 Commander788 here and it's time for another vintage GI Joe toy review and I can't do it. I can't review the toy that I was intending to review this week. I was expecting a part to come in the mail, it didn't come on time, so I can't do it. I don't have the item complete, I can't review it, I've, I've failed and I was going to surprise everyone by kicking off Tiger Force Month. I was going to make April all Tiger Force and I don't do theme months very often so I thought it would be a fun surprise. I thought everybody would like it, but now I can't do it because of my failure. Come on Tiger. What's that Tony? Go Tiger. I can do it? That's right. I can do it. I can do it Tony the Tiger. I can do it and I will do it. I do have one Tiger Force figure that is ready to review right now. Tiger Force Tripwire. So let's do it. Let's punch through this. Let's look at Tiger Force Tripwire. This is Tiger Force Tripwire, G.I. Joe's mind detector. He was released in this Tiger Force version in 1988 and was also available in 1989. This is version 3 of Tripwire, version 1 of Tripwire was available in 1983 and 1984. Version 2 of Tripwire, which was available in 1985, was the Listen and Fun Tripwire. And all three versions of Tripwire that were released in the Vintage Line were based on the same mold, just recolored. Version 3 of Tripwire was part of Tiger Force and Tiger Force was a sub-team of G.I. Joe that was introduced in 1988. And Tiger Force consisted of reused figures and vehicles just recolored and repainted. There was nothing new in Tiger Force. Except there was one new character introduced in Tiger Force, Sky Striker, who was the pilot of the Tiger Rat. But even this new character was entirely made up of reused parts from other action figures. Let's take a look at Tiger Force Tripwire, starting with his accessories. And he comes with no weapons. His main accessory is his Minesweeper. He is meant to hold it underhanded like this. There's actually an elbow rest sculpted onto the accessory. There's a long thin plastic wire at the end that plugs into a hole in the backpack. That is sculpted on and since that is plastic, that can break off. So that's something you'll have to be aware of and watch out for. At the base we have the Minesweeper itself. And we have a couple indicators sculpted on there. It's attached to a pole. And on the pole, what I really like is it has a sculpted on wire that coils around it. I think that's a really nice detail. We have the handle here. That's where it fits on the action figures hand. And then we have a cup here for the elbow. So he does hold it that way. Then of course we have that wire. It's pretty long and thin and a little nub at the end of it. The Tiger Force Minesweeper is very similar to the 1983 Tripwire Minesweeper. Of course it uses the same mold but it's also very similar in color. The Tiger Force Minesweeper is maybe made of slightly lighter gray plastic than the original 1983 but it is very slight. The Tiger Force Minesweeper though should exactly match the color of the backpack. His next accessory is his backpack and it pegs into his back as you would expect. And it has some detail on here. It has what looks like a readout panel up here. And of course there's the hole that the wire plugs into. Looks like it's got a vent down here. And this backpack holds three mines. These mines do fit in the backpack pretty securely and that's a good thing. They are very small and would be very easy to lose if they popped out too easily. And there is some detail on them. They are all identical. On the bottom there's kind of a hole in the center there. And so each mine can kind of wedge in and fit together very snugly. Now these mines raise a question about Tripwire's role. Is he a mine detector or is he a mine layer? Is he setting explosives or is he defusing explosives? I would say he probably does both. His file card does mention demolition training. So he probably is an explosives expert. So he will sweep and defuse mines as well as set up explosives to target the enemy. This backpack and the mines use the exact same mold as the 1983 Tripwire backpack and mines. Of course the original is in green and the Tiger Force version is in a dark gray. Tripwire comes with no personal weapons. I mean the mines are kind of like weapons but he's not going to throw them at the enemy or anything like that. So he has more of the role of a support troop. And in that respect he's similar to Breaker who also did not come with any weapon accessories. Let's take a look at the articulation on Tripwire. He had the standard articulation for 1983 G.I. Joe action figures. That is to say he had the same articulation as the original Tripwire. That means he could turn his head from left to right. He could also lift his arm up at the shoulder about so far. He could swivel his arm at the shoulder all the way around. He had a hinge at the elbow that allowed him to 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 spread his legs apart about so far. He could bend at the hip about 90 degrees and he could bend at the knee about 90 degrees. Let's look at the sculpt design and color of Tripwire starting with his head. And this head he has a green non-removable helmet that covers his whole head and his chin. He has black goggles over his eyes. His nose and his lips are exposed so he has flesh color paint there. This head on Tiger Force Tripwire is very similar to the original. Even the color on the green helmet is almost identical. They're so close that you could almost swap out the heads and you might not be able to tell the difference. You'd have to look very closely to tell them apart. It's with the chest that things start to get scary. This is where he starts to look like Tony the Tiger. We have a bright orange collar, a bright orange chest plate with some straps. That's over a brown shirt or jumpsuit. I guess that could be a jumpsuit. It's got a gray strap that goes around the back. And of course on that orange chest plate he has the black Tiger Stripes. That's supposed to be Tiger Force's Tiger Stripe camouflage. One improvement on the Tiger Force action figure is the silver painted buckles on the straps of the chest plate. On the original Tripwire action figure those are not painted details. They're just painted the same color as the straps. So kudos to Tiger Force for improving on the original figure. On the arms we have plain brown sleeves and we have green protective gloves with some sculpted details on them. That's really not bad. I really don't have any problem with the arms. Those look pretty good. On version one of Tripwire he had Rankin Signia painted on his right shoulder and that is not present on the Tiger Force Tripwire. So that's a painted detail that the original had that the Tiger Force version didn't have. So you give one and you take one back. On the waist piece we have more of that orange protective gear black stripe on him. We have a green belt that goes all the way around and he's wearing brown trousers or this may be intended to be a brown jumpsuit. His upper legs are brown and the left leg is plain and the right leg has a sculpted pistol with a silver grip and I think that looks really nice. On version one of Tripwire that pistol was just gray and I think the silver is an improvement. He's wearing dark gray boots and this dark gray color is very close if not exactly the same as the gray color on version one's chest plate. This plain left upper leg was also used on Duke and on Major Blood and I really don't have a problem with this. I mean it's just a plain upper leg. There's no reason to sculpt a new leg for an action figure that's not going to have any detail. I mean I think this is a fair reuse of parts. Let's take a look at Tiger Force Tripwire's file card and of course we will compare this file card to version one's file card. It has this faction as GI Joe and it has a nice portrait of Tripwire here and of course this would have been from the artwork on the front of the card and this is pretty close to identical to the portrait on version one file card. They just repainted it to give him his Tiger Force colors. His codename is Tripwire and he is the Tiger Force mind detector. His file name is Tormod S. Scoog which is an unusual name. I wonder what his friends call him. Tor probably or maybe Scoogidoo. One thing that kind of bothers me is the serial number changed from the original and okay maybe nobody looks at the serial number or maybe nobody cares but it does bother me. I mean it should be easy enough to copy that number on to here. Now I think this is just laziness. His primary military specialty is explosive ordinance disposal. His secondary military specialty is Tiger Fly co-pilot. Now that is different from the original obviously. His original secondary military specialty was demolitions and that is in accordance with his training. Now the Tiger Fly was the Tiger Force version of the Dragonfly helicopter. GI Joe file cards did not normally designate co-pilots for vehicles and I don't know why Tripwire should be the co-pilot of the Tiger Fly but I kind of like it. After all there is that second seat in that helicopter and now you kind of know who's supposed to be in it. His birthplace is Hibbing, Minnesota. His grade is E-4 specialist. This section says Tripwire dropped out of high school at a naval base in Yosuke, Japan in parentheses Father's Career Navy. Spent two years in a Zen monastery pondering the meaning of life. He was later expelled for breaking too many dishes and spilling every conceivable liquid. He joined the army at 19 and received spiritual awakening on the grenade range of all places. After boot camp he signed up for demolition training at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. It was there he acquired the name Tripwire for his outstanding ability to conceal the Tripwires that led to high-powered explosives. This Tiger Force file card has more detail than version 1 file card. The version 1 file card just kind of stops here after talking about him receiving spiritual awakening on the grenade range. Then it talks a little bit about his proficiency but the Tiger Force file card talks more about his demolition training. This bottom section says Tripwire freaks people out. He's always clumsy, jittery and dropping things except when he's working with high explosives. He's as cool as a cucumber when he's planting XF2565 Nitro on the battlefield under heavy machine gun fire. I don't know how he does it but we're sure glad he's on our side. Again this version 3 file card has more detail than version 1 file card. Version 1 file card talks about him being clumsy and jittery except when he's working with high explosives and it says explosives are the only things that calm him down. I have to admit this version 3 file card is an improvement over the version 1 file card. It adds a little bit more detail but it doesn't try to outshine the version 1 file card. It just adds a little something. Tripwire did have a few appearances in G.I. Joe media but I have to admit he didn't exactly burn up the screen. He was in the G.I. Joe cartoon in the very first miniseries A Real American Hero and in part 2 he was a part of the Arctic mission that led to Snake Eyes being trapped and irradiated. That was one of my favorite scenes in the whole miniseries but frankly until I looked it up for the purposes of making this video I did not remember Tripwire in that scene so I guess he didn't make much of an impression on me. He did have a few other appearances in the cartoon but for the most part he didn't have very much to do. In the G.I. Joe comic book Tripwire first appeared in issue number 16 and they really played up his clumsiness. Tripwire was later in a swamp mission in the storyline that introduced Zartan in issues number 25, 26 and 27. And I really liked those issues. One of my favorite scenes with Tripwire was from issue number 29 when he is on the USS Jane and he has an explosive device that's about to go off so he falls on it to try to save his teammates. But Roadblock kicks him off of it and finds a way to save everyone without having Tripwire blown to bits. But one of the reasons that's my favorite scene is because of Roadblock not really because of Tripwire so I'm not really sure that counts for Tripwire. He has another really good scene in issue number 36 where he and Doc repair the Gatling gun on the USS Jane and take down a Cobra Rattler. Other than that he did have a few other appearances in the G.I. Joe comic book but he kind of had to take a back seat for the introduction of a lot of new characters. Looking at Tiger Force Tripwire overall it's easy to downgrade this figure because of the bright orange and I do not like the bright orange but looking past the bright orange which is not easy to do because it's bright orange this figure does have some things going for it. It has some things going for it that the original figure did not. Version 1 of Tripwire was in military colors he was wearing green that was good but one of my knocks on version 1 of Tripwire was that he really didn't have a lot going on. His colors didn't have much contrast he didn't have a lot of detail and Tiger Force Tripwire actually fixes that a bit. I mean if you ignore the orange there's a nice contrast between the green and the brown and the gray that works better than the colors on the original. And Tiger Force Tripwire has some paint details that the original did not have but that orange vest man that keeps this figure as a middle tier figure in my rate book. It looks kind of like one of those vests that crossing guards wear except Tiger Stripe. Because there's nothing original in Tiger Force it's going to be very difficult for a Tiger Force figure or vehicle to be anything above the middle tier. But it's possible. I mean the recoloring of the figure and the vehicle could fix a problem that made the figure or vehicle in the middle tier to begin with so it could bump it up. It's possible. I've noticed two different color schemes for Tiger Force figures. Color scheme A still has reasonably military colors it has greens and browns with stripes. Color scheme B has bright orange and there are several figures with color scheme B. So these Tiger Force repaints don't have to be ugly and unsightly. In fact they could be an improvement on the original action figure if they took an action figure that had bright non-military colors on the original action figure and gave it color scheme A more military colors that could actually be a bump up. Unfortunately they didn't. For example, Tiger Force Lifeline. Version 1 of Lifeline was bright red. Tiger Force Lifeline they gave him that bright orange color which didn't help. But Tiger Force has an important place in G.I. Joe history. It was kind of the kickoff of these sub teams and that was a direction that G.I. Joe went in. G.I. Joe had a lot of other sub teams and it kind of started with Tiger Force. So Tiger Force really does deserve its own theme months. We're going to take all of April to really look at Tiger Force. Look at some key action figures and a vehicle because Tiger Force really was about the vehicles. Tony what do you think of Tiger Force? Well I wouldn't go that far. I mean they're okay. I wouldn't say they're great. Plus you're a little biased. That was my review of Tiger Force Trip why I hope you enjoyed it and don't forget to check back next week for another G.I. Joe Tiger Force review. And next week I should be able to review the toy that I intended to review this week. And don't forget to like this video on YouTube subscribe on YouTube like me on Facebook follow me on Twitter share this video to help this channel grow and until next time remember only G.I. Joe is G.I. Joe.