 This week we're looking at another version of G.I. Joe's first machine gunner, Rock n' Roll, but this version isn't just a machine gunner, he's also a super sonic fighter! Play the theme song! Top Gear Glove, G.I. Joe! Sword Horizon! Strike! Strike! Ready! Ready! Ready! Silence! Hey Hooded Corporate Commander 788 here, and thank you to Max-Revo's Ghost Music. The figure for this review came from that Sweet Box of 90s figures that he sent to me. I have two important things to say before we get started. First, Timmer from Half the Battle has launched a charity appeal. If you donate to a charity that benefits children, you will have a chance to win a rare Tiger Force Psych-Out figure. In addition to that, I am sweetening the pot. Whoever wins Timmer's drawing will also get a complete 1985 Co-Red Eels action figure from me. That's the figure and all of the accessories, including that hard-to-find air hose. Check out Timmer's video for details. Let's show how generous the GI Joe community can be. Second announcement I will be taking next week off. I need a little break. But after that, I will be returning with a theme month in October. What will the theme month be? Stick around to find out. I'm a big fan of the original 13 GI Joe figures from 1982, and I enjoy seeing them return to the line in later versions, as long as those versions are done well. Not all were. The first version of Rock and Roll was one of the best figures from that first series. The second version of Rock and Roll was also pretty great. It was also the last vintage GI Joe figure I bought at retail. Version 3 was based on version 2, but it had a gimmick. As part of the Super Sonic Fighters subset, it had a backpack with electronic sounds. So, does the third version live up to the awesomeness of the first two? Let's find out, and let's rock out! HCC 78 presents Rock and Roll! This is the Super Sonic Fighters version of Rock and Roll. It was released in the mid-1990s by the GI Joe's machine gunner from 1991. This figure was only available in 1991. It was discontinued for the year 1992. This is the third version of Rock and Roll. It reuses the entire mold from version 2 from 1989. The first version of Rock and Roll was released in 1982, as part of the first wave of GI Joe figures when the line was relaunched that year. There was a version 1.5 released in 1983 with swivel arm battle grip. It had different articulation, but it was mostly the same figure as version 1. Version 2 of Rock and Roll was released in 1989, and as you can see, this version 3 is just a copy of version 2 with different colors. Why haven't I reviewed this version of Rock and Roll? I've decided this will be the last GI Joe figure that I review on this channel at the end of this project. This was the last figure I bought as a child. I started this channel by reviewing my first figure, Breaker. I will end it by reviewing my last Joe. That should be many years from now. We still have a lot of toys to review. Version 4 of Rock and Roll from 1993 was the Star Brigade armor tech version. These clunky figures were in the Star Brigade sub-team. We've already looked at one of them, Robo Joe. I only have carded examples of this figure with the accessories variant. I don't have a loose example, so I'm not quite ready to review this one yet. Super Sonic Fighters was a subset of figures from 1991 with backpacks that made electronic sounds. Some figures were just remolded from earlier figures like Falcon here. Others had all original parts like version 2 of Major Blood. Super Sonic Fighters was a follow-up to the Sonic Fighters from 1990, which included version 3 of Tunnelrad here. The Sonic Fighters also had backpacks with electronic sounds. This idea was followed up in 1992 with Talking Battle Commanders, which included Stalker version 3 here. The Talking Battle Commanders backpacks were even bigger and were bolted on to the figure. They weren't intended to be removed, but you could take them off with the screwdriver. GI Joe had sub-teams and subsets going all the way back to the Dreadnocks in 1985. In the 1990s, the division of the toy line into numerous subsets was the standard practice. In 1991, there were no fewer than five subsets, including the main line. You had the basic GI Joe figures, eco-warriors, Super Sonic Fighters, air commandos, and the battlecopter pilots. The subdivisions would only get more numerous as the years went on. I think this was an attempt to make a GI Joe for every possible preference. In an era when toys were moving away from military realism and more to the outlandish and bizarre. I have the full card back for Rock n' Roll, so let's take a look at it. The artwork is so-so. Rock n' Roll is firing his machine gun, a machine gun that does not look like the one that came with the figure. The emphasis here is not so much on the figure as the backpack, since the backpack was the bonus feature. Instead of the explosion background we got in the early 80s or the digital explosion from the late 80s, we have these orange concentric circles representing sound waves. It looks orange to me, but it seems to be coming out more pink on the camera. I guess there's a little bit of pink in it. It's kind of a salmon color. Instructions on assembling the accessories is printed on the space behind where the figure would be. Instructions on replacing the batteries in the backpack is printed on the space here behind where the backpack would have been on the card. And this does work. I did replace the batteries in this thing. Overall, the front of the card is ugly and hard to look at. The actual artwork doesn't really take up very much of the card. The rest of the card is taken up with a lot of clutter. Lots of little captions and logos everywhere, an advertisement sticker. Just way too much. It's very busy. Too much going on on this. Looking at the back of the card, it has the 1990 Sonic Fighters in the same partition on the cross-sell as the 1991 Super Sonic Fighters. This implies the 1991 figures were intended to be part of the same subset. However, the packaging for the 1990 figures was entirely different, and they were clearly labeled Sonic Fighters, whereas the front of the 1991 card calls them Super Sonic Fighters. Do you consider them to be a part of the same set, or are they different subsets? I don't really have a position on that. I'm just curious what everybody else thinks. We have a file card in that same salmon color. This is a horrible color to use for something you're supposed to read. It hurts my eyes to read this. That's not just some internet critic hyperbole. It really does strain my eyes. I can only read a few lines of this card at a time without looking away. The print on it is extra small too. We'll look more closely at the file card after we look at the figure. Let's take a look at rock and roll version 3's accessories, starting with this one. The card calls this an M60 machine gun. It is brown, and this is a unique accessory as far as I can tell. I don't think this is a reissue of anything. I thought this might be based on iceberg's machine gun, but it is clearly not. It's a different size, and all of the details are different. It doesn't look much like an M60 to me either. The stock borrows from the M60, but the rest of the gun really does not. It is made of a softer plastic than earlier accessories. It has some bend to it. The file card also describes it as a 7.62mm M60 GPMG. GPMG just means general purpose machine gun. Rock and roll had a mortar launcher, and it has some decent detail on it. It does have a handle, and the handle can fit in the action figure's hand. However, it does not stand on its own, and it's not really meant to be used independently of the backpack stand. The file card calls this an amphibious experimental short-range 51mm mortar launcher. What makes it amphibious? Can it float? Yes, it floats! There you have it, an amphibious mortar launcher. Now we get to what is really the main accessory, the electronic backpack. It does have a backpack. The backpack will fit on the figure's back, but it is really top-heavy on the figure, and it's very difficult to make the figure stand up, even with a figure stand with this very large backpack on. The backpack is also a stand for the weapons. It has four feet. You can set it up on the ground as a stand. This post here is actually removable. That's a separate piece, and you can attach the mortar launcher and the machine gun to it. The machine gun has this peg, and to attach it to the stand, just plug that peg into the hole on the post. There you go. Pop the machine gun out, and then you can attach the mortar launcher, which also has a little peg. Just pop that in, and now you can use the missile launcher connected to the stand. There is a foot peg on the backpack, so you can put rock and roll on the stand to fire the weapons. However, the grip on that mortar launcher is a bit low, so you really need to bend rock and roll's knees to get him down into a firing position. And unfortunately, at that angle, he can't really grip the handle. It works better if you take rock and roll off the foot peg and just have him kneeling behind the stand. He can grip the weapon. Same with the machine gun rock and roll. Can grip the weapon when kneeling behind the stand, and actually don't mind this. This is not a bad machine gun emplacement for rock and roll. Just for kicks, I broke out the brick wall from the missile defense unit because I wanted to see what this machine gun stand would look like behind some cover. And I have to say, it does not look very good at all. The colors just don't go together. Sorry, I thought that would be a good idea, but I was wrong. Do have some care when placing and removing the pegs from the post. Those are small thin pieces of plastic. These accessories are made out of a softer plastic, so they're not super prone to breakage. But you could manage to break them if you're not careful. Now we get to what really makes this backpack special, and what makes rock and roll a supersonic fighter. The electronic sounds. According to the card, it makes four sounds. The laser rifle, 50 caliber machine gun, mortar launcher, and M60 machine gun. Rock and roll only came with two of those weapons, so two of these sounds should match the accessories he came with. I'm going to pop the post off just so I can push the buttons easier. As I push the buttons, these lights should light up as well. So we have this bottom button here, and it makes this sound. Maybe that's the M60 machine gun. Let's try the others. The far right button makes this sound. What's that supposed to be? Is that the mortar launcher? Does not really sound like a mortar launcher. Next we have the top middle button. That's got to be the laser rifle. And then the far left button. Is that supposed to be the 50 caliber machine gun? That does not sound like that at all. Now let's take a look at the articulation. This figure had the standard articulation for 1989 GIO action figures, which is when this mold originated. He could turn his head from left to right and look up and down, swing his arm up at the shoulder, and 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, so he could swivel his arm all the way around. The figure was held together with a rubber O-ring that it 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 bend his leg 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 Rock and Roll version 3. Once again, it did entirely reuse the mold from version 2 with one minor difference. Version 2 of Rock and Roll from 1989 had pegs on the right leg. That was for pegging his rifle on the figure. The 1991 version does not have that. Other than that, it is the same mold, pretty much one for one. They even kept the 1989 copyright stamp for the newer figure. Let's take a look at Rock and Roll's head and on his head, he has a hideous orange cap with bullets that are the same color as the cap. Now, to be fair, the bullets on the cap for version 2 are also unpainted. They're just the same color as the cap, but it's more obvious on this one. This cap is suitable for hunting but not for combat. He has a yellow beard. It is a slightly brighter yellow color than version 2. The blonde beard is Rock and Roll's defining characteristic, going all the way back to version 1. He has to be blonde and he has to have the beard. That's how we know this is Rock and Roll. I should add the card art gives him a red beard. That's just weird. On his chest, he has a green shirt, not a terrible color of green with a collar. Then he has bright orange straps, orange to match the color of the cap. On the straps, there are some pouches, look like ammunition pouches with grenades. These pouches and straps are not bad and would be a nice realistic touch in a different color. On his arms, he has a muscular build and green sleeves rolled up. And he has brown gloves and those brown gloves closely match the color of the accessories. His waist pieces brown with criss-crossed belts on the front and the back with pouches. Very nicely sculpted, but it is entirely unpainted. That's a problem. On his legs, he has brown trousers and those criss-crossed straps continue down to the legs. That looks really nice, again, very well sculpted, but unpainted. We have some additional unpainted straps on the thighs. Then we have a very bright orange knife or possibly a bayonet. The cross pattern continues with crossed straps around the right shin. He has some brown boots, a lighter shade of brown. Looks like the same brown as the gloves. Some of those details were unpainted on the 1989 figure, but it's less obvious on that figure. Plus, the 1989 figure had camouflage and that makes up for it. Even though version 3 copies the mold from version 2, version 2 is superior. The color choices are better, the paint applications are on point. Version 3 has fewer paint apps and they try to distract you from that fact with some bright orange. The accessories for version 2 had their own problems, but version 3 had the gimmicky electronic sounds and that is not a gimmick that I ever went for. Let's take a look at the file card and this file card is very hard to read. In fact, I'm not even sure you can read this. On my screen, it is totally washing out. So I'm going to break with tradition and I am not going to read this file card. I just want to point out a couple things. First, they changed Rock and Roll's serial number from his version 2 file card by just transposing two letters. And it actually has an explanation for this on the file card in a footnote. It says Rock and Roll's security number has been specially modified to prevent breaches in GI Joe's security. I'm not sure that detail was really necessary. Next, it has his pay grade as E9 Sergeant Major. That's a major promotion from E6 on his version 2 file card. In fact, that means he leaps frogs Duke, who was still an E8 Master Sergeant in 1992. Rock and Roll outranks Duke? I like Rock and Roll and all, but that should never happen. Other than that, the main takeaways from this file card include he likes loud noises and British heavy metal and now I'm going to stop looking at this thing. Looking at how Rock and Roll was used in GI Joe media, since he was a founding member of GI Joe, he appeared in the very first miniseries in 1983. He wasn't the most used character, but he made a fair number of appearances through the Sunbow series. Rock and Roll did appear in his version 3 uniform in the Deke animated series. He was featured in a two part story called Long Live Rock and Roll. Rock and Roll appeared in the first issue of the Marvel Comics series in his version 1 uniform. Did he ever appear in his version 3 uniform? It's hard to tell because of inconsistent coloring. In issue number 140 he appears in a green uniform, but in issue number 141 his uniform has turned to tan, so it is definitely his version 2 uniform. I haven't been able to find any concrete examples of him appearing in this version's colors. Looking at Rock and Roll version 3 overall, I wish I didn't like this figure, but I don't. It takes everything that was right about version 2 and makes it wrong. Most of the details are unpainted. The ones that are painted are bright freaking orange. The base colors are not bad, green and brown. It would have been easy to compliment those colors, but this was the 90s. They couldn't help themselves. They had to make it neon orange. And about that gimmick, I do not need noisemakers. The electronic sound accessory would not have added anything to my playtime. I was pretty good at making up sound effects myself. See? As a kid I was like a junior beatbox with all the gun and explosion sounds. Plus the sounds the backpack makes don't fit the weapons all that well. I can't accept Rock and Roll outranking Duke. I'm writing that off as a typo. This is a bottom tier figure, but I don't hate it. It still has that excellent sculpt from version 2. Plus I like the character of Rock and Roll. And that's it. That's my review of Rock and Roll. It's time for me to start my little mini-vacation. Please give this video a thumbs up on YouTube and subscribe to the YouTube channel so you don't miss anything. And please share this video to help this channel grow. Check out HCC788.com, like me on Facebook, follow me on Twitter, and your support on Patreon helps me keep this show going. If you have the means, please donate to a children's charity and enter Timmer's drawing. You'll have a chance to win my Cobra Eels action figure as well. I won't have a new review next week, but October will be a theme month. And since October is the month of Halloween, I've decided to do something spooky. I have decided to take a tour through one of the dark corridors of vintage GI Joe. It is truly terrifying. Are you prepared for the shock and terror? This week, I reviewed a 90s figure. Next week, we will be getting away from the 90s. And no, we're not! October will be 90s month! All 90s GI Joe in October. Can I find anything good to review? We'll find out. See you in a couple weeks. And remember, even in the 1990s, only GI Joe is GI Joe. It's an awesome new level of light and sound. GI Joe is on fire! With four new sounds and battle lights, there's Falcon, Psych out, and the evil Major Blood. GI Joe is on fire! I've got you! No, you don't! Man, one thing!