G.I. Joe: Tripwire
Who the hell is Tormod S. Skoog?
I had precious few options for getting my hands on action figures as a kid. We probably all did. For me, there were the obvious holidays of course, mainly Christmas and Birthday. And, less regular and dependably, there were spontaneous outings organized by one set of parents or another from my friend group; and if these were to the “big show”, that meant a trip to the nearby Toys R Us.1
To this day, I still have recurring dreams of walking the aisles of some fantasy big box store, knowing I’ll come upon shelf after shelf after shelf of action figures.2 It’s the best dreams I have (after flying, and those are few and far between).3
This was the ‘80s, and the square footage committed to G.I. Joe will never be rivaled. Granted, we could only buy one figure at a time with our allowance… which made for some painful Sophie’s choices.
Sidenote: I didn’t do shit for chores. I don’t understand why I was ever given an allowance at all to pay for these outings, except maybe to pass the economic conditions of toy buying onto me instead of keeping it invisibly with my parents. I may have been lazy, but I was also whiney.
So what to do when confronted by too many choices? My friends and I would solve this by stashing away figures for future purchase. Usually this meant hiding a coveted figure behind toys down some other random aisle. Our own version of layaway. The theory being that we would come back the next visit and have the assured availability of the figure we previously hid.
Please note, we never came back and found any of these figures.
However, I think it was more about the psychology in taking some action in order to feel like we weren’t sacrificing the other side of whatever purchase decision we had to make. And, it helped train us in the fine art of concealing objects.
The “Other” Toy Store
Mentioned in my original post, I grew up on the Fort Sheridan Army base. Unlike Toys R Us, the base is still there. At least, parts of it.
I just went back to visit family last weekend, and visited it—the streets where my friends and I grew up have since been converted into the Openlands Lakeshore Preserve (closed, until recently, due to an unexploded WWII grenade found somewhere along the lakeshore—still, go check it out!).
The post library has since become part of a condo (starting its own days as a military hospital of some kind; I think we used to tell each other it had been a haunted insane asylum). And sadly, the old Post Exchange no longer stands.
For those not familiar, a Post Exchange (or PX) is a like a general or department store for the base. Prices are usually cheaper than other places (well, because there’s no sales tax), but you need to have a military ID to make a purchase. So, kinda like a military Costco!
The best PX I ever shopped at was at Fort Bliss, Texas. But the smaller one at Fort Sheridan was where I purchased some of my earliest G.I. Joe figures—including Tripwire.
They Call Him Tripwire
The Joes’ Explosive Ordnance Disposal expert was part of the second wave of figures hitting stores in 1983. When it came to cool accessories, I’m afraid this guy didn’t have too much. Instead of a gun, he carried what looks more like a WWII-era mine detector than Vietnam-era detectors with a squarish head. It could also pass for a metal detector, to help his fellow Joes who lose their keys on the beach, or to help find Cobra’s hidden chest of doubloons.4
At least he had a fitting codename… Only, to help the character stand out, they went in a more ironic direction. He’s called “Tripwire” not just for his association with explosives, but that he’s somehow also incredibly clumsy by nature.
Except, I assume, when it counts.
Even his dossier file name feels intentionally dorky: Tormod S. Skoog. Although, Tormod is actually “Thor’s mind”, or Thor’s courage and bravery (and Skoog, as Scandinavian for a “forest dweller”).
In the early issues of the comic book, Tripwire is introduced along with several other wave 2 figures, including Doc, Gung-Ho and Torpedo. The action happens just after Hawk is shot, and somehow not only are these new recruits just as emotionally invested in Hawk as the original Joes, but they’ve also arrived… in full costume.
As a kid, I thought Gung-Ho was dressed the oddest of the bunch; just a vest thrown over a bare chest felt way too informal for me (Dr. Mindbender was thankfully still a few years way). In obvious hindsight, what he hell is Torpedo thinking showing up in full SCUBA gear?
Of course, nothing connects the comic to a toy line more than depicting their toy form as their permanent appearance this way. Tripwire isn’t too much better, already wearing his bomb disposal gear.
As a kid, I didn’t analyze too carefully what the gear was, or connect it to his specialty. I figured the protective eyewear was just a cool visor, and the protective hearing gear just a more stylized helmet.
The protective vest a bit subtle, and more like what we already had with Flash and Grand Slam. That it was heavy bomb disposal gear wasn’t clear, until these options came much later in the Classified version.
What all this did reinforce to me is that visually, these figures were moving even further away from the more standard olive drab uniform look of wave 1.
And what was cool to me about Tripwire wasn’t his mine detecting gear, but the mines themselves. He came with three that he presumably detected and collected for later disposal. In my mind, these were actually live mines that he could arm and hide as well. I mean, why carry them around if he wasn’t going to reuse them?
As toys, these mines were a bit hard to conceal from your friends (no matter how thick the shag carpet at the time). Playing with them outdoors worked better, but those little mines were easy to lose in the dirt/snow/sand.
But if we learned how to hide action figures in the shelves of Toys R Us, we could certainly hide those little mines in our playfields.
And we had about as much success finding them again.
Next time: The tropes of trap-detectors and bomb diffusers in fiction.
I can still track down the old address: 1610 Deerfield Rd, Highland Park, IL 60035. When I drove by it, the store is empty but the old colors are still painted above the door. Just like I can tell you about Il Forno, the greatest pizza place ever, that also closed: 496 Old Elm Rd., Highland Park, IL 60035. Man, I miss their pizza.
My god, apparently I’m far from the only one.
And the opposite of my recurring stress dreams where I can’t find my classroom and/or there’s one last final I need to take on a subject I’ve avoided all year in order to graduate (based on a true story).
One odd illo I found for this article over at yojoe.com. looking at the Action Force version of the character. Before I pass judgement… is this really any way to hold a mine detector?
