 Hello everybody hooded tober commander 788 here, and I'm back with another vintage gi joe toy review As you can see I'm out here in my garage because this is the only place in my house that is big enough to do this review That's right. We are going big this time. We are going to look at the coolest gi joe toy released in 1983 we're going to look at the 1983 gi joe headquarters command center. I've been looking forward to doing this video for a long time I'm going to make this review as thorough as it can possibly be So stick with me for a while as we looked at this really great toy and give it a really good thorough review So stick around you won't want to miss it Look at this thing. Just look at it. Look at it. Isn't it massive? I'm sorry This thing is just so cool. Sometimes I lose the ability to speak normally Composure reacquired this toy was released in 1983. It was also sold in 1984 and 1985 It was discontinued in 1986 when it was replaced with nothing really However in 1987 gi joe did come out with the mobile command center Which I guess sort of replaced this except it was a vehicle not just a play set It was worth eight flag points and that's a lot of flag points Despite the fact that this did not come with an action figure Here is a front view of the headquarters command center as some collectors may notice there are two parts missing along with a few stickers I don't normally like to show you incomplete toys But this is reasonably complete and I will discuss the missing parts a little bit later The headquarters did make two appearances in the gi joe comic book where it was portrayed as kind of a Prefab fortress that the joes put together whenever they needed it. It was also the basic model of the Headquarters in the cartoon, but it was portrayed there as being much larger than this Let's swing around to the backside so you can get a 360-degree view here is the back view of the headquarters This is without any action figures or vehicles in it Of course, it did not come with any action figures or vehicles as it was portrayed in the comic book The headquarters was closed It had a roof and a back to it, but the toy as you can see is open in the back Now let's look at the back of the headquarters with its full complement of figures and vehicles And here it is with its full complement of figures and vehicles And you can see why kids loved it when it came out and why collectors still love it now It is huge it accommodates so many figures and vehicles almost every figure and vehicle that came out in 1983 and 1982 I don't have all of them in here right now, but you could see that I could fit more in there if I wanted to it's just Massive let's look at the parts and the features of the headquarters command center And there is a lot to go through here So let's start with my least favorite part the helipad which of course accommodates the 1983 Dragonfly helicopter as you can see it is a single part Kind of hollow on the underside It is unattached to the rest of the command center. So sometimes you just kind of forget about this It doesn't attach on in any way It has vinyl stickers, which as you can see can sometimes tend to bubble like this However, the vinyl stickers were more robust than the paper stickers some parts of the headquarters command center Had paper stickers as opposed to these vinyl stickers. That was a bit unusual Usually GI Joe vehicles used vinyl which did stick a lot better than the paper stickers I'll show you some of the downside of the paper stickers when I get to those parts This partition the blueprints refer to as the heavy equipment supply depot It can detach from the main body of the headquarters. You just slide it out It does not clip in it actually sort of pegs in with these tiny little pegs Two of them and they slide into these tiny little notches on the floor of the headquarters You reattach it to the headquarters by lining up those notches You just kind of slide it along and push it in you'll know when it lines up because it'll slide in The heavy equipment supply depot was perfectly suited for the 1982 and 1983 MOBAT tank the tank could roll right in there and this slot in the front wall was at the perfect height for the MOBAT main cannon So he could roll in there and he could add to the firepower of the headquarters with its main cannon Since the headquarters was released in 1983 it is also perfectly complemented with the other G.I. Joe tracked vehicle Which came out in 1983 the Wolverine the Wolverine fits in there quite nicely Let's look at some of the features of the heavy equipment supply depot Over on this wall. There is a weapons rack which you can at least in theory get The weapons to stand up in there Honestly, when I was a kid playing with this and I did have this as a kid I often forgot about these weapons racks. They're just kind of you know notches in the wall there And there's a really big weapons storage case So I never really thought that I needed this but still I guess it's nice that it's there in the floor It had a compartment with a lid Which was for storing file cards. You could store a bunch of file cards in here I've said in other videos that kids were encouraged to cut these file cards out of the packaging and keep them and when I say Encouraged I really mean encouraged because it is built into the infrastructure of this play set a Place to store the file cards after they've been cut out of the packaging in this back corner of the heavy equipment supply depot there is this kind of triangular shaped Section here and this actually represents a pathway where the Joe's could walk from this section To the rest of the headquarters this opening over here also represents a pathway And I think that's one nice thing about this toy is they actually gave some thought to how the figures would Move around inside this headquarters moving on to the other parts and features in this corner We have a radar dish and an antenna both of these just peg in they do not clip in they've got Holes that are just the right size for the pegs on them And you just kind of pop those in and the back here We have a really big box with an armor plated lid on it and this is actually storage for Accessories you could store a ton of guns and backpacks and helmets in here It actually had two trays one on top of the other and I really like this feature You know with the action figures they give you a whole bunch of Accessories and so it's nice that Hasbro actually thought to give the kids some place to put all this stuff I'm going to remove the radar dish so we can get a better view of the command center Console and as you can see it has a bunch of stickers on it and these are not vinyl stickers These are actually paper stickers and I wanted to talk a little bit about the downside of these paper stickers as opposed to the vinyl stickers These paper stickers have a tendency to deteriorate. They dry out They get crusty the glue dries out and they become loose And you see a lot of these with the stickers missing or they've partially come up or they've turned very yellow I really think this is an unfortunate choice of Hasbro to go with the paper stickers They may have chosen to go this route because perhaps the paper stickers are more vibrant and hold more color than the vinyl stickers But in the long run these are really do tend to look very poor with age The stickers on the computer console include this little excerpt from the comic book this is actually a panel from the First issue of the Marvel comic that they have made into a sticker to be placed on the underside of the lid here And this is really kind of an odd choice. I don't know why GI Joe would have that particular image in its command center on the computer console We have a picture of Scarlett and as a kid I would often have Scarlett at the computer console So it was a little bit awkward to have Scarlett watching herself on the computer the computer console features a lid Which could come down and cover it up and again I don't know why you would ever really need that in your headquarters But I suppose if you needed it there you have it it also featured two removable chairs Which would swivel a little bit But as I said, they were removable. They would come out They would basically just slide into Those little holes there and since they were removable. They are often missing You will find headquarters command centers with only one chair or no chairs at all This next section is the stockade and this is a very weak point in the design of this place set The walls are very flimsy the tabs that are used to connect the walls to the floor break off very easily This door does not like to stay on its hinge And as you can see the walls are very low So it would not be very effective as a stockade any of your prisoners could just climb out whenever they wanted to However one really nice thing about it is these very well Sculpted beds which your Joe's could use to sleep on if you didn't have any prisoners at the time the partition on this side is commonly referred to as the motor pool and this Complements the 1982 and 1983 vamp jeep. It has some Notches there that exactly fit the wheels of the vamp The motor pool also has the only hand-operated moving mechanism on the place set if you pull back this tab here This black tab it raises the mechanics lift if you have the vamp on the lift when you raise it up the vamp could then turn its guns and Fire over the wall Also adding to the firepower of the headquarters This side like the other side had a weapons rack and it had a walkway through to the rest of the Interior of the headquarters and this is a good time to talk about one of the major weaknesses with this entire Playset all of these wall sections are connected to the floor By these tabs as you can see the tabs are kind of L shaped there But those tabs break very easily as has happened on this wall section You can see they've broken right off there So that this does not clip in the way that it should on the wall now It does still balance on there and it can still slide in and it can still stay up and that's nice It is nice that Despite the fact that it is a broken piece It doesn't cause the entire Playset to become completely unworkable, but the way that it is designed. It's inevitable that these do break The motor pool has a hidden feature that is not mentioned on the box or the blueprints It features sculpted on emplacements for almost all of the 1982 and 1983 GI Joe towed vehicles these spaces marked out on the motor pool fit the footprint of the towed vehicles So perfectly that they cannot be accidental so Hasbro intended these to be features They intended the weapons to be placed here. It is a really cool play feature that somehow they just never mentioned I became aware of these features through a video by form BX 257 who is an excellent GI Joe toy reviewer Any review of the headquarters command center would be incomplete without looking at these Implacements I would be remiss if I didn't give full credit to form BX 257 for pointing it out The motor pool has emplacements to accommodate the 1983 polar battle bear the 1982 how the 1983 whirlwind the 1982 MMS the 1982 flak the 1982 vamp the interior has Stairs and again, it's nice that they thought about how the figures would move around inside the headquarters The stairs lead up to what the blueprints refer to as a battle station And up here. There is a very large laser gun This laser cannon is attached to the headquarters on a post which is a separate piece You can detach it there And once it's attached it doesn't really move. It doesn't have an easy pivot or Elevation, it's pretty much stationary But as you can see even though this is a fantasy weapon, it's not based on a real-world Weapon you could reasonably pretend that it's not a laser cannon that it's just a really big Machine gun or maybe an anti-tank cannon and that leads us to the most prominent feature of the play set the main Cannon pod and what the blueprints refer to as Double Devastator cannons. It doesn't that sound menacing now I'm not sure if these cannons are supposed to be anti-personnel weapons or anti-aircraft or anti-tank weapons But if you go around here and look at the cockpit, you can see the stickers He appears to be targeting a bus Or maybe that's the target over here the airplane Well, the problem that I have with this being an anti-aircraft gun is that That's as far as it elevates So unless the aircraft is coming right at them pretty much at ground level He's not shooting anything down with that even though the cannon is not based on any real-world design It does have a lot of really nice detail and I like the control panel again This is a paper sticker. So sometimes these will be really worn or Cracked or completely gone one criticism that a lot of people have about this cannon pod is that it has an Open cockpit so the operator is completely exposed and could be easily shot by the enemy But as I said as this was portrayed in the comic book it had a roof on top of it So in that scenario, of course the operator would not be exposed He would be inside and protected next to the cannon pod We have a flag on one side of the flag is the traditional stars and stripes the American flag on the other side Is the GI Joe coat of arms the flag is on a plastic post with a slightly narrower tab at the bottom And that just fits in the hole right there and it slides in there pretty solidly Unfortunately that little tab can be broken off I did have one of these where it was broken and if it is broken It's pretty much impossible to get it in there and it's almost impossible to fix as well Again, we have paper stickers on the flag and you can see right there that this side is cracked The paper sticker is just decaying and cracking off if I can slide gung-ho out of the way a moment over here We have a power generator with an engine cover that came off and we've got some nice detail in there on the generator You know, there's something that GI Joe liked GI Joe liked engines and along with engines GI Joe liked engine covers Almost all of the vehicles came with engine covers and they even put it here on the headquarters That's something that you might not have cared about if it weren't there But the fact that they put it there really shows that they were going the extra mile with this play set to add some nice touches And some additional detail and that brings us to the clip on accessories these accessories clipped on to the edge of the walls Via these clips right like this and this is where I have to confess that I am missing two of the clip on accessories First it had two of these searchlights. I've placed one here and there's another one over here You could of course place these anywhere you wanted to it also came with two infrared surveillance cameras like that I only have one and it came with two of These 20 millimeter machine guns also that clipped on like that again I don't like to show you incomplete items and the only reason that I'm doing this review without having the extra clip on accessories Is that they are just duplicates of the ones that I already have so I'm not really leaving anything to the imagination here They were exactly the same of these except there was just two of them Let's talk about some of the drawbacks to the play set first of all There are no foot pegs anywhere on this toy The foot pegs would fit in the holes on the bottoms of the feet of the action figures to help stand them up This play set would really benefit from some foot pegs for instance on the floor and At the battle station and behind the big laser cannon also the play set is very wide and very deep So it is very difficult to display. I actually don't have a shelf on my display case Big enough for this play set. I'd really like to display it But it is so long and deep that I just don't really have a good spot to put it It has an open top and an open back and admittedly that's not very realistic Your enemy could just circle around and attack you from behind But as I mentioned in the comic book it was portrayed as having a roof on top of it The combination of vinyl and paper stickers is a real drawback with this play set The vinyl tends to form bubbles in it and the paper stickers They tend to get yellow and then get brittle and crack off and peel off and they tend to end up looking really ugly The way the play set is put together is a real drawback the tabs that hold the walls onto the floor Break so easily and although it is nice that the whole play set doesn't just fall apart if you have a broken tab or two Even so it would be nice if the construction were a little bit more robust Also, the headquarters command center did not come with any action figure or vehicle So on its own you can't really do anything with it. It's only useful With other figures and vehicles you need to put figures and vehicles into it to really do anything with it And you know what? This is the same criticism that is often leveled at the USS flag Aircraft carrier basically on its own. It's a big toy table I also think it would have been nice if it had come with an action figure a play set like this would have been perfect With a reissue of Hawk the GI Joe commander or imagine how cool it would have been if it had come with a Duke action figure Now in 1983 Duke was issued as a mail away and he was released carded in 1984 But it would have been awesome if instead of releasing him as a mail away first They had packaged him with the headquarters enough about the drawbacks Let's talk about the good points of this toy and there's a lot to talk about for one thing It is big and it has a lot of play features It accommodates a ton of action figures and vehicles In fact it accommodates almost all of the action figures and vehicles that were released in 1982 and 1983 You could put your whole GI Joe team in this and if you ignore the fact that it doesn't have a roof on it And just look at it from the front. It looks very formidable. It looks like an iron fortress It's very utilitarian looking and even though it's not based on any real-world military design It does have kind of a realistic military look to it and that really appealed to me as a kid It has a ton of really great details Including a lot of stuff that you might be surprised that they even thought of like the weapons racks the generator Almost every square inch of this toy has something to play with with the 1983 GI Joe headquarters command center has roast set the high bar for Playsets challenging the he-man castle grayskull play set which came out in 1982 in fact only GI Joe itself would surpass the high Standard established by this play set with the USS flag aircraft carrier and the cobra terror drone I love this play set. I had it as a kid and I loved it then and as a collector now I still love it I highly recommend that you pick one up even though it's got a lot of parts and it may be difficult to complete one I think it's well worth it. It looks great and it has a ton of play features It makes a great diorama set and it complements your other GI Joe action figures and vehicles That was my review of the 1983 GI Joe headquarters command center I hope you enjoyed this video if you did go ahead and give it a thumbs up If you didn't go ahead and give it a thumbs down That's what it's there for but don't forget to subscribe because I've got a lot of new GI Joe tour reviews coming up And you don't want to miss them. I'll catch you later