 When I woke up this morning, I heard a disturbing sound. HCC788 supports Girls of the Finest, a G.I. Joe costume club. Be sure to order their 2017 calendar. Proceeds to benefit the charity K9s for Warriors. Find them on Indiegogo.com. Oh everybody, Hood and Cobra Commander 788 here. It's time for another vintage G.I. Joe toy review. And this week we are looking at the MP and K9. The MP and K9 law and order. This is a figure with a dog companion. As I say, this is a figure with a dog companion. Look here James Brown. Three things. One, you're dead. Two, I have that protective order. And three, how do all these people keep showing up in my videos? I have Sergeant Slaughter appear uninvited. Mrs. Hood and Cobra Commander wanders onto the set all the time. And now I've got James Brown. This is a closed set. I'm in the good place. At last I'm being acknowledged for all my hard work. Looks a lot like a suburban backyard. Well hello there big doggy. Well hello there big human. God? Dog. You're in doggy heaven. Doggy heaven? Why am I here? Did I get mis-routed? I brought you here for a very important purpose. What would that be? You have been advertising the girls of the finest calendar in your videos, which benefit the charity Canines for Warriors. Yes, I have. I was very honored that they asked me to do it. The mission of that charity has a special meaning to you. Now that you mention it, yes it does. But you haven't talked about that special meaning in your videos. Why haven't you? Well I've been awfully busy. I had to create a sergeant slaughter puppet. I had to build a flushinator so my daughter could flush me to hell. I've been swamped. Nice to see your priorities are in order. Okay, point taken. So what is it you want me to do? I want you to use this video review to talk about why dogs and veterans are important to you. You will be the spokesman for the dogs. You must tell the world of the sacred partnership between dogs and humans. I'd be happy to do that. I probably should have done that before now. And after that you can come back to doggy heaven if you want. Well I'm not a dog and I would imagine doggy heaven includes fire hydrants to peon, legs to hump and raw steak for every meal. Sounds great doesn't it? There is no part of that that appeals to me. I'll see myself out. Suit yourself? Hey have you heard the one about the dyslexic agnostic? Yes. HCC788 presents Law and Order. This is Law, the MP or military police, and Order, his dog, the K9. Law and Order were released in 1987 and were also available in 1988. They were discontinued for the year 1989 and that year you could say they were replaced by Slaughter's Marauder's Mutt and Junkyard. Although there were other figures with animal companions, Law and Order should be considered the successor to the 1984 dog handler Mutt and his dog Junkyard. Between the release of the 1984 Mutt and Junkyard and the 1987 Law and Order there was one other dog in G.I. Joe. The 1985 Snake Eyes came with his wolf companion Timber. There were two other versions of Law in the vintage line. The 1990 version uses the same mold as version one, just different colors. The 1993 version though is a radical change and really strange looking. MP of course stands for military police and the army has combat MPs which have combat zone duties including patrols, reconnaissance and raids. Law and Order are not named after the long running television show. The figure predates the show. Law and Order is a term that usually refers to strict law enforcement. Let's take a look at Law's accessories and let's start with this helmet and he has a white helmet with a black MP stamped on it. This is a good helmet and an appropriate helmet for law and very striking in white. This is a helmet of someone who wants to be seen. Although this helmet is very similar to the helmet that came with the 1985 crankcase, it is not a reissue of that helmet. It has a very similar shape but it has different details. Law's next accessory is his submachine gun, his Uzi. And of course an Uzi is a very famous Israeli submachine gun. This Uzi is a reissue of the Uzi that came with the 1986 Night Spotter low light and I did not like this submachine gun with low light and I still don't love it with law. It's a fair representation of that real world weapon but this is not my favorite Uzi issued in G.I. Joe. The first two versions of Snake Eyes both came with Uzi's and I like both of these Uzi's better than the ones that came with low light and law. The next accessory is Law's Night Stick which is a tibaton or a tanfa which is based on an Okinawan martial arts weapon. This is a very simple accessory. The handle is kind of small and on my action figure it doesn't fit in the hand very well and slips out pretty easily. Next is a leash for the dog and it has a loop that can be put around the figure's wrist and this of course is a soft rubbery material that can bend very nicely. The collar is spiked and it has this buckle and the leash can be removed by slipping this loop past the stopper. Just kind of pull that out and then you can slide it off and slide it off of the dog's neck. There is minimal detail on this but that's alright. It doesn't need a lot of detail. Now we get to the other half of Law and Order, the dog order. Order is a German Shepherd which I think is obvious based on the sculpting and the coloring. It is one solid piece of plastic. It is not articulated. Order is sculpted in an alert position with his ears forward and his tail up. The sculpting on order is really nice. This may be my favorite sculpting of any of the dog companions for G.I. Joe. I just think this is very well done. The accessories that came with Law are almost a one-for-one match with the accessories that came with Mutt and Junkyard. Mutt had this muzzle that Law did not come with but he had a helmet, submachine gun, a baton, a leash and a dog. It's pretty clear that these guys filled the same role. They were given the exact same equipment. Let's look at the articulation on Law. Order did not have any articulation and Law had the articulation that had become standard by 1986, meaning he could turn his head from left to right and look up and down. This one is a little bit loose there. He could swing his arm up at the shoulder about so far and swivel at the shoulder all the way around. He had a hinge at the elbow that allowed him to move at the elbow about 90 degrees. He had a swivel at the bicep that allowed him to swivel his arm all the way around. The figure was held together with a rubber O-ring that looped around the inside of the figure. That allowed him to move at the torso a bit. He could move his legs apart about so far. He could move his leg at the hip about 90 degrees and bend at the knee about 90 degrees. Let's take a look at the sculpt to design and color of Law starting with his head. This head sculpt is kind of special in that it is based on a real person. The model for this head was Kirk Boziggian. Kirk was a Hasbro executive that made a lot of the marketing decisions for GI Joe and was responsible for a lot of the success of the toy line in the early 80s. Mr. Boziggian says it wasn't necessarily an accident that the figure they used his head for was a policeman. He was a very authoritative figure at Hasbro and kind of the policeman of the line. I was fortunate enough to be able to shake Kirk Boziggian's hand at Joe Con and thank him for the work he did on GI Joe. On his chest he has a blue vest over a red undershirt. He has a green grenade, probably a smoke grenade, a couple pockets. He has a black pistol and a holster. He has a silver badge. Looks like a star on a shield. And he has a zipper that's also silver here. That's just some really incredible detail on that vest. The silver badge is more indicative of civilian law enforcement and may be a throwback to Law's days as a police officer in Texas. His arms feature short red sleeves, that red undershirt. His right wrist has a green watch. And on his left bicep he has this MP brassard. The black brassard with white lettering designates Garrison law enforcement duty. And that fits with the description on Law's file card. His waist piece features a black belt with some respectable detail. A silver belt buckle, a silver ring here. Some pouches on either side. And going around to the back we have some other really cool details. Looks like he has handcuffs and what looks like a silver key. His legs are fairly plain, more along the lines of a traditional battle dress uniform with olive drab trousers, large pockets on either thigh. He has some black boots, but these are not traditional army combat boots. They have these really interesting crisscross patterns on them. I think Law and Order pair very well with the 1985 checkpoint alpha. I think the colors go very well together. And I think this battle station fits Law's role on the team. I see Law and Order as guarding the base and enforcing the rules on the base. So you can't do much better than putting Law and Order with checkpoint alpha. And between these guys and Mutt and Junkyard, nothing's gonna get through. Let's look at Law's file card. I have the full card back for Law and Order so we can see the artwork on the front of the card. We have Order looking ferocious. And I think it's worth noting that the face that's painted on here for Law does not look really anything like the head sculpt. So while Mr. Bozigian was the model for the head sculpt on the figure, that doesn't seem to be the case with the portrait on the card. Slipping it around to the other side, we have the cross-sell with other G.I. Joe figures that were available at the time. We have our flag point and we have our file card. His faction is G.I. Joe. We have a portrait of Law and Order taken from the artwork on the front of the card. Codename Law and Order, MP and K9. File name Christopher M. Levine, primary military specialty, military police. Secondary military specialty, intelligence. And I like this. Law can take on the role of an investigator. And he can work counterintelligence missions with Scarlet and Chuckles. Birthplace Houston, Texas, grade E4. Section says Law and Order walked a beat in Houston's fifth award for two years before Law decided there must be a more fulfilling way to be a cop. So he and his K9 order enlisted for the MPs. Houston's fifth award has been described as one of Houston's poorest ghettos. It's a rough neighborhood and probably a very tough assignment for a law enforcement officer. Law is a trained dog handler with a natural affinity for animals. He is also airborne qualified. This bottom section has a quote. It says, MPs are responsible for the security of an installation. That may sound like a cushy job if all you're guarding is a garrison full of clerks, cooks, and accountants. But it's another matter altogether when you're acting as the defensive line for an elite unit like the Joes. The bad guys are going to send in the best they have, and that's not good enough to get past Law and Order. You don't want to mess with him and that dog of his. Chew your leg right off, he will. And after that, you still have to deal with the dog. There are some similarities between Law's file card and Mutt's in that they both imply that the dog handler rather than the dog will bite your leg off. Law and Order made a few appearances in G.I. Joe media. In the cartoon, they only appeared in the 1987 G.I. Joe animated movie. In that movie, Law was portrayed as being Hispanic. He spoke with an accent. And I think that would have made him the first Joe for which English may not have been his first language. It's a matter, man. Let's look sharp, eh, compadres? There is no specific ethnicity noted on the file card, so that was a decision made just for the cartoon. And I don't think that's a bad choice. G.I. Joe was already a pretty diverse group, and that was one of its strengths. And so the more diversity, the better, as far as I'm concerned. Of course, now Donald Trump wants to build a wall around him. In the G.I. Joe comic book, Law and Order first appeared in issue number 60, which was an issue drawn by Todd McFarlane. That was before his comic book career really took off with Spider-Man. Law and Order and some other Joes were part of a weird conspiracy. I mean, they thought they were Joes, and then they found out that they weren't real Joes, but by the end of the issue they were made real Joes, and it's just a weird story. That was not one of my favorite issues. Todd McFarlane's art is just not right for G.I. Joe. I feel the G.I. Joe comic book works the best when the artist has a very sharp, realistic style and can capture the amazing detail and realism in the figures and the vehicles. That just is not Todd McFarlane's forte. Law and Order had a few other appearances in Marvel Comics G.I. Joe run, but I would not call them main characters. Taking a look at Law and Order overall, I was really indifferent to this guy as a kid. I think he suffered from being released in 1987, a year that saw a lot of weirdness. There were some great figures in 1987 as well, but it felt like the weirdness was winning out. I just didn't see the need for an MP with bright colors when I was starving for guys in camel. As an adult collector, I appreciate this figure a lot more. I would put Law and Order in the top tier. Look at how many layers there are to this figure and character. The face represents Kirk Boziggian, the marketing guy who was responsible for a lot of the marketing decisions that made G.I. Joe a success in the 1980s, a pretty important guy in the history of G.I. Joe. The figure represents law enforcement, which is not an accident. Kirk was known to be an enforcer at Hasbro. It continues the tradition of giving G.I. Joe figures animal companions. Some of my favorite figures include animals. And finally, it represents the partnership between humans and dogs. And that's one of the reasons why this one is special to me. We started domesticating dogs between 27,000 and 40,000 years ago. All domesticated dogs are descended from a now extinct species of wolf from the Pleistocene epoch. We have archaeological evidence of dogs working with humans and being buried with honor nearly 17,000 years ago. We don't know exactly how it happened, but at some point in our past, a wolf and a human saw each other as allies instead of enemies. From that point on, dogs and humans have been partners in building our societies and cultures. Through artificial selection, those wolves have become every breed of domestic dog we have today. Some are bred for companionship, some are bred for work. Both humans and dogs have benefited from that partnership, but people definitely have the better part of that bargain. Though humans provide domesticated dogs with food and shelter, they don't really have any say in what their role is in this partnership. They have to have total trust in people to make those decisions. Sometimes the trust between dogs and people is broken. Dogs are abused and neglected and exploited for blood sports that only benefit their human masters. Post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD, is a condition that afflicts a lot of soldiers returning home from combat zones. I have seen the effects of PTSD on veterans. I have witnessed it. People with PTSD are at higher risk for suicide. It frequently leads to substance abuse, which only exacerbates the problem. Veterans come home from war with many kinds of injuries, not all of them visible. When the finest asked me to help promote their 2017 Girls of the Finest calendar proceeds to benefit canines for warriors, I was especially honored that they asked me to help benefit that particular charity because it addresses two things that are very important to me. It pairs veterans with PTSD, traumatic brain injury, and other trauma with service dogs. Most of the dogs they place with veterans are rescue dogs. They've rescued something like 400 dogs. By putting neglected dogs together with wounded warriors, they are re-establishing the partnership and trust between dogs and humans. Dogs and people are working together, again, as they have since that first wolf befriended that first human. So consider picking up a Girls of the Finest calendar. You can find them on Indiegogo.com. I'm gonna get one, and if you choose to do that, it won't be the worst thing you've done today. And that was my review of law and order. James Brown, do you approve? I'll take that as a yes dog. I did it. I talked about why the charity is important to me. Are you satisfied? That was very well done. Who's a good boy? Who's a good boy? Who? Who? Me? Me? I'm a good boy. I'm a good boy. And please feel free to visit Doggy Heaven again very soon. I will not be doing that, but what you should do is like this video on YouTube, subscribe to my YouTube channel, and share this video. That's what keeps this channel going. Like me on Facebook, follow me on Twitter. There's some fun stuff there. Thank you for watching this video. I'll see you next week with another vintage GI Joe toy review. And until then, remember only GI Joe is GI Joe.