 Hello, everybody, hooded Cobra Commander 788 here, and I'm back with another vintage G.I. Joe toy review. And this time I am looking at the 1983 Jump Jet Pack, and the action figure that came with it, Grand Slam. I'm very excited about doing this review, I've actually wanted to do it for a while, I just needed to make sure I had all of the pieces. And this review is a special request from Plastica from the Yojo.com forum. If you would like me to review a particular G.I. Joe toy, just leave me a comment below this video in YouTube, and if I have the toy, I will review it. If I don't have the toy, if I ever acquire it, I will review it. So let's get started and look at the 1983 Jump Jet Pack and Grand Slam. This is the Jump Jet Pack, and Jump stands for Jet Mobile Propulsion Unit, which does not spell jump, it spells jumpoo. The Jump Jet Pack with Grand Slam is the 1983 version of the toy, but in 1982 the Jump Jet Pack was sold on its own without an action figure. So if you got this toy in 1982, this is what you got. The action figure Grand Slam was also available in 1982 and 1983 with a different toy, the Hal Heavy Artillery Laser. As you can see, there are some differences between the Grand Slam that came with the Hal Laser Cannon and the Grand Slam that came with the Jump Jet Pack. I will take a closer look at the differences between these two versions of Grand Slam a little bit later. So in 1982 you have the Jump Jet Pack, not a very popular toy, not a lot to it. So in 1983 Hasbro re-released the Jump Jet Pack, but they packaged it with this new version of Grand Slam. So the Jump Jet Pack with an action figure, now you've got something interesting. So the Jump was introduced in 1982 and then reintroduced in 1983 with the action figure and after that it was sold until 1985 as a mail away offer in catalogs that you would get with GI Joe vehicles such as this. And you could open it up and right there is an offer for a Jump Jet Pack. It was only three flag points and two dollars. When the Jump was sold in 1982 by itself, it was worth two flag points and when it was sold in 1983 with the action figure, it was still worth two flag points. So you didn't get an extra flag point with the action figure and I think that's kind of a rip off. I'm going to take a closer look at Grand Slam a little bit later so I'm going to set him aside for now. Let's look at the parts of the Jump Jet Pack and the largest part was this launch pad. The launch pad had four legs, they're more like feet. It also included this recharging station and control console and that has a lot of really impressive detail, lots of high tech gadgetry there. And on the bottom of this side of the control console it has these hooks and those hooks just hooked onto this recessed portion here that ran all along the edge of the launch pad and you hook that on there and the control console would stay. There's actually no specific spot along the launch pad to place this control console. You'd really hook it on any side. All four sides would accommodate the hooks on it so you could really put it in any configuration you wanted to. The Jump came with this laser gun and this laser gun, the blueprints say has a range of 100 yards and it has this kind of sight thing on here that's actually a quite narrow and thin piece of plastic. These are often broken off so if you're looking for a Jump Jet Pack and you want to make sure that it's intact, take special note of this sight thing, this kind of attachment on here that breaks off extremely easily. The laser gun fits into the hand of the action figure and it has this C clip here that actually fits over the forearm. So you kind of push the gun into the hand and the clip fits over the arm and it stays on there very securely. Connecting the laser gun to the Jet Pack itself was this black wire and this black wire is often missing. These can be a real pain to find. They were almost always lost on these things. They would fit in this hole in the bottom of the laser gun on one end and the other end which would look identical would fit on the bottom of the Jet Pack like that. And it actually does not stay in very securely. It pops out pretty easily so you can understand how this thing would get lost quite frequently. In fact I've had to do several takes in this video because I keep having the thing pop out on me. That brings us to the Jet Pack itself. And the Jet Pack is loosely based on the real world Bell Textron Rocket Belt and that's a design that's actually been around for a while. The US Army did express an interest in building these things for military use and the program to build Rocket Packs was called the Small Rocket Lift Device or SRLD. So Jet Packs or Rocket Packs are a real thing. They exist in the real world, but they're not very practical for a lot of reasons. For one thing they have a very short flight duration, roughly about 30 seconds. And if you have a flight duration of only 30 seconds you can only spend about 15 seconds going up and you'd better spend the next 15 seconds getting back down because you do not want to be at the top of its arc when this thing runs out of gas. These Jet Packs did not fly very high because of their extremely short flight duration. They didn't get up high enough for the pilot to use a parachute if the device failed. So you're high enough to get injured really badly if you fell, but not high enough to use a parachute. You can see why the military use of Jet Packs would be a little bit problematic. The Jump Jet Pack had some fairly decent detail on both sides and on this side it has a peg and that peg would fit in the hole in the back of the action figure and that would hold the Jet Pack on. So the Jet Pack fit on exactly like any other GI Joe backpack. The legs are adjustable. If you pull them out they can adjust to this notch right there like so or you could just pull them all the way out. Let's look at the features of the Jump Jet Pack and on this side of the control console it has a hole and that hole fit the peg on the Jet Pack. You just put the peg in the hole and it holds the Jet Pack on there for refueling and recharging and it has a slot right there that fit the barrel of the laser gun so you could kind of holster the laser gun and there you go. As far as features goes that's it. The Jump Jet Pack does not do anything else. It has nothing that is spring loaded or battery powered. It's that. There you have it. Let's be very frank about this. The Jump Jet Pack is not really a vehicle. It is an accessory. I mean as far as the Jet Pack itself goes this is it. This is actually what goes on the action figure. This part really isn't necessary. You don't really need a launch pad to launch a Jet Pack so you don't really need this and the console that has the hole for the Jet Pack and the holster for the laser gun you only really use that when you're not using the Jet Pack. It's basically just storage for the toy. And so really what we're talking about here is an accessory with some extra bits. The launch pad did have a foot peg that you could fit in the hole on the bottom of the action figure's feet so you could stand a figure on there. But you don't need it for the actual Jet Pack itself. It's really not very necessary. So you know what this launch pad really is? It's a really big figure stand. You may recall that in my video review of the 1982 FLAC I kind of knocked it a little bit because I thought it was too simple. I think it needed some wheels or some other features to really make the toy be really cool. Well, as far as simple toys go, this Jet Pack is even simpler than the FLAC. But I feel very differently about the Jet Pack than I do the FLAC. I still really love this despite the fact that it really is just an accessory with a completely unnecessary launch pad. I really love this toy. I did have it as a kid and I had it with the Grand Slam with the silver pads like this. And I loved it. And if you think about it, it's a wonderful toy. It allows you to turn a G.I. Joe action figure into Superman. It allows your action figures to fly. Now Grand Slam is an attack aircraft and that is pretty darn cool. Also, as an adult collector, I don't play with these toys anymore, I display them. And the launch pad and the control console actually looks pretty cool as a display. When the Jump Jet Pack was used in the comic book and the cartoon, and probably when you were playing with it as a kid, you would have your figures flying horizontally like this, like Superman. And I'm no physicist, but I don't think that would actually work because if you're flying horizontally and you don't have wings for lift and gravity is pulling you down, then you're just going to arc downward until your face plants in the dirt. To really fly this thing, you would need to be vertical and the pilot would move forward by just leaning forward a little bit, but he would still remain mostly vertical. To illustrate this, check out this video of a real jet pack in flight. Let's take a look at Grand Slam and let's look at Grand Slam's accessories. He came with a helmet that was dark green to match the dark green color on his uniform and a visor that clipped onto the helmet on the holes in the side of the helmet, like that. And this visor was clear plastic. It was very small and these were often lost. You can see how they would get lost very easily. They're tiny and they are clear and if you drop one of these, it's just going to be invisible and it's going to be gone forever. In addition to the helmet and the visor, of course Grand Slam came with the jet pack itself. Let's take a look at the articulation of Grand Slam. He had the typical articulation of 1983 G.I. Joe action figures, which meant that he could turn his head left to right. He could move his arm up at the shoulder about so far and he could swivel it all the way around. He had a hinge at the elbow and he could move his arm at the elbow about 90 degrees and he had a swivel at the bicep so he could swivel his arm all the way around. The figure was held together with a rubber O-ring that looped around the inside that held the figure together and it allowed him to move at the torso a little bit. He could move his legs apart about so far. He could move his leg at the hip about 90 degrees and he could bend at the knee about 90 degrees. Let's take a look at the sculpt of Grand Slam. His face has kind of an older look, sort of a severe expression there and he has brown hair. He has very prominent silver pads on his chest with kind of a checker pattern, also on his thighs and painted pads on his arms. He has black gloves and black boots with these straps here and these are obviously supposed to be boot covers. He was pretty simple on the back. He had silver straps that just continued over to his silver pads on his chest. Now the Grand Slam that came with the Jump Jet Pack was identical to the Grand Slam that came with the HAL laser cannon, also in 1983. But as you can see, the Grand Slam that came with the HAL laser cannon had these red kind of orangeish red pads instead of the silver pads. So when they decided to sell the Jump Jet Pack with Grand Slam, they really just repainted these red portions silver. And I really like this new paint job. I think the silver pads on here just really stand out very well. He looks really cool, it looks very science fiction, but the green gives him sort of an authentic military look even though he has this very futuristic pads on him. These pads on the action figure are apparently to protect him from some kind of adverse effect of the laser that he operates. He did have a laser with the Jump Jet Pack and when he came with the HAL, of course the HAL was a laser cannon. And the only other action figure that had those pads was Flash and he was the laser rifle trooper. So apparently these pads have something to do with protection from lasers. Be very cautious with this silver paint. This silver metallic paint that Hasbro used was not very robust. It would rub off very easily, so just have a care. And if you're going to get a Grand Slam, take careful note of the condition of the silver paint. In the early issues of the GI Joe comic book and in the cartoon, the Jump Jet Pack was not associated with Grand Slam. It was used by Stalker and I really think it looks great on Stalker. It just looks really cool. And before I had the silver pad version of Grand Slam, I always used to display my Jump Jet Pack with Stalker. Let's take a look at the file card. And this is the file card that came with Grand Slam with the Jump Jet Pack. It was printed on the back of the box that the Jump Jet Pack came in. On the other side, there's nothing. It was just the back of the box. And of course that was the second version of Grand Slam's file card. The first version was the version that came with the HAL laser cannon. And this of course, the portrait is different because this is the art that was on the box for the HAL laser cannon. And this was the art that was on the box for the Jump Jet Pack. The text on these two cards are almost identical. In fact, the only difference is that the card with the Jump Jet Pack adds this line Jump Jet Pack, which was missing on his card for the HAL laser cannon. The title up here says Laser Jet Pack Soldier, codenamed Grand Slam. This section says Grand Slam received initial training with conventional artillery and served with a 155mm battery, graduated special weapons school top of class, specialized education, artillery school, advanced tech school, qualified expert M16, M1911A1, HAL Heavy Artillery, and his grade is E5. This section says Grand Slam received initial training with conventional artillery and served with a 155mm battery, majored expert M16, M1911A1, HAL Heavy Artillery Laser, and Jump Jet Pack. This quote down here says he's soft spoken and calm, just a bit shy, intelligent, loves to read escapist fantasy in parentheses, science fiction, and comic books. I kind of like that about Grand Slam. He's a comic book nerd and I can kind of relate to that. That was my review of the 1983 Jump Jet Pack and its pilot Grand Slam and his file card. I hope you enjoyed this video and if you're thinking of getting a Jump Jet Pack, I hope you found this video informative. If you liked this video, go ahead and give it a thumbs up on YouTube and don't forget to subscribe. I've got a lot of great new G.I. Joe toy and comic book reviews coming up and you do not want to miss them. And if there's a vintage G.I. Joe toy that you would like for me to review, go ahead and leave a comment below and I will do my best to get to it. Thanks for watching and I'll catch you all later.