Bazooka

I've heard of wearing your heart on your sleeve, but your IQ on your chest? Bazooka was a tank driver in his early military career, but soon realized that a simple rocket launcher in the hands of a novice could destroy a tank. He transferred and became a specialist at just that - destroying tanks. Rumor even has it that he sleeps with his missile launcher. Whether you think of Bazooka as being smart or not depends on whether you believe the old filecards - which called him "a decisive fast-thinker" - or the cartoon, where he was a sweet-hearted dope. And you could honestly argue it either way, since the info about his military career boils down to "he saw something that any idiot could do, and decided to do that." After all, just because you test into an advanced calculus class, it doesn't mean you can't still fulfill your math credit requirement by taking the most basic course available. The Generation 3 line was good at a lot of things, but mustaches were not one of them. Bazooka's lip fuzz was weirdly thin and broad, which didn't look right at all: he's supposed to have a cop mustache, not a dirtbag mustache; Magnum PI, not Kip from Napoleon Dynamite. This one absolutely gets it right, making him look like a Freddie Mercury who got into sports instead of music. Bazooka was never a big guy until the G3 figure made him so (though I guess he did wrestle a bull to the ground by himself one time on the cartoon), but Classified opted to use the "big guy" legs as a base for him, and so the upper body needed to follow suit. He gets a new belt, to set him apart from other uses of these pants, and new boots that are more of a throwback than other characters have worn. He's not the first Classified Joe to wear a T-shirt, but Outback's chest would have been too small for this figure. He's beefy and he's stupid, so by the Himbo Guidelines, that makes 'zook a Jock; and as so, it logically follow he'd go into battle wearing a football jersey. Jerseys (the item) are named for Jersey (the place), one of the Channel Islands, where a noteable type of knitted cloth was made; the land gave its name to the cloth, the cloth gave its name to a type of close-fitting garment often made from it, the garment was worn while sporting, and so now almost any sports uniform can be referred to as a jersey, no matter what it's made of. (Related note: a split-off branch from this same linguistic path is the reason hockey uniforms are called "sweaters." See also: tartan.) The red picked for this toy's shirt is dark enough to not look toyish, and the white and blue shapes are applied cleanly. With his helmet on, Bazooka stands over 6⅝" tall, so he'll be looking down at a lot of characters. He has the usual Classified joints: swivel/hinge ankles, swivel shins, double-hinged knees, swivel thighs, balljoint/hinge hips, balljointed waist, balljoint chest, swivel/hinge wrists, double-hinged elbows, swivel biceps, swivel/​hinge shoulders on pectoral hinges, balljointed neck, and barbell head. Everything moved nice and smoothly, with no issues. The packaging shows his stats as Ordnance 3, Launcher 4, Explosives 1, and Anti-Armor 3, which is... mostly okay. Like, one of the Gear choices is literally "Bazooka," and if Bazooka's not going to use it, who is? Making his Skill "Explosives" feels like a reference to the cartoon episode "Cobra Quake," which saw him working on his bomb disposal training. With predictably Bazooka-esque success. He also gets beat up by a puppet. When this character was originally being developed in the '80s and was sent to Larry Hama as a "bazooka trooper," Hama bristled at that term, pointing out that bazookas hadn't been used since the mid-60s; apparently he wasn't aware that "bazooka" had become the informal, generic term for any shoulder-fired missile launcher. C'mon, man, just because they said he used a bazooka it doesn't mean they were insisting he used a vintage 1940s M1 - anything that fires missiles from your shoulder is a bazooka, to this day. Given his era of creation, Bazooka's bazooka is most like an M136 AT4 or a Carl Gustav M3: it has hand-grips instead of just being rested on top of the shoulder, and a trigger there instead of on top of the outer tube. His is reusable and reloadable, which is apparently not that common? Seems like a giant waste, but then, that's most war. This bazooka has a cap on the back end that can rotate open so you can feed in the rockets, or you can just put one directly in the front - it's hollow all the way through, but it's not designed to let the included missiles fit all the way through, for some reason. Do be careful if you decide to load one in the back, as well: it's not a loose fit, and so if you push the accessory in as far as it'll go, you won't be able to grab it to get it back out. Just a stange choice. The strap means he can carry it over his shoulder, but there are also hooks to carry it under his backpack. The pack also has slots for his four rockets: two plain, one with Tiger Force teeth painted on it, and one with special yellow and black markings. I saw the Target-exclusive Tiger Force Bazooka at least once, but didn't want to get him; then this regular version came out during one of those periods when you never saw new figures in stores, so I couldn't get that one, either. Luckily he's started showing up again recently; why, it's almost like Hasbro had a reason to re-release him or something! -- 01/17/25 What do you think those two painted rockets mean? Tell us on our message board, the Loafing Lounge.