Though a bit more of an 80s Cartoon, G.I Joe did air partially in the 90s and i'm sure enough people remember this that it's worth talking about.
G.I Joe aired 4 seasons from 1985 to 1992. Notably season 1 and 2 were produced by Sunbow and Marvel, while seasons 3 and 4 were produced by DIC. This resulted in the two halfs of the series being drastically different with the art style and even the voice cast changing between seasons 2 and 3. If you ask someone to remember G.I Joe, they are inevitably going to think of the Sunbow seasons however as they were far more popular and if you look at them on their own, they have a more satisfying conclusion than the DIC seasons, but we'll get to that later.
The series followed the U.S.A Army Special Unit "G.I Joe" which is made up of the most manly, patriotic, stereotyped, and jingoistic band of men you could possibly find. They were unrealistically muscly men who spoke entirely in forced, clunky expository dialogue and cheesy one-liners. However, G.I Joe existed in a world of programming where if something was marketed towards boys, it was marketed ENTIRELY towards male children and no one else whatsoever. And 10-12 year old boys did not tune in to watch gripping, realistic, and cleverly-written drama, they tuned in to watch cool badasses (that they wanted to be like) shoot things up with lazer guns.
And by damn, Sunbow was gonna give the boys of America what they wanted even if it killed them
G.I Joe was made up of a WIDE menagerie of characters (that each were cool in their own ways) but a few of the more memorable ones included:
Duke, the attack leader of G.I Joe and the resident blond-haired, handsome, lady-catching hero (as pictured above).
Flint: The second-in-command who was also a dashing hero (as pictured with the beret).
Scarlet: The fiesty ginger (who existed to stave away the feminists) as pictured above.
Roadblock: The token black guy who spouted a new catchphrase every minute, as though his purpose was to remind you that THIS CARTOON WANTS TO SELL YOU TOYS!!! (as pictured above)
and Snake-Eyes: The resident ninja (how?) of the team who saved Sunbow a fortune since he didn't speak and therefore didn't need a voice acotr. He too is pictured above, though he probably shouldn't be as ninjas are, as everyone knows, typically invisible. (But seriously, a ninja is an assassin, why would the U.S.A Army ever hire.......nevermind).
G.I Joe mostly just dealt with one enemy all the time: Cobra, a terrorist organization dedicated to taking over the world. Cobra also had a huge cast but a lot less of them were memorable. For the most part you simply had:
Cobra Commander; The always-masked leader of the nefarious organization. Feared by most Cobra, laughed at by everyone from G.I Joe, he was kind of an arrogant brat who was more annoying than threatening half the time.
Man was he cooler in the live-action movies
Destro and the Baroness: The 2nd-in-command of Cobra who was generally the first to call the Commander out on his shit and his girlfriend (COBRA'S token female)
Zartan: The leader of a gang of self-serving mercenaries who overtime become more and more loyal to Cobra,
Let's play: Guess the Leader!
Storm Shadow: He's basically what happened when Cobra Commander saw that G.I Joe had a ninja and said to himself "I want one of those!" (NINJAS DO NOT WORK LIKE THAT)
Let's play: Guess the Ninja!
And last but certainly not least the man Cobra LITERALLY CREATED TO LEAD THEM (after they realized the Commander wasn't very good at it).......
Serpentor,
The Cobra Emperor:
Only villain who was actually intimidating
As I've gone on long enough describing characters, let's take a moment to describe the plot of the show. Cobra makes super-weapon. Cobra tries to take over the world. G.I Joe does not allow that. Repeat. For Two Seasons.
That was the entire show until we got to the movie. Than two more seasons of what was described above, Than two clip shows.........wanna talk about the movie? Let's.
G.I Joe: The Movie was the crowning moment of the series. It's also where they jumped the shark (backflip). It revealed the Cobra had actually always been SPOILER ALERTasdfghjklacoverforanintraterrestrialsocietyofsnakepeopleasdfghjklSPOILERS END HERE.
I know you don't actually care and that you can't read that so I'm just gonna tell you anyways: Cobra was a cover for snake-people who desired world domination. I know it sounds ridiculous (it was) but it was actually kinda awesome.
And that pretty much sums up G.I Joe? Was i absolutely ludicrous? Yes. But did it give it's target audience what it wanted? Yes. Does that make it a failure or a success? You can believe whatever you want but i'm gonna go with success.
See y'all next week.
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