck of the USS flag without a catapult. In that issue, dogfight actually engages in a dogfight with cobra python patrol conquests. He fares better than you would expect, taking out a couple of them. The mudfighter is given a couple air-to-air missiles, which the toy doesn't have. In the end, dogfight and the mudfighter are saved by the defiant shuttle. That issue showcased a lot of GI Joe's air and space vehicles and was a great swan song for the series. On the final page, there is a team shot in which Hawke announces that the series is canceled, but the regular series will continue. Dogfight is front and center in that team shot. Looking at the mudfighter and dogfight overall, the mudfighter is cheap and short on features. It has no retractable landing gear, no removable engine covers, no clear plastic canopy. I'm not buying the bomb release mechanism clips as a feature. Even so, it's surprisingly fun. The mudfighter has an ungodly number of bombs. It also has twin gatling guns that are almost entirely ignored by the toy packaging and blueprints. The guns kind of blend into the plane since they are just molded in. The mudfighter is perfectly equipped for its role as a ground assault aircraft. This is a propeller driven plane in a jet fighter world. Despite the depiction in the comic book, the mudfighter is not going to match up against Cobra Night Ravens or Python Patrol Conquest. The mudfighter's Cobra counterpart is actually the Cobra Rattler, which fulfilled exactly the same role for Cobra. The Cobra Rattler though had a lot more features. It was a jet based on a real world aircraft and it just had a lot more going on for it. The best thing about the mudfighter is the size. It's much smaller and lighter than the Sky Striker or the Phantom. It's easy to play with and fly around. I imagine a kid would have a lot of fun with this back in 1989. Dogfight is an okay figure. He looks kind of like a cartoon character with the hat and the bushy orange mustache. I think it needs more detail. That blank silver disc on the jacket doesn't look like a G.I. Joe detail. Something was supposed to go there and it was cut out. Probably for cost. They had to pay for those 16 bombs somehow. I understand pilots need weapons for close quarters combat. But as a practical matter, I would prefer this pistol be given to somebody else. This thing is going to get lost in the mudfighter cockpit and give the plane a permanent rattle. That was my review of the mudfighter and dogfight. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please give this video a thumbs up on YouTube and subscribe to the YouTube channel and share this video with your friends. That's what helps this channel grow. You can find me on social media, on Facebook and Twitter, and I have a website, hcc788.com. I can only continue doing these videos with the support of my friends on Patreon. If you'd like to support the channel, that's a great way to do it. You can even get your name in videos. You see all the names scrolling on the screen right now? Your name could be there. Next week, I have no idea what I'm doing. This is a rare occasion where I haven't planned anything, so I will be just as surprised as you are. I'll see you then, and until then remember, only G.I. Joe is G.I. Joe.