 It's day 15 of isolation. The coronavirus has spread throughout the world, thousands are dead, world economies are strained, gay redneck polygamist tiger kings are rising to power, the comic book industry is collapsing. Despite this turmoil, I think I'm holding up remarkably well. I'm only drinking two bottles of cheap bourbon a day, and my grip on reality has never been stronger. You must review the animals. Ah! Who are you? I am MiniHCC, and I say you must review the animals. You want me to review an old television show? I don't really do that on this channel. No, I'm telling you to review the GI Joe, animal action figures. Let me get this straight. A miniature version of myself has walked into my room and is telling me to review weird monster action figures that aren't even in the vintage GI Joe toy line that I normally review. Yes! Get to it! Okay. We're Commander788 here. This is the show where we review every vintage GI Joe toy from 1982 to 1994. But this week we're not doing that. For this review, I need to thank Brandon Knight. He sent me the carded figures. He gave me permission, nay, he virtually insisted that I open them. So we have fresh from the card figures to review. Brandon also helped with some of the research for this issue. Thank you, Brandon. In 1994, Hasbro planned to release a series of alien action figures with a transforming gimmick. But the line was cancelled before they were released. They may have never seen the light of day, but in 2001, the Manimals were released as a KB toys exclusive. What is a Manimal? It's a man that transforms into an animal. Except that doesn't really describe these. Man? Not really. Animal? Sort of. I will point out that Timmer has already reviewed all of these figures on his YouTube show Half the Battle. You should definitely check those videos out. If I use some of the same jokes, you'll just have to cut me some slack. There's only so much I can do with these guys. Let's see if this G.I. Joe alien beast-thrupple can lift our morale during this plague. HCC788 presents the Manimals. These are the G.I. Joe Manimals. They were released as an exclusive for KB toys in 2001. They were intended to be part of the late 1994 G.I. Joe series, with their release possibly staggering over into 1995, but the G.I. Joe line was cancelled before they were released. These figures were available only in 2001. Instead of getting these alien figures, G.I. Joe evolved into Sergeant Savage in late 1994. That's a totally different direction from Manimals. None of these figures had later versions. The unreleased 1994 figures would have had different colors. The molds were used for the 2001 releases, but the colors were all changed. It's a matter of personal taste, which colors were better. Personally, I prefer the colors of the released figures. All the figures have a copyright date stamp of 1993. They were probably designed in 1993 for the planned 1994 release. The date stamp was not updated for the 2001 release. Manimals were advertised on the back of 1994 G.I. Joe carded figures. For instance, on the back of this carded carcass figure. On the cross-sell, you can see, coming soon, Manimals from a distant universe come these mutating monsters whose bodies really change into ferocious alien beasts. There were originally six Manimal figures planned, but only three were produced. The other three were going to be released by KB Toys, but they were canceled due to low sales on the first three. To my knowledge, Spasma, Vortex, and Zigzag were never released. They have a lot in common with the 1994 Lunar Ticks Aliens. Yes, G.I. Joe had aliens. In fact, Manimals would have been the next step in the Aliens line. Manimals take that concept and add an extra gimmick. The name Manimal predates the toys. There was a short-lived 1983 television show called Manimal. It was about a professor who could transform into any animal and fight crime. I don't know why it wasn't a big hit. The Manimal show may have been a bit obscure by the time G.I. Joe's Manimals were released. Even so, it's surprising they used the exact name of another property. At least the show Manimal made a little more sense. It was about a man that turned into animals. G.I. Joe's Manimals are, for the most part, not really men and not really animals. Let's take a look at the general layout of the cards. The cards have the same basic pattern as the 1994 Star Brigade Aliens. It has space in the background and that blue and purple planet. It has the G.I. Joe logo on the side and the faction logo in the top left corner. This says Special Collectors Edition Series 1. There was no Series 2. Flipping the card around to the back, they all have the same basic layout with all of the Manimals available up here. There are instructions on how to operate the transforming gimmick. There's a file card and it's a small file card like the late 1994 G.I. Joe releases. There is this blurb here that says, from a distant universe where life evolved over a complex series of alien and reptile mutations come the body-changing Manimals. As if they weren't hostile enough in their normal form when provoked, these monsters mutate into the meanest bounty hunters this side of the Milky Way. A distant universe, huh? We are in the Milky Way and they transform into the meanest bounty hunters. So if they get hostile, they make a career change. They probably used the same basic layout they were planning for the 1994 releases, but with a few changes. For instance, there are no flag points and these use a J-hook design, rather than the punched hole design that the original 1994 Lunartics aliens had. Iguanas has a price tag of $8.95. The other two have KB toys price tags of $9.99, both marked down to $4.99. So yeah, these did make it to the bargain bins. Let's start our look at the individual figures by looking at Iguanas. The name sounds like Iguana, but he doesn't look like one. In basic form, he looks like a robot. His chest clearly has a reptilian head on it. He's not hiding his monster mode very well. And spoiler, even in his monster mode, he still doesn't look like an Iguana. Looking at his accessories, Iguanas came with two silver guns. One is kind of like a space age shotgun. Nice detail on it, it's fine I guess. The other one is kind of a space age laser rifle with a wicked looking bayonet on it. That's actually pretty cool. These are nicely designed weapons, but they are kind of basic looking science fiction weapons. And that's pretty much what you can expect from this entire toy line. Iguanas's hands are in a C shape and I have noticed they don't always hold the weapons very well. Looking at the articulation for Iguanas, I'm not going to look at the transformation just yet. He had no articulation at the neck. He had no swivel, no ball joint. He could not turn his head. He had pretty standard G.I. Joe articulation on the arm at the shoulder, at the elbow, and then a swivel. So he could swivel his arm all the way around. That articulation is a bit limited by the sculpt. This was not an O-ring figure. He had no O-ring that looped around. No articulation at the torso. He has a cut here with a swivel at the thigh. He has a bend at the knee. And that's it. That's all the articulation this guy has. Let's look at the sculpt to design in color of Iguanas. He has a robot head, a silver armored looking robot head with black goggles, a red symbol on his forehead, and on the top of his head is that a snake design? That snake looking design does continue to the back of his helmet. He has silver fins on his shoulders. Looks like a Chevy. He has a light grayish blue torso with a ridge pattern on the front and the back. He has a blue band that goes around his back under his arms and a blue belt, both of which have a reptilian skin texture pattern on them. And then right in the middle of his chest you can clearly see a reptilian head that is dark blue. It has red eyes and black slitted pupils. On his arms he has that same light bluish gray color on his shoulders, but below that he has that dark blue with the reptilian skin texture pattern. And then he has silver armor on both of his forearms. And all of that is really well sculpted. I have to say the lizard texture pattern on this guy is exceptional. It is really well done. I cannot argue with that. Under his blue belt he has some silver underpants. I assume these make him feel sexy. I'm not going to judge. He has that dark blue color on his legs with that reptilian skin texture pattern. That looks pretty good. He has a couple bands around his thighs. Then he has some wicked cool looking silver armor plates on the outside of his thighs with just a lot of sci-fi looking detail on it. It just looks really good. I have to admit they did a great job with the sculpting on this figure. And if nothing else is good about this figure, the sculpting is still really good. And speaking of good sculpting, check out these weird alien hands on his boots. He has like sculpted alien hands and fingers and claws on the outside of his boots that's painted in that light bluish gray color. It looks like he made boots out of the claws of one of his slain enemies. That is just wicked. Let's do the transformation. There are instructions on the back of the card, but it's not that hard to figure out. He just pushed the normal head back to reveal the monster head that was hidden in his chest except it wasn't hidden at all. The monster head is in dark blue. It has those red eyes we saw earlier because they were not hidden. He has some sharp white teeth, a very scary looking teeth. That jaw is articulated so he can chomp. And the inside of the mouth is actually really nicely detailed. He has a separate tongue piece and that's kind of articulated too. And the inside of his mouth is painted red. That is a pretty scary monster face I have to admit. That's not too bad. What is kind of bad is the transformation leaves this huge open space on his chest. I mean it looks obvious there's something missing there. If you had some kind of a chest piece you could put in that place that would be helpful, but yeah that just doesn't look right. Is this animal a man? Well no, in his normal mode he looks like a robot. Is he an animal? Well maybe in his monster mode he looks like that same robot but now he has a blue alligator head. Let's take a look at the file card. In my opinion this purple background makes it kind of hard to read but at least it's short. We have the artwork for iguanus here. It says iguanus, stellar stalker, primary specialty, animal, bounty hunter, secondary specialty, alien hunter. This paragraph says, Thought to be a mythical creature of ancient cosmic lore, the entire universe was shocked when iguanus recently appeared on the planet mastodon. Mastodon? The planet mastodon. Hunting its giant creatures and eating them raw. Horns and all. A part-time bounty hunter and full-time meat eater, nothing can escape his capture after he locks onto its scent. If you're going to explore a star sector near mastodon, take along plenty of lasers and set them all to full power. I'm convinced whoever wrote these cards for Hasbro had no idea what bounty hunter meant. Next let's talk about slither. That's a name that sounds like it would come from masters of the universe, doesn't it? This guy is also not a man, he's a unicorn. Let's take a look at slither's accessories. He had three accessories, the other animals just had two. He included this clear plastic visor. It is very tiny, it is see-through, this is something that will get lost very easily. It is flexible, it's made of flexible clear plastic, and it just fits over his head, basically over his ears like that. It does not peg on, it falls off very easily. So this is an accessory if you're going to get a loose figure that will probably be hard to find. Slither had two black guns. One of them was this sort of futuristic science fiction looking laser pistol with a scope on it and a grip guard there. Not bad, reasonably well sculpted, and he also had this big long laser rifle. It's kind of in the same spirit as the other weapon, sort of long and blocky with some details, it's fine. Really all of these animals weapons are decent, they're just your basic science fiction laser guns. Let's take a look at slither's articulation, like with iguanas he has no articulation at the neck, no swivel, no ball joint, he cannot turn his head. He has standard GI Joe articulation on the arms, on the shoulder, on the elbow, and then the swivel on the arm, so he can swivel his arm all the way around. No articulation at the waist, not an o-ring figure. He has a swivel at the hip, and then he has a hinge at the knee, and that is it, a limited articulation on this guy. Let's take a look at the sculpt design and color on slither, starting with his head, and on his head he has a monstrous face with a single gray horn on the center of his head. He has some pointy ears, and I like that his right ear has just a little bit of a bite taken out of it. He has a snout, he has white eyes with black irises, he has some white teeth in his closed mouth, and this is his normal mode. This isn't even his monster mode, but he looks pretty scary just walking around in his normal mode. On his chest, again, you can clearly see some kind of monster head right on his chest, and he even has monster eyes for nipples. He has, looks like, red eyes with a white outline and black slit pupils. His arms are green and muscular, and protruding from each of his wrists, he has bone spikes that's painted in kind of an off-white bone color. They're not quite completely pointed, they are slightly blunted at the tip, but you get the idea. He can slash and stab people with his bone spikes. Around his waist he has a black belt with a bronze belt buckle, and a red, yes that is a tongue. Yes that is a lizard forked tongue on his crotch, I don't know how else to put it. So I think you can figure out how this guy transforms. He's wearing gray trousers with three bronze buckles on each outside thigh, that's a nice detail, and his boots are pretty cool too. He has bronze boots, they are armored in the front, they are black in the back, and there are some straps that go around the back. Pretty wicked looking boots. Okay let's do the transformation, and this one has at least a little bit more to it. I'll just pull his head back, and that raises the monster head from his chest. But there's more than just a pop-up monster head, because you just keep pulling it out, and he has a hinged snake body inside his chest, and that can actually extend out. So now he doesn't just have a monster head, he's sort of transformed into a snake person. That snake head has the red forked tongue, and he has white teeth, but he has no lower jaw. This is such a strange design. This could have been the coolest figure, because he does have this extra articulation for his snake body. There's one, two, three. Three hinges on this snake body, and there's even some extra paint. There's a yellow paint application that goes down the underside of that snake body. There's some additional skin texture on the top part of the snake body, and then inside his chest cavity, you can actually see his spine and ribs. This could have been an awesome monster, but he can't chomp you. No lower jaw. Is this animal a man? No, he's a unicorn. Is he an animal? Well, he's sort of a snake, but it's missing a lower jaw, and that's just weird. The whole figure doesn't really transform into a snake. It just pops an alien snake head out of his chest. Let's take a look at Slyther's file card. His file card says he is Slyther galactic attacker, okay, primary specialty, manimal bounty hunter slash mercenary, secondary specialty pilot. Of course, there were no vehicles in this line, so he doesn't have anything to pilot. All of these guys are bounty hunters. Apparently in outer space, there is an all bounty hunter economy. This paragraph says, roaming the universe searching for villains to capture this beastly bounty hunter has the strength of 10 ordinary men, 20 after mutating into his evil alter ego. So you're saying his strength doubles when he gets his snake head out? I'm not sure, but I feel like this is vulgar in some way. He's one animal no one wants to mess with, not even the other aliens will approach his spacecraft when he's armed for battle and frothing at the fangs. Luckily, the G.I. Joe team is out there to protect planet Earth from alien forces like Slyther. But still, the threat remains. Watch out. Now let's look at War Wolf. Hearing his name, it probably makes you think of the MST3K episode Werewolf. You would probably also expect him to be a wolf-like creature. He is not. Let's look at War Wolf's accessories. He included a Space Shotgun in Black Plastic. This is the same as Iguanis' Shotgun. Iguanis' was silver. This is the same weapon, but in Black Plastic. His other weapon I do not have in his hand because there's a slight problem with it. The grip is bent and close to breaking. I tried to fit this in the figure's hand and the hole in his hand there is just too small to fit this in very easily. And it ended up bending the plastic. You can see the white plastic stress marks right there. It doesn't fit very well in the other hand either. So this one, I don't know if it's just this example. The other weapon fits in his hand just fine, but this one did not want to go. I forced it a little too hard and ended up bending the plastic. Let's look at the articulation on War Wolf. Like the others, he had no articulation at the neck. No swivel, no ball joint. He did have more or less standard GI Joe articulation on the arms so he could swivel at the shoulder and lift up at the shoulder. He could bend at the elbow and swivel at the bicep. The problem with this is his body structure does not allow him to rest his arms at his side. His articulation on his arms are actually a bit limited at the shoulder. Like the others, he has a swivel at his hip and he can bend his knee about 90 degrees and that's it. Let's take a look at the sculpt design and color of War Wolf. And this figure is the most human looking of the three. His face does look kind of human, not so much alien, just really ugly. He is wearing a non-removable blue helmet. On his chest, he has a muscular build with a black uniform in the front and some sort of blue tail that goes right between his pectoral muscles. There is also blue padding with a crosshatch pattern. That goes around his sides and his lower back. His arms are in long black sleeves. They are very muscular, very wide arms. He has some purple gloves with some science fiction gadgets on his wrists. The sculpting on these arms is really good. The problem with them is not the sculpting, it's the elbows. When you bend his arm at the wrist, look at this gap that's left at his elbow. Of course, no figure articulation point is going to be perfect, but this is really ugly. You know what I don't see on his chest? Eyeballs or an obvious alien head. He is hiding his monster mode pretty well. He's wearing a purple belt, the same color purple as the gloves. Looks like he may have some space grenades on that belt. This black and blue uniform may be a jumpsuit. He has that blue pattern in the front and black in the back. And then down his legs, on the outside of the legs, he has that blue with the hatch pattern on the outside of the thighs. And then he has black on the inside of the thighs. On the front of his right thigh, he has a pocket. That pocket is half and half. It's half blue and half black. On his left side, he has a purple device, which may be some kind of a gun in a holster, but I'm really not sure. There is a blue strap that goes around his left thigh. And that is actually painted blue over the black portion. So they didn't skimp on the paint application there. Finally, we finish up with some purple boots. The boots themselves are pretty plain, but he does have a pretty wicked looking laser gun on his left ankle. Let's do the transformation. His transformation method is basically the same as iguanas. You just pull back his head and a monster mouth pops out of his chest. Well, he hid his monster mode better than the other guys. He didn't have any eyes on his chest. But that's because in his monster mode, he has no eyes. He has a squared off mouth. He has white teeth. He has a separate tongue piece inside the mouth, and that is articulated. There is red paint inside the mouth. And the jaw is articulated too, so he can chomp. He does not have anything cool inside his open cavity, like Slither's skeleton. Is this animal a man? Yes, he is. Yes, we finally have a animal that starts as a man. Is he an animal? He's not a normal animal. It's just a monster mouth on a man's body. Let's take a look at War Wolf's file card. His file card has his name as War Wolf. He is the alien mutation expert, primary specialty, manimal, bounty hunter slash mercenary, secondary specialty, alien arms dealer. Do you think Hasbro was trying to market these bounty hunters as substitute Star Wars bounty hunters? This paragraph says after mutating into his evil monster personality, this planet-stopping alien will bite anything that moves and almost anything that doesn't. His poor vision once led him to swallow a fallen meteor that he'd mistaken for a glowing mound of space algae. Soon thereafter, War Wolf began to expel the contents of his stomach, coughing up an entire tail section of a Cobra helicopter. Okay. Talk about an appetite. When this guy gets hunger pangs, run. Looking at how animals were used in G.I. Joe Media, I am not aware of any appearances. I don't think they appeared in any episodes of the cartoon series or any issues of the comic book as far as I know. Looking at the animals overall, how can I put into words what defies description? I don't know why they're called animals. They're not really men. They're not really animals. The articulation is clunky to accommodate the transforming gimmick. The transforming gimmick isn't all that good. They don't really completely transform. They just pop alien heads out of their chests. Think of the teenage mutant Ninja Turtles toys that would transform from a baby turtle into a Ninja Turtle action figure. That would be a full transformation. These guys just have pop-up heads with scary teeth. The best one is probably Slyther. Even though he's missing a lower jaw, he still has the hinged neck and he has the skeleton inside. Those are cool features. The weapons are detailed, but not especially memorable. The only one with a different style is Slyther's visor. And you'll lose that in five minutes anyway. Do I recommend these figures? Only if you absolutely need the weirdest figures you can possibly find. Are they fun to play with? Yes. The transformation gimmick is simple and fun, especially for little kids. If the figures were bigger, they would fit well with Masters of the Universe toys. They can be enjoyed on that level. Just don't try to make too much sense of them. That was my review of The Manimals. I hope you enjoyed it. I probably shouldn't listen to hallucinations of myself when I do reviews, but this time it worked out. I am not a hallucination. I am mini-HCC. I thought you had disappeared. I'm not going anywhere just yet. I will be back next week because it is a very special episode. What's so special about it? Oh. Thank you for watching this video. If you enjoyed it, I'm making more like it. So please give this video a thumbs up on YouTube, subscribe to the YouTube channel, hit the notification bell so you don't miss any future videos 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. If you want to know if I've already reviewed a vintage GI Joe item, that's a good place to check. Special thanks to all my supporters on Patreon, including the names you see on the screen now. Support on Patreon helps keep this show going. So if you like this show and you'd like to support this show in that way, please consider checking out Patreon. You can get some special rewards, including early access to reviews and you can find out how to decode the secret messages you see in these videos. Thank you for joining me on this adventure of collecting vintage GI Joe toys. I'll see you next time. And until then, remember, only GI Joe is GI Joe.