 I'm a hooded Cobra Commander 788 here, and it's time for another vintage GI Joe toy review, and I apologize, I was late on my review for this week. I've been moving to a new house, and I've been trying to get all this set up so I could do this review. But now I am set up, I'm ready to go, and what is the first review I'm gonna do in the new house? Short fuse! Yay! Okay, short fuse is not exactly a fan favorite, but at some point someone did actually request a short fuse review. So I'm doing a requested review here. Maybe some people think these 1982 figures are kind of dull, and maybe so in some respects, but I think they're important. If you're a GI Joe fan, or I think really a fan of anything, it's important to know your roots. And there are some interesting things to say about short fuse, there are some variations to look at, so let's jump right in. HCC 788 presents Short Fuse. This is Short Fuse, GI Joe's mortar soldier from 1982, from series one of the new GI Joe when the line was relaunched that year. In 1982, Short Fuse was released in the so-called straight arm version. In 1983, he was reissued in the so-called swivel arm version, and we will look at the differences between these two in this video. The 1983 swivel arm version of Short Fuse was also issued in 1984, and was discontinued for the year 1985, and he had no direct replacement that year. And there were no more versions of Short Fuse in the vintage line. For GI Joe collectors, the straight arm version of Short Fuse is referred to as version one, and the swivel arm version is referred to as version 1.5. Short Fuse was also available in 1986 and 1987 as a mail away. Normally I don't consider the mail away reissues to be important, but for Short Fuse it is important because there was a change to the file card, and we will look at that in this video as well. Collectors often think of Zap as the most difficult figure to complete of that 1982 GI Joe series, and that may be correct. The Zap action figure is made of this light green plastic that is notoriously easy to break, mine is broken, and Zap had three different versions of his bazooka, so that's a lot of variations to collect. However, I think Short Fuse may actually be a little bit more difficult to complete than Zap. The action figure for Short Fuse is not as easy to break as the Zap action figure, but he also comes with three versions of his weapon and three different file cards. That is a lot of variations to collect. Let's take a look at Short Fuse starting with his accessories, and let's look at his weapon first, and he came with this, what the card contents call an M1 81 millimeter medium mortar. This accessory is loosely based on the real world M1 mortar, which was used in World War II and in the Korean War, but it was outdated by the 1980s. It had been replaced by the M29 mortar in 1952. The M29 was lighter and had a longer range. It came with a detailed bipod, which could be removed. A mortar is a usually barrel loaded weapon that fires mortar bombs at short range and high arcing trajectories. They lob explosives down on the heads of the enemy. Here's where we start to get into the variants. The earliest versions of Short Fuse's mortar had a thin closed handle. Later, that handle would change and Short Fuse came with a mortar that had a thin open handle. The mortar was changed again and Short Fuse came with an open thick handle mortar, and the handle on this one is thick enough that I would not recommend putting it in the action figure's hand. Short Fuse's next accessory is his clear visor, and this visor fits on the helmet with a couple pegs on the visor that fit in holes on the sides of the helmet, and these visors are very small, they are clear, they are very easy to lose, and they are hard to replace. So if you're getting a Short Fuse, you probably want to get one that already has the visor rather than try to track down a visor to replace a missing one. Short Fuse was one of a few GI Joe figures of that era that came with clear visors, including Flash, Grand Slam, and Hawk. Short Fuse came with a standard helmet. This is the helmet that really almost all GI Joe figures from 1982 came with. It is in a medium green that should pretty closely match his uniform. Finally, Short Fuse came with a backpack, which the card contents called an ammo pack, and it has sculpted on mortar bombs for his mortar. This backpack was recolored in a lighter green for Zap. There is a difference between the backpack of the 1982 Short Fuse and the 1983 Short Fuse. The 1982 Backpacks had a shorter peg, thicker peg for the figure, and the 1983 Backpacks had kind of a thinner, longer peg, and they fit differently in the backs as well. So you'll want to make sure you get a 1982 or 1983 backpack depending on which Short Fuse action figure you have. Let's take a look at the articulation on Short Fuse, starting with the straight arm version. He had the standard articulation for 1982 GI Joe action figures, so that means he could turn his head from left to right. He could swing his arm up at the shoulder about so far. He could swivel at the shoulder all the way around, and he had a hinge at the elbow so he could bend at the elbow about 90 degrees. The whole action 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 move his legs apart about so far. He could bend his leg at the hip about 90 degrees, and he could bend at the knee about 90 degrees. The articulation was changed in 1983 when they added what they called swivel arm battle grip, which was a swivel at the bicep. So not only could he move his arm at the elbow about 90 degrees, he could now swivel his arm all the way around. Let's take a look at the sculpt design and color of Short Fuse, and like a lot of other 1982 GI Joe action figures, he reused a lot of parts. In fact, Short Fuse has no unique parts. On his head, he has very yellow blonde hair and a very plain head sculpt, a passive, almost disinterested expression. Now this head is not too bad. It's not too great either, but the problem with this head is it exactly matches the head of Hawk, GI Joe's commander, that was also released in 1982. These guys were available at the same time, and they look like twins. The 1982 GI Joe series was really bad about reusing parts, and it's most noticeable with these heads. Now this same head sculpt was also used for Steeler and Flash, and as you can see, Steeler and Flash have the same hair color, so it looks like we have another set of twins. As the 1982 GI Joe series was originally planned, all of these figures were supposed to have unique head sculpts, but that was changed at the last minute as a cost-cutting measure, I think a regrettable decision. In the GI Joe comic book, Short Fuse is shown wearing glasses. The action figure does not have glasses, so it is assumed that his unique head sculpt would have had him wearing glasses. There is kind of an urban legend that Short Fuse's unique head sculpt later got used for Doc in 1983, just changed the skin color and the hair color. However, based on what I've read, that legend is not true, and this head sculpt was always intended for Doc, so we still don't know what Short Fuse's original head sculpt would have looked like. Short Fuse uses the same chest and back that was used on Zap. His chest features short straps and a collar, and it is otherwise quite plain. On the straight arm Short Fuse, we have long sleeves with pouches on the sides of his arms with a little touch of silver paint on them, and we have bare hands. These arms are identical to Hawk's arms right down to these silver pouches. On the swivel arm Short Fuse, those pouches have been moved from the side of the arms around to the front of the arms. They are more detailed and they are still painted silver. Straight arm Short Fuse's waist piece is thick with a wide belt and an H-shaped belt buckle. He has a pocket in the back here, but this waist piece is thick and kind of clunky looking. That waist piece was changed on the swivel arm version to give him a slimmer waist, a more detailed belt and belt buckle, and even the pocket in the back has more detail. That looks much better. These legs are standard and were used on almost all 1982 G.I. Joe action figures, including, again, Hawk. He has brown pouches on each side and he has brown standard boots. The only distinction between Short Fuse and Hawk are the chest and back pieces and the color on the pouches and the boots. Other than that, they are the same action figure. Let's take a look at Short Fuse's file card and this is where we get to look at more variants. The file card was printed on the back of the card on which the action figure was packaged. You can see some of the artwork from the front of the card there. It has this faction as G.I. Joe. It has a portrait of Short Fuse here. It says he's the mortar soldier and his codename is Short Fuse. And note the spelling on Fuse, F-U-Z-E. That's a very unusual spelling. Would normally be spelled F-U-S-E. His file name is Eric W. Freistat and this is where we run into the variant. This file name was changed on later file cards. The file card that came with the swivel arm version of Short Fuse changed his name to Mark W. Brinston. The file name was changed again on the mail away file card. These mail away versions came with red back file cards, red on the back. But that's not the only difference between this file card and those others. They changed the name again. They kind of took the first name from the second file card and the last name from the first file card and they made him Mark W. Freistat. That is why this mail away file card is so important. I don't normally try to get these red back file cards that are really usually not important to me, but they changed the name and it's very unusual for them to change the name of the character. Why the name changed? This is not a typo. Somebody deliberately changed it. Maybe the name too closely resemble the name of a real person. I don't know. So what is Shortfuse's canonical file name? There are some fan theories about this, but that's all just speculation. What would be the official file name for Shortfuse? If you're looking for any source outside the file card to confirm Shortfuse's file name, one source would be GI Joe Order of Battle number two, which has his file name as Eric W. Freistat. His primary military specialty is artillery. His secondary military specialty is infantry engineer. His birthplace is Chicago, Illinois, and his grade is E-4. This section says Shortfuse comes from a military family. In parentheses, father and grandfather, both career top sergeants. A top sergeant is a first sergeant, often just called top. Enjoys abstract mathematics and can plot artillery azimuths and triangulations in his head. Specialized education, artillery school, engineer school, advanced infantry training. Qualified expert, M14, M16, M1911A1, M79 grenade launcher, M2, 60 millimeter light mortar, and M181 millimeter medium mortar. This bottom section has a quote. It says, Shortfuse is logical and sensitive, has a tendency to blow his stack, hence the nickname Shortfuse. This file card makes Shortfuse out to be kind of a hot head, but that side of his personality is never really played up in his appearances in GI Joe media, which are admittedly limited. Shortfuse made a few appearances in the various GI Joe media, but not many. In the cartoon series, he first appeared in the miniseries from 1983, a real American hero, in the first part, but he did not have a speaking role until part three, and he was voiced by Frank Welker. He did appear other times in the cartoon, but he rarely had any lines, and in the cartoon, he was not depicted wearing glasses. In the GI Joe comic book, Shortfuse appeared in issue number one, and he had some things to do in that issue. He used his mortar to take out an airfield, and in the comic book, he did wear glasses, which helped to distinguish him from the other Joes who at the time looked very similar. After a few other brief appearances, the character was mostly forgotten. He was sidelined in issue number 33, along with a lot of other 1982 characters in favor of new Joes. Looking at Shortfuse overall, this is not a great action figure. He has no original parts, and I hate to put one of the original Green 13 in the bottom tier, but that's where he has to go. There just isn't enough going on with this action figure, nothing to really generate any interest. The figure and the character are very forgettable, and he was seldom used in GI Joe media. But if you think about it, GI Joe is a fast strike counter-terrorism unit, and a mortar soldier is better suited to more traditional large unit warfare, and he would be part of a mortar team, which really just isn't the way GI Joe operates. These early GI Joes are like larger versions of those little green plastic army men, and in those army men, they always had a mortar soldier. So in GI Joe, you had a mortar soldier whether you needed one or not. Even though it's not a great figure, it is a great challenge for collectors because of all the variations. It gives you a lot to sink your teeth into, a lot to hunt down and track down, and I did get a thrill out of completing this figure. But chances are Shortfuse was not your favorite GI Joe figure. So in the interest of rehabilitating Shortfuse's image, let me suggest some other uses for Shortfuse besides a mortar soldier. Shortfuse the Hunter. You killed Cecil. Shortfuse the Ladies Man. Shortfuse the Lady. Whistling. Shortfuse the Porn Star. Unfortunately unsuccessful because he had a Shortfuse. That's where his nickname really came from. That was my review of the 1982 Shortfuse. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, make sure you hit the thumbs up and hit the subscribe button. That's why it keeps this channel going. Like me on Facebook, follow me on Twitter, and check back next week for another vintage GI Joe tour review. And until next time, remember only GI Joe is GI Joe.