 Hello everybody, Hooded Cobra Commander 788 here with another vintage GI Joe action figure toy review. And before we get started, I want to remind everybody to smash that subscribe button. If you're watching this video on some website other than YouTube, I would greatly appreciate it if you would just take a little trip over to YouTube and the Hooded Cobra Commander 788 channel and subscribe. And also if you like this video, hit that little thumbs up and that would be greatly appreciated. So I'm doing these toy reviews of the early GI Joe action figures and eventually I'd like to have a full catalog of GI Joe toy reviews. And it's tempting to just do all of my favorite toys first and then save the ones that I don't like quite as much toward the end. But really it would be better if I mix it up a little bit. That way you know I have some really great toys to review later on. Well what that means though is that inevitably this has to happen. I have to do a toy review of one of the action figures that I really don't care for quite as much and that would be Tripwire. Being personal against Tripwire and if Tripwire is one of your favorite action figures then I have no criticism. It's perfectly fine. I hope that you continue to enjoy Tripwire even after this review. But I have to admit Tripwire was never one of my favorite action figures. And in this video I will go over a few reasons why that is. So Tripwire was released in 1983 as part of the second series of GI Joe action figures. He was also released in 1984 and discontinued in 1985. There were a couple later versions of Tripwire released in the vintage line. One of which was the listen and fun Tripwire which was the same mold as this original Tripwire but with some really shockingly different colors. There was also a Tiger Force Tripwire which again was the same mold but with a different paint job. And in the UK in action force the same mold of Tripwire was released as a figure called Blades who was an SAS helicopter pilot. Let's take a look first at Tripwire's accessories. Prominent is his mine detector. His metal detector style mine detector. And this is based on a Polish design that was made in World War II. And this particular model looks somewhat like the F3 mine detector. But it couldn't of course be the F3 because I believe the F3 is much more modern than this. This figure was released in 1983. So if this is modeled after a real world mine detector it would be something from that era. Something that was used in the early 80s. It is connected to the backpack via this plastic wire that's connected to the top here. And these do break so be careful with these. It's got some flexibility to it and it does reach around to the hole in the back of the backpack and fit in there. There were some other G.I. Joe action figures with this wire feature especially in 1982 like Flash here who had his laser rifle connected to his backpack through the same type of wire. Later G.I. Joe action figures didn't really have this type of wire. A lot of them had like a rubber black tube that connected their weapons to their backpacks and it worked a lot better I think than these old plastic wires did. But in 1983 they were still using these. He has a backpack and the backpack contains the electronics for the mine detector. It plugs in there and the backpack includes three mines which you can take out like so and take out all three of them and you can set them out for someone to step on and get blown up I guess. These are anti-personnel mines and they are tiny so these do get lost. If you're looking for a tripwire you'll need to if you want to get a complete tripwire with his accessories you'll need to watch out for these mines and make sure that all of them are included. These anti-personnel mines I'm not sure if these are a copy of a particular real world mine but they do have some kind of realistic detail. Let's take a look at the figure itself. Tripwire had the typical 1983 G.I. Joe action figure articulation which meant that he could turn his head from side to side. Later versions of G.I. Joe action figures had a ball joint in the neck so they could look up and down as well as turn side to side but these 1983 versions could just turn their heads left and right there. The arms the arms could swing out of the shoulders and could turn all the way around had articulation at the elbow so you could move his elbow about 90 degrees. Starting in 1983 all of the G.I. Joe action figures had swivel arm battle grip which was this extra articulation at the bicep which would allow the arm to swing around like that which was nice because it allowed them to hold their weapons and equipment with a two-handed grip whereas the early versions of G.I. Joe the ones that came out in 1982 did not have that articulation at the bicep they could only turn move at the elbow which made holding some of the weapons a little bit more awkward. The figure was held together with a rubber o-ring that allowed him to move at the torso a little bit he could move his legs at the hip about 90 degrees and of course he could bend his knees. Let's look at the sculpt of tripwire he has this molded on helmet the helmet is not removable which is unfortunate because I really when you've got a face that's covered by a helmet and goggles like this I really like to have those removable because when I was playing with G.I. Joe as a kid I would have my figures in situations that were not necessarily combat situations so I would prefer to not have the helmet on so that they could you know hang out with the other Joes and not be in their full combat gear it just doesn't make sense for him to have his helmet on when he's you know at the headquarters but but now it's he's eternally wearing his helmet and goggles he's got some pads on his body on his front and of course I guess to protect him from any potential blasts as he's defusing mines or in detecting mines he has gloves and boots that are a different color from the pads and I kind of like the contrast the light gray to dark gray contrast I think it would have been a mistake if they had made the gloves and the boots the same color gray as the pad so that's nice it's it's it's not a bad thing he does have a pistol um sculpted on to his thigh here and that is his only weapon the sidearm that we don't actually get to play with because it's sculpted on to his leg looking at the color scheme well I have to admit it's really kind of blah it's uh we have the the army green which is not a bad thing but uh and we have some gray and the the the contrast between the two colors of gray is nice glad to have that and I would have missed it if it weren't there but overall it's it's really kind of a plain color scheme he has on his right arm uh rank insignia which looks like upside down sergeants chevrons which uh even if they were the right side up they would not be the right rank insignia for tripwire who is according to his file card an e4 specialist in the army so even if these were the right way up it still would be wrong let's look at the file card and the packaging for tripwire I have the upper half of the original card back that he came on which I don't normally get with these action figures so this is just kind of a bonus you can see more of the card art here's the file card and the rest of the front side of the original carded packaging um so you can see this was $2.97 at kmart in 1983 and as with all of the other carded action figures tripwire was worth one flag point you were encouraged to cut these flag points out and send them in for some special mail away offers and you were also encouraged to cut out these the file cards that gave some information about the character that is represented by this action figure taking a look at the file card it says he is a mind detector codename tripwire his file name is tormod s skug which is kind of a funny name I looked it up and skug is actually uh a swedish name and tormod is of norwegian origin and his birthplace is hibbing minnesota and it just made me think of garrison keeler and the norwegian bachelor farmers uh his pay grade is e4 again specialist uh primary military specialty explosive ordinance disposal secondary military specialty demolition so this is a guy who works with explosives and you would expect him to be a very careful individual considering that he works with dangerous objects but the file card and as he appeared in the the comic book uh he's actually quite clumsy reading the file card and seeing how he's presented in the comic book basically makes it seem like tripwire is a bit of comic relief reading about his background it says tripwire dropped out of high school at a naval base in yokosuka japan uh father's career navy spent two years in a zen monastery pondering the meaning of life expelled for breaking too many dishes and spilling every conceivable liquid joined the army at 19 and received spiritual awakening on the grenade range proficient in all nato and warsaw packed explosives detonators ignition ignition initiators and blasting machines qualified expert in 1911 a autopistol which i assume is uh is that this bottom section tells us a little bit more about his personality it says tripwire freaks people out he's always clumsy jittery and dropping things except when he's working with high explosives explosives are the only things that calm him down so uh yeah tripwire in the comic book was portrayed as something of a klutz but when it came time for some serious business with explosives he was always dependable but being a bit clumsy of course uh he provided a little bit of levity a little bit of comedy and otherwise serious stories now a problem that i have with minds as weapons is that uh they are just as likely if not more likely to kill non-combatants as they are to kill the enemy because these things get left behind on battlefields and can kill people years after the original conflict is over uh they just lie around there waiting for some kid to step on and blow up now you could say that these minds come with tripwire because you know he found them in the field and he has uh defused them that's his purpose is after all a mind detector uh but that's not the case these are actually minds that he carries with the intent of um placing them in the field for um to you know blow up the enemy there's a scene in the gi joe comic book in which um he is carrying his backpack and ends up tripping of course because he's a bit clumsy um and his backpack is already filled with these minds he didn't find them somewhere and uh picked them up and defused them so these are intended um for for offensive use there is an international treaty to ban the use of anti-personnel minds uh that treaty is not beyond criticism but it's uh not hard to argue that the use of minds is you know ethically questionable at least as far as the united states goes um the us has kind of compromised between a total ban on the use of anti-personnel minds uh and you know having their effectiveness in the field as a way to deny certain territory to the enemy uh the us uses minds now that self-destruct after a certain period of time so that it reduces the possibility that years later some farmer is going to be plowing the field and get his face blown off by this mind that was left there years before and any enemy that it might have blown up is long gone despite the fact that tripwire comes with these ethically questionable weapons he really is a mind detector not a mind layer and so uh i can appreciate him in that role but looking at tripwire i i really i still i i i didn't really appreciate him as a kid and even as an adult i still think that this is a remarkably plain figure and that's saying a lot considering the 1982 gi joe action figures were you know very plain compared to the figures that came later um tripwire is almost a throwback to the 1982 figures in that of course he's green which i don't object to actually prefer the military colors but uh the just isn't a whole lot going on here uh he doesn't come with any guns which means that you know in a combat situation he can he can detect mines and that's about it now there were other figures that didn't come with guns like doc and but i thought doc is a more interesting character to me than tripwire tripwire just really never sparked my uh imagination the comic book unfortunately gives him more to do than just going around the battlefield looking for landmines uh and that's fortunate the comic book made better use of tripwire than maybe i did as a kid playing with him um but i still think that the design and the colors are very blah um and you know as comic relief in the comic book i guess he worked pretty well he was able to provide a little bit of humor without being completely ridiculous so that was my review of the 1983 tripwire uh i hope you enjoyed this video if you're thinking about getting tripwire i hope you found this video informative uh and uh so basically i've done a review of a figure that i don't care for so now for the next video i can get back to doing something a character a figure or a vehicle that i really love something i can really get into so so now uh next week we're gonna have something i think a lot more fun so uh make sure that you hit that subscribe button uh so that you don't miss it and make sure you hit that like button so that i can know that you dig this video uh and stay tuned because we're gonna move on to some really cool stuff next time thank you again for watching