G.I. Joe A Real American Hero

[JoeG]

For anyone interested, Hasbro has put quite a few of the episodes up on YouTube. Full length episodes that you can watch for free.

G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero (Full Episodes)

G.I. JOE: A Real American Hero follows an elite team of soldiers as they battle the evil Cobra organization. These heroes thwart the COBRA's desire for world...

www.youtube.com

I watched these religiously as a kid in the 80s. Maybe they haven't aged well, but I still enjoy them. Nostalgia, what can I say?

 

[Gimpdiggity]

“G.I. Joe is the code name for America’s daring, highly trained special mission force.

It’s purpose: To defend human freedom against Cobra, a ruthless terrorist organization determined to rule the world.”

 

[Laspector]

I was already in my late teens when this show came out. I guess if I had been a kid I probably would've been all into it, but for a cynical teen--God, this show was AWFUL!!!

I was right there when all those PC motivated ways of trying to make action shows came about. It was the worst thing to ever happen to cartoons. We can have guns but no bullets. Make it all laser blasts so it can be implied that it's all stun shots. Shoot a missile at a plane? Sure! Just be sure a parachute is always shown so you can know the pilot ejected and is okay. Never show anyone actually punching someone, etc. Man, that stuff was cringe worthy!!

Give me Wile E Coyote and some dynamite any day!!......'course all that stuff got censored too during that time.

 

[Gimpdiggity]

I was already in my late teens when this show came out. I guess if I had been a kid I probably would've been all into it, but for a cynical teen--God, this show was AWFUL!!!

I was right there when all those PC motivated ways of trying to make action shows came about. It was the worst thing to ever happen to cartoons. We can have guns but no bullets. Make it all laser blasts so it can be implied that it's all stun shots. Shoot a missile at a plane? Sure! Just be sure a parachute is always shown so you can know the pilot ejected and is okay. Never show anyone actually punching someone, etc. Man, that stuff was cringe worthy!!

Give me Wile E Coyote and some dynamite any day!!......'course all that stuff got censored too during that time.

Joes regularly punched, fought, and wrestled with Cobra. Just google GI Joe cartoon punch gif and you’ll see several.

Even the intro from the later episodes featured Xamot and Tomax getting punched in the face.

Lasers are easier for a child to “see” in animation than bullets. Heck, their easier for adults to see than bullets.

As for nobody dying...of course none of the main characters would die. It’s a cartoon that’s basic purpose was to sell toys. Nobody wants to buy toys of a character that ends up only being in a couple of episodes then dying. That said, Duke was originally scripted to die in G.I. Joe the Movie, but there was such an unexpected angry response to Optimus Prime dying in Transformers the Movie that Hasbro ultimately decided to change Duke’s fate.

 

[Monkey67]

Cobra la la la la la!!!!!!!

 

[Laspector]

Seriously? Even after all these years, you still think this stuff is good? I pity kids raised in this era.

 

[Monkey67]

We loved G.I. Joe so much growing up with it. That our hockey team had the Cobra logo with our team name in it. You wouldn’t believe how popular these jerseys were with everyone that we played. Going to get it framed and hung up in the man cave soon. Great memories

 

[Inquisitor Peregrinus]

I like the initial premise -- back when they wore acutal uniforms or parts of them, with only a couple exceptions. Back before they started getting more and more flashy and outlandish. I liked the character concepts, and feel they were better handled by Larry Hama in the Marvel comic than the over-the-top cartoon. Plus the theme song is catchy and that initial BA-DA-DA-DUH-DAAAAA!! fanfare is sweet. Same composer did that and Transformers and I love the work she did. The end titles of G1 Transformers is a piece of music I desperately want orchestrated out into a full song. Part jazz, part ska, all awesome.

 

[Gimpdiggity]

NM, it’s not worth the hassle.

 

[JoeG]

I liked the character concepts, and feel they were better handled by Larry Hama in the Marvel comic than the over-the-top cartoon.

Amen to this! I first found the comic at a Toys R Us in a bagged 3 pack while buying the latest figures sometime in 1985. Having only watched the cartoons and the filecards that came with the figures (later discovered that those were written by Larry Hama also) I was in total awe about how different and how cool this comic was. I searched out all the back issues I could find and got up to date. I had every issue of that run up until a few years ago when I sold it all. Even though it also got a little goofy towards the end because they had to keep in step with the toy line, it was pretty cool for a long time.

 

[Sluis Van Shipyards]

The only episode I remember was basically a ripoff of The Blob and they led the thing into an apple orchard because apple seeds have small amounts of cyanide in them. I guess Cobra made it or something, I can't remember.

 

[patrickivan]

Usually I hate re-watching childhood cartoons.

But I just watched this episode last week, and it's FAR better than I remember.

 

[DARTH ANIBAL]

I like the initial premise -- back when they wore acutal uniforms or parts of them, with only a couple exceptions. Back before they started getting more and more flashy and outlandish. I liked the character concepts, and feel they were better handled by Larry Hama in the Marvel comic than the over-the-top cartoon. Plus the theme song is catchy and that initial BA-DA-DA-DUH-DAAAAA!! fanfare is sweet. Same composer did that and Transformers and I love the work she did. The end titles of G1 Transformers is a piece of music I desperately want orchestrated out into a full song. Part jazz, part ska, all awesome.

As an Army brat, the military aspect appealed to me. I saw my dad in some of the characters. And yes, my favorite time was when the characters and vehicles still looked like an actual, legitimate military force, albeit there were freedoms taken with the "uniforms." Even when it started getting a little silly, I was just at the right age, I guess. G.I. Joe: The Movie was the last cool bit of that cartoon for me. Yeah, the whole Cobra-La thing is pretty hokey, but the upgraded animation and feature length still made it feel special.

To this day, I think the 3-minute intro to that movie is better than any of the footage for the live action flicks we got.

 

[PoopaPapaPalps]

Man, that period in the late 80's to the mid-to-late 90's when we had the Japanese animate our cartoons: primo stuff. Even for the worst of shows, characters moved with such fluidity despite the complexity of staying on model. A really great time for cartoons here in the States.

That said, I never much cared for G.I. Joe or any of the toy-related shows that were around before Spielberg stepped in to give a kick in WB's ass. Although, with G.I. Joe, I really liked the imagery (I love Cobra's rogues gallery, and to this day, still adore Cobra Commander's mirror helmet look) and "premise"; I just felt they never did anything really good with it.

There was the later special that aired on Cartoon Network that I thought was pretty good, G.I. Joe: Resolute. It wasn't great but G.I. Joe was finally interesting for me.

 

[Inquisitor Peregrinus]

Man, that period in the late 80's to the mid-to-late 90's when we had the Japanese animate our cartoons: primo stuff. Even for the worst of shows, characters moved with such fluidity despite the complexity of staying on model. A really great time for cartoons here in the States.

Oh, my, yes. Specific kudos to the animators of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe for using motion-study clips of actual people to get their movement and such, a la Disney back in the day.

That said, I never much cared for G.I. Joe or any of the toy-related shows that were around before Spielberg stepped in to give a kick in WB's ass.

Many of them I felt had an interesting kernel that could be pursued by good creative types, but the companies rushing for their share of the pie had little to no interest in the creative potential. Hasbro is especially notorious, here. The lore that grew up around Transformers in the comics and cartoons was utterly lost on them. By the time they decided to jump on the nostalgia train in the "oughts" and gave it to Michael Bay, as far as they were concerned it was still just "giant robots from space". All of the deeper, mythic stuff, all of the science -- of them being inorganic life-forms and not "robots", of their subspace and mass-shifting tech, of their morphing and smart-material tech... Poof.

Although, with G.I. Joe, I really liked the imagery (I love Cobra's rogues gallery, and to this day, still adore Cobra Commander's mirror helmet look) and "premise"; I just felt they never did anything really good with it.

The way they have recently gone back and remastered Space Battleship Yamato, I would love it if they went back and re-did Robotech (yes, I prefer the gestalt story Carl Macek came up with over the originals) and -- especially -- G.I. Joe. I don't mean some of the recent cartoons. Those have been... okay... But I mean something that acknowledges the more grounded beginnings of the '80s' RAH characters and not the zany crap that followed. Better thought given to COBRA's motivations and methods. I always loved the Crimson Twins and the Crimson Guard -- deep cover, economic and political terrorism. Chilling stuff. A longform story would be so much better than foiled-COBRA-plot-du-jour. Real character evolution, too. The complex relationship between Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow, the behind-the-scenes politics that led to leadership shifting between Duke and Flint, and the impact on the team... And, for the luvva Mike, dial down Cobra Commander at least eighteen thousand notches.

 

[Psab keel]

I loved the action figures more than the show and admittedly I only seldom watched it. The articulation was the best out of all my action figures and you could do amazing poses with them and because they were so cheap my parents could afford to buy me a lot of them. I had more G.I.Joe's growing up than I did any other toy.

I also never played with the figures as Joe's vs. Cobra's. I just picked the figures I liked the best and had them fight off all those remaining. I saw the movie and read a few of the comics but those figures were the basis of my fandom with the toy line, not the cartoon. As a kid I enjoyed the cartoon but found it frustrating that no one ever died for real or that they never used real bullets and even then I found the tropes to be painfully repetitive. I came up with (at least in my mind) far cooler stories than they ever could write.

I really loved the real military type of characters, though what kid didn't just adore Snake Eyes and Stormshadow. One of the comics that I recall reading dealt with the two of them teaming up to go head to head with a rival ninja clan and the character development was pretty damn cool for a kid my age. By the time the early nineties hit though the toys got to be too gimicky and they were doing some cheezy Eco warrior line. It was just terrible. Mind you looking back I'm sure the figures and vehicles got pretty awful before that, but after owning one or two from that environmental line (likely trying to gain traction on the Ninja Turtle phase with the Mutogen and Toxic Avengers) I just lost all interest and could see the end coming fast.

Trying to watch an episode again now with the provided link I couldn't get through it all. I just kept laughing thinking about those Fensler Film PSA redubs. I have to admit I do have a deep fondness for G.I.Joe and all the countless hours of entertainment those figures provided me in play and the fun I had with my friends when we brought our figures to each others houses to fight off evil in our backyards.

I'm so thankful I grew up in the 1980's. G.I.Joe. Thundercats, He-Man, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Transformers, M.A.S.K., Smurfs, there were so many fun cartoons to watch.

 

[PoopaPapaPalps]

Many of them I felt had an interesting kernel that could be pursued by good creative types, but the companies rushing for their share of the pie had little to no interest in the creative potential...

The way they have recently gone back and remastered Space Battleship Yamato, I would love it if they went back and re-did Robotech (yes, I prefer the gestalt story Carl Macek came up with over the originals) and -- especially -- G.I. Joe. I don't mean some of the recent cartoons. Those have been... okay... But I mean something that acknowledges the more grounded beginnings of the '80s' RAH characters and not the zany crap that followed. Better thought given to COBRA's motivations and methods. I always loved the Crimson Twins and the Crimson Guard -- deep cover, economic and political terrorism. Chilling stuff. A longform story would be so much better than foiled-COBRA-plot-du-jour. Real character evolution, too. The complex relationship between Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow, the behind-the-scenes politics that led to leadership shifting between Duke and Flint, and the impact on the team... And, for the luvva Mike, dial down Cobra Commander at least eighteen thousand notches.

I've toyed with concepts like those in the past for fun. Not that I have any stakes in it at all but He-Man and GI Joe seemed to me the more viable properties to make interesting if taken "seriously." He-Man would be pretty cool if it was treated like high-fantasy, ala Conan the Barbarian; and G.I. Joe if, like you said, was given a more grounded treatment. Resolute tried to do that but it still pulled its punches and it was just a oner.

The real question is, as always, despite the potential, who would be the demographic for these things? Answer: they would all be 30+ yr. old adults who wanted these things to grow up with them, and the unfortunate reality is that these things were never meant to be that. Frankly, they most likely won't ever be. You'll have these one-time specials with a different vision or interpretation of these things, made by the adults that liked the original material, but that's all who'll watch it. Even if it is great, no company is gonna put money in that to bank of that small success.

 

[Psab keel]

I agree with that sentiment. As much as I loved some of these things growing up the very reasoning in my childhood mind that gave me that love is long gone. They are fun to revisit from time to time, like here on this thread, but I personally am okay with them being relegated to my past. I could never get into the reboots of say He-Man or Thundercats because while they may have developed a more coherent mythology that I could appreciate as an adult the tone of both was too far removed for me to really recognize it as the same property that I grew up with.

The rare times I do look back fondly on these shows or toys I smile and remember the fun memories I have of them, but I also remember how they don't have that same sense of wonder for me the way they did and I am happy that I moved on. I know others may feel differently and I may have just been more of a casual fan who never appreciated the concept of these shows the way others do but I think there really is a lot of truth to the saying,

"You can never go home again." At least with certain properties.

I think this is the mistake that a lot of movie studios make. From a fiscal perspective it makes sense to try and build a movie franchise from a pre existing property with a loyal fanbase but too often they change it to fit into a modern market and when that movie fails to land with the original fans by deviating too far from the source material or seems out of date for modern audiences by adhering too close to it, they either blame the backlash on the original fans, or they keep making more of them in the hopes to make their money back overseas in foreign markets.

 

[Gimpdiggity]

The real question is, as always, despite the potential, who would be the demographic for these things? Answer: they would all be 30+ yr. old adults who wanted these things to grow up with them, and the unfortunate reality is that these things were never meant to be that. Frankly, they most likely won't ever be. You'll have these one-time specials with a different vision or interpretation of these things, made by the adults that liked the original material, but that's all who'll watch it. Even if it is great, no company is gonna put money in that to bank of that small success.

I think this is the problem with these things...the demographic has changed.

Kids that grew up in the 80s are all grown up now...and kids today seem to have very little interest in something like G.I. Joe.

So anything made now SHOULD be aimed at a demographic that are adults...and as such, should be things geared towards adults.

The two G.I. Joe movies we got were...well, yeah. They certainly weren’t what I had hoped they would be.

I am wondering if the upcoming Snake Eyes film will take a bit more of an “adult” avenue...because let’s face it, the character is perfect for that. I’d LOVE to see John Wick style action in the film, and since the fans are all adults, give us the blood and adult language that comes with a concept like this.

Sadly...that’s probably not what we’ll get...but we can hope.

 

[Sluis Van Shipyards]

I just hope they get back to using the vehicles that we had as toys. The newer movies did a great job with the Cobra Raven, Moccasin, and the Cobra helicopter Cobra Commander escaped on at the end of the second movie, but most of the other stuff was boring. I want them to use the toy characters and have the characters act like this is realistic. You don't need to go the realism route, like the last two movies, the characters just need to believe it's real.