G.I Joe is today's topic at hand. I loved watching it, the characters were great. I have to say I was not to happy with some of the changes they made for the live action movie. I am happy that Road Block will be in the next movie with the Rock playing him. But back to the cartoon. Let's hear what you have to say about G.I. Joe.
GI Joe was one of my favorite cartoons when I was little. Most every episode was a self-contained story with lots of moral lessons to impart. Everything about the show was great, from the characters’ visuals, voices, and unique names to the way that each episode would highlight a different Joe and their capabilities to adapt and overcome in any given situation. GI Joe was an all-around great cartoon for the 4-10 yr old kid.
After GI Joe was no longer running, I started watching another show that was similar, called Exo-Squad. That is another great show, but since that’s not the topic, I’ll keep from saying too much on it. ;-]
I’m just glad to see you posting again Dark.
I Loved G.I. Joe as a kid and never missed an episode. I have to say that the best Joes shows were the first two seasons when every episode was part of an overall story. Now having said that, I have tried watching G.I. Joe now as an Adult as it is shown late at night on the HUB but I find I can’t get into like I did as a Kid. I find the stories boring, a great many of the characters too silly ( Shipwreck being the worse ) and a story where guns being shot, things exploding all around and no one every really getting hurt just goes beyond the suspension of disbelief for me.
I enjoyed GI Joe as a kid up until Serpentor. That was just unbelievably stupid, even more my age. That no one was killed with all the lasers and bombs, yeah that was lame. GI Joe was nothing more than a 30 minute toy commercial. It was fun, though.
i watched the cartoon but it was the toys that i loved.
I think the G.I. Joe cartoons where a little before my time. But like barbario, I loved the toys and collected a ton of them. My nephew is still playing with them today and he loves them too.
On a side note, I just saw G.I. Joe: Retaliation last night and while it’s definitely not gonna win an oscar, it’s a decent enough action flick.
Anyone who remembers my “Zodiac Commando” line of contest entries from last year, can guess that this is a big one for me.
Where I grew up, GI Joe was on weekday afternoons, not Saturday mornings. It was the show all my friends and I rushed home from school to see. I agree with Atomic Punk that it was a half hour toy commercial, but man-oh-man, did it sell toys. My brother and I had a bigger collection of Joes than we did Transformers or Star Wars toys.
I agree with Kaldath that the week-long story-arc series were the best, although I enjoyed the Serpentor arc as much as the MASS device and the Weather Dominator. GI Joe didn’t really jump the shark for me until the movie, and the introduction of Cobra-La.
A few years back, I ran a table-top RPG that I based on GI Joe. I even stole directly from old cartoon episodes for story lines. The PCs were knock-offs of Scarlett, Clutch, Stalker, Spirit and Snake-Eyes. The bad guys had a supplier I based on Destro, and a horde of motorcycle riding mercenaries I based off the dreadnoks. My RPG group said it was the best game I ever ran. They were right.
Like MLS, G.I. Joe wasn’t so much a Saturday Morning thing as much as a Weekday After-School thing. And while I liked G.I. Joe in its own right, it was still mostly something that I could watch while waiting for Transformers to come on, which was the show that I was generally more excited about.
Still, the same complaints about how these stood up over time could be applied equally (both were 30 minute commercials wrapped up in a kid’s show, with many lasers and explosions, and yet no one died).
Having said though, as a kid, if you watch as much of it as I did, you will get hooked on it. And among my friends, even today, we still break out the “And knowing is half the battle,” line from time to time.
The other half is getting home.
I still haunt the halls, and I even post every once in a while. ;-]
I never saw the cartoons, hardly knew they existed until Sigma 6, but I had lots of action figures. Mostly 3 3/4″ from the classic (Is that what I should call it?) and Sigma 6.
G. I. Joe? What happened to *good* Cartoons, like Birdman, Johnny Quest (first series), and the Herculoids? Bah! You kids, today… 😉
{Yes, I’m old…}
Again, being Australian, my exposure to G.I. Joe is minimal. The only thing I’ve really seen is the movie. Which I thought was okay, not great, not as bad as the rest of the internet seems to think (probably because it wasn’t part of my childhood)
Overall, my feelings towards G.I. Joe has been: “Meh.”
That being said, Snake Eyes is freakin’ awesome….
those old hanna barbera cartoons are just so bizarre i loved them
Sunbow’s “G.I. Joe” stands as one of my favorite childhood cartoons. In particular, I consider ti the best-written, -characterized, and voice-acted of the bunch, with a strong morality and a surprisingly intelligent sense of humor.
In particular, I’ll never forget an exchange between Lady Jaye and Flint, from “Red Rocket’s Glare” (for background,the two had just been doing some snooping by ‘copter, after eating an elaborate meal that Roadblock prepared, when Jaye had gotten pitched out of the chopper):
“Did you find out anything?”
“Yeah: falling 6 stories does NOTHING to help the digestion of Peking Duck!”
I also think that the show had some of the strongest female characters of the age, the kind that I grew up watching: tough, intelligent gals who drove tanks, practiced martial arts, carried laser guns, and generally kicked butt!
Oh, yeah; definitely a fave.
Red lazers and blue lazers are the other half of the battle