 Welcome back everyone. This week we have the return of literal codenames. That's right, literal codenames. It's crazy legs. You get it? Hello everybody, hooded Cobra Commander 788 here. This is the show we re-review every vintage GI Joe toy from 1982 to 1994. After a short break we are roaring back with a review of two action figures. We are looking at a GI Joe paratrooper crazy legs and since there are only two vintage versions of crazy legs, we might as well look at both of them. Crazy legs. Sounds like he works for the Ministry of Silly Walks. Restless Leg Syndrome is an uncomfortable and a very common disease striking 3 million Americans every year. Crazy legs is not ashamed of it. He took his codename from it and he even encouraged other shows to take codenames based on their ailments. That's why we have Joe's named Irritable Battle Syndrome and Shingles. Crazy legs was a popular character that had a short run in the GI Joe line. That's because, well, he's dead. Why was he so popular and how did he die? Let's talk about all of it. HCC 788 presents version 1 and 2 of Crazy Legs. This is Crazy Legs. GI Joe's assault trooper from 1987 and as you can see there are two versions of Crazy Legs here. We are going to look at both of them. Version 1 was introduced in 1987 and was also available in 1988. It was discontinued for 1989. The second version of Crazy Legs was released in 1988 as part of the night force sub team. There were no later versions of Crazy Legs in the vintage era. There's a good reason there were no later versions of Crazy Legs in the GI Joe comic book series. He died. Crazy Legs is built as an assault trooper, but he is equipped as a paratrooper. This puts him in the lineage of GI Joe paratroopers. In 1983, Airborne was not equipped as a paratrooper and was built as a helicopter assault trooper, but his training and background is as a paratrooper. Also in 1983, a working parachute was introduced as part of the Sky Striker fighter jet. The pilot, Ace, was not a paratrooper, but he could use the parachute to bail out of his aircraft. In 1984, GI Joe had a dedicated paratrooper, the Halo Jumper Ripcord. Ripcord included a parachute accessory, but it was not a working parachute. In 1985, there was a working parachute released as a male-away offer, the Parachute Pack. Ripcord was still available in 1985, so if you wanted to, you could put the Parachute Pack on Ripcord. There were numerous Joes who were Airborne qualified, but the next dedicated paratrooper was Crazy Legs in 1987. Like Ripcord, Crazy Legs came with a parachute accessory, but it was not a working parachute. The next GI Joe paratrooper was Crazy Legs again in 1988. This time Crazy Legs was in the new subgroup Night Force. We will talk more about Night Force in a minute. Also in 1988, Hit and Run was released. He was not a paratrooper, but there was a target store exclusive Hit and Run that included the Parachute Pack as a bonus accessory. 1990 was a big year for paratroopers. Free Fall was released. He did not include a working parachute, nor did he come with a parachute accessory. He just had a backpack. The card actually calls it a backpack. Huh, a paratrooper with no parachute. I guess he could jump once. He wouldn't do much good when he's on the ground, though. Also in 1990, there was a whole team of paratroopers, the Sky Patrol subset. They were all new characters made up of mostly reused parts, and they all came with working parachutes, bright, shiny, silver parachutes. There were no more dedicated paratroopers in GI Joe, but nearly every Joe is qualified to parachute into combat. Version 2 of Crazy Legs was in Night Force. The subteam Night Force was started in 1988 and continued in 1989. It consisted entirely of reissued action figures recolored for night missions. The recolors were mostly really good. Some of the original figures had some rather outrageous and non-combat colors, so repainting them for night missions was an improvement. Crazy Legs was one of those improvements. Version 1 of Crazy Legs was red, literally the color of a target. The Night Force version was black and green and ready for business. All Night Force figures were sold in two packs. Crazy Legs was packaged with Night Force Outback. Crazy Legs is a funny name. The only other popular reference I can find for it is the Crazy Legs Classic, a race held in Madison, Wisconsin, since 1982. I doubt that's where GI Joe's Crazy Legs got his name. A version of Crazy Legs was released in India by Fun School. Well it was sort of Crazy Legs. The figure was called Skydiver and had Crazy Legs head. The figure included a working parachute. Let's take a look at Crazy Legs accessories and let's start with version one and let's start with his rifle. The card contents called this an EM4 assault rifle. This rifle is in black plastic. It has a big magazine and a big scope and a short barrel. It also has a folding stock so the stock can be folded up to the side like that and that folding stock is removable so that is a frequently missing part. The card art shows the rifle tucked in the parachute straps and that does work. That's not a bad way to store it. Because of the name I thought this might be modeled after the M4 carbine but this looks more like an M1A1 carbine which was a rifle with a folding stock and it was used by paratroopers. The next accessory is the parachute. It is in tan plastic. It's a soft plastic. It has long straps and those straps attached to these knobs on the side of the parachute pack. I'll have to unravel those straps to take it off the figure. This parachute accessory as I said is in tan soft plastic. It has these long straps. It has some good detail on the parachute pack itself. It has these knobs on the side for attaching the straps. It is hollow on the backside. This is not a working parachute. The card I want you to figure is packaged has instructions on how to put the parachute on and you pretty much do have to do it this way. If you wrap it around any other way the straps are kind of loose but if you do it the right way it kind of forces the figure's legs apart and hinders the articulation. That's it for accessories. Not very many accessories so let's look at version two. With version two we have mostly the same accessories. We have the same rifle with the same folding stock. This is the same rifle in black plastic. If there's any difference between version one and version two the version one rifle seems to be in more of a glossy black plastic and the version two rifle seems to be more of a matte finish. Next we have the version two backpack. It is the same as version one but it is in black plastic. It is in a soft plastic like the version one backpack and it attaches in the same way and you can remove it and it has the same detail. It is essentially the same backpack but in black instead of tan. Let's take a look at Crazy Legs articulation. Both version one and version two had the same articulation and it was the standard articulation for a GI Joe figure by 1987 so 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. This was an o-ring figure meaning the figure was held together with a rubber o-ring that looped around the inside. That allowed him to move with the torso a bit. He could move his legs apart about so far. He had bent his leg at the hip about 90 degrees and bent at the knee about 90 degrees. Let's take a look at the sculpted design and color of Crazy Legs starting with the head and on the head he has a red non-removable helmet. He has black goggles on the helmet and a black strap that goes around the helmet. He has an exposed face and neck and he has a black and red chin strap. This head is very similar to Fast Draw, another figure that came out in 1987. On his chest he has a red vest with a diamond texture pattern. He has unpainted red shoulder pads. He has a black collar that goes all the way around his neck. He has a black strip that goes down the center of the chest. He has two small black grenades on the right side of the chest and on the left side he has a black knife. On his arms he has gray sleeves. He has red shoulder coverings lined with black that may be an extension of the vest on the chest but the red paint does not go all the way over the shoulder and that looks a little odd. He has red elbow pads with that same diamond texture pattern on them. He has unpainted pouches on the outside of the forearms and he has unpainted straps that go around the forearms. Good sculpting on that and he has tan gloves. On his waist he has red padding over gray trousers, the same gray color as on the arms. Those red sections have that diamond texture pattern. He has a black belt with pouches on each side. Actually this object on the left side of the belt looks like it might be a magazine for his rifle and if that's what it is that's an excellent detail. On his legs he has light gray trousers, the same gray color as on the arms. He has red padding on the inside legs and that red padding has that diamond texture pattern again. On the outside of the right leg he has an unpainted pocket. On the left leg he has a diagonal row of smaller unpainted pockets. Then he has this detail which is either some rings or a buckle. There is excellent sculpting on the folds of the cloth on this figure. He has black boots and those boots have crisscross straps that go around the front and the back. Turning our attention to version two, the sculpt is exactly the same as version one but the colors are dramatically different. Instead of red and gray the figure is predominantly black and green with a touch of red just for fun. This is not a one for one color swap. Some paint applications are lost in translation but some additional paint applications were added. On his head instead of having a red helmet he has a green helmet, an olive green helmet with black goggles, a black strap around the helmet and a black and green chin strap. Here this is pretty much just a color swap. Instead of red we have green. His chest is black instead of red and he has green shoulder pads the same color of green as the helmet and that is a new paint application. On version one those shoulder pads were unpainted. He has green grenades and a green knife. His arms are black not a separate color from the chest like on version one and those shoulder coverings are unpainted so we lose a paint application there. But the pouches on the outside forearms are red. Those were unpainted on version one so that's a new paint application and he has green gloves. The waist piece is black and so is the belt. Rather than the pouches and the buckle being the same color as the belt here the pouches and the buckle are green. The legs are black. There is no paint application on the padding on the inside legs so that's a loss of a paint application from version one but the pocket on the right outside leg is now green that was unpainted on version one and finally he has green boots with those same crisscross straps on them. Overall this color scheme works better for any mission. Black works for night ops and the green would be better than red during the day. Let's take a look at crazy legs file card. We have two file cards and although they are similar there are also some significant differences. Let's start with version one. His faction is GI Joe. There's a portrait of Crazy Legs here. His codename is Crazy Legs All One Word and he is the assault trooper. He's quite obviously a paratrooper but he's just billed as the assault trooper. His file name is David O. Thomas so he's the guy from those Wendy's commercials. Actually he takes his name from David Thomas Roberts an American musician and composer and that makes some sense when you read the first paragraph. His primary military specialty is infantry. His secondary military specialty is parachute rigger. His birthplace is Fort Dodge Iowa and his grade is E4. This paragraph says Crazy Legs could have been the greatest organist in the world if his fingers hadn't been too short. The airborne rangers don't care how perfectly you can play box, Takata, and fugue in D minor. They're only concerned with your willingness to jump out of a helicopter into a hot LZ asterisk landing zone with nothing but a rifle, a couple of grenades, and the best wishes of your commanding officer. A couple quick things. Even if you're not a classical music aficionado, you're probably familiar with this piece by Bach. This is what it sounds like. Second it mentions him jumping out of a helicopter just like the 1983 helicopter Assault Trooper Airborne. In fact, the only mention of a parachute anywhere on this file card is his secondary military specialty. Crazy Legs is, of course, airborne ranger qualified and has been cross-trained as a forward artillery observer. This bottom paragraph has a quote. It says, we can be storming a hardened position right under the teeth of an infallate. Green tracers so thick in the air you can smell the magnesium. AP, asterisk, anti-personnel, mines going off with intersecting cones of fire, bouncing beddies, the works. There's a lot of military jargon here. A bouncing beddy is also called an S mine. When tripped, they launch into the air and explode above the ground. They are very effective anti-personnel mines. Crazy Legs comes ducking and weaving through all of this with a weird light in his eyes and humming a selection from Johann Sebastian Bach. So, he is airborne qualified. He is a parachute rigger. He is equipped as a paratrooper, but they don't mention anything about him jumping out of airplanes. Also, why does he wear red? Is it to distract the enemy? Crazy Legs goes off in a different direction to draw the fire away from the rest of the team because his red uniform just screams, shoot me, shoot me, shoot me. The version 2 file card is mostly the same as version 1, but there are a couple changes. Of course, there is this kind of yellowy-orange background on version 2. That was typical of Night Force file cards. The Night Force logo has been added to his faction. Updated colors on that card art. He is still the assault trooper. This top section is pretty much the same as version 1. Even the serial number is the same, which is surprising. They usually change that. The top paragraph is essentially the same as version 1, so I won't go over that again. This bottom paragraph is totally rewritten. This paragraph says, Night Force operates stealthily in environments where the team is usually outnumbered and outgunned. Darkness is their best defense only until the first shot has been fired. Once the team's presence and position has been compromised, it's up to Crazy Legs to provide enough firepower and confusion to cover a tactical withdrawal. He loads 100% tracer ammo instead of the usual 1-5 ratio. That makes the other guy think there are twice as many out there coming at him. Tracer ammo refers to rounds with a small pyrotechnic charge that causes them to light up when fired. Using all tracer rounds wouldn't necessarily make the enemy think there are twice as many shooters. I think it would help them find where the source of the fire is. Looking at how Crazy Legs was used in G.I. Joe Media, he had no appearances in the animated series. He was released in the gap between the cancellation of the Sunbow cartoon and the debut of the Deek cartoon. Crazy Legs had a few appearances in the G.I. Joe comic book series published by Marvel Comics, but not very many. He first appeared in issue number 69. He was occupying a C-130 with Wild Bill and Maverick when it was hijacked by Zirana and a couple Dreadknocks. The story continued in issue number 70 when the C-130 crashed in the jungle. The Joes, the Dreadknocks, and some refugees had to try to escape the country on foot. The story really picked up in issue number 71 as the unlikely team attempted to get out of Sierra Gordo by any means necessary. Crazy Legs is on the cover of that issue. They hijacked a bus with the help of the Dreadknocks. They eventually escaped by plane and Crazy Legs saved Thrasher from falling overboard. Crazy Legs final appearance was in issue number 108 and it was a tragic one. In the fictional Middle Eastern country of Trucial Abysmia, Crazy Legs was a group of Joes captured by Cobra. Some of the Joes were killed by the Saw Viper. Crazy Legs survived that slaughter and the remaining Joes tried to make it through the desert on a captured Cobra rage. The rage was attacked and destroyed and Crazy Legs did not survive. Looking at Crazy Legs overall, I like this figure. The second one. Actually, the first Crazy Legs figure has a lot going for it. A lot of effort went into the design and the sculpt. The uniform has a deep texture pattern and even the folds of the cloth on the arms and legs are very well done. The only issue is the color. This guy is a paratrooper who drops into enemy territory wearing a uniform that makes him a huge target. That's where the Night Force version comes in. The black and green color scheme erases all the shortcomings of the first version. There's a reason why Night Force figures are sought after by collectors. There's no joking around with these guys. They are armed and equipped for battle. That figure looks more like a plausible paratrooper. The accessories leave a bit to be desired. The non-working parachute is expected on a single-carded figure but the straps are cumbersome. If you attach them the way they're designed, they hinder the leg movement. If you attach them any other way, they're too loose. The black parachute for the Night Force version should have been a different color. It's just a bit too much black on black. Some more color interest could have been added without detracting from the overall look of the figure by making that parachute a different color. Maybe a dark gray. The rifle is not bad. I like the folding stock. It adds a bit more play value to what could have been a very ordinary accessory. The problem is the stock comes off too easily and is often missing. What do we know about the character of Crazy Legs? Not much. From the file card we know he was a musician with short fingers. He had a few appearances in the comic book series then met his demise. This is one figure that deserved a better run. What would he have looked like as a 90s figure? How would he have been characterized in the 90s animated series? We will never know. But I would like to know. That was my review of Crazy Legs. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did please give this video a thumbs up on YouTube, subscribe to the YouTube channel for more G.I. Joe Toy Reviews, and share this video with your friends. That's what helps this channel grow. You can find me on the social medias, on the Facebooks, and the Twitters. I also have a website hcc788.com. 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