• Ha i used to have Clean sweep. not bad for a toy as it came with water pistol thing

• The sledge is for fixing the crappy bridge-layer contraption! 

• Even as a kid I realized how ludicrous Sneak Peak's periscope was.  

• A number of these aren't actually stupid in a real world context.  Bazooka seems a particularly odd one since someone who specializes in missiles and other heavy ordnance is not more stupid than say, a sniper.  I mean everyone can fire a gun why have a sniper around. As someone already mentioned, videographers are important to modern warfare.  In particular the special ops teams like GI Joe is supposed to be make prolific use of videotape to document their missions.  With the death of bin Laden we've been hearing a lot about how SEAL Team 6 videotaped their raid.  Also, as others have mentioned, the bridge laying vehicle is based on a real one and has real uses.  Yeah if the gap is too wide then it can't help you but wouldn't you rather be able to cross some obstacles than none?

• Hey, if you want to kill people there's no one better than OJ Simpson

•  Bullhorn even looks dejected in that plastic cage...

• Bazooka was always one of my favorite Joes. Must be the shirt. And I would hire Clean-Sweep at my store in a heartbeat. Those bathrooms are getting to be too big a job for me.

• Will there be a list for Cobra characters too? Because Cobra Commander brought some real morons into his caste, especially in the DIC season of the cartoon. Like Naugahyde, whose speciality is wrestling crocodiles, and Metalhead, basically the stupidest person to ever wield a shoulder mounted rocket launcher.  

• I need to nominate one of the crappiest figures I had...Sneak-Peek. Bear in mind that fiber optic cameras existed when this douche nozzle came out. What kinda idiot who is supposed to be your surveillance guy uses a periscope bigger than one you'd find on a friggin' WW2 submarine? Sneak-Peek that's who...That stupid periscope of his looks like one of those crappy magnifiers you see at tourist spots and "scenic views" where you pay a quarter to magnify the view of a rock shaped like Jm J. Bullock for 17 seconds. What a useless a-hole Sneak Peek is.

• With a giant 80's camera on your shoulder too dude?! If that's the case, tell them they need to up your salary! XD 

•  LOL @ Scoop.  That's my actual job.  I'm an Air Force Combat Correspondent. It's a real thing!. It's a real thing!

•  Hardball WAS given a grenade launcher later...i think..

• I remember getting that exact clean sweep G.I, what a waste of a Christmas present that was, I recall wanting x-men and being bought a lemon yellow figurine with a pathetic little water pistol "weapon really shoots water" convinced my mum!

• You mean the Fridge? http://www.yojoe.com/action/86/fridge.shtml  Dude, lets see, If you were a cobra viper and saw some guy walking around in the Terrordome in a Hawaiian shirt, don't you think he would know what he's doing? 

•  Yes, I was going to mention that bridging assets are actually pretty important in today's military, particularly since a lot of old bridges can't handle the weight of modern armored vehicles.

• Just read the Marvel series written by Larry Hama.  Yes, he had to add vehicles and characters to sell toys, but he told an engaging story that often ripped it's plot from the headlines.  

•  Because someone has to be the jumpmaster and inspect all of the parachutes and train everyone on HALO and HAHO insertion.

•  That would be Psyche-Out.  Or Bullhorn.

•  His name is Spirit Iron-Knife and it's an eagle.

•  That's because he's Owen King.  Stephen King's son. 

• Wow.  You totally don't understand the concept of GI Joe at all do you?  Granted Captain Grid Iron and Clean Sweep suck, you often get specialties wrong. Hardball came with a frakkin' huge grenade launcher.  His special ability was that he could plot the ballistic trajectory of whatever artillery he was firing in his head. 

• Naw, man, that's what the napalm was for... still didn't work. That war was a Crapspackle. 

• Sounds like "Reynold" in Homestarrunner's "Cheat Commandos": http://homestarrunner.com/cheatcommando.html

• How did Big Lob not make this list? Anyway, I always just figured that everyone who was remotely associated with the Joes automatically got a silly outfit and codename, which is why there were so many of them.  The guy who washes the uniforms?  They call him Spin Cycle.  Gen. Hawk's secretary?  Her handle is Touch-Type.  The groundskeeper?  Just call him Mower. :p 

•  His vehicle was based on the M60 AVLB, which has since been replaced by the M104 Wolverine.

• Both sniper and negotiator are aspects of intervention specialists. It is just that they generally aren't both performed by the same person at the same time.

• Looks like gonzo journalism, to me.

• They did have Psyche-Out, but he was supposed to be a psychological war expert. Oh, and he signed the papers that said the clearly insane/traumatized Joes were in fact a-okay. My guess is that you don't want to go to any psychiatrist Joe employs.

• Ripcord oughtta be in here somewhere. Pretty much anybody who can call themselves a member of an elite fighting unit is airborne qualified. Why the hell you need a guy who only specializes in jumping out of planes?

• Is that the Joe that comes with the sniper rifle and a soda pop can :-)

• I had both Bullhorn and Pathfinder, both never made it past the first Rattler Straffing run.....cannon fodder

• I'm going to call you on Budo's uselessness. Yes, he may be useless against bullets, but when was the last time you saw bullets involved in a G.I.Joe-Cobra battle? They all use lasers. Have you ever shot a suit of samurai armor with a laser? Nothing happens. Ergo, Samurai armor is the best protection a Joe could have. Or a transformer, for that matter.

• I love how sad the bullhorn figure looks

• One of those attempts at humorous list by someone only vaguely familiar with the source material. Hardball included a grenade launcher, that's easy to figure out, but a lot less "funny", right? Oh, wow, a special anti-terrorist force has a hostage negotiator type. HOW HILARIOUS AND WACKY. Anyway, if the line was all redundant marines, soldiers, rangers, machine gunners, all dressed in realistic uniforms, it would be remembered or probably have lasted as long.

• Dude, the "d-bag" part cracked me up. Thanks for that. LOL

• Oh no, wait, just kidding, I don't hate myself that much. I'll just find the '80s Marvel Joe comics.

• Yeah, this is pretty good. Now I kinda want to watch G.I. Joe cartoons.

• Sorry for the quick post, but how do I make sure that the lines are seperated? I hit Enter, and apparently that ain't workin'.

• I had Tollbooth and his Bridgelayer. It seemed cool in the ads, even though this was the extent from the series: Flint: Hey, Tollbooth! can you get us across this? Tollbooth: Ha! Nothing that the Bridgelayer can't handle!!And scene! Seriously, there should've been one scene where Tollbooth decides "fuck the rules," and uses the bridge to hammer the hell out of a Cobra vehicle. As for Bazooka . .. does anybody else look back and think that he and Alpine weren't buddies so much as Alpine was Bazooka's social worker? Honestly, you don't give a guy that simple a dangerous weapon without <i>some</i> supervision.

• After seeing the Venture Brothers Bullhorn just likes to sneak up on people and yell, "IGNORE ME!"

• I'm suddenly reminded of Fumbles

• "(Say...is there a Joe psychiatric counselor figure, yet? I think I need a prozac smoothie.)" I don't know about the Joes, but I'm sure Crystal Ball could help you out...

• I like to imagine that Hardball was actually that guy with the M79 from <i>Apocalypse Now.</i> "He's close, man. Real close..." You want to see "uselessly specific," though? Try Hardtop, the Joes' space shuttle crawler driver. Y'know, the huge thing that schlepps the shuttle to the launchpad? Now, to be fair, the Joe shuttle apparently could launch from the field, and Hardtop's job also involved massive clearing and grading work to build roads for the thing...which is handy, because in the second version of the figure they made, his filecard says he's been transferred to field construction after the Joes' shuttle fell victim to <i>budget cuts</i>. Yep, a GI Joe that combines remote road construction <i>and</i> the heartbreaking decline of manned space exploration! (Say...is there a Joe psychiatric counselor figure, yet? I think I need a prozac smoothie.)

• I'll take "The Baroness's Cabana Boy"

• All of these would be excellent points if the Joes remotely resembled a realistic military unit. I'm not arguing, but with a group as over the top as this, why bother even showing us the guy with the video camera or the bridge-layer? Bazooka gets a pass since he at least holds to the GI Joe mandate of making shit blow upXD

• Operation: Get Behind The Fridge! XD

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Leonard

• Sounds like you'd move from "generic Cobra trooper" to "named character" just for that actXD! "Mouth-Off", perhaps? "Gadfly"? "Rank-Out"? "Razzer?" (are these too lame? Or not lame enough? I can never tell)

• I find it amusing that I have a phone smaller than my hand that can do just about everything Scoop's equipment can do.XD

• Thank goodness I grew out of G.I. Joe before most of these guys came out. The only one I had was Bazooka. As a military officer, I do have a problem with a couple of guys on this list though. 1. The combat camera guys are instrumental in modern warfare, especially counter-insurgency / counter-terrorism warfare. Informational Operations are crucial to all military plans. And yes, the SpecWar guys pretty much videotape everything...they just don't let many people see it. 2. Bazooka was a missile specialist. Yeah, everyone can fire a rocket launcher, but you still need a guy that keeps up with the proper training, tactics, and procedures (TTPs). He is the anti-tank Subject Matter Expert (SME) on the Joe team. 3. The army actually has bridge layers very similar to the one Toll Booth drives. The 22 foot comment though was funny as all hell though. Just some notes from a military guy.

• The one I never understood is why Spirit is 1) named Spirit, and 2) a falconer. I suppose it has a use, but it's a bit stereotypical, considering that Harold Ickes gave a million other reasons why an Indian breeding program is a matter of national security in the 40s.

• The thing I love about this, Bullhorn has a sniper rifle! WHY?!!! Is it so that after he has assassinated someone from long distance, he can get on the speaker and shout "I'M OVER HERE!!!"?

• perhaps behind those droopy eyes a brilliant strategist exists. melee >>>>>>>>>lasers that don't hit anyone

• Seconded on the bridge layer. They're actually VERY practical. I crossed one in real life back in 2003. Check around 3:30 in the video below ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XP-OUIW9f9A

• Remember when Refrigerator Perry was in the Joes? His special weapon was a football-and-chain. http://www.yojoe.com/action/86/fridge.shtml Yeah, I think maybe the Joes just wanted to have him killed. "Here, Fridge. Use this! Now just go charge into battle, okay?"

• I love how one of Bazooka's alternate costumes is... fishing gear. You know, most military people at least pretend to wear a uniform.

• when I was a kid I actually owned Captain Grid-Iron and Clean-Sweep....

• HAH! Thank you! I've been waiting for someone to call out on Bullhorn's bull(double HAH! XD)crap. Seriously! Even as a young nerdling I kept on thinking, "WTF is this guy's deal? In an organization of men in jetpacks, ninjas and gay navy men that claimed to be the best of the best, why put a guy who can do things that I can do after stealing my neighbor's megaphone?" ...I was a weird little nerdling, but at least my point is valid. XD

• The visuals aren't much, but this song talks about the effectiveness of a man who takes a sledgehammer into battle: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70MIsM4Gm_8

• I had a dream last night that I was a generic Cobra trooper. A wasp had gotten into the TerrorDrome and I killed it. Destro was all pissed off about that and was giving me some static. So I said, "Get bent, Destro. While you were building an orbital wasp-killing death ray I was solving your problem with a wad of Kleenex!" All of my fellow troopers were astonished that I told Destro to get bent. It was weird, because I don't usually remember my dreams and I don't usually have such specific, linear dreams.

• That shitty GI Joe cartoon is the one I remember best from my childhood. The one with the goddamn Eco-Warriors. The toys were just horrible! Neon colours everywhere, man.

• I agree.

• the brown pants hide the fact that he shits himself every time he realizes he brought a hammer to a LASER FIGHT

• As a 90's kid through and through, my only experience with the franchise is sketches on Robot Chicken and a dozen or so jokes on the Venture Brothers. That said, lists like these are a fascinating if occasionaly mortifying experience. And "Crazylegs" may be the best codename for a paratrooper I've ever heard.

• oh fuck you were right... when cobra falconers approach the realm of birdman enemies, the shark done got jumped

• I loved using that sledgehammer to smash Cobra faces in. Plus that bridge builder was fucking awesome! I would build mountains out of a pile of board game boxes and random boxes. If the Joes needed to cross a ravine, they needed that vehicle. Plus my dad liked it because it was a REAL US Military vehicle. He hated the goofy ones that were just BS. Even as a kid I thought it was much cooler to play with a vehicle that was based on something that actually existed.

• Are you getting Vulturo and Raptor mixed up again?

• I had Cleen Sweep, Barbeque, and Deep Six from that series. Deep Six came with a - dolphin - that squired water. That was the line's gimmick. They squirt water and changed color by its temp. I also had Cespool and also his Cobra playset which had a giant water filled tube to dunk figures in. If I got to play with water as a kid, I was happy. Combining it with GI Joe just was two great tastes together. http://gijoe.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Eco-Warriors

• Yes, but Milton is adept at incendiarism and pyrotechnics . If you need a Cobra base torched, just sneak him into a cubicle in its basement.

• <b>HEY! YOU THERE! YEAH, YOU!</b> *blam!*

• mock the half-cocked neon-tactical hard hat. mock the shirt half-way unbuttoned. mock how his face is seemingly melting off his skull. but how can you mock the sledge. HE CARRIED A GODDAMN SLEDGEHAMMER INTO BATTLE. that oozes badassery. those brown pants are housing massive balls.

• Yeah they had the eco-warriors. I had that line's version of Flint for some fucking reason.

• Christ. I desperately miss the 8 year old me.

• nice list. for surly there would be other joes who could do what bazooka does. mainly the whole teams. plus bull horn bet he can really show his usefullness when cobra is shooting like telling them not to fire on joes . proving that even things like gijoe can have some useless characters. wonder what a a cobra list would look like.

• I'm surprised the other sports teams members of the team aren't on the list. Wasn't OJ Simpson a Joe, too? I'd also cite Chuckles due to being an undercover operative who wears a loud Hawaiian shirt if he hadn't been so awesome in the GI Joe Cobra comic series.

• Have to agree - a guy crazy enough to wear a giant bird suit as part of your organization, I don't think I'd trust to do my taxes. Never mind the guy teamed up with one of the Crimson Guards to kill and replace Cobra Commander when the original CC decided to quit. (Of course, the original Commander survived, and buried Raptor alive later, so he got his revenge.)

• They did have an environmental phase indeed. Eco-Warriors I think. Case in point, there was a Cobra villain named Cesspool whose thing was being a polluting, insane, former corporate CEO.

• Dude, don't rag on the Bridge Layer. It was a pretty awesome toy. Yeah, yeah, its practicality for an actual war on terrorists is mighty suspect, but as a toy? Pretty sweet. Build a bridge across two tables, or from the couch to the coffee table, or whatever. Lots of play value. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhOvxN8pCpM As a kid, I would've killed for those apparently miniature grand canyon sets that the kids were always playing on with their GI Joes and Transformers.

• Clean-Sweep... If I recall GI Joe, and a few other toy lines (TMNT?) went through some environmentalist type phase, like captain planet type eco-warriors or something. I don't think we had any of those. I'm thinking that was towards the end of the original 3" line.

• Yup. Drill instructor and a secondary commander in the DIC cartoon series IIRC. Lots of god awful football references.

• Okay so Raptor was the accountant whatever:P Anywho I hate Grid Iron we didn't need another drill instructor and he was all over the late 80s Joe cartoon even became the star of the NES game.ARRGGHH!!!!

• Pathfinder is useful. Tall grass is not the only rough terrain in existence. Sometimes joes need to cut through jungles; you can't fly a plane everywhere, otherwise every Joe would be a pilot.

• he was a lawyer see above

• Oh man. I remember having Bullhorn as a kid and thinking the way his mask fit on his face was cool. So Bullhorn often led squads of Joes on many cool missions. I sure was a stupid kid.

• Yep, no one ever needs to clear a path through jungle or harsh terrain! Good call there d-bag.

• Well Cobra had a lawyer who dressed like a bird

• I don't know. Bullhorn could be handy when dealing with the stupid kids in those "Knowing is half the Battle" PSA's. "HEY KID, STOP THAT!"

• tollbooth also comes with a pretty useless weapon, btw. a sledgehammer. so he's a bit like the Triple H of Joes. without the spitting.

• To be fair, it looks like Bullhorn can shoot them if they can't talk it out...I hadn't even heard of half of these. But they're probably better off than some of the constantly in-demand Joes: I figure Dusty has been in Afghanistan so long, he's bought a house there.

• Right, cause when you're infiltrating the jungle around the enemy base, you want to use a chainsaw and a weedeater to make a nice clear path into the objective. And leave a clear trail of where you came from and pointing directly to where you are headed so any patrol that stumbles across it can't help but notice.

• So which is the one that you didn't have?

• I don't know if I would put my finances in the hands of someone in a giant bird suit. A big snake suit, I could see (it is Cobra after all), but this guy can't even get his animal theme straight.

• As useless these joes might be, at least they don't have quite as silly moniker as the Ice Cream Soldier. Flamethrower specialist or not, you know all the other Cobra vipers are giving him grief.

• My first thought when I saw the list title was Bazooka. I always thought he was just needlessly goofy.

• Taurus and Clean Sweep. Two of the few Joes I didn't own as a kid. The rest, yeah I had them. Good list.

• I think he was actually a drill instructor or something like that.

• Very nice

• I think they were only focusing on the useless GOOD guys in this list. As for Raptor, he was also Cobra's accountant. Which "could" be useful when maintaining a front company (Extensive Enterprises) for their evil organization. Still doesn't make for an exciting action figure though!

• If Captain Grid-Iron doesn't have a specialty, how can he be uselessly specific?

• This was a list the whole family could love! And laugh at! And when it comes to early GI Joe, the laughs are plenty. Remember when Snake Eyes played the saxophone? HI-larious.

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