 Hi, I'm copying Jurassic Park as cheaply as possible speaking of which GI Joe did the same thing Let's look at dino hunters Everybody hooded core commander seven eight eight here this week We are looking at a GI Joe mission play set that has become rare and expensive on the aftermarket Is it so valued because it's a great toy? No, was it popular back in 1993 when it was released? No, is it a hidden gem that we can appreciate now all these years later? No, it is an oddity from the 90s It was GI Joe's attempt to compete with the toy line supported by the most popular movie in 1993 Robo cop 3 Wait a minute a Jurassic Park it was Jurassic Park It's my privilege to welcome peg warmers as a guest on this show to talk about Kenner's Jurassic Park toy line Which was available at the same time as the play set. We're looking at today GI Joe's dino hunters is a very quirky set It also provides a window into what was happening at Hasbro at the time hold on to your butts HCC 788 presents the dino hunters This is the GI Joe dino hunters mission play set It was a toys rs exclusive in 1993 only it was discontinued for 1994 The mission play set included one vehicle one dinosaur and two action figures ambush version two and low light version four The vehicle is a modified GI Joe Desert Fox from 1988 nothing in this set is new Everything is reused except for the artwork on the box. It looks like they did new artwork for that for the Grammaristically inclinated dino hunter sometimes includes a hyphen and sometimes it does not Also, the mission play set is called dino hunters, but the vehicle is called the dino hunter Also, sometimes the vehicle name does not have a hyphen and other times it does so take your pick This mission set was released at a very unique time for Hasbro and for GI Joe In 1991 Hasbro bought the toy company Tonka Tonka had purchased Kenner an old rival of Hasbro's in 1987 So by acquiring Tonka Hasbro also acquired Kenner Hasbro kept Tonka and Kenner as separate divisions from Hasbro's toy operation in Rhode Island There was internal competition with Kenner getting a lot of the prime movie licenses One of those licenses was Jurassic Park This placed a lot of pressure on Hasbro to compete with another division of its own company for the same toy purchasers This dino hunter's set was created very deliberately to compete with Kenner's Jurassic Park line in 1993 Kenner's Jurassic Park toys were a big hit at the time. They had some awesome dinosaurs and vehicles Pegwarmers is joining us to show us what was on the toy shelves and competing with GI Joe's dino hunters Clever girl Hey hooded cobra commander. Thanks for having us on I'm Kevin from Pegwarmers I'm Jordan from geek anything and we are here to show off the competition for GI Joe dino hunters This is the majority of the Kenner Jurassic Park line. Yeah, this is I want to say something like Probably 70% of the actual product from the original release for the movie Okay, and then a little bit after that like I know there's a couple pieces here that were from the They didn't have a sequel yet, but there was more toys to be had right, right But there's quite a bit here. I mean, obviously I don't have all the dinos to drag out But I did bring a pretty solid offering of samples. So there's an enormous Playset. Oh, yeah with a huge fence Which you could set up either like this in a long row or in a loop Yeah, you can loop it back all the way around then it connects to both sides of the actual Command compound. Okay, hold it. So that's Got some like dino damage features and different things built into that Then I guess the next big items would be the two vehicles. Oh, yeah, those are fun We've got the Jeep and the Explorer. Yeah, the jungle explorer. Yep. Okay And these both have different action features built into them. There's a this was like a lasso for Yeah, the the seat actually sort of does the uh the pivot the extension So it comes out so they can try and lasso stuff and then this one's got a flip out missile launcher in the back Plus it does dino damage where like the whole The whole front end comes off and then you can like lift the top out just like in the movie So it's all sorts of cool fun features that a lot of toys don't even do anymore. And they're they're both very like uh Screen accurate like, you know, like pretty pretty good representations of the The vehicles from the movie, which is nice Absolutely what you what you see on screen is what you're playing with at home The basic figure range Is pretty standard Kenner. They're all sort of like five inch five points of articulation characters I'd say the maybe the weakest part of the whole line is that they didn't have actors likeness They didn't have actors likenesses until later on like they only had a few people early on but then They had some figures that looked nothing like the actors, which we've talked about on peg warmers before right But then they fixed that with later releases where they did like wave two figures with updated head sculpts and things like that Which is at least nice for those who wanted it. But I mean, it's it's still the first wave was a little rough Yeah, um, so I would say it's probably like the weakest point in this whole line and then the dinosaurs are beautiful Oh, yeah, and there's all different kinds too. They had smaller basic ones But then I know unfortunately this one doesn't work anymore But I know my doll. Officers has like a screaming feature where it makes actual sounds The frill comes off of it. They had another doll. Officers that actually spits water out if you feel it Which is always really cool The raptors have like head attacks and stuff like that where you can like move the leg And then the head like lurches forward and opens its mouth Some of this stuff like the t-rex has like a a real feel kind of skin to it Yeah, it's a rubbery It's very cool A bunch of them also have panels that you can rip off for dino damage again Absolutely One of the things that I always thought was interesting about Jurassic Park in their marketing And it goes right into kind of what this episode is about of like Fending off the competition Was that their whole tagline was look for the mark of Jurassic Park And all the dinosaurs that you can't really copyright have a jp logo printed on them Yeah, which was always something that stood out to me and it's something that even now is just a collector I look for it every time I find a dinosaur toy just in case. It's the one that I somehow don't know about already And they have something similar going on with the newer ones like the modern stuff But it's not it's not the same as the kenner logo the the jp Combination that just became iconic with the brand as it went on This is what was on the toy out to compete with dino hunters or maybe dinosaur dino hunters was on the shelf to compete with this Um, but we just wanted to get a chance to share this whole line with the with the viewers so they could see You know what what kind of competition there was? Absolutely And it's it's hard to even call it a competition comparatively because you look at The dino hunters product and then you look at this and like just the dinosaurs alone Blow it out of the water The the the pack-in buddy dinosaurs are almost better than the the t-rex that came with the dino hunters Yeah, the hatchlings they included every single human character came with a small dinosaur So if parents didn't have the money to buy both they at least had something to go with their human characters I think the only real flaw with the line overall is that they didn't make everybody from the movies, right? But like we're missing a few key characters, but beyond that it's it's perfect All right, hoodie. Thanks for having us on. Thanks so much. Thank you so much peg warmers Don't forget to check out the peg warmers youtube channel the link will be in the description of this video This vehicle is not the first vehicle to be called dino hunter In fact, it's not the first vehicle released by a division of hasbro to be called dino hunter A trademark was filed in december of 1992 by tonka with its address in potucket road island This was after hasbro's acquisition of tonka and that trademark was for dino hunter There was in fact a tonka truck set called dino hunter released in 1992 and this is it This tonka dino hunter set included a truck with a metal body a cage trailer and a small plastic dinosaur Which I don't have this was all in a smaller scale than gi joe This tonka truck has some nice decorative stickers You may notice the dino hunter on the truck and the trailer do not include the tm trademark label this set did come out in 1992 before the gi joe dino hunters But the trademark wasn't registered until december of 1992 I can't be sure but it's possible the hasbro team registered the dino hunter trademark because tonka was already using that name But they did so with every intention of using it for the gi joe set after gi joe transition from a purely military line In the 1960s to the adventure team in the 1970s There were boxed mission sets that included a vehicle a uniform and sometimes an action figure And a bonus toy related to the mission some of those mission sets in the 1970s included secret of the mummy's tomb The shark's surprise abominable snowman trapped in the coils of doom Search for the golden idol and others they didn't release a dinosaur mission set But they did include some mythical creatures the vehicles uniforms and bonus toys were often reused for other sets So this dino hunter set made of reused parts is very much in line with that tradition The gi joe a real american hero line from the 1980s and 90s had other mission sets like special mission brazil The dino hunter set is the most similar to the 1970s adventure team sets You could say this is an homage to the earlier history of gi joe Or you could say even the idea of dino hunters was recycled. Here is the box for dino hunters This box is in very bad condition It has some water damage and it's very warped But i don't usually collect boxes anyway a box is just kind of a bonus So we can look at this and kind of imagine what a kid in 1993 would have seen in toys rs This artwork appears to be unique Even the vehicle art does not look like just a color swap of the box art for the desert fox It looks like they actually put some effort into getting new artwork for this set There's even some new character art for low light and ambush It looks to me like the box is the only true unique piece in this set on the back of the box There are some photographs of the toys inside the box. This is supposed to be actual size There is some new information I got about the photography on this box Thanks to 3d joes and I will talk about that later But for now, let's just look at the back of the box the photography We see the vehicle the dinosaurs and some photos of the action figures Is a little different from the figures we actually got in the box and then we have two file cards Which I will talk more about in-depth later. These are of course 90s style file cards And there should be five flag points on this box right here But as you can see the flag points were cut off according to the artwork It looks like there's supposed to be some line or string connected to these grapple hooks But the vehicle comes with no such thing the back of the box provides some backstory and purpose for the dino Hunters which is helpful because there is no media for this set It says cobra island is swarming with dinosaurs Having recently been uncovered from the bowels of cobra island cobra commander plans to transport these walking fossils To mainland cities and towns to cause worldwide panic The all-terrain dino hunter takes gi joe on a secret safari to capture the dinosaurs and save them from cobra's evil hand The joes must hurry to preserve and protect the dinosaurs and the world This provides two important pieces of information first the gi joe dino hunters are not trying to kill the dinosaurs They're trying to capture the dinosaurs and where do the dinosaurs come from? They came from the bowels of cobra island So the island pooped them out. Let's look at the vehicle the dino hunter used by the dino hunters I do have the blueprints for the vehicle and I will refer to it some when describing the features on the dino hunter But as you can see, it doesn't have a lot of information But I will use some of those descriptions when applicable the dino hunter is modified from the original 1988 desert fox six-wheel drive vehicle the desert fox included a driver skid mark And the less said about skid mark the better. I've already reviewed the desert fox I will say the dino hunter has no true new parts even though the turret is modified from the desert fox The launcher and the grapple hooks are both reused from other sources I will take this opportunity to show off this custom desert fox created and sent to me by the youtube channel painted plastic This is the arctic fox with driver hardpack. It even includes a file card This isn't really directly related to this review, but I'll take any chance. I can to show this thing off I think this is an amazing custom and it looks great. Thank you again painted plastic. I'm very grateful to have this I did an unboxing and assembly of this dino hunter's vehicle if you'd like to check out that the link will be in the description The colors on the dino hunter are not terrible considering the era There is some neon with the grapple hooks and the turret and the missiles But it's not overwhelming and the other colors are attractive The top half is a bluish green color, which you might call teal The bottom half is tan very close to the color of the top half of the desert fox In fact, I guess you could make a custom all tan vehicle with the bottom half of the dino hunter and the top half of the desert fox But that would be a very expensive custom We round it out with some light gray accent and dark gray wheels and some stickers for extra splashes of colors Obviously, this is not well camouflaged, but it may not need to be camouflaged for this mission And the colors go really well together. It almost looks like dreadknock colors If there's any doubt that this just reuses the mold from the 1988 desert fox the copyright stamp on the bottom still says 1988 hasbro I will point out this dino hunter's vehicle is missing a couple stickers It still has all of the prominent and easily noticeable stickers It did have an incomplete sticker sheet, which I had to restore Unfortunately, some of them were not present, but the ones that were present are on the vehicle Let's look at the parts and the features of the dino hunter starting with the front and this grill on the top half And then on the bottom half the tan part There is what might be interpreted as a coiled line for a winch But there's no winch actually there also in the front on top We have headlights which are rectangles cut into the top of the body of the vehicle showing the tan underneath That's a nice way to do headlights without clear plastic or just using stickers on the hood molded into that teal body We have some vents and some raised sections which may be armor or they may be for a supercharger for the engine We have some running lights on the sides and we have some colorful stickers We also have this raised dash shield. The front wheels are dark gray And in fact, they are the same as the back wheels. There's no distinction They connect to an axle by a mushroom clip which you can see at the center of the wheels And they will spin independently and they will also steer you can click the wheels into a left turn position Or a centered position or a right turn position So you have some steering at the front wheels There is texture on the step into the cab and then we have the cab the interior of the vehicle It is molded in that tan color It has two seats One on each side and there is a center console with a gear shifter There is a light gray dashboard with a light gray steering wheel That steering wheel is on the american driver's side and it does not turn it just clips in So even though there is steering for the front wheels, the steering wheel does not control that You can place your dino hunters in the dino hunter by bending their legs and knees and placing them in from the side You may have to scrunch them a little bit to fit their helmets under the bar But they can both fit in easily and they're deep enough inside there that they won't really fall out very easily Even though they don't have back pegs or a seatbelt around the cab. We have this light gray roll cage It's the same light gray color as the dashboard It connects to the top of the body in the front and the back And on this crossbar. There are some head lamps also on the side of the roll cage on each side There is a peg For a missile attached to those pegs on the roll cage. There are two very bright Yellowish green neon colored missiles. There is one on each side They are the same the blueprints call these two Mobile based sonic missiles these missiles are the same as the missiles on the desert fox just in a different color Behind the cab. There is the bed in tan plastic with a raised platform There is a texture pattern on the bed and the raised platform and on the platform is the turret So far this is all exactly the same as the 1988 desert fox just in different colors But we're about to get into some modifications to the vintage desert fox mold This turret is in the same very bright yellowish neon green color as the missiles It will rotate 360 degrees and the launcher on top of it will elevate and depress This is very similar to the turret on the desert fox, but it's not just different in color It has been modified to fit the launcher on top It's a double spring loaded missile launcher that's on the top of this turret and it has some nice details It is in the same light gray plastic color as the roll cage It looks really good great detail on it and it fires these neon green grapple hooks And if this looks familiar to you, you are right. This is not a new piece. This is an action figure accessory It might be easier to see if I remove it from the turret So you can take a better look at it the blueprints call this double missile launcher the double barrel grappling hook launcher And this is a remold of the missile launching backpack from the 1992 Flak viper obviously it is in a different color, but it still has the backpack So I guess one of the dino hunters could wear this as a backpack Obviously it doesn't fire the same missiles, but these grapple hooks are also not unique I will get to that in a moment The only difference I can see in this dino hunters launcher is on the sides These holes on the sides that they've added so it can be mounted to the turret There are triggers on the back to launch the grapple hooks And I will demonstrate the launch later after I've attached this to the turret But I just want to look at the grapple hooks for now They are in the same very bright yellowish green neon color as the turret and the missiles And these are not entirely unique They are remolded and slightly enlarged from the grapple hook that was included with the 1992 DEF cutter version 2 You can see there's a slight remold here and the hooks on the dino hunters grapple hook is slightly larger But it is otherwise the same accessory You can see there is a string that connects cutters grapple hook to the launcher And even though the dino hunters grapple does not have the string It still has the hole for the string This makes me suspect they did intend this grapple hook to be tethered to the launcher But at some point before production, they canceled the string which is understandable Have you seen the price of string these days? In case you're wondering if they made any other modifications to this grapple hook to make it work with this launcher No, it fits perfectly well in the backpack for the flak viper and it will launch from that backpack And it fits perfectly well in the launcher for the dino hunters. So it is interchangeable Let's take a closer look at that turret. It has texture on the front and on the back It has a sticker that doesn't really look like a control panel and it has foot pegs at the base So you can place an action figure on the turret It's best to bend the figures legs and you can place the feet on the foot pegs And you can have an action figure Manning the turret comparing the dino hunters turret with the desert fox turret Other than the obvious color difference on the desert fox machine gun turret There is this armor shield around the machine gun That has been cut out on the dino hunters turret to make space for the missile launcher Even though this has been modified. It is still compatible. It still has this notch So you can remove the machine gun from the desert fox And you can mount it on the dino hunters turret and it works perfectly fine It's a compatible machine gun turret. I want to demonstrate this spring loaded launcher So i'm going to replace the grapple hooks in the launcher notch side up And you just press them back until they clicked Then we can mount this thing back onto the turret with the holes in the side That is pretty easy and it does stay on pretty securely once you get it on So now we can demonstrate how to fire these grapple hooks out of the launcher Normally I demonstrate these spring loaded missile launchers by firing at doctor mind bender But these are made for capturing dinosaurs So I have doctor mind bender riding a dinosaur There are two triggers on the back of the launcher. They fire independently They don't fire together unless you can manage to press both triggers at the same time So you fire them one at a time you fire them by pressing the trigger down So let's take aim at doctor mind bender on a dinosaur and fire That's a really tough dinosaur. It just bounced right off. So let's see if we can get him with the second shot There we go and the dinosaur is unharmed. We're not done looking at features on the dino hunter It has four wheels in back two on each side It's the same dark gray wheels as the front and they spin independently Except for this one on the back on my example This one fits much tighter than the others and does not spin That is peculiar to my example and yours probably will not be the same in the back There is this side facing seat. It is molded in the teal color of the top half of the vehicle It seats one action figure and it faces this computer control panel That means you can hold a total of four action figures in this vehicle Two in the front one on the turret and one in the back You can place a figure in there and he should fit pretty securely But not quite as securely as inside the cap But you can hook his legs under that computer panel and he shouldn't fall out very easily at the very rear There is this keep back sticker capture operator only and there's a tan bumper with a tow hitch And a light gray antenna attached to the bumper the dino hunter cage trailer Is it exactly compatible with the gi jo dino hunter vehicle because it has a peg And the back of the gi jo vehicle also has a peg But there is a space behind that tow hitch where you can kind of slide that peg on the trailer in there and And it it it sort of works the dino hunter has all the same assets as the desert fox And i really like the desert fox it has lots of features It holds four figures and it looks cool the desert fox is colored for desert missions The dino hunter doesn't really need to be camouflaged. It's made for hunting dinosaurs It's not really a combat vehicle dinosaurs are colorblind anyway, right Just like whomever chose the colors for this vehicle If these colors looked okay for that guy, they probably look okay to a dinosaur Now let's look at the infamous dinosaur from the dino hunter's set This is a hard plastic dinosaur with no articulation. It is a very inaccurate tyrannosaurus rex This looks like a little kid's toy like it's from baby's first dinosaur assortment This t-rex is in a base yellow plastic color with green paint sprayed over the head And down the back and along the tail and on the outside of the legs It has painted eyes and white teeth The dinosaur has a leathery skin pattern and alligator like ridges all the way down the back and the tail It has horizontal ridge lines from the neck all the way down the belly and all the way to the end of the tail The arms are pulled closely to the body Why are the arms pressed so awkwardly against the chest? The dinosaur appears to be the only new piece in this set. It is not reused from any previous gi joe toy but Surprise it is almost a direct copy of this 1985 tyrannosaurus rex dinosaur from imperial toys You can see the copyright stamp on this one says 1993 hasbro And on this one it says 1985 and this is the imperial toys logo Obviously, they're not exactly the same the dino hunters dinosaur is a little smaller and the imperial dinosaur has its arms outstretched But other than that it has the same skin pattern the same ridges on the back It has the same head and mouth and eyes It has the same pattern down the front and they're almost exactly the same color That means the one piece from the dino hunters set that looks unique is actually a copy of something else There is nothing new in this set So how could this happen? According to vinnie deliva who worked on gi joe for hasbro at the time the dinosaur was licensed from imperial The arms had to be changed because the product integrity group said the arms were too thin They had to retool the dinosaur with the arms pressed to the body The toy photography for the back of the box had already been done and had to be changed to show the updated dinosaur Thank you to 3d joes for that information. It will be in their upcoming book Carson was kind enough to give me a preview of that page I was not able to find that information anywhere else So thank you to Carson and 3d joes for that insight the dinosaur will fit in the tanca dino hunters cage trailer So the gi joe dino hunters can capture this guy Let's turn our attention to the two action figures that came with this mission play set ambush and lowlight gi joe vehicles rarely included two action figures One example would be the 1987 defiant shuttle which included payload and hard top Both of these dino hunters figures are recolored copies of earlier figures They both had standard articulation and they each had an accessories tree these accessories that were attached to a plastic frame The accessory trees were not assigned to a figure But it makes sense that ambush should have the green one and lowlight should have the black one For reasons which will make sense when we look at the accessories Let's take a closer look at ambush. This is ambush version two version one was released in 1990 He was the concealment specialist now. He is the dinosaur camouflage specialist. Let's look at ambush's accessories I have only one accessory on the figure the only accessory that was not on the plastic frame And that is the helmet this helmet is in tan plastic It has texture on it This is a remold and a recolor of the helmet that was included with version one of ambush It's the same helmet in a different color this tan color Does closely match the tan color on the lower half of the figure the remaining accessories were on this Accessories tree all these accessories attached to the frame. They are all molded in the same dark green plastic color This was a standard practice in the 1990s on that frame There was a figure stand and some weapons all of which were reissued from other action figures There is nothing new and original on this accessories tree This machine gun is a reissue of the machine gun that came with 1987 tunnel rat this assault rifle is a reissue of the assault rifle from 1990 sky patrol airborne This laser gun was originally issued with 1987 Battle force 2000 blaster this pistol was originally issued with 1988 Shockwave this machete was originally issued with 1988 muskrat Finally this knife was originally issued with 1988 hidden run Let's take a look at the sculpt design and color of ambush starting with the head and on his head. He has brown hair And brown eyes and eyebrows a bushy brown mustache connected to sideburns This is of course the same head sculpt as version one and the hair color is almost exactly the same The hair color on version two is maybe slightly more red than version one But it's almost identical. It'd be really hard to tell these apart Moving on to the chest ambush is wearing an olive green shirt That shirt has pockets on the upper chest left and right and another pocket on the lower right side There's no flesh colored paint above the collar. So we have to assume that's a green undershirt as well In fact, there's only one paint application on the chest this very bright orange bandolier Lined with grenades the file card calls this bandolier with tear gas grenades These are all the same details on the chest of the version one figure But the version one figure has this subtle camouflage all over the uniform And that camouflage is totally missing on the version two figure The arms feature olive green rolled up sleeves on the upper arm the same color green as the chest The lower arms have long sleeves down to the wrists and a texture on the sleeves It looks like a knit shirt and he has bare hands Since he is wearing a black undershirt with long sleeves It would have been nice to have a spot of black paint on the undershirt that's visible above the collar So it would match the color on the arms the waist piece features tan trousers with a wide Bright orange belt the same color as the orange bandolier on the chest The belt has some details, but no pouches. It has a nicely detailed belt buckle The legs are in that same tan color around the right thigh There is an orange band with more grenades the file card calls these leg strapped canister smoke grenades There are no weapons or pockets on the left leg on the lower legs It looks like he has his trouser legs rolled up to the shins and below that he has bright orange socks Or boot covers. I'm not really sure, but he has black boots and on his right ankle He has a black knife. It's hard to say which is better for paint applications version one or version two Version one didn't have a lot of paint applications to begin with But it did have this camouflage pattern, which is lacking on version two So that's a point in the favor of version one other than the orange the colors aren't too bad Version one looks better But the tan green and black on version two is almost as good The orange is just so distracting. Let's look at ambush's file card, which is still on the box There is artwork here, which mirrors the new artwork on the front of the box It looks like he is carrying a rock viper machine gun in yellow But this accessory is not included with the set the file card calls it a modified dino stun tranquilizer gun with scope His codename is ambush. He is the dinosaur camouflage specialist So does he camouflage dinosaurs or does he camouflage himself from dinosaurs? I guess if dinosaurs are colorblind, you can wear safety orange for that His file name is erin mcman. His primary military specialty is camouflage specialist secondary military specialty is infantry His birthplace is walnut california and his grade is e3. There's a quote presumably from ambush It says trying to capture a dinosaur is like wrestling a whale in a fish tank I imagine getting a whale in a fish tank is even more difficult The first part of this paragraph copies the version one file card, but changes it a little bit It says ambush has no trouble staying out of sight when he was 10 years old ambush participated in a neighborhood game of hide and seek Then disappeared for three days The national guard had be called into aid in the search Which ended when he started getting hungry for his mom's home cooking on the version one card They just found his hiding place under the porch before joining the army ambush studied ancient history in college especially the stone age and dinosaurs Dinosaurs existed long before ancient history or even the stone age So these studies would not help him hunt dinosaurs His prehistoric knowledge and stealth like qualities made him a perfect choice to capture and save dinosaurs from cobra island Having read so much about them in books Ambush jumped at the chance to see a living dinosaur with his own eyes despite the obvious dangers of the mission Okay, dinosaurs are prehistoric So he may have read about them in books But the writer of this file card doesn't seem to know or care about the difference between ancient history The stone age and prehistory That's just all in the past and that's where dinosaurs are right I studied civil war history and that's also in the past Am I qualified to hunt dinosaurs this file card does continue the story written on the back of the box They are trying to save dinosaurs. So most of the weapons described on here are non-lethal Let's turn our attention to low light. This is low light version four low light is the night spotter Which is implied to be a sniper low light was in two sub teams Slaughter's marauders and dino hunters He had two hair colors and two faces version one of low light was introduced in 1986 He had blonde hair a gray suit a black cap and red goggles version two of low light was introduced in 1989 in slaughter's marauders It used the same mold as version one but in slaughter's marauders colors He still had blonde hair version three of low light was introduced in 1991 It had a totally updated sculpt. He had a new gray black and brown uniform He had a new head with black hair and a beard. It looked like a totally different guy The face was sculpted to look like dav marr who was a designer in hasbro's rnd department This happened a lot with gi joe at the time if there's a face that looks like it could be a real person It probably was made to look like a real hasbro employee Dino hunters low light uses the same mold as version three with the updated head sculpt But they changed the hair color back to blonde. Let's look at low lights accessories. He has a helmet This is the only accessory that was not attached to the accessories frame It is a black helmet It has a black visor attached to it a night vision visor Which can be moved up or moved down over the figure's eyes This is nearly the same helmet that came with version three of low light But the version three helmet has a strip of red paint across the visor This is the accessories tree that's usually given to low light and not just because it's black to match the helmet But because it includes the weapon from low light version three It has low lights submachine gun with scope It is modified slightly from the version three submachine gun You can see the spaces on the stock have been filled in but it is otherwise the same accessory The file card calls this a modified dino stun tranquilizer gun with scope Also on the frame is a figure stand and a bunch of other reused accessories As with the other one there is nothing new on this This assault rifle was originally issued with 1990 sky patrol airway This pistol was first issued with 1990 sky patrol skydive on the artwork on the card It does show low light carrying a pistol, which may be this one. The file card calls it an xk66 ripple fire short rifle This doesn't look like any kind of rifle again We have the knife from 1988 hit and run the final weapon is this laser gun looking thing And this was first issued with 1991 Mercer version two. Let's look at the sculpt design and color of low light This is a straight reissue of version three with different colors Louder colors. We're still going with this idea that dinosaurs are colorblind, right? Because if they're not this guy's not gonna make it looking at his head. He has yellow blonde hair and beard That's a very bright yellow. I'm pretty sure that shade of blonde does not occur in nature He returned to the hair color from version one and two But he also retains the head shape of version three He has black eyebrows and black eyes, but he does not have the black face paint That was on version three. He really looks like rock and roll This would have been a good head sculpt for a new version of rock and roll There was a rock and roll released in 1993 the star brigade Armour tech rock and roll if you're not a fan of the star brigade figure You could just imagine this as a new version of rock and roll on his chest He has a yellow mesh vest over a dark green shirt He has a black harness over the mesh vest These are all the same details as version three but with different colors Yes, that yellow is very bright But i'm trying to go easy on the colors on these figures because they're not in combat They're trying to capture dinosaurs So i'm assuming the bright colors don't matter as much The arms have that dark green shirt with the sleeves rolled up on the upper arms The lower arms have that same yellow mesh all the way down to the hands So i guess he's wearing a long sleeve yellow mesh shirt Under a long sleeve dark green shirt with the sleeves rolled up and another mesh vest over that The arms on ambush and low light have similar details I don't know if they planned it that way, but it worked out that way The waist piece is olive green with black belts and black crisscross straps across the front and the back Those straps go down to pistol holsters on the upper legs The legs are in that same olive green color with black pistol holsters on the outside of each upper leg And black pistols in those holsters the file card calls these two Leg strapped nine millimeter pistols on the right upper leg. There is this detail I think this may be pockets, but i'm not sure he has black bands across the knees I guess these are supposed to be knee pads Unfortunately the hinge on the lower leg is not painted So you can see the green hinge if you bend the knees and that's pretty unsightly His trousers are zipped down to the ankles and strapped to the right outer leg There is a black knife and he has black boots Although the colors on version three are better It's hard to beat that basic black the colors on version four are not bad Especially on the lower half of the figure The lower half of the figure has pretty good military colors In fact the upper half of the ambush figure other than the orange has pretty good military colors too These are each half of a good figure I'm glad they gave him back his blonde hair from versions one and two the change to black hair was abrupt and unexplained But he still looks like a different person. He has a different head shape He looks like a totally different guy. So why not make him a new character or just make him a new version of rock and roll Let's look at lowlights file card. The artwork mirrors the new character art on the front of the box His codename is low light. He's the dinosaur knight spotter. His file name is cooper g mc bride His primary military specialty is knight spotter Secondary military specialty is marksmanship instructor. His birthplace is crossby new mexico and his grade is e six This bio is an odd mixture of previous file cards For example, the serial number matches the version two file card But not the version one and version three file cards The primary military specialty on the version one file card is infantry on the version two file card It is knight spotter on the version three file card It goes back to infantry 11b and on version four it goes back to knight spotter The version one secondary military specialty is marksmanship instructor on version two It's still marksmanship instructor on version three It's sharpshooter and on version four it goes back to marksmanship instructor. They changed his place of birth He was from crossby north dakota. Now he is from crossby new mexico There's a quote here presumably from low light himself It says I predict a successful mission as long as those dinosaurs aren't hungry Well, if the dinosaurs eat the dino hunters, they won't be hungry Therefore success this paragraph starts the same as version one and version two But the birthplace change from north dakota to new mexico is reflected in the text So they did that on purpose and i'm not sure why it says as a child in new mexico Low light was afraid of the dark timid of animals and shy of loud noises Fears he obviously outgrew or he wouldn't have volunteered for this mission The other file cards say how he outgrew those fears But this one just skips over it chasing dinosaurs through a thick jungle isn't going to be easy But low light never backs down from a challenge It's amazing to watch him guide troops on missions behind enemy lines Then silently get them out of there under a blanket of pure darkness It's crazy But low light sees better in the dark than he does in the light While he's wearing night vision goggles, so he better see you pretty well in the dark If he can't then they are defective and you got to return those to amazon These skills will come in handy leading night assaults on cobra island while trying to capture dinosaurs in the dark Not exactly a typical day at the office If he's going to infiltrate cobra island at night He probably shouldn't wear bright yellow looking at how the dino hunters were used in gi jo media Well, they were not used in gi jo media But both ambush and low light appeared in the cartoon and the comic book low light made his first Animated appearance in the sunbow era in the episode arise Serpentor arise part one Ambush first appeared in the deak era of the animated series in the episode united we stand Looking at the comic book series published by marvel comics again The dino hunters did not appear but both low light and ambush were in the series Low light first appeared in issue number 55 and ambush first appeared in issue number 111 Low light was more significant than ambush in the comic book series But in animation both low light and ambush had some good moments looking at the dino hunters overall This set is uninspired. There is nothing new here Even the dinosaur the modifications to the dino hunter vehicle came from action figure accessories Otherwise, it is just a recolored desert fox The action figures are reissues of older action figures with accessories that are reissues of old accessories The concept of a mission play set was a call back to gi jo from the 1970s Even the name dino hunter came from tonka There was an attempt at a story on the box and in the file cards, but it really needed to be fleshed out Where exactly did the dinosaurs come from? How did they get under cobra island? How were they discovered? What was gi jo going to do with them if they captured them? It was obviously important to release this set with as little new tooling as possible It feels rushed out, which it probably was Kenner was releasing Jurassic park a toy line supported by a popular movie with lots of cool vehicles and dinosaurs Thank you again to peg warmers for featuring those toys Since this was a toys rs exclusive It was produced in lower numbers and is thus rare and expensive now unless you're a completist or a dinosaur enthusiast This is an easy pass despite this I can kind of understand it and I can respect what they were trying to do G. Wayne Miller's book toy wars describes the environment of hasbro at the time It was an era of expansion and upheaval The acquisition of tonka and kenner had placed hasbro's gi jo team on the hot seat By 1993 the line was struggling in the market and they were competing against divisions of their own company The one asset they had was the established brand of gi jo The dino hunter's set was perfect for a toys rs exclusive Exclusives usually consisted of recolored product. The retailer wasn't expecting anything all new Anything could be thrown into gi jo to boost the sales space aliens Mutants street fighter eco warriors and dinosaurs The brand team was doing anything and everything to save it. It wasn't really gi jo They were saving they were fighting to save the jobs of people working in the boys toys division at hasbro These were people with families and homes They may have just been numbers on a spreadsheet to the corporate bean counters But to the managers who had worked with them for years. They were real people. Is dino hunters good? No, is it creative and innovative? Heck no, they copied everything Is it worth the ridiculous prices it goes for on the aftermarket? Probably not dino hunters is more important than it appears to be It's a time capsule. It contains the dna of long extinct gi jo It was hatched from the desperation of a struggling brand It's a collection of the efforts and hopes of people trying to save the careers of their friends For those reasons, I can't hate it. It's still pretty silly and kind of ridiculous But it has a history that I can't appreciate That was my review of the dino hunters. I hope you enjoyed it And thank you for your patience and waiting for this review to come out. Thank you to peg warmers for joining us I always love working with peg warmers. Make sure you check out their channel Thank you to audrey for being a tyrannosaurus rex and thank you to marianne for being the camera person And also behind the scenes a tyrannosaurus rex Don't forget to give the video a thumbs up and subscribe to the channel and share the video with your friends If you'd like to support the channel. I have a patreon. That's a great way to do it You can get your name in videos like the names you see scrolling on the screen right now I'll be back soon with more vintage gi jo toy review until then remember only gi jo is gi jo