 Hey everybody, before we start this week's GI Joe Toy Review, I want to remind you that the annual charity drive at the YouTube show Half the Battle is going on right now. Timmer has a video up explaining how you can participate. If you donate to a charity that benefits children, you have a chance to win some awesome prizes, including one that I am donating. So please check that out and help if you can. Another vintage GI Joe Toy Review. I'd like to thank Todd Floyd, who goes by Carolina Reaper for the title card image for this video. He was doing artwork to help out a friend in need, so I wanted to help out too. This is the season for charity, and I like to see people helping people. This review was chosen by my supporters on Patreon. They voted to decide what review they wanted to see this week. Normally I give them options of terrible 90s figures, and they get to choose which ones they want to see me rant about. This time I did something a little different. I gave them options of 90s figures, but the best 90s figures I could find. So no matter which one they chose, it was going to be a fun review for me. They chose Big Ben, the GI Joe from England. It's very unusual to have a character in American GI Joe that wasn't from the United States. So that makes this figure kind of special, but it was special for another reason. It is a very realistic military figure from the 1990s, and that was a rarity. Thank you to all my Patreon supporters who voted for this review. I love you guys, I love this figure, and I love the United Kingdom. Susan and I have been there before. We have seen the actual Big Ben. We enjoyed London. We enjoyed the English countryside. We enjoyed the British people. Some of my favorite people are from the UK. GI Joe is a military task force with the mission of fighting terrorism around the globe. It makes sense they would want team members from allied countries. They would want their expertise. I know the American toy line was called a real American hero, but really, it was bigger than that. So with this review, let's get international. I don't want to wait any longer. I want to look at this figure right now. HCC788 presents Big Ben. This is Big Ben, GI Joe's SAS trooper from 1991. This figure was only available in 1991. It was discontinued for 1992. Big Ben is a GI Joe team member that is not from the United States. He is from Britain. This is unusual for a toy line with the subtitle a real American hero. Big Ben's codename comes from the nickname for the bell in the clock tower, which is now called the Elizabeth Tower, at the Palace of Westminster in London. It does not mean he is a large person named Ben. SAS stands for Special Air Service. The Special Air Service is a special forces unit of the British Army. We will cover that in a lot more detail when we get to Big Ben's file card. SAS was also a division of Action Force, the UK version of GI Joe. Action Force had four divisions, SAS, Z Force, Q Force, and Space Force. The SAS figures tended to have this cool black and yellow color scheme. Big Ben was not an Action Force character. He was a GI Joe on a temporary exchange program according to his file card. To my knowledge, Big Ben was not released in the UK. I could be wrong about that and please correct me if I am wrong. But the sources that I found and the UK collectors that I've talked to have not indicated that there was an Action Force Big Ben figure. It may be that giving a British audience a British character called Big Ben would be a little too cliche. It would be like having an American character called Liberty Bell. I'm curious about the code name Big Ben. I did ask a couple British people before doing this review, but I want more opinions on this. If you are British, how would you perceive a British character called Big Ben? My suspicion is it would seem maybe a little cliche, perhaps a bit cheesy. But maybe I'm wrong. Please tell me what you think. Would a British person perceive a British character called Big Ben in a similar way as an American would perceive an American character called Statue of Liberty? I would like to take this moment to thank everyone who has sent me Action Force toys, books and comics. I would not have these without your help and I am very grateful. Thank you very much. There was a second version of Big Ben in the vintage era in 1993 as part of the International Action Force Mail Away set. That set included several reissued figures. As you can see on this version 2 of Big Ben, he has a totally different color scheme and instead of having all these awesome accessories, he came with a figure stand and a reissue of Tunnel Rats machine gun. That weapon was pretty cool, but even so, we lose quite a bit between version 1 and version 2. There was a file card that came with that International Action Force set, but it was not specific to Big Ben. It covered all of the characters in that set. This was a bit of a departure from the more traditional GI Joe Mail Away file cards. They did this a few times in the 90s. Big Ben is not the first non-American Joe. In 1987, Taurus, from the Sergeant Slaughter's Renegades set, was born in Istanbul, Turkey. And to my knowledge, he is the first Joe to not be born in the United States. And to be clear, that is Istanbul, not Constantinople. Also in 1987, Taurus' teammate Red Dog from the Sergeant Slaughter's Renegades set was born in American Samoa, which is an American territory so still technically American. Let's take a look at Big Ben's accessories and he came with some amazingly awesome accessories. Let's start with what the card contents simply call a machine gun. I believe this weapon is the Belgian FN MAG. The US version of this weapon is the M240, but I don't believe Big Ben would be using the American variant. It has some excellent details, it has a carrying handle, it has a bipod, which swings, and it is removable and pretty easily lost so it is an often missing piece. This machine gun is great, I love it, it has some fantastic details, it's a very realistic looking weapon, and it's close to being in the proper scale for the figure. And that's not something I can say often about 90s accessories. Does Big Ben not look perfect with this machine gun on the bipod in a firing position? This is a thing of beauty to me and the fact that this came out in the 1990s just blows me away. I was out of GI Joe long before then, but if I had known about this figure it might have dragged me back in. The next accessory we should look at is his backpack and look at this backpack. It is huge, it is well detailed, it has a ton of straps, it has an entrenching tool and some grenades on it and this is a great backpack. It really looks like he is ready for battle, the backpack on the figure is large enough that you can see the backpack when the figure is facing front. This is a great backpack and it looks like the kind of backpack that Big Ben would carry with him. This is a guy who is a special missions trooper. He can carry a big pack like this into battle. He's strong enough, he's tough enough, he has the endurance and this backpack, I just love it. This is one of my favorite backpacks of the 90s. They didn't go with some weird color, they went with the same dark green that's on the figure. I just could not ask for anything more than this. His next accessory is what the card contents call a grenade pouch. It is a satchel with a strap that can go across his body so he can carry it. It is two pieces, both pouch and strap are dark green and the strap is made of soft flexible plastic. This seems like a fairly simple accessory from the outside but you can open it up and inside it has two black grenades. These grenades are very tiny and would be very easy to lose so I guess it's a good thing they came with a grenade pouch to carry them around then. They are pretty sweet little accessories. They look kind of like M67 fragmentation grenades. They don't exactly fit in the figure's hand, at least not properly. You can kind of maybe put it in the figure's hand that way but that's not how you would really hold a grenade. The 1989 figure frag viper also came with tiny black grenades and like Big Ben, the frag viper had a way to store his grenades for frag viper it was on his backpack. And frag viper came with this handy grenade throwing device. There is the Big Ben grenade next to the frag viper grenade for comparison and as you can see other than being about the same size and the same color, these grenades are not similar. They use totally different molds. These grenades are very tiny you might lose them so make sure you put them back in their handy carrying case. Or if you didn't want to carry grenades in this pouch you could carry something else. Maybe a secret message or something like that. This one thing I really love about Big Ben, the accessories are so well thought out. Before we move on let's take one more look at Big Ben with all his accessories. He has a geared up look. He looks like he's ready for a long tour in the field. He has a lot of accessories but all of his accessories make sense for his specialty and he can carry them all at the same time. This is something I wanted to see on a lot more 90s figures. Let's take a quick look at Big Ben's articulation. He had the articulation that was standard for GI Joe figures by 1991 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 so the figure was held together with a rubber O ring that looped around the inside so he could 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. Now that we've looked at Big Ben's impressive accessories, let's look at this impressive figure starting with his head and there's a lot going on with this head. He's wearing a Yushenka in white and olive green. This is a Russian hat with ear flaps. In this case the ear flaps are tied up here at the top. But in cold weather he could pull those flaps down and cover his ears for warmth. He has brown hair and the whites of his eyes are actually painted in. That was unusual for GI Joe figures. There's actually a paint application for the whites of his eyes. He has a black face camouflage all over his face and he has a black microphone that runs from his right ear down his right cheek toward his mouth. That means he's carrying some kind of communications gear but this head is just so impressive. There's just so much going on here. Such great detail, such great color and I can't express how much I love this head. Moving on to the chest we have more great details. He's wearing a dark green coat over an olive drab what appears to be an undershirt or a scarf. He has ammunition belts that cross his chest and his back. They are gold and black with fantastic detail. This is a throwback to GI Joe's first machine gunner Rock and Roll from 1982. And I love the fact that they sculpted on ammunition for his machine gun accessory. Just so well done. Under the ammunition belts he has black straps that go over his shoulders and across his belly and lower back and that is painted in. It would have been very easy to leave that detail unpainted but they did paint that detail in. And it's nice that they thought about load bearing equipment for his backpack. On his arms he has the dark green sleeves for his dark green coat. He has olive green cuffs and black gloves. Simple but effective. On his waist piece we have a continuation of that dark green coat and we have olive green trousers under that. Not a lot of detail but just the detail that is needed. Moving down to the legs we have olive green trousers with pockets on each thigh left and right and there's a small pocket on the front of the right thigh. Moving down the legs we have olive green boot covers over black boots. There's not a lot of paint on these legs but they don't need it. There are no unpainted details here and he's wearing exactly what this character would wear. The only thing I would add is maybe a sculpted on knife somewhere. You know he's going to need a knife for silent kills behind enemy lines. This figure, the design of this figure, the attention to detail, the right details, the color scheme, the fact that they restrained themselves. They didn't go overboard on the colors as they often did in the 90s. It almost makes me want to cry. It's so beautiful. Let's take a look at Big Ben's file card and make yourself comfortable. Get yourself some popcorn because this is going to take a while. There's a lot here. We have his faction as GI Joe. We have a really nice portrait of Big Ben here. His codename is Big Ben and he is the SAS trooper, not the SAS trooper. File name is David J. Bennett, which is kind of like Ben. Primary military specialty is infantry. Secondary military specialty is subversive operations. Birthplace is Berford, England, which is a small town in West Oxfordshire. His grade is staff sergeant and there's a special note here, status on second assignment in temporary exchange program from 22 SAS. And there's an asterisk here indicating SAS stands for special air service. 22 SAS is a reference to the 22nd special air service regiment. That regiment is famous for rescuing all but one of the hostages from the Iran embassy's siege in 1980. This top paragraph says the British special air service is roughly the equivalent of the American special forces and maintains an equally rigorous standard for its recruits. The combat records of SAS personnel are classified but it is assumed that Big Ben participated in the initial recon operations in the Falklands campaign and in various covert operations. The Falklands campaign is a reference to the Falklands War, which was the UK against Argentina over the Falklands Islands, which were British territories. In 1982, that war lasted 10 weeks with the UK coming out on top. He received his initial training at Bradbury Lines Barracks in Hereford and was on cadre at the NATO LRP double asterisk meaning long range recon patrol school in West Germany. There's a lot to unpack here. Bradbury Lines Barracks was the SAS training base in Hereford, England. It was renamed Sterling Lines in 1984, so Big Ben must have been there before 1984. In the UK, cadre refers to training instructors or training units for non-commissioned officers. NATO did have two LRP units in West Germany in the 1960s, but they did not remain there after the 60s and it's very unlikely that Big Ben is old enough to have trained there. As bottom paragraph has a quote, it says, to qualify for the SAS, a candidate trooper must complete the long drag, which is a forced march over 30 miles through marshes and rough hilly terrain carrying 50 pounds of equipment. The march must be completed in less than 20 hours and is a grueling test of endurance and land navigation. All of this is true. The long drag is a test for UK's Special Forces selection. Big Ben completed his march in 12 hours, had a bit of supper and volunteered to go back out and help search for candidates who got lost in the moors. What a guy. This file card is so much. Not all of the 90s file cards were written by Larry Hama. Some were written by Hasbro employees and I think it's easy to tell which ones. The Hasbro write-ups never included this much real information and they probably would have had his birthplace in Rhode Island somehow. Looking at how Big Ben was used in GI Joe media, he did appear in the animated series In the Deke Era. He had a few minor appearances and a couple major appearances. The first one being in the episode titled General Confusion. That episode has a lot of cool characters in it, actually like that part of the episode. A GI Joe has a battle against Destro and Big Ben flies the Retaliator helicopter. In that episode, Cobra tries to trick GI Joe into fighting evil on a tight budget. His other major appearance was in the episode Chunnel, which is one of the more notorious Deke episodes. In that episode, at the dedication of the Chunnel, Cobra kidnaps Queen Elizabeth. The Chunnel is a rail tunnel under the English Channel connecting the United Kingdom and France. Big Ben leads a small group of Joes to rescue the Queen. In the GI Joe comic book series published by Marvel Comics, his first appearance was an issue number 116. He was with a Joe team in Scotland investigating Cobra's moves against Destro. That mission was led by Flint, who was a major character in the action force comic book. Big Ben was never given a lot to do in the comic book series. He was just another Jo. He went on a few missions and never really stood out. His final appearance was an issue number 137, where he was driving the Monster Blaster APC, a mega marines vehicle. Prior to all that, GI Joe had a history of working with British armed forces. In issue number 57, Flint and Lady J team up with British agents Smythe Barrett and Sergeant Day. No Big Ben, though. This would have been a nice opportunity to foreshadow the appearance of Big Ben. I like to believe this is where GI Joe got the idea of having a Brit on their team. Looking at Big Ben overall, this is a great figure. I love it. They got it very close to exactly right. This is a guy who is equipped for a cold weather mission, not an arctic mission. He's not camouflaged for the snow. He is equipped for a forest mission in the cold. His gear is perfect. His accessories are perfect. It is great. Thank you. You didn't leave me with any unpainted details. Everything that looks like it should be painted is painted. The only thing I might want is a sculpted on knife or a knife accessory, but you gave me enough that I can't really complain about that. With all of his accessories on, he looks geared up and ready for battle, and I can't ask any more from that for a GI Joe. This figure came from the 1990s. The 90s can do something right. The 90s can do something exceptional. This would have been an exceptional figure in any era of GI Joe. The accessories are perfect. The colors of the accessories are perfect. He comes with a lot of accessories. You feel like you're getting bonus accessories, but they all make sense for his specialty and he can carry all of them. That is great. Why was this forgotten later in the 90s? Oh, that's right. Later in the 90s, they had to stamp out reused and generic accessories still attached to the plastic tree that you had to cut out yourself. Oh yeah, and they had to be yellow or purple. This is a figure that does not insult me as a fan. This is a figure that says, hey, I know that you know what a combat troop is supposed to look like, and so we're not going to throw any orange on this guy. Here's a figure that looks like what you know it should look like. Not only is the figure great, the file card is also great. Almost every line is a reference to something in the real world. And adding these real world references adds gravity to the figure and the character. Learning about GI Joe was a way of learning about the real world and the reverse is true too. Learning about the real world was a way to learn more about GI Joe. You can learn more about Big Ben than what is in the file card. It tells you where he's from, it tells you where he got his training, all you have to do is open a book and learn about these things and you can add many more dimensions to this character. You can't do that with space aliens. Can't do that with mutants. Sorry. I am a little bit disappointed at how Big Ben was used in GI Joe media. In both the cartoon and the comic book series, they didn't really do very much with him. Big Ben adds an international element to GI Joe and it's an element that they really didn't do very much with. This is especially disappointing in the comic book series which itself had a lot of real world references. Having Big Ben there was an opportunity to explore new avenues and I think an opportunity missed. So yeah, Big Ben is a top tier figure. He's such a top tier figure that I'm too low to the ground. I have to elevate myself to express how high up this figure is in the ranks. So yes, Big Ben, top tier! I get some criticism on this channel and that criticism is probably mostly correct. I mean, I screw up all the time. And for the critics, it would probably be better if I just shut the channel down right now because if I go on even five more minutes, I'll probably make ten or twelve more mistakes. And while a lot of that criticism is probably totally valid, there is one criticism that I do not accept. I prefer the more realistic military G.I. Joe. I always have. And there's this counter argument floating around out there that if G.I. Joe focused on the military, it would just be too limited. After all, it wouldn't have aliens, it wouldn't have mutants, it wouldn't have bright orange and neon green and how limited that would be. And to that, I say no. That criticism I reject. A military G.I. Joe is not limited. It's connected. What is it connected to? I'll show you. I'll show you what it's connected to right now. You come with me, it's right over here. I'll show you what it's connected to. It's connected to this, the world. Which in case you hadn't noticed, not very limited, actually quite big and right now quite cold. That was my review of Big Ben. I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you to all my patrons who voted for this review and thank you to everyone who watches these videos and shares them. I'm so grateful that you're here. You have made this a really fun ride. Next week's review is something a little different. I hope you like it. If you're not subscribed to the channel, please subscribe so you don't miss it. You can find me on social media, on Facebook and Twitter, and I have a website, hcc788.com. It is my privilege to bring you these reviews every week. Thank you for joining me. I'll be back next week with something new and until then remember, only GI Joe is GI Joe. Has this been in my pocket this whole time?