 Hello everybody hooded Cobra Commander 788 here, and I'm back with another vintage GI Joe toy review, and this time we are going to look at the famous, the infamous, the notorious 1983 Cobra Hiss Tank. Even if you were not an avid GI Joe collector when you were a kid, if you were aware of any Cobra vehicle, it was probably the Hiss Tank. The Hiss Tank debuted in 1983, it was also sold in 1984, it was discontinued in 1985, and there really wasn't a comparable Cobra vehicle in 85 to replace it. In 1986 we got the Cobra Stun, but I always thought of the Cobra Stun more as a replacement for the 1984 Cobra Stinger than the Hiss Tank. In 1987 we got the Cobra Maggot, which was sort of a tank, but was not very similar to this Hiss Tank. The moniker Hiss stands for high speed sentry, and according to the order of battle entry for the Hiss Tank, the top speed for this guy was 75 miles per hour, which is amazingly fast. This thing could cook along at highway speeds. I have always associated the Hiss Tank with Destro, who also came out in 1983, and who was the Cobra weapons supplier, and I always kind of assumed that Destro designed the Hiss Tank. The Hiss Tank did not come with Destro, and this is not a review of Destro, so I'm going to set Destro aside for now. The Hiss Tank did come with an action figure, the Hiss Tank driver. We will take a closer look at him in a moment, so I'm going to set him aside as well. The Hiss Tank obviously is not based on any real world design. It has these really interesting triangular treads, which is a little bit similar to the World War I tank, the Tank Mark VIII, but on the Tank Mark VIII the elevated treads, rather than being underneath the vehicle like this, ran along the sides, which was a more practical design, I think. Another tank that has a raised front bogey the way the Hiss Tank does is the M50 on-toss anti-tank vehicle, but that's where the similarity ends, otherwise they look absolutely nothing alike. Other than that, I have not been able to find any other real world weapon system that looks anything like this guy. Let's look at the parts and the features of the Hiss Tank. Up in the front we have what the blueprints call a shell-proof canopy. It opens up like that, it has a little notch here on the front that goes in there to secure it. You kind of have to give it a little squeeze and a push back to pull that notch back in order to lift the canopy. Honestly, I don't care what the blueprints say, there's no way this canopy is shell-proof. Whether it's made out of some kind of glass or any space-age material, I don't care. There's no way this thing is going to stop a shell. In fact, I would say that a heavy machine gun would tear through this thing like tissue paper, which makes the driver of the Hiss Tank very vulnerable. So the Hiss Tank driver has about the most dangerous job in all of Cobra. The canopy does make the toy look really nice, but as far as being a real world weapon, that would be an extremely weak point in the design. The Hiss Tank in the G.I. Joe Retaliation movie was a little bit more realistic in the design, but I still prefer this. This is the iconic design. Up at the top we have the double Diablo cannons, which the blueprints describe as 90mm cannons, which is a pretty strong gun. One of the most common problems with the Hiss Tank is with these cannons. They tend to develop floppy cannons. They don't stay up like they did when you took them out of the box. Originally, the cannons would ratchet into three positions, the lower position, middle, and the upper position. The ratcheting was accomplished by two tiny pins inside the cannon housing that would run along notches for each level. Those pins were very tiny, very thin, extremely fragile, and they almost always broke. In fact, I've only ever seen one Hiss Tank in person that had the original plastic tabs in there. This cannon has been repaired by replacing the plastic tab with metal prongs, and it ratchets a bit, but not quite the way it originally did, and I think that's because the notches themselves that the prongs run along are themselves a little bit worn. So you don't get exactly the three positions that you would originally get with the Hiss Tank, more like two positions. I'll put a link in the description for a video that demonstrates how to fix these cannons. An alternate fix for a floppy cannon syndrome is to just take the cannons out and then wrap the bar that goes between them with electrical tape, and so it doesn't flop anymore. Basically you just move it to any position you want. It doesn't ratchet either, but it looks a lot better and it's not floppy anymore. There were three sticker variants on the Hiss Tank. The earliest Hiss Tanks that came out in 1983 had the 788 with red outline numbers. Later Hiss Tanks that were released had those same 788 numbers, but they were solid red. Later still the Hiss Tank was offered as a mail away, and the mail away Hiss Tanks had white 788 numbers. Let's look at the turret. You can actually remove the turret by turning it all the way around and just pulling it out. There are two slots there that correspond with these notches on the turret, and it's basically a cup. The gunner stands inside the cup in order to operate the gun. Now there's no hatch, so the gunner cannot retreat inside the tank. So he is exposed up there, but he is less exposed than the infamous MOBAT tank, which has the operator halfway out of the tank and just really easy to shoot. Looking at the control panel for the gun turret, we have a sticker on there with some gauges and some pretty decent detail, not too bad. One thing I really like about the turret is that the gunner can stand tall enough that he can still wear his backpack as Destro is here. So that's convenient. I have Destro, the Baroness, and Major Blood all gunning Hiss Tanks. They are all wearing their backpacks and they are not obstructed in any way. These tank treads were fake of course, they are basically just a solid piece of plastic. And the tank rolled along the grounds by these kind of dumbbell wheels here, here in the front and the back, and they rolled reasonably smoothly. In the back we had the personnel platform that had two foot pegs that the action figures could ride on. You just put the foot pegs and the holes on the bottom of their feet, and there they go. Unfortunately, one of them is broken off on this one. Also in the back we have a tow hook, which is interesting because in 1983, Cobra didn't have anything to tow. They had no towed weapons at all. In 1984 we got the Cobra ASP, which was a towed gun that you could actually use this tow hook for. Let's take a look at the cockpit. And the cockpit has some pretty good detail in there, not bad molded in detail. We have some headlights in the front and some nice stickers, a nice prominent Cobra emblem on the side. Let's look at the his tank overall. Obviously, this is not a very practical weapon. Both your driver and your gunner are very vulnerable. It looks like it would be kind of off balance. It looks like it would be front heavy, but it is, and it's actually pretty well balanced. But whether it's realistic or not, I think it really looks great. The black makes it look very sleek and high tech. This is designed to be intimidating. It would be great for night attack, and since it's really fast, a squad of these could cover a pretty wide area of territory. For me, no matter how many years go by and how many new vehicles come out, this will always be the primary weapon of Cobra. This is their primary vehicle in my mind. Let's look at the his tank driver, and wow, he's really red, isn't he? Let's start out by looking at the articulation. He had the typical 1983 articulation, which meant that he could turn his head left and right. His arm could swing all the way up, and it could rotate all the way around. He had a hinge at the elbow, so he could move his arm at the elbow about 90 degrees, and he had a swivel at the bicep, so he could spin his arm all the way around. He was held together with a rubber O-ring that ran through the center of the action figure, so he could move at the torso a little bit. The O-ring on this one is a little bit loose, so he can disco dance. He could spread his legs about so far. He could bend at the hip about 90 degrees, and he could bend at the knee about 90 degrees. Let's look at the figure overall. He did reuse one piece from other action figures, his waist piece, which went with the Cobra officer and the Cobra soldier. Other than that, he is unique. He has all unique parts. He is sculpted with a lot of pretty amazing detail, including these tall boots and knee pads. I've said before, I really like knee pads. He also has this kind of thigh armor here, which are kind of like chaps, sort of. He has black arm bands and shoulder ridges, which is a nice detail. He has silver goggles, and he has this spine on his helmet that is actually supposed to be a snake. If you take a look at the art on the file card, you can see that's actually a snake design on his helmet. Of course, I don't know, the detail kind of fails there. It doesn't look a whole lot like a snake. He has what I think is supposed to be an armored chest plate, which is blue. That's a nice contrast with the red. And he has a silver Cobra symbol. Now this silver paint rubs off very, very easily. In fact, I'm really glad that this has any of the Cobra symbol left on it at all. My other Hiss driver has the symbol completely rubbed off. The bright red coloring actually complements the black Hiss tank pretty well. If the driver were colored dark blue like the Cobra officer, you really wouldn't be able to see him in the cockpit. He would kind of blend in with the dark background. But a red action figure, when you put him in there and close the canopy, he really stands out. You know, he's just unmistakable. Let's take a look at the file card. These file cards were printed on the back of the box that the toy came in. There's nothing on the other side, it's just the back of a box. Up here it says Cobra Hiss driver, codename the enemy. Of course that's not a codename, but all of the Cobra soldiers that came out at the time just had codename the enemy. Of course this action figure doesn't represent an individual. You are meant to army build these, meaning buy multiples and pretend that they're all different people. Of course buying multiples of the Hiss tank driver meant buying multiples of the Hiss tank. And I didn't have any friends when I was a kid who could afford to buy a whole bunch of Hiss tanks, so we had one Hiss tank and we just have to pretend that it was an army of them. Since the Hiss tank driver is not an individual but an army builder, his file name is unknown. His primary military specialty is Hiss driver, logically. And his secondary military specialty is mechanical and electrical systems. Birthplace various countries, grade O5. Now that's remarkable because an O5 is a Lieutenant Colonel. So this guy is a Cobra officer, like this guy, but he's an extremely high ranking Cobra officer. He's a Lieutenant Colonel. Do you really have to be a Lieutenant Colonel in Cobra in order to drive a Hiss tank that just doesn't seem logical to me? Maybe it's one of those situations where they're just trying to get the guy to do this really dangerous job and ride under this canopy where he's going to get shot at and probably killed. So they just tell him, hey, we'll make you a Lieutenant Colonel, you'll get to drive a cool tank and you'll be a Lieutenant Colonel, honest, really, just jump in there and give it a spin. He'll be a Lieutenant Colonel for about five minutes until he gets blown up. In this section it says, Cobra Hiss drivers are selected from the best and most evil of Cobra Command's thousands of yearly recruits. Each is chosen for his physical strength and total dedication to evil. So maybe you're an excellent tank driver and you're the top of the class in Hiss tank school, but if you're not sufficiently dedicated to evil, they're just not going to let you in. You can't wear the red uniform unless you're completely dedicated to evil. Hiss drivers are graduates of Cobra Battle School, Advanced Weapon Systems Training, Qualified Experts, Hiss Vehicle, Fang Copter, Knowledge of All NATO and GI Joe Weapons. It's interesting that the file card mentions that the Hiss driver is a qualified expert with the Fang helicopter. The Fang helicopter actually did not come with a pilot and I don't know, maybe the Hiss driver looks pretty good piloting the Fang helicopter. The Fang is also black like the Hiss tank and that red may stand out. I don't know. What do you think? I think he looks pretty good, but I usually display my Fang helicopter with Cobra Commander piloting. Down at the bottom here it says, Cobra Hiss drivers are committed to the destruction of GI Joe. This newly developed battle vehicle is a real match for the GI Joe team. Beware. Beware. That was my review of the 1983 Cobra Hiss tank and its driver and the file card. I hope you liked this video and if you're thinking of getting a Hiss tank, I hope this video was informative. If you liked this video, go ahead and give it a thumbs up. If you didn't like this video, go ahead and give it a thumbs down. Either way, make sure you hit that subscribe button because I've got a lot of great new GI Joe comic book and toy reviews coming up and you do not want to miss them. I'll catch you all later.