 This episode of HCC 788 brought to you in part by the die-cast enterprise. Join us each week as we discuss the sexual proclivities of Commander William T. Riker. The bravado comedy of Lieutenant War. And the adorable monkey shines if one Wesley the sweater crusher. Or maybe we'll just talk about the golden girls. Or hairstyles. Or cartoons. That's equally likely. We also like G.I. Joe. There, we tied that in nicely. Well done everyone on that. By all our play sets and toys. Six reviews in five weeks. Six vehicle and figure reviews in five weeks. What was I thinking? It can't be done. It's not humanly possible. Ready. Ready. Ready. Silence. Kill. Everybody, Hoodicobrick, Commander 788 here. It's time for another Battle Force 2000 toy review. And we're rolling into week three of Battle Force 2000 Months. We are looking at the entire first wave of Battle Force 2000 figures and vehicles that came out in 1987. There were a few Battle Force 2000 items that came out later, but they will not be included in these videos. They will have to wait for their own reviews in the future. But this first wave of Battle Force 2000 vehicles had a gimmick. They worked together to form the future fortress. So that's why they need to be reviewed as a group. Also, none of the Battle Force 2000 vehicle drivers were packaged and sold with the vehicles they were intended to drive. They were all sold separately. But for the purpose of these reviews, they will be reviewed together. This week, we are looking at the Sky Sweeper Anti-Aircraft Tank and the Driver Knockdown. And I have to give a special thanks to David Jones, who helped me with the accessories to complete knockdown. Also, with all these videos, we have a special guest. Joefan82 is going to give us a preview of the upcoming Joe Con exclusive Battle Force 2000 modern figures. Hey guys, stay tuned after the Vintage Review for my look at the modern version of knockdown we'll be seeing at Joe Con this year. Thank you Joefan82, don't forget to check out his channel for modern GI Joe toy reviews. Now, let's get right into it. HCC788 presents the Battle Force 2000 Sky Sweeper and Knockdown. This is the 1987 Battle Force 2000 Sky Sweeper and Knockdown, the Sky Sweeper Driver. This figure and vehicle were available separately in 1987 and 1988. They were discontinued for the year 1989. Battle Force 2000 was released late in 1987, just in time for Christmas. The Sky Sweeper and Knockdown were not sold together. This was GI Joe's first attempt to sell vehicle drivers separately from the vehicles they were intended to drive. This was standard practice for Star Wars toys. Although some GI Joe vehicles did not come with figures, usually if a figure was intended to drive a specific vehicle, that figure would be packaged with the vehicle. In 1987, Knockdown was available as a single-carded figure. In 1988, he was available in a two-pack with his Battle Force 2000 teammate, Dodger. Battle Force 2000 vehicles had a gimmick. Parts of the vehicles could be removed and used to assemble the future fortress. We've already seen how the Dominator snow tank and the vector jet parts fit with the future fortress. In this review, we will add the Sky Sweeper's contribution to the fortress. Let's set Knockdown aside for now and take a look at the Sky Sweeper. For this toy, I have the blueprints, which were printed on the back of the instruction sheet. And I will be using that to describe some of the features on this vehicle. The color scheme for the Sky Sweeper is typical of most Battle Force 2000 vehicles. It's a base metallic gray with blocks of blue, black and green. This vehicle is supposed to be an experimental prototype in the G.I. Joe universe. So I think the metallic color is intended to make it look unfinished. If this vehicle passed inspection and became part of G.I. Joe's regular fleet, it would get a coat of appropriately camouflaged paint. I do have the box for the Sky Sweeper. I don't normally get boxes, but I do have the box for this one so we can look at it. Of course it has the G.I. Joe logo up here, Battle Force 2000 logo under it. The Sky Sweeper is an anti-aircraft tank. Two battle units in one. Now we've got some nice box art here. We can barely see Knockdown here on the front of the box. We do have another G.I. Joe character. This is a non-Battle Force 2000 character, Falcon. Here in the corner we have the promotion for the future fortress. And so that's what you can look forward to when we assemble the full fortress at the end of Battle Force 2000 months. Looking at the back of the box, we have a photograph of the toy here. And most likely this is a photograph of a prototype, not the production toy. There are some differences between this photograph and the Sky Sweeper that we got. For instance, there is some silver along the canopy here on the production toy. That was blue and it has different missiles than the one that came in this box. Let's look at the parts and the features of the Sky Sweeper. We have the Battle Force 2000 logo here, the G.I. Joe logo on that side. We have a canopy that opens here and it opens, it's hinged at the front. So you pull up from the back and swing it open. And then you can get access to the cockpit to put the figure in and take them out. That canopy is in blue plastic and there's some details on there. It has these headlamps up here with orange translucent plastic. That looks really nice. I like that little pop of color. And it has a three prong antenna here and that is removable. This actually goes on the battle station. We'll look at that later. And it also on the canopy it has these lock unlock molded in details here. And it's on both sides. And I find that interesting because this lock unlock detail shows up on other Battle Force 2000 vehicles. In the cab there are really no details at all. There are a couple control sticks, there's the driver's seat, there's a metal pattern on the floorboard and that's it. I thought this might be missing a sticker control panel here but after looking at the instruction sheet I don't think there was one. It is easy to fit the figure in the vehicle. You just put them in straight legged like that and it's spacious enough that he can hold his weapon. Now you just swing it closed like that but I've noticed that mine does not close all the way with the driver in the vehicle. He actually bumps his helmet on the inside of the canopy so it just doesn't close all the way. I've tried this several times and it just does not work on mine. I have a couple problems with this whole thing. For one thing the cab is very plain. There's really no difference between the inside of the vehicle and the outside of the vehicle. And this canopy is totally open. It affords the driver no protection. It's not armored. He's totally exposed to enemy fire. On this side on the running board there is a foot peg so you can have a figure riding on the outside right next to the driver. Those running boards have a metal texture pattern on them and really most of the vehicle does. The Sky Sweeper has fake treads in green and there's an impressive amount of detail that goes pretty deep inside there. Now these treads do not roll. The vehicle rolls on these black wheels, these dumbbell shaped wheels here. And the vehicle does roll pretty well. There is no additional sculpted detail on the underside. In the midsection of the vehicle, directly behind the cab, we have a couple guns, one on each side. And the blueprints call these Directed Zap Energy Laser Guided Weapons. These side guns do elevate. In fact they can rotate all the way around and they ratchet, which is nice because it will fix pretty well in any position that you want. This midsection of the vehicle with the side guns actually detaches to become its own battle station. You kind of have to squeeze down here at the bottom moving the canopy out of the way helps a little bit and pop that off. And you do have to take it apart and reassemble it in a different configuration for the battle station. These side guns slide into these slots and you do have to remove those so you just slide those out carefully, not to break anything. Sometimes they stick a little bit but just work with them carefully to get those out. On the inside of the battle station it says Top right here, so reorient that with that part at the top and then we're going to put the guns back on. These side guns have a left and a right. Now keep in mind one thing, according to the instructions you're supposed to put these on the side with the flat portion facing up. But I find it works better with the flat portion facing down. It fits better on the future fortress that way. You're going to slide these side guns on the side of the vertically standing battle station. Just put those on one on each side like so. It's almost finished. The only other thing you have to do is just remove the antenna from the canopy and place that on the top of the battle station. And there you have it. The blueprints call this Outpost Tactical Personnel Protection Slash Remote Control Battle Station. And it looks armored on the outside. On the inside it actually has some molded-in instrument panel detail. That's not bad. It also has a foot peg in there. So you can put a figure in there inside the battle station. It's a little bit difficult to do with adult sized hands. But knock down can go in his battle station, stand on the foot peg and he can man that. And he even has a viewing slot. So overall this is fairly well thought out. Later we will see how this connects to the future fortress. With the cover removed we have this blue section which I assume is the engine. We have four missiles, two on each side. They are all the same. And these missiles don't actually peg in. You slide the fins into a slot. That actually makes it difficult to get the bottom missiles in and out. There isn't much room to play with there. The blueprints call these Jane or Jam and Neutralize Enemy Radar Homing Tactical Missiles. And they are very plain. There really isn't much to distinguish them. Once you have reconfigured the battle station to the mode in which it fits on the vehicle you can just pop that back on. And when it's on those missiles sit really deeply in there. So deeply that they are difficult to pull out and use. You almost have to take the cover off to use the missiles. Now you might think that one solution for this would be to just slot the missiles in a little farther forward so they poke out a bit more and it's easier to pull them out and use them. But if you do that the missiles actually interfere with the movement of the canopy. The canopy will not properly open or close. So what this amounts to is just poor engineering, poor design. This just was not thought out very well. On the back third of the vehicle we have a flat bed. And the bed itself is very plain. We have more of that metal texture pattern. And on each side we have two foot pegs. On the bed we have what is probably the best feature on this vehicle. We have the main gun turret. The gun turret is blue. And it's attached in such a way that if you move the radar dish the gun will elevate with it. And I like that, I like that a lot. It has excellent elevation which it should. This is intended to shoot down aircraft. The turret can rotate 360 degrees. The blueprints call these rerun dual 20mm repeating autoload cannons. And since the Sky Sweeper is an anti-aircraft tank this appears to be the main weapon it uses to knock down airplanes. On the turret behind the gun there is a foot peg. And so you can have a figure manning the gun like that. And I actually like this feature a lot. There was a similar feature on the Desert Fox. And I just think that looks really good to have a figure manning the gun. Here in the back we have another quirky detail. We have what looks like a standard GI Joe fuel port but it has been filled in. These fuel ports started to appear on GI Joe vehicles starting in 1985. There's one on the Armadillo Minitank. And these fuel ports were compatible with fuel nozzles on GI Joe play sets. Like the one on the USS flag aircraft carriers refueling trailer and the Cobra Terror Drone. We have seen these vestigial fuel ports on other Battleforce 2000 vehicles. Apparently the feature was originally going to be included on those vehicles but the plan must have changed before production. Finally in the back we have a universal GI Joe tow hook and that's nice. But we also have two additional foot pegs. And this may be crowding a few too many foot pegs on this vehicle. The Sky Sweeper is loaded with foot pegs. Probably too many foot pegs. If you load up all the foot pegs with figures and include the driver, the Sky Sweeper can hold 10 action figures. And that really is too much for a vehicle of this size. It looks overcrowded. It looks a little bit like the Keystone cops. But we get how the Sky Sweeper contributes to the assemblage of the future Fortress. So far we have already used the shell from the Dominator snow tank and the turret from the vector jet. Remember when we put together the standalone battle station? Well first, do that. And then this will rest in this slot right here on the outer wall. This is not bad. It actually does sort of in a way slot onto the future Fortress. It doesn't just rest near the Fortress and thus far it's the only part that we've seen that does that. Now let's look at Knockdown. Before they settled on the name Knockdown for this figure, they were kicking around some prototype names that included Swatter and Flytrap. I'm glad they went with Knockdown because this guy doesn't look anything like Venus Flytrap. For Knockdown I have the full card back. I don't usually get full card backs but we can look at this one. We have the GI Joe logo, the prominent Battle Force 2000 logo, some artwork of Knockdown here. Now the negative space on this card isn't quite as bad as with other Battle Force 2000 cards because there's a space right here for Knockdown's accessories. On other Battle Force 2000 cards this space was just left black with no text and no artwork and to me those cards look inexpertly designed. On the artwork Knockdown's gun looks superimposed and the perspective is slightly off. It almost looks like this was added after the image was completed so maybe there was a last minute change to Knockdown's accessory. Flipping the card around to the back we have the cross cell and we have a partition here for the Battle Force 2000 figures and this started a trend for GI Joe after 1987. GI Joe added more sub teams almost every year. We have our one flag point and Knockdown's file card we will look at that in a minute. Let's look at Knockdown's accessories starting with his weapon and the card contents call this an experimental ground to air pistol X-128. What exactly is a ground to air pistol? Is it supposed to shoot down planes? I guess it would fit with the specialty of his vehicle but how is a pistol supposed to shoot down planes? There is a variant of this pistol there's the thick handled pistol and the thin handled pistol. I'm pretty sure this is the thin handled pistol I'm not 100% certain Knockdown's other accessory is what the card contents creatively call a helmet that is exactly what it is and it's nice to have this helmet because most Battle Force 2000 helmets were non-removable and sculpted onto the head. With the accessories out of the way let's look at the articulation on Knockdown he had the standard articulation for GI Joe figures of 1987. He could turn his head from left to right and look up and down he could swing his arm up at the shoulder slightly hindered by his extended shoulder pad there he could swivel his arm all the way around he had a hinge at the elbow so he could move at the elbow about 90 degrees he had a swivel at the bicep so he could swivel his arm all the way around. The figure is held together with a rubber O-ring that allowed him to move at the torso a little bit. He could move his legs apart about so far. He could bend his leg at the hip about 90 degrees and bend at the knee about 90 degrees. Let's look at the sculpt design and color of Knockdown starting with his head and on his head he has brown hair with a hint of red. I would call this Auburn. I think his face sculpt looks similar to his Battleforce 2000 teammate Maverick. Not exactly the same but these guys could be related. This head was reused for other action figures. It was reused for the male away figure Super Trooper in 1988 and since the entire Super Trooper mold was reused to make rapid fire in 1990 therefore Knockdown's head was used for that figure too. According to Yojo.com this head was modified and used for the 1988 Charbroil figure. Well if that's the case then it was pretty heavily modified. It loses a lot of the detail in the hair and the shape of the head is slightly different both from the front and from the profile. On Maverick's chest he has a tan vest over a blue shirt and extra broad shoulders. The shoulders are not upturned like Mavericks but still extra wide. He has a strap over his right shoulder that doesn't seem to serve any purpose. There's some silver detailing in the center of his chest and for some reason Knockdown's chest is extra wide. It's like 20% wider than an average G.I. Joe chest front to back. Here's Maverick for comparison. I'm not sure exactly why that is. On his arms he has blue sleeves and he has two different color gloves. He has a black glove on his right hand. On his left hand he has a blue glove with silver wrist guards. He has a tan strap on his upper arm and he has some extra molded in detail on the back of his left hand. On his waist piece we have a belt with some silver details in front. The belt runs all the way around. We have a flap in the back and the front that is probably a continuation of the vest. His legs feature black trousers and extra thick thighs like Russian weightlifter size thighs. For comparison, here's Sergeant Slaughter with an extra muscular G.I. Joe action figure and Knockdown's leg muscles are twice as thick as Sergeant Slaughter's. Knockdown has tan boots with a green stripe pattern that appears to just be aesthetic. It doesn't look like it serves any practical purpose. Let's take a look at Knockdown's file card and his file card has his faction as Battleforce 2000 and G.I. Joe. It has his codename as Knockdown and he's the Sky Sweeper driver. It has Sky Sweeper hyphenated here but it is not hyphenated on the box. His file name is Blaine M. Gonzalez. His primary military specialty is infantry. His secondary military specialty is microwave technician. I assume this means microwave transmitters not microwave ovens. Birthplace is San Francisco California and his grade is E5. This top paragraph says Knockdown was a member of the test crew on the cancelled Sergeant York DVAD anti-aircraft system and on two other secret development projects at Aberdeen proving grounds before he was tapped for the Battleforce 2000 team. This Sergeant York DVAD anti-aircraft system is referring to a real experimental weapon. The M247 Sergeant York DVAD or Divisional Air Defense was an anti-aircraft tank. Development was cancelled in 1985 due to technical difficulties and cost overruns. Sergeant York takes his name from Sergeant Alvin York who is one of the most decorated U.S. Army soldiers in World War I. The Aberdeen proving ground is located at Aberdeen, Maryland and it's used to test ordinance for the U.S. Army. Reading on it says his ability to repair radar systems, infrared sensors and target tracking computers is invaluable under battle conditions where Murphy's law prevails and if he has to he can aim and fire manually with minimal loss of accuracy. Murphy's law is an old adage that means anything that can go wrong will go wrong. This bottom section quote it says, knock down likes to go ski shooting with a bolt action rifle. He thinks it's more sporting according to him anybody can hit a clay pigeon with a shotgun. He collects butterflies and moths he just plucks them out of the air with his fingers. Knock down is also an authority on air disasters maybe to replace his morbid fear of flying. So he's afraid of flying and he's an authority on air disasters and he drives a vehicle that causes air disasters. This is an example of the best kind of GI Joe file card. It is filled with real world references. It is less colorful than Maverick's back story but it provides plenty of connections to the real world. Now I turn it over to Joefan82 for a preview of the upcoming Joecon exclusive knock down figure. Thanks HCC. Here is the 2017 version of knock down. It looks like he retains most of the aesthetics of the original figure. He's got the green helmet, blue shirt, tan vest, black pants and tan boots. As with most modern figures you'll see more sculpted on detail with this version. The helmet and vest are removable. He also comes with a tactical rifle and a retool of his ground to air pistol. Response for this figure has been somewhat negative with a lot of people commenting on how the figure appears overweight to them. However I don't think this is the case because I think the way his vest is protruding at his midsection is giving the illusion that he is overweight. So that's it for this preview of the new modern knock down back to you HCC. Thank you again Joefan82. I really appreciate your help with those previews. Looking at the sky sweeper and knock downs appearances in GI Joe media they did not appear in the animated series. They were only animated for commercials. They did appear in the comic book series. They first appeared in number 68. Battleforce 2000 fought along the main GI Joe team in the Cobra Civil War which ran from issues number 74 to 77. And I really loved that story arc. The Joes needed all hands on deck. It was not just a surgical strike like what you saw with a lot of other GI Joe action scenes. This was all out war. And although I wasn't a Battleforce 2000 fan their inclusion in the Civil War helped legitimize them for me. Knock Down along with most of his other Battleforce 2000 teammates was killed in issue number 113. During a battle in the fictional country of Benzene Cobra Commander ordered an artillery strike on an oil storage area where Battleforce 2000 was en route to Rendezvous with their GI Joe teammates. Only Dodger survived that attack. Looking at the sky sweeper and knock down overall this is another not great but not terrible vehicle and figure for Battleforce 2000. The sky sweeper has some decent features. The main turret with the radar dish is good. The detachable battle station is okay and even standing on its own and not connected to the fortress. Knock Down is a bland figure. He's even planer than Maverick. There are large patches of the figure that are just blank and the head sculpt is so so. I like the accessories. The helmet is pretty rad. None of it fits the aesthetic of GI Joe but it works as a science fiction toy. That's how we used to play with Battleforce 2000 as a separate toy line. My friends and I did not have all of Battleforce 2000. At most we had a couple figures and a couple vehicles but we used to pair them with other science fiction figures and vehicles and have space battles. Even though we found uses for Battleforce 2000 I don't recall us ever integrating Battleforce 2000 into GI Joe. And that's unfortunate for Battleforce 2000 because GI Joe was still taking up the bulk of our playtime even in 1987. And as we were getting older our playtime was getting shorter. That was my review of the Sky Sweeper and Knock Down. Thank you for sticking with me for Battleforce 2000 months. We are halfway to the finish line. Again thanks to Joefan82 for providing the previews of the modern figures and thanks to David Jones for helping me complete Knock Down. If you like this video please give it a thumbs up on YouTube and subscribe to the YouTube channel. I have a Facebook and a Twitter that you will want to check out and support the channel on Patreon for some special perks. There is a website where you can find all of my GI Joe toy reviews. It is at hcc788.com. Thank you for watching. I'll see you next week for another Battleforce 2000 toy review and until then remember, Battleforce 2000, Battleforce 2000. Woo! To protect America, Battleforce 2000 creates the battle vehicles of the future. Battleforce 2000. The Sky Sweeper Eliminator Finticator. Battleforce 2000. Dominator Vector and Barrauta, they split and recombine into the awesome future fortress. Go Joe! Battleforce 2000 figures and vehicles so separately collect all six vehicles.