Hey hey, welcome to Half the Battle, and welcome to a relaxing summer schedule where we take a look at smaller vehicles and play sets, and we're starting off with a mash. Hold it right there, Steve! How did you know it was me?  Don't you know there's a plague going around? Right. Sorry. Why are you interrupting my review of the swamp masher? Your review?  This is my review of the swamp masher. I'm calling dibs. Reviewer dibs isn't a thing. Besides, I put the swamp masher up on a Patreon poll, and it won. It finally won. Is that so, huh? Did it really win? Well, not really. The poll was a tie, so I picked the winner. Aha! You picked, and yet you said you wouldn't review it until it won.  Cease and assist this copyright infringement at once! I don't see how you're gonna stop me. I've been waiting for years to review this thing, and I'm finally going to do it. Oh, I can stop you. I have a secret weapon. I hate to use it, but you leave me no choice. Say hello to my little friend, my lawyer. Hello, Mr. 788, if that is your real name. I am Race Judicata Esquire of the law firm Sui Sponte. You are in direct violation of my client's copyright.  Uh, it is true the swamp masher didn't really win the poll, and I said I wouldn't review it until it won, so I'll review the cobra ferret instead. Good! Now tell the good people the real reason we're doing this bit. Oh right, shameless self-promotion. Half the battle is going for 2,020 subscribers in 2020. Timmer is at about 1,800 subscribers now, so let's make this happen. Subscribe to Half the Battle today. Link is in the description below. If that's your thing. Commander788 here. This is the show where we review every vintage G.I. Joe toy from 1982 to 1994.  Drew Walker has added his support on Patreon. Drew is a unique and powerful person. In fact, he's the last of his kind. Drew's code name is Drew Space Walker the Last Drew Die. Thank you for your support. For the last couple years, I've put the swamp masher up in Patreon polls and it always loses. I swore I wouldn't review it until it won. And this time, it still didn't win. It tied with the cobra ferret. So welcome to my review of the cobra ferret. The ferret is a classic vehicle from the golden age of vintage G.I. Joe. It is well known and popular and spoiler, I really like it. I am not sorry to be reviewing this toy. Since this is a cobra toy and cobra convergence is set to start at the first of August, you can consider this a cobra convergence prologue. HCC788 presents the Cobra Ferret. This is the 1985 Cobra Ferret ATV. This small vehicle was first introduced in 1985 and was also available in 1986. It was discontinued for 1987. It did not include an action figure. It was later available by mail order from 1989 to 1993. The last couple years of mail away ferrets were made in a lighter blue plastic. The later ferrets were available in catalogs such as this one. If you open it up, you can find the ferret right there. This ferret in the photograph is in the dark blue plastic, but this is a later catalog. So the one you would have received probably would have been the light blue one. According to the order form, the ferret was three flag points and $8.50. Besides the dark blue and light blue variants, this mold was used one other time in the vintage era for the 1988 Tiger Force Tiger Claw. This iteration was a G.I. Joe vehicle, not Cobra. The ferret is a four-wheel all-terrain vehicle. Large vehicles exist in the real world and are mostly used for sport and recreation. It's a dangerous machine with thousands of deaths attributed to four-wheel ATV accidents. But considering how little regard Cobra has for the safety of its troops, it's the perfect vehicle for them. There's an entry for the ferret in Dan Klingensmith's book 3.75 Joe Volume 4. It was designed for Hasbro by Wayne Luther, the same person who designed the Sky Striker. It was originally envisioned as a three-wheel vehicle called the Cobra Bat, standing for ballistic attack trike. Later in the design process, it was beefed up to a four-wheel vehicle called the Cobra Python ATV. The name ferret comes from a small furry burrowing animal. Ferrets were traditionally used to hunt rabbits and moles, and that's where we get the term ferretting out. There's a British pub sport called ferretlegging, which involves putting a ferret in your trousers. I don't see the appeal. This isn't the only time the name ferret was used in the vintage GI Joe toy line. In 1988, the driver of Destro's demon tank was also called a ferret. That means you can have a ferret on a ferret. I think ferret is a good name for this vehicle. It's a small vehicle that can go anywhere and hunt down the Joes. There is something peculiar about the box art for the ferret. The artwork is mostly accurate to the toy, except for one thing. This large red cannon in the box art is on the wrong side. GI Joe had two motorcycles by the time the ferret was released. The 1982 Ram and the 1985 Silver Mirage. Cobra didn't have any motorcycles by that point. This is despite the fact that Cobra had a motorcycle gang that worked with them. The Dreadnox in 1985. The ferret is not a motorcycle, but it could be used for the Dreadnox and sometimes it was used that way in media. In 1986, the Dreadnox got a true motorcycle with the Sears Exclusive Dreadnock Ground Assault set, but it was just a recolored reissue of the GI Joe Ram. Also because it was a Sears Exclusive, it is very rare. In 1987, the Dreadnox got the Dreadnox Cycle, which was a three-wheeled vehicle and still not quite a traditional motorcycle. For most fans, the ferret was the closest we would get to a motorcycle for the Dreadnox. The closest GI Joe counterpart to the ferret in 1985 was the Silver Mirage, which was an actual motorcycle. Though they are in the same class, these two vehicles are very different, both in style and features. And I would say in quality too. I have the instruction sheet and the blueprints for the Cobra ferret. It's a surprisingly large sheet for a vehicle this size. I will be referring to these blueprints when I talk about some of the features. Let's look at the parts and the features of the Cobra ferret. This is a popular vehicle with some peculiar design choices. We will look at all of them. The overall color scheme is dark blue with red and some dark gray and black details. Although the lighter blue mail away version is more sought after, I like the dark blue better. In front we have red machine guns. This is a small double barrel machine gun turret. It will tilt up and down with a good range of motion and that machine gun is linked to the red handlebars, so when you turn the handlebars, the machine gun will turn as well. The blueprints call these driver controlled synchronized 50 caliber machine guns. There is no way these rinky dink guns are 50 caliber machine guns. Behind the machine gun we have the handlebars. They are red. They will turn left and right and they will control the machine gun. It is possible to fit an action figure's hands on these handlebars. I've seen other collectors do it, but they are kind of thick and I would worry about breaking the action figure's thumbs, so I will not try that. Behind the handlebars there is the seat. It is black. It is possible to fit two action figures on that seat, but they have to get up close and personal. The ferret is often depicted as carrying two people. For instance, when it appeared in the comic book and in TV commercials, it was written by Tomax and Zemot, the Crimson Guard commanders. The main body of the ferret is dark blue with some good details, nice curves on these splash guards over the wheels. It gives it a sporty look. The mounts for the missiles stick out pretty far so the missiles can clear the wheels and that broadens the footprint of the ferret quite a bit. It's a surprisingly substantial vehicle for its size. The back end of the ferret sits higher than the front end and I think that looks cool. That makes it look fierce. These splash guards around the back wheels have black extensions on the sides. There's a cutaway on the body of the vehicle that reveals a dark gray engine and you can see that engine detail on both sides. It's good engine detail and those details continue to the underside of the vehicle. There are wide missile mounts on each side and they can hold these two red missiles and we need to talk about these missiles. These missiles are red. They have two slots that run all the way through the shaft of the missile and this is what mounts on the ferret. It will go either way. You can turn the missiles around and mount them the other direction but it doesn't really matter. They don't make any sense either way. The problem with these missiles is obvious. I probably don't even need to mention it but I will anyway. They are pointed at both ends. How are these missiles supposed to fire? Is one end supposed to be the rocket or does it shoot in both directions at the same time? Is it supposed to split in half? The blueprints call these laser seeking combat rockets. That doesn't help at all. As unique as these missiles seem, they are not original. They consist of two other missiles spliced together. One end of the two way missile comes from 1984 scrap iron. Just slightly remolded. The other end of the two way missile comes from the 1984 vamp mark 2. Moving on we have this large cannon mounted on the port side. It is red. It is very big. It runs almost the full length of the vehicle. It has a mounting post on the front fender and on the back fender. The blueprints call this a side slug electronic CMF 10 round launcher. Launcher of what exactly? I don't think this really is a big cannon. That would be way too big for a vehicle this size. I think this is something more along the lines of a rocket propelled grenade launcher. There's a black flexible plastic hose that connects the side of the cannon to the body of the vehicle. That's a frequently missing piece. The ferret has four wheels, of course. They each roll independently. Each wheel has a blue rim and an exposed mushroom clip that connects the wheel to the axle. That's not a great look, especially since the front and back axles are different colors. But the wheels are still pretty cool, so that's easy to overlook. The tires on those wheels are black, soft, rubber like plastic. They are wide, thick wheels with deep grooves for treads. On each wheel is stamped PNR-16 and Cobra ATV. As if that isn't enough, the front two wheels will steer left and right. The steering is not linked to the handlebars. The handlebars control the gun instead. But even so, nice to get some steering up in front. On the underside, you can see the axles are connected with a dark gray cross frame, and that sort of works like a suspension for them. These wheels are great. These fat tires really make this vehicle for me. In the back, we have two big dark gray hot rod looking exhaust pipes. They run straight from that engine, and these add to the look of power. Directly behind the seat is a removable panel. This is a storage compartment cover. The storage compartment itself is very small. You won't be able to fit very much in there. Not many weapons. In fact, maybe just a pistol. But you can keep some small items hidden back there, so the rider can maybe have an extra weapon. On the starboard side fender, there is a refueling port. This could be used with a few play sets that had refueling hoses, such as the 1986 Terror Drone. These fueling ports started showing up on 1985 vehicles. It was a nice feature that never really caught on. Who should ride on the ferret? The box art shows storm shadow and firefly. They're fine, but there are other options. Tomax and Xamot have red and blue uniforms that somewhat match the ferret's colors, and their silver details add another dimension. My favorite, though, is scrap iron. His uniform has blue and red. It also has black, which further matches the ferret, and the ferret has half of his missiles. Looking at how the ferret was used in G.I. Joe Media, it had numerous appearances in the animated series, but it was never very prominent. It first appeared in the miniseries Pyramid of Darkness, and it was used by the Dreadnoughts. The Dreadnoughts were a motorcycle gang without motorcycles, so the ferret was an easy way to solve that problem, other than just giving them motorcycles. Looking at the comic book series published by Marvel Comics, the ferret first appeared in issue number 37. It was used by Tomax and Xamot in an attack on the Joes in a circus. The twins did some acrobatic riding on the ferret. It made another significant appearance in issue number 43, where it was written by Firefly and Scrap Iron. They were patrolling the streets of Springfield. This led to the death of some significant side characters. The ferret wasn't often used by the Dreadnoughts because in the comic book, the Dreadnoughts actually had motorcycles. It was sometimes used by the Dreadnoughts, though. They can be seen using the ferret in issue number 79. In issue number 81, the Dreadnoughts are again riding ferrets. In the later years, the Dreadnoughts seem to have taken more advantage of their access to Cobra's fleet of vehicles. Looking at the ferret overall, it's awesome. It's a small vehicle loaded with features. The handlebars linked to the machine gun is cool. The fat tires are cool. The dark blue color with the red accessories looks cool. The details on the body and the engine are cool. Almost everything on this vehicle is cool. Even though it isn't a motorcycle, it still works for the Dreadnoughts. It outshines GI Joe's motorcycle from the same year, the Silver Mirage. The ferret is solid, sturdy, and rugged. The Silver Mirage is sleek and sporty, but flimsy and easily broken. There's no question which one I would take into that. Are there downsides to the ferret? A few, most definitely.  The storage compartment is too small to hold anything larger than a pistol. The two-way missiles make no sense. Honestly, how did those get approved? How many drinks did the designer have when he glued those two missile tips together and decided, that looks good? The good points far outweigh the bad points. This was a small vehicle that could go anywhere. It was an inexpensive vehicle, retailing for less than $4. Any kid could have one of these and send his Dreadnoughts on a mission of destruction at GI Joe headquarters. That was my review of the Cobra ferret. Thank you Timmer for not suing me. If you haven't seen Timmer on Half the Battle, he's one of the most experienced GI Joe reviewers on YouTube. Let's help him get to 2,020 subscribers in 2020. Thank you Drew Space Walker, the last Drew die for your support. I will be taking next week off to work on Cobra Convergence 5. Yes, I know that's two weeks off in one month, but it can't be helped. Cobra Convergence 5 starts on August 1st, and we've got a lot of great updates coming for you, so make sure you keep your eyes out for that. Thanks for watching, and I will see you all for Cobra Convergence 5. Shameless self-promotion. Half the Battle is going for 2,020 subscribers in 2020. Damn it.


What's up everybody, once again, it's Brand Man Sean and this video is brought to you by brandmannetwork.com because I signed myself. Now, I got to talk about Megan V. Stallion.  I mean, good minute before she actually did, but what I want to do in this particular post is I got to show appreciation for the marketing and branding that's happening around Megan V. Stallion. Now, if you're a dude, I know there's a lot of dudes out there who are like, yo, like I can't really learn from watching girl situations. They really have to watch people that look exactly like them. That's mostly a problem, but I might even get into that. But I want to make sure that everybody knows like, nah, bro, everybody can learn from their campaign. And before I get into breaking down, some of the things that happen in their campaign that just really reflect the amazing job that her and her team did, right? I got to specify and make clear the difference between a situation like hers and somebody like a Cardi B in more recent years. Now, when we look at a Cardi B and even a Lil Nas X similar situations, Cardi B had Bodak Yellow, right? A huge hit like Lil Nas X obviously on a lower level because that was just completely historic. And when you have that huge hit and that specific song takes off, right? Then there's a different way and a different approach that's necessary to blow things up than it is in a situation like Megan Thee Stallion where she didn't have one song that really carry and took over in that specific way. And another thing with their particular situation is Cardi B, her main thing was personality, her, her, her, her. And that whole thing that she had built up on social media. This takes nothing from her and her team, by the way, but that's a different situation than Megan Thee Stallion. You'll see why I'm breaking it down in this particular way. When you have a song that takes off with that magnitude and you already have this infectious, you know, personality, that's where everything is focused on. And it should be, right? That's the smart team will do it that way. But the Megan Thee Stallion route is actually something that's far more repeatable and far more comprehensive for a team that wants to figure out how can I do this, right? Because when you look at their particular situation, there wasn't one huge, huge hit, right? Of course she has her biggest song and if you're in the culture, her songs might seem like they were everywhere, but it didn't hit the Bodag Yellow route and it definitely didn't hit the Lil Nas X Old Town Road route, obviously. So what happened was a consistent push that happened over time with multiple songs, right? And then there's this constant branding that's going back and forth. What do I mean by that? Let's hop into the screen share. All right, so one example is our Hotty Cam. I don't have a visual to show at this moment because she was actually doing this as early as last year and I think she actually stopped doing it at this point. But imagine just the fact that you know that a lot of people share people who mentioned them on Instagram. Instead of just sharing people mentioning her on Instagram on their stories or just sharing people twerking to her songs and things like that, she actually had it branded where it was called the Hotty Cam. And doing something like that, right, is something that multiple people do without the name. But once you add a name to it, you own it and now it's cemented the thought in people's heads. So people wouldn't just say, oh my gosh, Megan shared my picture or she shared my twerking or whatever. They'll be like, I was on the Hotty Cam. I made it to the Hotty Cam. It creates a movement and a groundswell and just another sub-brand around yourself. So that right there is just a great example of how you have normal things, but when people own them and brand around it, it becomes even more powerful and that's something that she was doing early on. Another thing, of course, many of you might have seen, we covered the fact that she did sex talk, which was one of her songs, but since it was talking sex, right, she played off of that theme and used a superphone functionality where people call in and when people called in, they could hear a snippet of the song. So there's a great way to find out who are those people who are engaged with you. It's a cool thing, right, anyway, right. I'm a fan or I might not even be a fan, but I just think it's cool. I'm gonna call this number and see what I hear and I am interested to hear the snippet of the song to hear earlier, even if I wasn't super curious, just because she did it this way, I might want to check it out. And once I do this, now you have people's phone numbers and having that access allows you to target people, engage people in a whole another way, right. So creating a cool activation where contextually it was not only dope, but a way to get more engaged with your fans and capture information for them is a beautiful thing. And whoever came up with that for her team did a great job for that. And then once again, you add the Hottie Ranch, where it's actually funny because I thought it would be a lot more footage when it comes to the Hottie Ranch, but I actually couldn't find much for it. But she had an event, right, a release party for Fever. And for this release party, she played off two major themes, one, the whole Hottie thing because that's her brand. She had been doing it for a good minute even before she blew up and her being from Texas. So why not do a Hottie Ranch and play off of the whole Cowgirl Cowboy Western theme, which is exactly what she did. She pulled up to the Hottie Ranch on a horse, right? How hard is that? And how dope does that play off of that theme? The entire night felt like an old school saloon. I'll just flash a few highlights on the screen. You can check that out. But it's another activation of creating that world and creating this whole groundswell and buzz around being a Hottie, but doing it in an interesting way every single time, right. She creates an environment where it's cool to be this Hottie thing. It's interesting. And it also continues to push Megan to the forefront, which brings me back to Megan in general. She has just some cool things that she does herself that help her with marketing the brand, even if she's not doing it on purpose, right? And it's just kind of like who she is and thinks is cool. She talks about how her alter egos are basically personalities and she's serious with it. She pushes these things constantly and she does it in a way that's pretty organic. A quote from an article says that in a conversation with Complex and South by Southwest, she said, my alter egos are basically personalities. I go through on a day-to-day basis. Megan Thee Stallion is the sexy rapper we usually see on stage at concerts. Then you have Tina Snow, which categorizes as a confident pimp. Tina Snow was inspired by Pimp C's alias Tony Snow. Next is Hot Girl Meg, who is like the party girl, the college girl. She likes to turn up. And finally, there is Meg, the school girl who is respectful to her parents. All of these are interesting different personalities that a lot of people can actually choose to see themselves in, right? In the same way we see cast of characters and these characters in a movie, I might relate to one versus another. I might be this person's friend, but I'm not that person. I'm the other guy, right? It's the same thing with her. She's creating versions of herself for people to relate to or even to be in any given moment. I'm not Hot Girl Meg right now. I'm Tina Snow. I'm not Tina Snow right now. I'm Meg, the school girl. Whichever one of those things that people decide to be, just creates another connection point for people. And the even cooler thing as we talked about Meg, the school girl, is just the way that she's constantly marketing and integrated her being in college into her brand. It's something that's been important to her. And she was actually like at Prairie View, I believe, and then moved up to UT, another school in Texas. I think I got those right. But with that being said, she didn't have to actually make that a part of her brand. Especially in hip hop, sometimes how they make school or being that type of person, right? Not cool. Especially when your brand is her type of brand, right? Her brand isn't really a full on nerdy or I'm an over intellectual brand or anything like that. But she uses it to her advantage a lot more than somebody like Saweetie who also came out of college. And that was an earlier part of her brand where she mentioned it a little bit and she graduated and all that kind of stuff. But I guess her graduating, it's time to move on. She can't hold on to that. But Megan actually is still in college and made it really clear. And the back and forth and balance and all that stuff has been something that she showed people as she gone throughout that process of her life. And it just created another connection point, which will bring me to something else later. But of course we can't mention in the marketing that Megan has without talking about Hot Girl Summer. Now the power of Hot Girl Summer goes beyond the fact that she's a rapper and she's pushing this theme or she said it and a lot of people caught on to it. Hot Girl Summer is something that's easily relatable for a lot of people. Hot Girl already existed, right? Hot Girl goes back to Missy Elliott doing that song with, I can't even remember who it was right now. Oh actually it was Eve. But that was a huge song back then and just the whole term Hot Girl, just like Hot Boy already existed, right? It's already a familiarity for the term in the market. It's easy, it rolls off the tongue. You don't have to think too much about it and even try to interpret it. And everything about it already reinforces what Hot Girl sounds like but then also what everything that people would want it to be. There's other phrases that don't do that as much even like City Girl Summer. City Girl could easily just mean a girl from the city. Like it's other terms that could be a little bit more confusing that makes it harder to just get and catch on as quickly. So whenever you have a phrase that's easy to understand in positive ways what it means, but it's also applicable to multiple things, it's going to help that phrase spread because it's natural in language. Being natural in language is extremely important when we talk about these types of phrases that catch on. We know hot means it's hot outside. We know hot means you look good. We know hot means like the block is hot, gotta move. There's already all these applications to it. We just gotta slide in and start allowing people to know that it's a thing to use again. Then of course we already know what the summertime does. But a really cool thing that Megan has really been doing that's even more interesting is how they've transitioned and talked about after Hot Girl Summer because it seems like she's been testing different things. I've heard iteration from Hot Girl Fall after Hot Girl Summer which in my opinion could seem like it's pushing it because you know you gotta stop eventually. And then she's also mentioned Hot Nerd Fall which again that one is a little bit forced and it's just not as catchy, it's not as clean and doesn't apply to as many people. You already have the Meg the school girl personality for that but then she said Hot Girl semester. Hot Girl semester. Now that one to me actually plays very well because it already plays back into the college team. It does cut off some of her audience who might not be in college but it flows, it rolls off the tongue and then it does integrate with her life and allows those college students that follow her that relate to her to be able to have something to continue to relate with. But no matter what she chooses and whether it lasts or not is the fact that she's saying multiple things. That's the thing to really know. And interestingly enough, Donald Trump actually does this quite a bit where you're in the public eye and you're saying a lot of phrases and some people might say one thing sounds bad, they might not like it or they might not notice it at all but the point is you say these things and you see which thing catches on and then you double down and own that thing that catches on. So let's just say Hot Girl fall does catch off over Hot Girl semester and Hot Nerd fall, right? Because the internet just takes it on with the life of its own. In that case, she'll probably double down on that. Or maybe she's not doing that on purpose and testing it. Either way it goes, that's how it plays out. And we already see how powerful Hot Girl summer is to the extent that Megan and Stallion trademarked it. And the crazy part about it is she actually wanted to trademark because sometimes when you use words, you know, that's simple in that comment that really is hard to get to trademark. It's dope that she was able to get it but this just continues on a long streak of just constant marketing and dope branding moves that have stuck together whether it's the stuff with her team, the stuff that also has Spotify involved when we look at the Hotty Ranch because Spotify really does some both campaigns like they did with Two Chains and the Pink Trap House. There's so many moments in Megan and Stallion's rise that you can really look at and say, no, they're not just riding the wave of a huge song. They're pushing constantly. They're using moves to kind of double down and even doing songs like Hot Girl Summer, right? Continuing the wave and continuing to sustain but build up at the same time. We're gonna push these songs and we're gonna keep getting another song and another song because she's had multiple songs this year that had their own individual wave as opposed to one song that had one big wave and then she's had multiple branding moments and it's constantly happening. And then we gotta give it up to Megan and Stallion just in general because it's been a minute since I've seen somebody just look like they went through true artist development. Now I've seen the fact that she's been grinding for a minute, obviously I called her out before she actually blew up and all that good stuff but when you see her carry herself out in interviews the way she handles herself in interviews seems like she's been an artist for a minute, right? The kind of conversations and because of her content of her music some of the questions that people would ask her and things that they would talk to her about and the way she handles those even the way she handled the Trey Song situation when he tweeted at her has all been highly professional even her stage presence. It's all like I've been doing this for a minute. I was built for this. It's a really interesting thing about her. I'm interested to see how things play out over time and I would love to hear how the team that they have looks at marketing and how they look at things like artist development. Is it a true artist development thing going on or is she just that dope and she's kind of been running herself through that? But it all shows and it's the perfect marriage of so, so, so, so many different variables. Not to mention her manager Carl, right? Ex baseball player had the money to even find and fund a type of artist. But the fact that that grind is a grind in itself. You need team, right? That's why I've made a big point in this video continuously mentioning team and not just Megan Eastallian, especially Operation Rain this well. You need team from the marketing standpoint. You need team from a management standpoint. You need an artist and a talent like this. This story isn't a once in a lifetime or once in a generation or even once every five years necessarily. It's a story where you catch a big hit or just something takes off because of certain factors and variables. It truly is. So many things done. Well done. Control variables as a full operation with all those different aspects in line and just running as a well oil machine. Of course, everything is in always. Easy and greasy in the background, but at the end of the day, right? What you see in the results. They're killing it this year. So hopefully y'all are able to understand that and able to just watch what she does cause she's a real case study and look at her a lot deeper than just the music and how people consider her type of content. But other than that, as you always know, this video is brought to you by brandman.org.com because I signed myself. We help artists build their brands, develop their fan base and mentor them throughout the process. If you liked this video, go ahead and like button. If you like it, might as well share it. And if you're not subscribed, you know what to do. Hit that subscribe.