 Hello everybody, Hooded Cobra Commander, 7-8-8 here, and it's time for another vintage GI Joe Toy Review, and by God, we almost did beard month, didn't we? We're gonna look at another bearded action figure, the 1985 GI Joe Sailor Shipwreck. This video will come to you after Christmas, so I hope everyone who celebrates had a good one. I hope Santa brought you a lot of presents, and maybe even a six pack of yo-jo cola. This will not be the last video of the year. The last video of 2015 will be the answer video for the Q&A, but this will be the last review of the year, and I wanted to end 2015 with a fan favorite and a figure that a lot of viewers wanted to see. And a special thanks to Eric Brink, who helped me complete this figure. This video would not have been possible without you. Thank you, sir. This is a good time to announce that I will not be uploading a video for the first week of January 2016. Now I'm not taking that week off, that's not a vacation week. I'm taking that extra week to make the first video of 2016 something special, so you can look forward to that. But let's finish up 2015 by taking a good look at Shipwreck. This is GI Joe's Sailor from 1985, codename Shipwreck. He was first available in 1985. You could also buy him in 1986. He was discontinued for the year 1987, and he did not really have a replacement in 1987. By 1987, GI Joe was more about space than the sea, so they needed spacemen more than they needed sailors. Shipwreck expanded GI Joe's membership from the Navy. Of course, in 1982, they started out entirely with members from the U.S. Army. But by 1983, they had expanded to the U.S. Marine Corps, the Navy, and the Air Force. In 1983, they had their first Navy SEAL torpedo. In 1984, they had Deep Six, who was the diver for the flying submarine, the Shark. In 1985, of course, they had Shipwreck, and they also had Admiral Keele Hall, who was the commander of the GI Joe aircraft carrier, the USS Flag. Then in 1986, they had another Navy SEAL wetsuit. You might think that the 1984 Hovercraft killer whale driver, Cutter, is also a naval officer. He's wearing a uniform very similar to Shipwreck's, but he is not. He is a Coast Guardsman. Shipwreck is loosely based on the Jack Nicholson character from the 1973 movie, The Last Detail. Let's take a look at Shipwreck's accessories, starting with his weapon. And this weapon, the card contents call a percussion pistol. He's carrying a percussion pistol, really. People often mistake this for a flintlock, but it is not a flintlock. A percussion pistol is actually more modern than a flintlock. Percussion firearms use a percussion cap to ignite a black powder charge. Why would you want to carry this around instead of a modern weapon? You wouldn't. Nobody would. That would be insane. I do assume Shipwreck was given this accessory to make him seem more pirate-y. The pistol has a loop which can be looped around Shipwreck's wrist, and that's not a bad feature. It is made out of a softer plastic than most G.I. Joe accessories, so you don't really have to worry too much about breaking it. Shipwreck's next accessory is what the card contents call boarding hooks with a three-eighths inch line. It consists of these silver plastic barbs, which don't really look like hooks. It has a long string that just seems to go on forever, and then it has a silver plastic handle. Shipwreck can hold onto the handle in his hand, and that's a slightly softer plastic, so you don't have to worry too much about breaking the action figure's thumbs, and he holds onto that very well. This is quite a long string. These hooks here, these so-called boarding hooks, don't look anything like any traditional or modern boarding hooks that I've been able to find. Boarding hooks look more like grappling hooks or long poles with a hook on the end, so I'm not really sure how these are supposed to work as boarding hooks. They look more like a martial arts weapon than boarding hooks. Shipwreck has a hook on his hip, and you can wind up this long black string, and you can loop it on that hook for storage, and that sort of works, but it doesn't stay on there very well. If you're not moving the figure around, it will hold on there, but as soon as you start moving this guy around, it's likely to fall off. It just doesn't secure on there very well. You can also hang the pistol from that hook, so you can store his pistol that way if you wanted to. Shipwreck's final accessory is his green sculpted parrot, and again, this is something that kind of makes him more pirate-y. I think they're trying to go for sort of a pirate theme, although the file card does not give the parrot a name. We know from the G.I. Joe animated series that the parrot's name is Polly. This is a nicely sculpted bird. It has some yellow paint just in spots, and I think that looks really good. This parrot is at rest, and usually when we got bird companions in G.I. Joe, they had their wings spread out, like Spirit's Eagle Freedom, so you could pretend that the bird is flying around. Not so with Polly, but I don't really mind this so much. Instead of flying around, I think Polly would hang out with Shipwreck, insulting him and kind of playing the role of the insult comic of the G.I. Joe team. The parrot's feet are very fragile, and they're often broken off. Now as the feet break off, you could probably glue them back on and no one would be the wiser, but as the feet are missing, the parrot will not clip onto the action figure the way it's supposed to, so do make sure that you get a parrot that has his feet. The feet act as a clip to clip onto Shipwreck's wrist. The best place to put him is on this white band right here. You just clip him on, and he does hold on pretty well. Let's look at the articulation on Shipwreck. He had the typical articulation for 1985 G.I. Joe action figures. That means he could turn his head from left to right. He could also look up and down. His neck was on a ball joint. He could move his arm up at the shoulder about so far. He could 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. He 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 little bit. He could move his legs apart about so far. He could move his legs at the hip about 90 degrees. He could bend at the knee about 90 degrees. Let's take a look at the sculpt design and color of Shipwreck. The first thing to notice is he is wearing a U.S. Navy work uniform. These are dungarees. These were worn by junior enlisted men with a rank of E1 through E6. These uniforms were common in the U.S. Navy for a very long time. From 1913 all the way through the 1990s. Modern U.S. Navy work uniforms are a blue camouflage. But in 1985 you could see a lot of Navy personnel wearing uniforms very similar to this. Shipwreck looks a lot like the 1970 Sea Adventurer from the 12 inch G.I. Joe Adventure team line. Except the Sea Adventurer had red hair and beard and Shipwreck has brown hair and beard. Other than that though he is very similar to that vintage 1970s figure. On his head he has a traditional U.S. Navy Dixie Cup hat. Nice sculpt on that. It is not removable but why would you want to remove it? It just wouldn't be Shipwreck without his hat. He has brown hair and he does have that brown beard. On his chest he is wearing a light blue button up shirt with a couple pockets. He has an open collar, no undershirt and no dog tags. I think dog tags would have been a nice detail there. It's plain on the front, it's plain on the back. Other than the flesh color there is no painted detail on this shirt. But that's appropriate. He is just wearing a plain blue shirt. His arms feature short sleeves and on his right sleeve we have rank insignia. This rank insignia most closely matches a Chief Petty Officer which is an E7. Earlier we said that this uniform is worn by junior enlisted men of E1 through E6. So this uniform is not exactly appropriate for Shipwreck as an E7 but we can forgive that because he looks really good in this uniform. The rank of Chief Petty Officer does match the grade on the file card and that's nice. That did not always happen with GI Joe action figures. Sometimes the rank insignia on the figure did not match what was on the file card so nicely done there. On his right forearm Shipwreck has a tattoo. Of course he wouldn't be a sailor without a tattoo. This tattoo looks to me to be an anchor with a flying fish. On his hands he has black gloves and again he has this white band on his left wrist and that serves to clip on his parrot. On his waist he has a black belt and he has a copper colored belt buckle with some sculpting on it and what I think is an anchor but I'm not really sure. There's some detail there but the detail is a little bit lost and it's hard to tell exactly what it is. He does have that black web belt with a couple of pouches on each side. He has a single pocket in the back then he has this hook which you can use to hook the pistol or the line for the boarding hooks and that can break off very easily. It's just a very thin piece of plastic sticking out there and it would be very easy to crack that off. His legs feature those traditional US Navy work uniform dungarees and on his right leg he has a black pistol holster and that is an empty pistol holster. It looks like that's intended to be for his percussion pistol but that is not a working pistol holster. Back in 1985 we just didn't have functioning pistol holsters on the figures and I mean it's not a bad detail but it would have been really nice if you could really holster the pistol there. That would have been a nice bonus. His left leg is plain and he has bell bottom trousers over black boots. Chipperac's lower legs are very similar to Cutter's lower legs but they are not the same. Chipperac has an entirely new sculpt for his lower legs and I'm not really sure why they needed to do that. They're almost identical. It's just a lighter color plastic on the trousers and very, very slightly more detailed boots so they really could have reused Cutter's lower legs for Chipperac. I don't think anybody would have minded that but they didn't so I guess Chipperac can claim to have entirely unique parts. Let's take a look at Chipperac's file card and his file card was printed on the back of the card on which the action figure was packaged. You can see some of the artwork from the front of the card there. It has his faction as GI Joe and it has a very nice portrait of Chipperac here. It says he is the sailor. He's not specialized like the other GI Joe Navy men and it says his codename is Chipperac. It says his final name is Hector X Delgado and this final name suggests that Chipperac may be Hispanic but that has never brought up or addressed in any of his appearances in GI Joe media. His primary military specialty is Gunners Mate. His secondary military specialty is Machinist. His place of birth is Chula Vista California and his grade is CPO or Chief Petty Officer. This section says Chipperac grew up in the shadow of the Navy, specifically the shadow of the sprawling San Diego Navy Yards. This is referring to the naval base San Diego also known as the 32nd Street Naval Station. He enlisted at the youngest age possible with his parents permission and proceeded to serve with distinction in the Mekong Delta where hand-to-hand fighting with river pirates, smugglers and insurgents was the order of the day. This reference to the Mekong Delta is referring to the Vietnam War and it implies that Chipperac served with the Mobile Riverine Force or the MRF. Those guys were previously known as the Mekong Delta Mobile Afloat Force and they were nicknamed the Riverines. He was put in time at Gitmo and Yokosuka and was on hand at certain carrier initiated operations in the Middle East. Gitmo is referring to the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. That base is leased under the Cuban American Treaty of 1903. The public is probably more familiar with Gitmo today due to the global war on terror than they would have been in 1985. This would have been a very obscure reference for a kid's toy in 1985. Yokosuka is referring to the United States Fleet Activities Yokosuka which is a U.S. Naval Base in Japan. I don't know exactly what these carrier initiated operations in the Middle East is talking about. It is a very specific reference so it probably is referring to something in the real world. I just don't know exactly what it is. So if any of the viewers know what this is referring to please leave a comment in this video I would like to find out. Graduated Naval Gunnery School Great Lakes and this is referring to Naval Station Great Lakes which is a real U.S. Navy base and there is a gunnery school there. Qualified Expert M16, M14, Browning 50 caliber, 20mm Orlekin AA gun and this is a misspelling that should be spelled O-E-R-L-I-K-O-N and that is a real 20mm anti-aircraft gun. And then M1911A1 that is a pistol not a percussion pistol. This bottom section has a quote. It says shipwreck is your quintessential sailor. He can splice a line, fry powdered eggs in the tooth of the gale and eat them, tell taller tales than a senate appropriations committee and take a three day liberty in Thule Greenland and come back smiling. Thule Greenland is referring to the U.S. Air Force's northernmost base and it's saying that this is literally in the middle of nowhere and yet he can still come back smiling. So this is implying that shipwreck is able to find prostitutes in unlikely places. That does make him a stereotypical sailor but is that really something you want to put on a kid's toy? I mean the kids might not get it but the parent certainly would. He's not coming back smiling because he won at Parcheasy. What is it doc? What's wrong with me? That's bad shipwreck. You have contracted an STD and the symptom is the worst I've ever seen. Your private parts have moved to your hip. Shipwreck's file card is a great one. It has a lot of references to the real world both historical and technical and it tells us something about shipwreck's personality and that's exactly what we want on a file card. Larry Hama who was writing these file cards at the time really hit this one out of the park. He made a ton of appearances in GI Joe media in both the cartoon and the comic book and in the GI Joe cartoon he first appeared in a very unlikely place. Flint and Mutt found him in a bar in a bar filled with bad guys. Now that is really weird and it doesn't make a lot of sense. I mean was he even in the US Navy? He had the uniform and the rank insignia but why would the Joe's find him in that bar? In the cartoon sometimes GI Joe would pick up new team members just here and there without training and without going through the normal channels. QuickHick was another team member that they picked up that way. He was just kind of a guy who happened to be around and they just let him join the team. Although that first appearance doesn't make a lot of sense on a story level it does kind of fit shipwreck's personality based on what we've read on his file card. You would kind of expect to find him in some sleazy dive bar. Here the cartoon did to shipwreck what it did to a lot of other characters. It made him goofy but he was still a fan favorite. Kids were somehow drawn to this character and the voice actor who played shipwreck gave him a voice similar to Jack Nicholson which hearkened back to the inspiration for the character. Polly the parrot did not appear in the cartoon until a bit later. He first appeared in the miniseries Pyramid of Darkness part one. He could talk, he was a wisecracker and he was voiced by Frank Welker. When shipwreck first appeared in the comic book he was in charge of the new transportable tactical battle platform and both he and the battle platform played a major role in the creation of Cobra Island, a great storyline in the comic book. The comic book shipwreck was gruff and irritable not at all goofy as he appeared in the cartoon. He was exactly as I imagined he would be. As a sailor he was a bit of a perfectionist and he demanded hard work from everyone under him. Shipwreck had some great appearances in the GI Joe comic book but he did not appear in the comic book as much as he appeared in the cartoon. He was used more in the cartoon than the comic book. However he did appear in the GI Joe special missions comic book in the very first issue and that was a great appearance with his parrot. One thing I love about the GI Joe special missions comic book series is not only did it give us a more realistic and grittier GI Joe, it also allowed us to see some characters that did not appear as much in the main GI Joe comic book series. So it's great to see more of shipwreck and some other GI Joe characters that we did not see as often in the comic book. Shipwreck is a well remembered character and a lot of kids liked him but not everyone liked him. Some fans found the character to be grating but whether you loved him or hated him chances are you had some kind of a strong opinion about him. So what did you think of shipwreck? Did you love him? Did you hate him? Somewhere in between? Leave a comment on this video and let me know. Looking at shipwreck overall this figure is kind of plain but that plainness is appropriate. He's wearing a realistic military uniform and that's always going to get bonus points in my book. The design of this figure is subtle and that's a very good thing. In 1985 GI Joe was still capable of subtlety which unfortunately they lost in later years. If shipwreck were to be designed today he would probably be tricked out with a bunch of unnecessary detail but in 1985 they were able to give us a good basic sailor action figure and I appreciate that. I could have done without the hook on his hip on its own that looks really weird and he has some questionable accessories. The boarding hooks and line is very cumbersome and the percussion pistol is just weird so his best accessory is his parrot which I really like. I'm still going to call this a top tier figure despite the fact that he is lacking in details and paint applications but that's why he is a top tier figure. He looks exactly as he should look. They didn't go overboard with this action figure. A designer would be tempted to really go overboard with lots of extra detail and extra color but the design of this figure shows restraint which I appreciate. He's a well remembered and well loved character. He had a lot of personality in both the cartoon and the comic book. Shipwreck was a carded action figure. He did not come with a vehicle or a play set but I always display him with the transportable tactical battle platform taking a cue from his first appearance in the G.I. Joe comic book. To me, Shipwreck owns this platform. I can't imagine anyone else in charge of it. That was my review of Shipwreck. I hope you enjoyed it and if you're thinking of getting one of these guys I hope you found it informative. If you liked it make sure you give it a thumbs up on YouTube and don't forget to subscribe to my channel. I've got a lot of great new G.I. Joe toy reviews coming up and the only way you can be sure not to miss them is to subscribe to my YouTube channel. Don't forget to like me on Facebook and follow me on Twitter. You get a lot of updates there. You don't get anywhere else. Thanks for watching and I will see you soon with another vintage G.I. Joe toy review.