Knowing is half the battle: G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero and G.I. Joe: The Movie

G.I. Joe A Real American Hero Seasons 1&2 (95 episodes, 1983-1986, DVD) 

G.I. Joe: The Movie (1987, 

As a lad of the 1980s, of course I had a few G.I. Joe action figures and vehicles, but they weren't my focal or go-to toy line. Star Wars, Super Powers and Masters of the Universe all were far more dominant in my play cycle. I had a best friend across town with whom I would play Joes when there were sleepovers at his place (we would play Star Wars when the sleepovers were at my place), and I had a neighbour two doors down I played with who had more Joe stuff (and just more stuff) than anyone I knew.

I mainly had a few Joes kicking around just to contribute something when playing with these friends, I doubt if I even had a dozen figures. The only vehicles I had were the H.A.V.O.C. and the Maggot, acquired late in my toy-playing adolescence (age 10 to 11-ish), and by that point my friends were distancing themselves from playing with toys (the saddest transition in life...cue the sad Randy Newman song) and it would be another year or so before I would give it up (despite not really wanting to).

Perhaps the reason I only had this passing interest in G.I. Joe was a result of the cartoon not airing on local Thunder Bay (or even cable) television when I was growing up. As a syndicated series it would be up to either one of the Canadian networks (CBC/CTV), or one of the three Minnesota-then-Detroit affiliates we were patched into for NBC/ABC/CBS to acquire and broadcast the show, and to my knowledge none did. (All the Joe fans I knew in my hometown seemed to find their investment through the comics, and I was too fixated on DC superheroes to let Joe comics take up space in my collection.)

At some point in my teen years, I acquired a copy of G.I. Joe: The Movie on videocassette and if I watched it more than once I would be surprised. I...didn't get it. Who were these characters? What was this Cobra-La fantasy garbage?

When Lady Kent and I were getting to know one another, I learned that Joes were one of her nostalgia tugs, having had a massive Joe collection (via her younger brother) and avidly watched the cartoon (clearly something more accessible in her Toronto-area broadcasts). I bought her the complete G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero DVD set when it came out in the late 2000s, and I don't even recall if it was a birthday or Christmas gift, or if it was just a spontaneous "love you" gift. Lady Kent wound up curating some episodes for my viewing pleasure, but beyond the character Dusty calling a middle eastern person a "camel jockey" (oof) not much really stuck with me. 

I've read many, many Joe comics since those days, and seen the live action movies, watched some of the other cartoons, and I've been collecting G.I. Joe Classified Series figures since 2020 so I'm *not* not-a-fan anymore, but the cartoon remained a pretty big gap. So, in the June lull of new TV, I suggested to Lady Kent we do a complete rewatch, and she was more than in.

We skipped the five-episode mini-series, since it's not her favourite story, and dove into the second five-episode mini, "The MASS Device", I had to admit that I really enjoyed seeing an 1980's kids cartoon explore serialized storytelling. I mean, it's not refined storytelling by any stretch as it's still serving the dual purpose of selling toys and appealing to kids, but for what it was, it was quite enjoyable.

It was the five-episode arc that kicks off the A Real American Hero series proper, "The Pyramid of Darkness" where I think I truly came to appreciate the show and its creative team. At one point, Snake Eyes, the mute ninja commando long considered the most badass character in all of Joe lore, enlists the aide of a pop star named Satin to help him elude a Cobra patrol. In doing so, Snake Eyes, his pet wolf, Timber, and fellow Joe Shipwreck's pet parrot, Polly, all don disguises found on the bus and it's gloriously stupid as well as utterly hilarious.

It was then I came to understand that the talented writers of the show were not creating serious adventures for adult viewers, but rather absurd stories that would entertain themselves and the rest of the writing staff. A solid 40% of "A Real American Hero" is just straight off-the-wall bonkers storytelling with the writers clearly aware of everything they were doing and getting away with. This will make sense to comic fans, as story editor for season 1, Steve Gerber, was also the creator/writer of Howard the Duck, an irreverent satirical comic in an era dense in superhero staunchness.

Produced by Marvel Productions with Sunbow Entertainment, the animation is richly detailed with all the nuances of the action figures and vehicles, which must have driven the animators nuts. These are not simple designs. 

The first full season was 55 episodes, with the follow-up season clocking in at 30 episodes, and in that labor-intensive output there were bound to be slip-ups... and there are plenty. Mis-timed dialogue at times make it look like the wrong character is speaking with the voice of another (or mouthing the words along with them like a bad actor). Sequences clearly worked on by multiple animators will abruptly change styles throughout the edits of the sequence, or certain characters will swap places, or a character's costume will change entirely back-and-forth between cuts. These things are an absolute delight to spot and make it really fun to pay close attention.

Perhaps the most intriguing aspect about A Real American Hero is that there's no main character, there's a rotating cast of leads that get mixed and matched throughout. I realize I'm no expert on 80's boys adventure animation but I think this is pretty rare. Usually there's at least a focal character to pivot the show around... like I don't know that there's a single episode of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe without He-Man...even if they center an episode around another character, He-Man still pops up. There's nobody called "G.I. Joe" to pivot this show around.

Even "leaders" like Duke or Flint are frequently absent for episodes on end as we focus on a Shipwreck adventure or Airborne, or Quick Kick (these character-specific episodes typically involved a family member getting entangled in a Cobra plot). It's a rotating door, and while that's jarring at first, it does create a sort of "anything goes" sensibility that I wound up really liking, and beyond that it creates a core group of about 15-20 characters that we see mixed-and-matched throughout the first season, and we generally like most of these protagonist figures.

The bad guy side was disappointingly more limited. While Cobra Commander, Destro and Baroness would have grand machinations that would be foiled by the Joes, half the time it was just freelancer Zartan and his dipshit Dreadnoks who were the antagonists for the Joes, and boy did those turds get real tired pretty quickly. The biggest ongoing joys were the routinely petty exchanges between Cobra Commander and Destro, which is why it was always a drag when we would see the Three Stooges antics of the Dreadnoks instead. Where the cast of Joes was sprawling, named Cobra characters seemed quite constrained.

Everything changed in the second season, starting with the five-part "Arise, Serpentor, Arise" which saw Cobra Commander's command of Cobra get usurped by the genetically designed superhuman Serpentor. CC wound up taking a backseat, and so he and Destro only appear in a handful of the 30 season 2 episodes. (At least Serpentor, and his right-hand aide, the pervert Dr. Mindbender, was just as jolly as as all 80's villains, cackling maniacally at any opportunity.)

Similarly the cast we'd become so familiar with in Season 1 are largely rotated out in favour of all new characters who feel either like carbon copies of characters we already have or are just less developed. It wouldn't have been so bad if it weren't so abrupt. "Arise, Serpentor, Arise" sidelines both Flint and Duke in favour of Hawk and pro-wrestler/drill instructor Sergeant Slaughter, and somehow perpetually balaclava'd Beachhead is third in charge, where I think Scarlett was in that position the prior season.

The first season admirably had three female badass protagonists in Scarlett, Lady Jaye and Cover Girl, and it really seemed like Scarlett and Lady Jaye were right at the head of the food chain as respected leaders (except by Shipwreck, who seemed incapable of not making a pass any anything with curves, but the ladies thankfully didn't take his b.s.), so it seemed like a real demotion for them when all these new characters like Sci-Fi and Cross Country (sporting a confederate flag on his belt, eep) started taking up all the oxygen. On the Cobra side, all of Baroness' master-of-disguise roles were eaten up by Zartan's sister Zarana.

The battles in the series are ridiculous, but enjoyable so. Blue and red laser beams fly across the screen from sci-fi guns, H.I.S.S. tanks and trouble bubbles and sky strikers and rattlers.  The toys are up on screen and it is quite fantastic. The vehicles seem to explode at the slightest provocation (both Cobra and G.I. Joe's budgets must be astronomical, explains why Cobra needs to hold a telethon in a fantastically absurd mid-second season episode) but the animators make pains to show everyone always escaping every exploding ride (maybe it was just to sell toy parachutes). The fact that there's never any casualties have led Lady Kent and I to speculate that every Cobra vs Joe battle is a prearranged gathering with playground rules applying.

The series developed some good romantic relationship dynamics, with Duke and Scarlett and Flint and Lady Jaye paired off, but some of the characters wind up in relationships with people outside the Joe team who make subsequent appearances. And in one of the all-time episodes Mainframe and Zarana make a real star-crossed connection that pays off again in a later episode. And, of course, Destro and Baroness (if you kissed Destro in the winter would your lips freeze to his?)

As I've noted, there are a few characters/traits/design choices/casting decisions/lines of dialogue that don't age well, but by and large the show was actively multicultural by design and overall pretty inoffensive for the time. The writers seemed keen to push the boundaries of absurdity rather than push for topical humour.

Season 2 ended with 1987's G.I. Joe: The Movie hot on its heels. Originally intended as a theatrical release, it got scuttled when Hasbro's prior animated movies (Transformers: The Movie and My Little Pony) were tanking at the box office. So The Movie went straight to home video instead, with a most notable change. There was a pretty heady outcry from the Transformers fanbase when they killed off Optimus Prime in Transformers: The Movie (spoilers!), so when Duke was to go out in a blaze of glory in G.I. Joe: The Movie, instead he fell comatose only to awaken off screen in the film's conclusion.

G.I. Joe: The Movie opens with a newly composed version of the G.I. Joe theme song, this time with added bars to give voice to the Cobra side of the battle. The song amps up the volume a notch or two and the singer (can't find the credit) really, really, really belts out the final bar, just holding that "O" singing "G.I. Joe" for an epic length of time.  

The animated opening to season 1 and the revised intro to season 2 were both much better animated than the main series, and they each represented an epic battle between Joes and Cobra, with the Joes ultimately victorious. This level of animation from those openings is about what G.I. Joe: The Movie's animation is like, so it's pretty quality stuff. But the animated opening for The Movie is next level, and it's so action-packed and frenetic, the camera swooping through the big-screen-worthy action, it can be too much to take in. It's unfortunate, but between the super-glossy action and the ultra-rousing theme, the opening is the film's peak, and it's all downhill down a rocky slope from there.

It's not a rapid decline at first, with the first few minutes being eaten up by a battle and then, following Cobra's loss, petty bickering between Cobra Commander and Serpentor, complete with betrayal from CC's most trusted aides, Destro and Baroness (love those petty bitches), but when we make it back to Joe headquarters, Hasbro decided rather than gently incorporating some new characters in the mix of already beloved crew, they would just force feed us a new quintet (Jinx, Tunnel Rat, Chuckles, Big Lob, and Law & Order) and center the movie around Duke's godawful half-brother Falcon, who should be tried for crimes no less than treason, insubordination, sexual harassment, reckless endangerment, and just being an entitled prick (he's voiced by Don Johnson, so they wanted the name talent to be the central figure). As soon as the film turns its focus on this crew, it's cooked, and can't recover.

Subject to much mockery by Joe fans for ages, I find the Cobra-La aspect of G.I. Joe: The Movie much more palatable, even if this ultra-fantasy/sci-fi stuff doesn't quite fit seamlessly with the military/espionage angles of the series. Characters like Golobulous, Nemesis Enforcer and Pythona are comic book supervillains with superpowers, and their bug-like alien society with their tekno-organic vehicles and weapons seem to vastly overpower the Joes, but that's what makes them interesting as an amped-up adversary for a movie...it takes the threat to another level. And as much as the designs aren't military-esque in the typical G.I. Joe toy fashion, they are pretty wild and well done.

Where the detour the film takes early on with its new Joe cast stalled momentum, the film's late second act  detour into a similar situation just kills it outright. A washed-out Falcon is sent to train under Sergeant Slaughter and they introduce yet another 3 or 4 new characters we will spend even less time getting to know. It was all about toy sales, this film, and it's very easy to understand why it wasn't well received. Despite the glossiness of the animation, it has so little of the panache of the regular series even at its worst.

What's most surprising about G.I. Joe: The Movie is that A Real American Hero was normally at its best running multi-part, larger-scale story lines. There are four five-part story arcs in the series and a number of two-part episode, so the writers already knew how to do larger-scale stories. The Movie doesn't feel like an assembly of five episodes, but I wonder if it would have worked better if it were. And it didn't end with one of G.I. Joe's famous public service announcements, which seems a missed opportunity to talk about the dangers of concussions.

This was the last animated G.I. Joe film, surprisingly. There have been three underwhelming live-action G.I. Joe movies in the past 15 years, but not another animated one. (Everyone's still dreaming of that G.I. Joe/Transformers animated movie.)  

Following G.I. Joe: The Movie, the production of the ongoing animated series moved from Marvel/Sunbow to DIC, which effectively ended the first generation of G.I. Joe cartoons. The DIC cartoons were more cheaply made, and the reduction in quality seemed to have led it to being pushed aside and treated even less favourably than later Joe animated productions, while A Real American Hero remains quite well beloved and well-regarded by fans, and remains a pretty accessible and fun entry point to the toys and mythology.

Now you know. 

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Favourite Episodes:

"The Pyramid of Darkness" (5 parts, pure ridiculousness)

"The Greenhouse Effect" (it's Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, but with G.I. Joe)

"Lights, Camera, Cobra!" (Cobra attacks the filming of a G.I. Joe movie)

"Cobra's Candidate" (uh... did this set the template for the alt-right incursion into politics? Gross)

"Money to Burn" (Cobra destroys all physical currency then issues their own Cobra bucks)

"Worlds Without End" (2-Parts, G.I. Joe goes to a parallel world where Cobra rules)

"Eau du Cobra" (Destro develops a mind control perfume in an effort to steal an heiress' riches)

"Memories of Mara" (the Joes discover Cobra is making fish-people, and Shipwreck falls for one of them)

"The Wrong Stuff" (It's like SCTV, but the "C" stands for "Cobra")

"Cold Slither" (Cobra plans to take over the world with a one-hit wonder rock band comprised of Dreadnoks)

"Computer Complicatoins" (Mainframe and Zarana meet cute)

"Cobrathon" (Cobra holds a telethon)

"Ninja Holiday" (Cobra Commander looks to have Serpentor assassinated)

"The Most Dangerous Thing in the World" (Cobra hacks the military systems and promotes three inept Joes to being in charge)

"Nightmare Assault" (Dr. Mindbender's nightmare machine leads to some disturbing cartoonery)

"Joes Night Out" (The night club is a Cobra rocket!)

"Not a Ghost of a Chance" (Predicting alt-right disinformation tactics. Gross)

"Into Your Tent I Will Silently Creep" (the inspiration for Community's "Bottle Episode"?)