 In my review of the first version of Tunnel Rat, we talked about Larry Hama, the writer of the G.I. Joe comic book series, and the person responsible for much of what is remembered about G.I. Joe. This week we are looking at the second version of Tunnel Rat, and I want to look again at the people who helped create this toy line that we remember so fondly. Not all creators got to sign their name on their work, but their contributions are no less important. We're going to talk about the person who gave tangible form to our action figures. The Sculptor. Everybody, my name is not Steve. Welcome to another vintage G.I. Joe toy review. Tunnel Rat was one of my favorite figures from 1987. He had an authentic military look and tons of cool accessories. In 1988, there was a second version of Tunnel Rat released. I wasn't aware of it at the time. I was only sold in Toys R Us stores, and I wasn't going to Toys R Us very often in 1988. I was captivated by G.I. Joe from 1982 to sometime in 1988. I got as many figures as I could. I had vehicles, I had play sets, I read the comic books, I loved it. But in all that time, I never thought about how the figures were made. I never thought about how they were given form and substance. It never occurred to me that someone would have to sculpt the figures to look that way. But now, thanks to the work of diligent researchers, we know a lot more about how these toys were made and who made them. This is one of the great things about being an adult collector. There are more dimensions to this toy line than I ever knew. Maybe I'm not playing with the toys anymore, but they are still giving me thrills and excitement. Tunnel Rat was sculpted in the likeness of a real person. The man who sculpted the figure was a master. Let's learn more about it. FCC 788 presents Night Force Tunnel Rat. This is Night Force Tunnel Rat, G.I. Joe's EOD specialist from 1988. This figure was available only in 1988 as part of Night Force, a Toys R Us exclusive set. Night Force was a sub-team for G.I. Joe. There was nothing new in Night Force. It consisted of all reissued figures and vehicles in different colors. Sometimes the colors were better than the originals. This is the second version of Tunnel Rat. Version 1 was released in 1987. There were three versions of Tunnel Rat in the vintage line. Version 3 from the Sonic Fighters subset was released in 1990. They all used the same mold but with different colors. None of them are bad, but I prefer the first one. Night Force, as I mentioned a moment ago, was a Toys R Us exclusive set that ran from 1988 to 1989. They recolored earlier figures and vehicles for night missions. Some of those recolors are fantastic. You can see all of the Night Force figures I have so far next to their original issues. Night Force Outback looks more battle-ready in his all-green uniform. Night Force Crazy Legs is one of the most improved figures between Version 1 and Version 2. The color change makes a radical difference. Not all color changes were upgrades though. Because Night Force was exclusive to Toys R Us, fewer were produced. That makes them rare and expensive. Night Force was released the same year as Tiger Force, but Tiger Force was not an exclusive set, so they are much more common. Like Night Force, Tiger Force was just a reissue of older figures and vehicles in new colors. Night Force figures were sold in two packs. Night Force Tunnel Rat was included with Night Force Psych Out. This is Version 1 of Psych Out here. I don't have Night Force Psych Out yet. Tunnel Rat was a term applied to Vietnam-era soldiers who explored, cleared, and eliminated Viet Cong tunnels. During the war, the Viet Cong used a vast system of tunnels as underground bases. It was a smart tactic. They were very difficult to spot and very dangerous to clear. The tunnel rats were typically armed with just a pistol, a flashlight, a bayonet, and explosives. The tunnels were too small to accommodate much else. They were also often booby-trapped. The explosives would be used to collapse the tunnels. As you may notice, the Tunnel Rat figure does not include a pistol or knife accessory. He does have flashlights and explosives. Tunnel Rat's specialty is listed as EOD, which stands for Explosive Ordinance Disposal, also known as Bomb Disposal. Tunnel Rat can both set bombs and diffuse them. GI Joe's first explosive expert was 1982 Zap. He was their Bazooka soldier, but he also served as the team's explosives expert, even though his file card didn't specify EOD as a specialty. In 1983, Tripwire was the team's first dedicated EOD specialist, and his file card even listed it as his primary military specialty. In 1988, the same year this Tunnel Rat figure was released, GI Joe got a new explosives expert, Lightfoot. Tunnel Rat's face was sculpted in the likeness of Larry Hama, the writer of GI Joe's comic book. We will talk more about that when we look at the sculpt of the figure. Only the face is based on Larry Hama. The character is not. I have the full card back for this figure, and since it was a two-pack, that means I also have the full card back for Night Force Psych out. Unfortunately, most of the front of the card is torn away, but we can see some of the artwork. It's the same card art as the original figures, but they've updated the colors. On Tunnel Rat, he still has the camouflage face paint, even though that is not on the figure. We have the GI Joe logo at the top and the Night Force logo next to it, a special two-in-one pack. Flipping the card around to the back, we have the cross-sell with some of the other figures that were available at the time. We have this partition for the Night Force figures, and we even have an advertisement for the Night Force vehicles. These two figures were worth two flag points, and then we have the file card. Since this was packed with two figures, we have two file cards. GI Joe did a lot of multi-pack figures over the years. Going back to 1982, some stores got boxed three-packs of the Series 1 straight-arm figures. Figures are extremely rare. In 1985, the tradition continued when the Crimson Guard commanders, Tomax and Zemot, were sold as a two-pack. In 1986, the Special Mission Brazil set was sold as a five-pack, as with Night Force and Tiger Force, it consisted mostly of just reissued figures with new colors. Even though this set, I believe, was widely available, it is a pretty rare set nowadays. In 1987, the Cobra Law team and Sergeant Slaughter's renegades were both three-packs. They were featured in the 1987 GI Joe animated movie. In 1988, inexplicably, Musgrat and Voltar were sold in a two-pack labeled Ultimate Enemies. Let's take a look at Night Force Tunnel Rats accessories. These are the same accessories as Version 1, but most of them have been recolored black, except for the machine gun, which was already black. Let's go ahead and take a look at that machine gun. The card contents call this an air-cooled 7.62 caliber machine gun with infrared scope. I'm pretty sure it means 7.62 millimeter. It is black. This weapon is even more appropriate for Night Force Tunnel Rats than for Version 1. It has a large infrared scope that would be useful for a night mission. As far as a real-world inspiration for this machine gun, it looks like the back half of an M60 with a vented barrel grafted onto it. It has no foregrip. It has a bipod molded on in the folded-up position. It is not functional, and that is fine with me. Really, I'm not a big fan of the removable bipods. What are the differences between the Version 2 machine gun and the Version 1 machine gun? Not very much as far as I can tell. The molding marks are in the same place. The color is the same. They appear to have the same finish. These appear to my eye to be the same accessory. If there is any difference between them, the difference is very minor and not detectable by me. Since this accessory was already black, it did not have to be recolored for the Night Force Version. It's these recolored accessories that are kind of special, so let's take a look at those now. Let's take a look at the Satchel Charge, since I have it draped around his neck. It is black. The original was green, an olive green. The original looked pretty good, but this looks great in black, too. The Satchel Charge consists of a pouch that has TNT on it, and it has a strap. This is made of hard plastic. It is not very flexible. You should be able to sling this pouch across the figure's chest, but this figure has a pretty wide chest, and this plastic on the Satchel Charge is just not flexible enough. You could force it, but I would not recommend that. My original green Satchel Charge has a strap with some white plastic stress marks, where it has been forced to fit over the figure. That's why I only drape the strap over his neck, or from one of the flashlights on his backpack, but I do not put the Satchel Charge across the figure's chest. You could drape the Satchel Charge in the crook of his arm, the same way your grandma always carried her purse. A Satchel Charge is an explosive device carried in a pouch, similar to a messenger bag. This could be hurled at the enemy or dropped into a tunnel. Let's look at the backpack, and this backpack is huge. It is enormous. The card contents call this a tunnel floodlight system with two detachable halogen headlamps. The backpack is very large. It is black. It has pouches on the sides and the back, and it has a bed roll on the bottom. The top is flat, and on the top it has two removable flashlights. This is all the same as the version 1 backpack, but the version 1 backpack was in green. This backpack has the same problem it had for version 1. It is much too large. As Tunnel Rat does his job underground, this backpack is just too big for him to take with him. He will be crawling through tunnels that are just barely enough for him to get through, and taking this big backpack with him would be impractical. That brings us to the final two accessories, the flashlights or headlamps. They attach to the backpack, they just peg in, and you can remove both of them. The backpack has a couple holes on the top that fit these flashlights. These flashlights are black. They are the same as the version 1 flashlights, but the version 1 flashlights were green. I do like these flashlights. They look cool, and they are absolutely appropriate for Tunnel Rat's job. But the handles are too thick to fit in the action figure's hand. They fit perfectly in the backpack, but the figure can't hold them. These flashlights are similar to the flashlight that came with Outback. That flashlight pegged onto the figure's leg. And it is nice that figures that are equipped for a night mission have flashlights. But Outback's flashlight has the same problem as the flashlights for Tunnel Rat. The flashlight will peg onto the figure, but the handle is too thick for the figure to hold it. Based on his accessories, Tunnel Rat's job includes more than EOD and clearing tunnels. He would also be a squad machine gunner. Most of his equipment would have to be left behind when he enters a tunnel. Even his tunnel floodlight system would probably be too bulky. To perform his job as a Tunnel Rat, he needs a pistol, a knife, a flashlight, and explosives. He does not have a pistol or knife accessory. He does have them molded on. He has explosives and he has flashlights that he cannot carry in his hand. With the accessories out of the way, let's take a look at the articulation. Tunnel Rat version 2 had the articulation that was standard for GI Joe figures well before 1988. He could turn his head from left to right and look up and down. He could swing his arm up at the shoulder and swivel at the shoulder all the way around. He had a hinge at the elbow that allowed him to bend his arm 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. That allowed him to move at the torso a bit. He could move his legs apart about so far. He could bend his leg at the hip about 90 degrees and bend at the knee about 90 degrees. Let's take a look at the sculpt design and color of Tunnel Rat. Tunnel Rat was sculpted by Bill Merkline. Bill Merkline is responsible for the sculpts of around 70 GI Joe figures. He didn't sculpt every figure, but he sculpted some of the most memorable figures in the Golden Age. Before beginning on GI Joe, Bill's best known work was the Dove Hologram on Visa Credit Cards. The sculpture had to be done in the actual size of the hologram, which was smaller than a postage stamp. He was an expert at sculpting on a very small scale. When Hasbro decided to create figures in the likeness of real people, he was the man for the job. Bill still sculpts and teaches art and sculpture. He has a series of videos on YouTube which I encourage you to watch. We owe a debt to the late Gary Head, a member of the GI Joe collecting community who found, contacted, and interviewed former Hasbro employees. Thanks to Gary, we have access to Bill Merkline's knowledge and memories. It was a great loss when Gary passed away in 2015. On Tunnel Rat's head, he has black hair and a green bandana. On the original, he still had black hair and that bandana was gray. The version 1 figure also had some camouflage face paint that is absent on the version 2 figure. His head was sculpted to look like Larry Hama, the writer of the GI Joe comic book. It is a fair likeness of Larry at that age. The figure was given a Caucasian skin tone for some reason. Larry Hama is given just credit for creating a large part of the GI Joe universe. Bill Merkline should also be given credit for giving the characters physical form and substance. His contribution to GI Joe should not be forgotten. On his chest, Tunnel Rat has a black shirt. He has a green bandana tied around his neck. He has an ammunition belt for his machine gun. Seems to have red bullets with yellow links between them. Not sure that works very well for a night mission. On the left side of his chest, he has a green smoke grenade and a green pistol holster with a black pistol in it that is positioned to be drawn with the right hand. And he has green painted straps that go under his arm and around his back. This chest is interesting. It's the same mold as version 1, obviously, but the color choices are surprising. A green holster instead of brown, a black pistol instead of silver, totally different colors on that ammunition belt, and where the straps on the version 1 figure are unpainted, they are painted on version 2. On his arms, he has black rolled up sleeves. He has bare forearms. He has green gloves and a black watch on his left wrist. Like the version 1 figure, he has a red tampo unit patch on his left sleeve. According to JoeCustoms.com, this is the patch of the 354th Civil Affairs Brigade. But this is too small for me to confirm that. The sleeves on the version 1 figure were green and the gloves were black. Those colors are reversed on the version 2 figure. But the version 1 figure had more of that camouflage paint on the forearms. That is, again, absent on the night force version. On his waist piece, he has a green belt that is solid green, no other colors. And we have gray trousers. Here we see the paint mask for the version 2 figure is not quite as good as version 1. It doesn't have the belt loops masked off. Also, the version 1 figure has a gray belt and a silver belt buckle. So there was an extra paint application there. Moving down his legs, he has those gray trousers. They're not dark gray either. They're kind of a medium gray. He has a green knife sculpted onto his left thigh and a couple unpainted straps that go around the left thigh. Then he has a pair of brown boots that are mostly covered by his trouser legs. The bottom half of this version 2 figure is surprising. It is a lighter color than the version 1 figure. And that is unexpected for a figure that is supposed to be specifically for night missions. In addition to that, we have a green knife on version 2 instead of a brown knife on version 1. But the straps on version 1 are painted in and they are unpainted on version 2. They both have brown boots, but the shade of brown is different. Version 2 has a lighter shade of brown. The color choices on this night force tunnel rat are confusing. His version 1 uniform seemed good for a night mission with his olive drab shirt and black trousers. As we saw on night force Outback, you don't have to go with black for a night mission. Tunnel rats green would have sufficed. With version 2, the green is replaced with black and the black is replaced with gray. And not even a dark gray. The night force colors are not bad, but not an upgrade from the original. If you feel adventurous, you could use the bottom half of version 1 and the top half of version 2 to have a figure in true night colors. Now let's look at that file card we saw earlier. The file card has his faction as G.I. Joe and night force. Of course night force is a sub team within G.I. Joe. It has a portrait of tunnel rat here and I have to point out the artwork on the file card and the front of the card is reverse from the original. His codename is tunnel rat. His specialty is EOD. His filename is Nikki Lee. His primary military specialty is EOD in parentheses explosive ordinance disposal. Secondary military specialty is combat engineer. His birthplace was Brooklyn, New York and his grade is E5. This top section is all the same as the version 1 file card, even the serial numbers are the same. You would expect the serial numbers to be the same, but sometimes they did change them. This top paragraph says tunnel rat's family tree is Trinidadian Chinese with branches of Irish, Spanish and Indian thrown in. It was on the mean streets of Brooklyn where he developed his fearless attitude. Here he got even tougher on the ranger course at Fort Benning and honed his skills in Granada. He is a qualified expert in all NATO's small arms and is familiar with most Warsaw-packed explosive devices. This text is mostly the same as the first paragraph on the version 1 file card, but not exactly. It unnecessarily pads it out without adding anything of substance. This bottom paragraph has a quote. It says, nothing is darker than a tunnel at night. The darkness exerts as suffocating pressure like the bottom of a great black sea. In that awful absence of light, imagination becomes a fearsome enemy. Tunnel rat glides through Stygian tunnels with the surety of a natural denizen. The dark assumes the role of an ally and his weapon becomes his friend. This paragraph is totally different from the version 1 file card and I think it is great. It is poetic and colorful. It's rare that I will say this, but I think this is an improvement on the original. Taking a look at how Tunnel Rat was used in G.I. Joe Media, he first appeared in the 1987 animated movie. He was one of the Rawhides, the new recruits to the G.I. Joe team. The Rawhides were trained by Beachhead. Tunnel Rat was depicted as being unusually short, but that was not reflected in his action figure. He had no other animated appearances in the vintage era. He had a few after the vintage era. Even though he had a new version in 1990, he didn't appear in the Deke animated series. In the G.I. Joe comic book published by Marvel Comics, he first appeared in issue number 59. That issue introduced several 1987 characters. Cobra Commander attacked a G.I. Joe convoy with the Pogo Ballistic Battle Ball. He was on the cover of issue number 72. He helped chase down the Cobra Star Viper that had infiltrated G.I. Joe headquarters. In issue number 73, he was on the cover again. He was part of Lieutenant Falcon's recon team on Cobra Island. In that issue, he is depicted as being shorter than his teammates, like in the movie. Falcon's recon team was inserted just as the Cobra Civil War was breaking out. In issue 74, Tunnel Rat was used as a Tunnel Rat, leading the recon team through storm drainage tunnels to the airport. He also shot a bunch of Cobra's in the back. Not very sporting, but hey, this is war. Tunnel Rat was used numerous times in the comic book, including the Special Missions series. Larry Hama seems to have liked the character. Any time G.I. Joe needed to operate underground, Tunnel Rat was there. He even served as a machine gunner on several missions. I have found no appearances in his Night Force uniform. He was only in his Version 1 uniform. Looking at Night Force Tunnel Rat overall, I'd say this is a top tier figure, but just barely. The first version of Tunnel Rat was one of my favorite figures. It was easily in the top tier. The Night Force version is not bad, but it's not an improvement. The Night Force colors are fine, but not an improvement on the original. The accessories look good in black, but the old green accessories look pretty good too. I'm happy to see Tunnel Rat in Night Force. It's a great fit, but the color choices are curious. Better choices could have been made. The great sculpting and overall design of the first version are what keep this figure above the middle tier. This figure is still important because there's more to it than just the plastic. Through the lens of this figure, we can see the history of G.I. Joe. We can see the roots in the Vietnam War. We can see the likeness of Larry Hama, the person most responsible for creating the universe. It was an exclusive to Toys R Us, a toy store that has now gone the way of the dinosaurs. Tunnel Rat was in Night Force, a sub-team made up of reissued figures. And that was a common practice in G.I. Joe in the late 80s. When we look at the shape and the form of the figure, we are seeing the work of Bill Merkline, a master sculptor, and we are lucky to have had his contribution to our childhood memories. A lot of what we see through the lens of this figure was brought to light by fans and researchers like the late Gary Head. We owe them all our gratitude and appreciation. It is through their efforts that we know so much more about these toys we love. That was my review of Night Force Tunnel Rat, I hope you enjoyed it. I told you this would be the year of the rarity, well this was a fairly rare item to kick off that theme. I can promise you there are more reviews of rare toys coming up this year. If you liked this video, please consider giving it a thumbs up on YouTube, subscribing to the YouTube channel, hitting the notification bell, and sharing this video with your friends. You can find me on social media, on Facebook and Twitter, and I have a website, hcc788.com. I want to thank my patrons. We are reviewing a lot of rare stuff this year and it would absolutely not be possible without their help. If you like this show and you'd like to support the show in that way, please check out my Patreon, you can get some special perks there, and you can figure out how to decode the secret messages you see in these videos. Next week I believe we will be looking at something revealing. I'll see you then, and always remember, only GI Joe is GI Joe.