 We're letting the theme song run long in this video because this video is about rock and roll! Yeah! Reviewing Scarlet last week inspired me to review more of the 1982 GI Joes and I just completed rock and roll and I wanted to show everybody. So let's take a look at the 1982 GI Jo Machine Gunner rock and roll. This is rock and roll GI Jo's first machine gunner. He was first introduced in 1982 as part of the first wave of GI Jo figures when the line was relaunched that year. The 1982 version is the so-called straight arm version, meaning he had a single point of articulation at the elbow here, but he could not swivel his arms. He had a hinge but not a swivel. In 1983 he was reissued with what they called swivel arm battle grip, which introduced a new point of articulation at the bicep, a swivel at the bicep. We will talk more about the articulation in a few minutes. This swivel arm version was available in 1983 and 1984. He was discontinued in 1985, but in 1984 he was somewhat replaced with GI Jo's new heavy machine gunner roadblock. Rock and roll was an excellent addition to that first series of GI Jo figures. He was much more practical than say a mortar soldier. Almost every mission your Jo's would go on would need a machine gunner. Let's take a look at the accessories, starting with Rock and Roll's weapon. The contents of the card on which he was packaged just call this a heavy machine gun. This machine gun is very long, really too long for a single hand grip, which is all you could do with the straight arm version because he could not swivel his arms. I have however noticed that the length of the machine gun that's behind the grip makes it really too long to get any good two handed poses even with swivel arm battle grip. You can get a two handed pose by putting the butt of the machine gun outside of his right arm, but I don't think that really looks right. Probably you would want to sling that under his arm, but it's so long here that it really doesn't like to go under and sort of wedges in his armpit. So you end up with a single handed grip even though you have swivel arm battle grip, which is supposed to let him hold his weapon with a two handed grip. As a kid playing with this toy I always assumed this was an M60 machine gun because it was pretty much the standard American machine gun at the time. However it wasn't until I got some books on military weapons that I realized this is not an M60 machine gun at all. What this is is a modified MG42, which is a German World War II era machine gun that was created in 1942. The MG42 is known for having a very high rate of fire. In fact it was nicknamed by American soldiers Hitler's Buzzsaw. The high cyclical rate of the German 42 was so unnerving to American soldiers at the time that the army made a training video about it. By 1982 the MG42 would have been an antique and I find it kind of odd that they gave an antique Nazi machine gun to an American special operation soldier. This is not an exact copy of an MG42, it has this sort of foregrip here which the original did not have, but it does have a lot of really nice impressive detail, a lot of detail for those 1982 GI Joe accessories. The most frustrating and annoying part of this accessory is this bipod which clips on and can be removed and therefore is very easily lost. In fact I only recently got one myself, I'd say about 90% of the rock and rolls that you see are going to be missing this bipod. That can be a very tough and annoying little part to track down. So that's something you'll have to watch out for. If you want a complete rock and roll you will have to try to find one with the bipod and good luck with that. Rock and Rolls only other accessory was his helmet and this is the standard helmet with 1982 GI Joe figures. A lot of figures came with this standard helmet like clutch here, you can see it's the same helmet. However, note the color difference, Rock and Rolls helmet is a slightly darker color green to match the darker color of his uniform. So it's very easy to get these mixed up. But note that the helmet that comes with clutch and with breaker are slightly lighter color green. Let's take a look at the articulation on Rock and Roll. He had the standard articulation for 1982 GI Joe action figures. That means he could turn his head from left to right like that. He could lift his arm up at the shoulder. He could swivel his arm at the shoulder all the way around. He had a hinge at the elbow so he could move his arm at the elbow. He 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 and he could bend at the knee about 90 degrees. As noted earlier the swivel arm version added a new point of articulation at the bicep. He still had that hinge at the elbow but he also had a swivel at the bicep so he could swivel his arm all the way around. I was supposed to allow the figures to hold his weapons with a two-handed grip but as noted earlier that wasn't always very useful with Rock and Roll. Let's look at the sculpt design and color of Rock and Roll starting with his head. And of course the first notable thing about his head is he has a very blonde yellow hair and a blonde beard. Those 1982 GI Joe's were really bad about reusing parts. They didn't have a lot of unique parts in that first series of GI Joe's. As you can see here Breaker, Clutch and Rock and Roll all have the same head. Their hair is just painted a different color. That's better treatment than some figures in 1982 got. For instance Hawk and Shortfuse not only share the same head sculpt but the same hair color so they look like twins. I've already done a parts and color guide for these 1982 figures and I recommend you watch that to learn about the reused parts so I won't go too much into that right now. Let's look more at Rock and Roll. On his chest he has a ridged collar and he has gold bandoliers crisscrossed over his chest and that continues around to his back and these bandoliers have bullets for his machine gun. So even though the machine gun did not include an ammunition belt you could pretend that the machine gun was being fed with these bullets that are on Rock and Roll's chest. Despite the fact that Rock and Roll reused a lot of parts from other figures the chest and back piece were unique. They were awesome. You can't get much cooler than having bullets crisscrossed over your chest and these bullets are fairly well detailed for the time. This gold paint though however does have a tendency to wear off so that's something you'll have to watch out for. You see a lot of Rock and Roll's kind of like this one where some of that paint has just sort of worn away. His arms feature rolled up sleeves and this cut here where his sleeve ends is where they added the new point of articulation. That's where the swivel is on the swivel arm battle grip version and that's kind of nice. The new point of articulation is somewhat seamless on these figures with the rolled up sleeves. The waist piece from the 1982 version was changed for the 1983 swivel arm version. The original waist piece was very thick, almost looked like a diaper with a great big thick belt and an H shaped belt buckle. The 1983 version with the swivel arm battle grip had a thinner waist with a smaller and more detailed belt. Note the H shaped belt buckle is probably supposed to be a brand stamp for Hasbro and the 1983 belt buckle looks exactly like Hasbro's logo. These legs are standard. A lot of other figures from 1982 shared these legs except of course Rock and Roll had gold painted pockets on the side and brown boots. Let's take a look at the file card. This file card was printed on the back of the card on which the action figure was packaged. You're encouraged to cut these out and keep them. You can see some of the artwork from the front of the card there. It has his faction as G.I. Joe. It has a portrait of Rock and Roll right here and I do like this artwork. That face does look like it has some character. His specialty is machine gunner. His code name is Rock and Roll. Note the spelling because I have seen this spelled a number of different ways. Rock, Space, Apostrophe and Space Roll. His file name is Craig S. McConnell. His primary military specialty is infantry. His secondary military specialty is PT instructor. And this is our first hint that Rock and Roll may be physically stronger and tougher than some of the other characters. His birthplace is Malibu, California, and his grade is E5. This section says Rock and Roll was a surfer in Malibu prior to enlistment. He was also a weightlifter and played bass guitar and local rock bands. Perhaps the source of his code name is familiar with all NATO and Warsaw packed light and heavy machine guns. Graduated advanced infantry training, top of class, specialized education, covert ops school as a kid when I read Rock and Roll was a weightlifter. In my mind, that made him super muscle man. As far as I was concerned, he was like Arnold Schwarzenegger. And so that's why I list him as G.I. Joe's first tough guy. And that was a role in which he again was also kind of replaced by roadblock. Just a side note, it says Rock and Roll graduated top of his class in advanced infantry training, whereas his teammate, Grunt, it says he was just in the top 10 of his class in advanced infantry training. Grunt gets no respect, no respect at all. This bottom section has a quote. It says Rock and Roll is cunning, but naive, forceful, but shy, possesses a strong sense of loyalty to his teammates and is sincerely concerned about their well-being. A man of honor and integrity who can be counted on to hold the line. OK, cunning, but naive, forceful, but shy. These are kind of contradictory. Also, I don't think these reflect how Rock and Roll was portrayed in the G.I. Joe comic book at all. So I don't know where this comes from. Taking a look at Rock and Roll overall, despite the fact that he shares a lot of parts with other 1982 G.I. Joe figures, he still looks pretty unique. I mean, you're not going to mistake Rock and Roll for anybody else, especially with those gold bandoliers and that bright yellow beard. As noted before, Stalker is my all time favorite G.I. Joe character. So by extension, he was my favorite character from 1982. Picking my second favorite character is not quite so easy. I don't have quite as many detailed memories about a lot of the other 1982 figures. However, Rock and Roll may have been my second favorite. I do kind of remember getting a lot of enjoyment out of this figure. He comes with this big, huge gun, which is both an upside and a downside to this figure. On the one hand, it's awesome, but on another hand, it's maybe a little bit too big and long. It's kind of unwieldy. It's difficult to get him in a good pose with it. And of course, hunting down this bipod will drive you to drink and send you to the Looney Bands. Rock and Roll appeared in both the G.I. Joe cartoon and the comic book, probably more so in the comic book. And like a lot of the other 82 Joes, he kind of had to step aside when new characters were introduced to replace them. However, he had a great appearance in G.I. Joe issue number 35 alongside Breaker and Clutch, when they encountered the Dreadknocks and Rock and Roll captured buzzer. Although the toys for Rock and Roll, Breaker and Clutch all shared the same head. In the G.I. Joe comic book, they did not look alike. Rock and Roll had a full beard. Clutch only had stubble and Breaker did not have a beard at all. I'd never trust a man with a beard. What's he trying to hide? In G.I. Joe issue number 22, Rock and Roll informally passed the machine gunning torch to Roadblock with a statement of respect at General Flag's funeral. So how do I assess this figure? Do I like this figure? Despite its unique parts, like a lot of the other 1982 Joes, it's much more generic than the G.I. Joe figures we would get later in the line. So objectively, this figure may leave something to be desired. However, subjectively, I do remember getting some enjoyment out of this figure when I got it way back in 1982. If I only assess Rock and Roll within the universe of his 1982 peers, he's one of the better ones and one of the less generic ones. So I would say he is a middle to top tier figure among the original Green 13. Although Rock and Roll did not come with a vehicle, he was often portrayed as riding the 1982 Ram motorcycle. In fact, in the first G.I. Joe comic book, he refers to it as his motorcycle. I prefer to have breaker driving that vehicle. Sometimes I display Rock and Roll gunning the 1984 whirlwind or the 1982 flak. However, now that I have Rock and Roll complete, I will want to display one of them with his machine gun and bipod. That was my review of the 1982 and 1983 versions of Rock and Roll. I hope you enjoyed it. And if you're thinking of getting a Rock and Roll action figure, I hope you found it informative. If you did, please, pretty please hit that like button on YouTube. And if this is the first video of mine that you've seen, I'd really appreciate it if you'd hit the subscribe button on YouTube so you don't miss any future videos. Thanks for watching. I'll be back next week with another vintage G.I. Joe toy review. I'll see you then.