 It's October, and you know what that means? Horror. This is the month of Halloween, and for this time of terror, I'm gonna look at a GI Joe figure connected to Stephen King. That's right, it's Sneak Peak. Yeah, Sneak Peak. Timmer has Monster Month covered up, so I guess I'll review something that isn't scary at all. Although, I am a little nervous. This studio space has been haunted by a couple creepy, evil twins. Hello everybody, hooded Cobra Commander 788 here. Did you know there is a supernatural-themed GI Joe figure created by famous horror author Stephen King? Well, we are not looking at that today. I've already reviewed Crystal Ball. Instead, we're looking at a figure named after Stephen King's son Owens. Sneak Peak could be an awesome action figure. He has an exciting and interesting job. He could be outfitted and equipped to stealthily sneak into enemy territory. He could carry compact and high-tech equipment for observing enemy troop movements, but none of that's true. He has bright colors and big honking accessories. Despite wearing bright colors, Sneak Peak still finds a way to be boring. Since this figure can be on the dull side, I anticipate you falling asleep during this review, so I'm including a couple helpful alarms to wake you up and help you get through it. Let's dare to be dull. HCC 788 presents Sneak Peak. This is Sneak Peak, Advanced Recon for GI Joe from 1987. This figure was introduced in 1987. It was also available in 1988. It was discontinued for 1989. Sneak Peak was designed by Mark Pennington for Hasbro. This is the first version. There were only two versions of Sneak Peak in the vintage era. Version 2 of Sneak Peak was from 1988 and was in the night force subset. It used the same mold as version 1, but in night force colors. Those night force colors may be more appropriate for Sneak Peak's job as we will address later. Recon is short for reconnaissance. Most references for advanced recon refers to vehicles. Sneak Peak's job is more special reconnaissance. He has a larger special forces unit like GI Joe. His job is to gather human intelligence ahead of the main unit. This will require him to infiltrate enemy territory. How well equipped is he to do that? We shall see. Sneak Peak is famously named after Stephen King's son, Owen King. Stephen King is a famous horror author. His son, Owen, was a fan of GI Joe. Sneak Peak is not Stephen King's only connection to GI Joe. He also created Crystal Ball, the Cobra hypnotist from 1987. Stephen King is one of the most popular horror novelists in history, but I'm not really a fan of horror novels, so I don't have a personal opinion about his writing. The main thing I know about him is he did not like Stanley Kubrick's movie adaptation of The Shining, which is one of the most memorable horror movies of all time. It's one of my favorite movies. It's number 35 on Empire's list of top 100 movies of all time, so I'm sure he has good taste in something, and his novels are probably super great. Let's take a look at Sneak Peak's accessories. I know what a plethora is, and this is a plethora of accessories. Let's start with this large one, this periscope, which the card contents call a variable range optical field scanning device. This is a very large accessory made of light green plastic. It's actually three pieces. There's the main piece, then this handle, which according to the artwork attaches this way, but when attached this way it doesn't really do much. Then there is this brace piece attached to the side. It has a large lens and an eyepiece down toward the bottom. How this figure is supposed to hold this is a bit of a mystery. There are several different ways to try to get him to hold it, but none of them work very well. This eyepiece toward the bottom implies he should be able to hold the periscope up like this and look through the eyepiece and see what's coming through this large lens. I've seen lots of poses with Sneak Peak holding this thing in various ways, trying to get him to actually grasp this perhaps by this piece toward the bottom or on the brace. Honestly, I don't like any of those poses. It's all valiant attempts to make this work, but I think this accessory really has some serious problems as it's designed. An accessory this large needs a backpack or a grip to fit in the figure's hand, or preferably both. As it's designed it's really large, it's really cool, but it's not very functional. There are ways to get the figure to pose with this thing, but it's very cumbersome and frankly I've just kind of given up on it. The next accessory is the binoculars. The binoculars are in black plastic. They are reasonably detailed. They're very similar to other binoculars you've seen with other GI Joe figures. It does have a strap, so you can drape this around the figure's neck, but it doesn't have a bend in that strap, so it doesn't rest around the neck very well. It's a long strap though. That's a very wide loop, so you could actually put it over the figure's head and sling it under the arm, and that may actually be a better way to hold it. So I mean that's also a little bit cumbersome with all the other accessories that he's carrying, but it's a bit more secure that way. And I don't know, I think it might actually look a little better that way. The next accessory, which I also have strapped across Sneak Peaks' chest, is his weapon. This, the card contents call an M16A rifle. This rifle is made of black plastic. It's kind of an undersized M16. It does have a strap. It's a good looking weapon, and if it looks familiar, that's because it is an exact reissue of the M16 rifle that came with 1985 footloose. Because the strap is so close to the grip, it doesn't leave a lot of space to fit the weapon in the figure's hand. In fact, this doesn't fit very well in my Sneak Peaks hand, but it does fit with this footloose figure, mainly because the thumb on this figure is stretched out. Otherwise, it would have the same problem for footloose. Next, we get to an accessory that pegs onto the figure itself. This device connects to this hook that's on the waist piece for Sneak Peaks. It fits in this loop on the device, and that can be removed. This accessory is made of black plastic. It has some buttons and knobs on it. It has a handle and an antenna. This accessory has caused some confusion. There are two entries on the card contents. One for a multi-band radio transponder unit, and another for a walkie-talkie, and I think both refer to this accessory. First of all, this is the only accessory that could be the multi-band transponder device. The microphone that attached to the figure is not it, and I can definitively say this is also the walkie-talkie. Dan Kling and Smith's book Creating G.I. Joe Volume 8 has a diagram of these accessories, and this says it is the walkie-talkie. The final accessory is this removable microphone. It is in black plastic. It is very small. It pegs into a very small hole on the figure's helmet. This microphone, as with all of the removable microphones on G.I. Joe figures, is the most frequently missing part, and the most difficult part to find on the aftermarket. I truly would have preferred if they had just sculpted these microphones on the figures. I will say something positive about sneak peek and these accessories. If you can get the figure to hold this ridiculously oversized periscope, which I cannot, then he can hold all of his accessories at the same time, despite coming with a lot of them. It is one of my pet peeves when a figure cannot hold all of his accessories. If they had just put a back peg on that periscope, then it would be perfect. He could hold everything without any problem. Let's take a look at sneak peek's articulation. He had the articulation that was standard for G.I. Joe figures before 1987, 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, meaning the figure was held together with a rubber o-ring that looped around the inside that allowed him to move at the torso a bit. He could move his legs apart about so far. He could bend his leg at the hip about 90 degrees and bend at the knee about 90 degrees. Let's take a look at the sculpt design and color of sneak peek starting with his head. Starting with his head, on his head he has a light gray non-removable helmet that helmet has some red stripes on the sides. There are dark gray goggles on the helmet. There's a dark gray strap that goes around the helmet. There's a dark gray device on the right side where the microphone attaches. His face is exposed. He has a Caucasian skin tone, brown eyes and eyebrows, and he has a light gray strap that goes under his chin. GI Joe figures with non-removable helmets made a comeback in 1987 with fast draw and crazy legs. I'm not a fan of this. I would prefer these helmets to be removable. And with the size they could be removable and still have the attachments. On his chest he has a light gray uniform. He has a wide red collar that goes around his neck that is a very wide red collar. He has red padding on the chest with some vertical lines and that's about it. It's a pretty plain uniform. His arms feature long light gray sleeves rolled up to mid forearm exposing some of his Caucasian skin tone on his forearms. He has red padding around the upper arms with those vertical lines. He has a black watch on his right wrist and what looks like another black watch on his left wrist. He has a couple of black straps that go around his left forearm and a black knife on the inside of his left forearm. And he has light gray gloves. The waist piece features that light gray uniform color, a couple of pockets sculpted on the back and some lines down the sides that continue to the upper legs. It looks like zippers on his pockets. He has a light green belt that's the same color as the periscope. It's nice to have the color coordination between the figure and the accessory. There are what look like maybe small pouches along the front of the belt and the hook on the right hip for that walkie talkie. There is red padding on the front. The legs feature that light gray uniform color. This may be a jumpsuit. He has unpainted pockets on the upper outside legs. He has tall boots that go all the way up to his knees and they kind of make knee pads at his knees. There are some pouches on the outside of those boots and otherwise they don't have a lot of detail. They're fairly plain tall black boots. The whole figure is short on details and the details it has are puzzling. It doesn't look like he's equipped for his reconnaissance job at all. Hasbro designers must have really liked this gray, red and green color scheme because they used it a lot. It was on Psycout in 1987 and they used it twice in 1986 on Roadblock and Cross Country. With the padding and the helmet he looks like an updated tripwire from 1983. If the figure had been green and gray it could have been a new version of tripwire. There are some jobs where gray and red and light green would be fine but advanced recon is not one of them. Sneakpeak version 2 from Night Force had more reasonable colors for his job as version 1 should have. Hello, this is your courtesy wake-up alarm. Please wake up so you can enjoy the rest of the review. Let's take a look at Sneakpeak's file card. This file card has his factions G.I. Joe. It has a portrait of Sneakpeak here. His codename is Sneakpeak. He is advanced recon. His filename is Owen King. He is named after the son of Stephen King. Maybe it is extreme privilege to have a famous father get your name on a G.I. Joe character but I wouldn't pass on the opportunity to have a G.I. Joe character named after me. His primary military specialty is infantry. Secondary military specialty is radio telecommunications. His birthplace is Bangor Main which is a residence of the King family and his grade is E5. This top paragraph says Sneakpeak is a legend in the Ranger recon battalions. They tell of one mission where his control unit got overrun. In the ensuing confusion, Sneakpeak was never recalled. He stayed put observing enemy activity, taking notes and sketching maps for two weeks until somebody remembered he was out there and sent him the signal to return. He is of course Ranger-qualified and proficient in all NATO night vision devices. This bottom paragraph has a quote. It says, patience, endurance and guts is what Sneakpeak has plenty of. He's got the patience to creep inch by inch into enemy territory, carefully bending back every branch and twig in his way and just carefully replacing them. He's got the endurance to sit motionless in cramped cover for days on end waiting for the bad guys to show up and when they do he's got the guts to stick around and watch. This file card makes Sneakpeak sound like a badass. Larry Hama, the writer of the GI Joe comic book series also wrote these file cards and I think he did a good job with this one. I just wish the figure was as good as the file card. Looking at how Sneakpeak was used in GI Joe media the figure was released after the cancellation of the animated series produced by Sunbow and before the animated series produced by Deak so he was only animated for commercials. Looking at the GI Joe comic book series published by Marvel Comics Sneakpeak first appeared in issue number 73. He was included in the GI Joe recon team on Cobra Island at the beginning of the Cobra Civil War. This was the perfect use of Sneakpeak. It is exactly in line with his specialty. He didn't have many appearances. He was mostly a background character except for his last few appearances. He was in issue number 111 during the Benzene War story arc as part of a recon team. In issue number 113 it was revealed that Sneakpeak and Dusty were close friends. They spent the holidays together with Sneakpeak's family. Unfortunately, that was the end of the road for Sneakpeak. Cobra used a child as bait to draw out the Joe's and Sneakpeak went for it. He was gunned down by a range viper. Looking at Sneakpeak overall for a figure that includes a lot of accessories including one very large and unique periscope accessory is still really dull. Accessories are mostly pretty good. The M16A is a reissue of Footloose's weapon but it's a good one so I can't really complain about that. The walkie-talkie attaches to the figure which is nice. The binoculars are good and appropriate and with the straps on the weapon and the binoculars as long as you can get him to hold that periscope he can carry all of his accessories at the same time. The microphone is tiny and very easy to lose. The periscope would really benefit from a backpack and a grip so the figure could more easily carry it. The thing is so large it really needs some way to attach to the figure. That's a very large piece of equipment to tote out into the field so it better be worth it. He better be able to see through time with that thing. How can a figure with red and bright green be dull? The dominant color is light gray. There's lots of light gray. The details are very plain. There are some vertical lines on the chest. There are some unpainted pockets on the legs but otherwise no detail. The boots are very tall with small pockets but no laces, no padding on the knees. Nothing else that would make them stand out. Sneak Peak was designed by Mark Pennington. His figure designs are often creative and quirky and fun which is why I don't understand this one. This is a figure dedicated to the son of Stephen King. Having a boring figure is probably worse than having a bad one in this case. Sneak Peak is a missed opportunity for greatness. That was my review of Sneak Peak. I hope you enjoyed it. If this video goes up when I expect it to, I will be off the following week. Also, I will be attending assembly required in Des Moines, Iowa on November 3rd and 4th. So please join me if you can. As always, please give this video a thumbs up and subscribe to the channel so you don't miss any future videos. You can find me on social media and on my website, hcc788.com. Patreon is a great way to support the channel. You can get some special perks including your name in videos like the names you see scrolling on the screen right now. Thank you for watching and happy Halloween everyone. I will see you soon with more vintage G.I. Joe. Until then, remember, only G.I. Joe is G.I. Joe. Black cat, it's Halloween, it's Halloween cat. Are you terrified? I'm terrified. Look at those, look at that face. Look at that vicious face. Look at that mean guy.