Sunbow G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero

Welcome to my fun house! Ah ha ha! Hello and

welcome to the 25th episode of Tooncast, brought

to you by the Geekcast Radio Network. I'm your

host, TFG1Mike, and today I am joined once again

by Pecan Court Michael, making a return Steve

Megatron, and making a triumphant return, the

original co -host Kevin Boss K -Dog Thompson.

Hello, Kevin! Hi! Yeah, this is the first time

we've had you on since episode 14 and the interview

friend myself asleep then too well it almost

didn't but two weeks ago for a couple days and

i i did i cry a lot uh... yeah uh... and actually

the the plan is now that i've heard now that

i've read i've come to this great realization

tonight that i actually had kevin's phone number

on my computer i just needed to find it because

i have this guy uh... persons since the prescription

subscription home i think that Yeah, yeah true.

That's true. I think we're just going to do these

remotely Every week from now on with Kevin because

I'm tired of having to beg and hunt down a coast

each week so It's all your damn fault Yes, pretty

available no, okay well The complainer is excluded

from this but before I enlisted you You know,

I had to find somebody for 15. I had to find

somebody for 16 Had to find somebody for 17 17

to friggin tailspin was the hardest thing because

I had six people telling me Oh, yeah, sure and

like two hours before we started. Oh, no, I can't

make it Yeah, exactly Well, you wish it on people

who tell you two hours before recording and they

can't make it. Well, I mean, I understand stuff

comes up. I'm not going to get into all that,

but, you know, now that I've figured this whole

thing out, I can, you know, Kevin can actually

be on the show again. We can figure shit out.

We don't actually have to worry about, or I don't

actually have to worry about finding someone

each week to record with me. And that isn't until

we record this entire episode and then figure

out this whole remote thing didn't work. No,

it's working, because I just saw the green thing

on the thing when you talked, so it's working.

Let's just hope my computer doesn't decide to

shit the bed and it deletes the file. That's

been known to happen before. Just ask Steve,

he knows. So today's topic is going to be GI

Joe and we will be right back. for America's

daring highly trained special mission force.

Its purpose? To defend human freedom against

Cobra, a ruthless terrorist organization determined

to rule the world. We are back, and it is time

for the history lesson, and even though the professor

is here, unfortunately he has no script. So,

like always, I'll be taking over the history

lesson. Crips on 25. We travel back to 1985 for

G .I. Joe, a real American hero. It's a half

-hour American animated television series based

on the successful toy line from Hasbro and the

comic book series from Marvel Comics. The cartoon

had its beginning with two five -part miniseries,

then became a regular series that ran in syndication

from 1985 to 1987. Ron Friedman created the G

.I. Joe animated series for television and wrote

all four miniseries. The fourth miniseries was

intended to be a feature film, but as noted subsequently

was released as television miniseries instead

because of production difficulties. That's the

history lesson and we are going to move on to

the general memories. And as far as general memories,

I did watch, I finally did find a few episodes

from unfortunately YouTube. Because as I said

before, you know, I don't have the DVDs unfortunately.

And I remember watching this show, but it's not

very upfront in my mind as like Transformers

was. Yeah, I was more into Transformers and He

-Man than I was G .I. Joe. I'm not saying I don't

like G .I. Joe. I do like it. I like the episodes

that I watched today. But this is... Shut the

hell up! This is just... This is just so, like,

far back in the back of my mind that... Yeah,

so it's basically gonna be you guys. So what

I'm gonna do is I'm just gonna call you guys

by name and you guys can just give your general

memories. That way it's an even flow and people

aren't interrupting people and audio isn't...

Crapping out over each other. So why don't we

start with the long -lost ghost Kevin? What I

found weird about GI Joe and now that I'm looking

back at it is that when I think of my general

memories I actually remember more the the intro

the the endings the PSA the bumpers all the like

extra stuff but when it comes to like the actual

show itself I have no I don't have like a big

memory of oh I remember this you know this episode

or I remember that episode you know I remember

the characters of course but it's the you know

it's the intro with the guy speaking over in

the theme song it's the knowing that half the

battle it's the you know, we'll be right back

to G .I. Joe type stuff that I really remember

like it was yesterday. But the actual like stories

and the plots, I would have to watch them all

again to even hope to, and even then I probably

wouldn't remember, you know, remember some of

them. So I think it's kind of weird like that.

I mean, some shows you remember more of what

happened in the actual show. This I remember

more about what happened before, after, you know,

when you're going to commercial all the like

key things that you just heard over and over

and over again. Right, right. I don't know. I

actually did grab those off of YouTube. We'll

be right back and now back too. So I'll be putting

some ads in between. As simple as those bumpers

were, they're very memorable. Oh yeah, very much

so. Steve, why don't you go next? Well, I also

have to agree. I don't remember much of some

of the shows. I do remember... I mostly grew

up on the G .I. Joe Deek series over the Sunbow.

For whatever reason that's the only one that

I'd caught at the time and then I slowly went

back and watched them as Cartoon Network was

airing them for that brief period of time. I

did own the 87 G .I. Joe movie which was on VHS

and I wore the hell out of the tape. Until recently

when I've managed to get it on DVD, but um This

series Quite possibly. I mean it has a great

voice cast You'll recognize much of them crossing

over from transformers and various other 80s

tunes But I generally like the character of like

Duke snake eyes who obviously never speaks and

Cobra commander I just love that that whole persona

of Cobra Commander including his various lightnesses

that he's dressed in throughout the Deke and

Sunbow series. So I mean mostly I remember Cobra

Commander that's my favorite character from the

whole show which ironically I like the villains

from the shows from the 80s. Yes, Megatron. So

like, it's pretty sad I've been sitting here

doing, well, while I was at work doing the voice

of Cobra Commander the best I could. Yeah, it's

sad. But anyways, this is pretty much all I remember

is the PSAs, the intro, outro music, which is

awesome, and Cobra Commander and some select

episodes here and there. Yeah, Steve was born

the the year before GI Joe actually ended so

well the the Sunbow series So he's probably not

gonna have a whole heck of a lot to talk about

for the Sunbow series But well, I do have I do

have season one. Yeah, well the first half anyway.

Yeah, that's true So last but not least the complainer

Why? I'm kidding. Actually, I would complain

because when I was little, I didn't have any

of the G .I. Joe toys. But the cartoon was generally

just an extended commercial for the toys. A half

hour long toy commercial. They came on every

day. But my best friend at the time had like

two of every toy. Well, he had one and his little

brother, who was about two years younger than

him, had an identical one because his dad would

buy them both the same toy and every day he'd

come home with a new toy. So they had just a

butt -ton of G .I. Joe figures and I'd go over

and I'd play with them all, with them. It was

very cool. I grew up with the cartoon and the

toys. The first season of G .I. Joe was very,

you know, realistic. You know, you got tanks

on, fighting other tanks, and they've got military

hardware, and it's really kind of neat because

it was all based on actual military hardware.

You know, the tanks were, well, his tanks, you

could argue, were, you know, big tanks, but it

hadn't gotten to the point where it was like

space ships and such yet. You know when you get

into the second season or so things kind of took

a turn for the worse because at that point Your

characters were less realistic you've got a tank

a his tank attacking GI Joe and oh shit, let's

all jump out of our tank and run away because

lady J's throwing a stick at us and Inexplicably,

it's a stick that can blow up a tank I I hated

that And about that time, you know, it's like,

well, I'd much rather watch Transformers anyway.

Or I can skip this and play video games, play

on my Atari 2600 until Transformers comes out.

That type of thing. A lot of that had to do with

the fact that, you know, you had your two basic

types. You had your Saturday morning cartoons,

which had very... few episodes in comparison

to the daily syndicated ones. And I think one

thing that happened with GI Joe is since you're

seeing it every day and it's a new episode, I

think they were just reaching to try to make

sure that they weren't doing the same thing over

and over and over again. And unfortunately, that

led to a lot of crazy plot lines and stories.

But I think it's kind of just a product of they

needed something new every single day and they

didn't want to repeat the same stuff. And that's

the problem, though, is that if you collected

the toys And I kind of did vicariously through

my best friend, but they had a lot of toys. And

although they tried to bring as many characters

as they could into each episode, they still skipped

a lot. And it worked for G .I. Joe because you

had a thousand Joes. But for Cobra, it's like...

The same generic Cobra trooper occasionally you'd

see snow serpents, you know occasionally you'd

see a televiper, but it's always the same generic

You know Cobra brats Yeah, exactly. Yeah the

same but you know in the toy line the Cobras

were just as diverse as the Joes and I was love

wondering. Well, why don't all these other bad

guys? Why don't why don't I ever see the the

urban warrior? in his kind of blue and orange

outfit in a cartoon. Why aren't I seeing the

Rock Vipers in the G .I. Joe cartoon? The Grenadiers

came much later than after the cartoon actually,

I believe after the cartoon was canceled. But

it would have been cool to see them, although

I know I never would. Because even if they had

Destro Defect, he would still have the same old

black and blue Cobra Grunts running around. As

depressing as that is. Actually it's funny, one

of the episodes I watched today in prep for the

show was Skeletons in the Closet and that actually

shows that apparently Lady J and Destro share

a distant ancestor. Yeah, it was this whole thing

where The Baroness got jealous because Destro

saved some generic Cobra chick or whatever and

she dressed up as this other person and she went

to this manor house that she knew was his house

and she basically destroyed it just because he

was looking at another woman and all this and

everything else but I thought it was kind of

weird that Lady J and Destro would be related

somehow. it's like almost as weird as uh... hock

and bernice have no always there was a lot of

action yeah we'll be talking about that on this

show no we're not bringing that up i actually

haven't seen that yet uh... i decided it is actually

really good that there's a couple things that

were just nowhere here what yeah i have yet to

still watch them dvd actually have it sitting

in front of me and uh... I kind of bootlegged

it when it was in theater so I could watch it

on the computer. Mike's going to kill me, but

I actually like the live -action G .I. Joe better

than I like the live -action Transformers. Well,

to each their own, I just can't get past the

freaking enhancement things, but that's for a

completely other show. We're getting off onto

something that isn't even related to the cartoon.

I mean, it is related to the cartoon, but really...

No, well, well, you don't want to get me started

on that rant. Anyway, I have a great dislike

for Cobra commander Or the doctor whatever you

want to call him Oh, yeah Yeah So we're gonna

get into the characters and voice actors I'm

just gonna go down gonna go down the list and

we can say what our favorite characters are.

I'm not really gonna read some of the Some of

the promos or not promos with some of the information

for each one you get Hawk who is Brigadier General

Clayton Abernathy Now the episodes I've only

seen like four or five today. I Did not see Hawk

or Duke in either one. It was either Flint and

Lady J and a bunch of the other characters Saw

shipwreck in one episode and I don't even know

who else They what I was gonna say they they

alternated between Hawk and Flinton Duke quite

randomly throughout the series and then eventually

sergeant slaughter so I mean it was kind of a

problem too is that with you know with a show

like that where you have so many writers contributing

a lot of the right here you have some writers

actually gave a crap about what they were doing

in that you know that you wanted to put out a

good product when you have a pet on there just

do it for you know a paycheck and and uh... that's

a talk about it a little bit in the uh... on

the dvd federal bonus features where uh... point

delhi is talking to you he was about you know

kind of one of the main writers and editors et

cetera you know, a succession order where you

have basically Hawk as the number one in charge

and then you have Duke and then you have Flint,

etc. But he would have, you know, Hawk giving

Duke orders, etc. But then you'd have another

writer come in and do his own episode where it's

vice versa and you have the other person giving

the other guy orders or this or that and I don't

know if there wasn't time to, you know, go back

and edit or, you know, to change things about

but as you had different writers come in, you

know, especially with Flint and Hawk and Duke

you'd have the role reversal happened where all

of a sudden someone else was in charge and, you

know, someone else was secondary. And that was

kind of something that bugged me as a kid. I

could never figure out who the heck's in charge

here. At least the character models were all

distinguishable, though. At least you couldn't,

you know, hey, wait, isn't that the same character?

No, it's not. You might have the same voice doing

it, but they look different. No, I knew the difference

between Flint and... Say shipwreck or you know

some you know somebody like that. I mean I knew

the difference between the characters Let's see

another character is snake eyes the team's resident

hand -to -hand combat instructor Now is snake

eyes is the one that doesn't speak right correct,

right? Do you guys have Without the claws It's

kind of like the strong silent one with the knives

that just runs out and kills bad guys. It doesn't

heal. They actually had an entire, I just kind

of off track a little bit, but they actually

had an entire comic that they put out just about

snake eyes where there was actually no words

in the whole comic. There was no captains, there

was no dialogue, there was nothing. And it wasn't

necessarily intentional, they did it because

they were running out of time, one of the times

that they needed an episode, so they went without

the dialogue. But it became a pretty famous,

whatever you want to call it, comic book. Yeah.

Next on the list is Lady J. Corporal Allison

R. Hart Burnett is a covert operative and intelligence

operator. She was born in Martha's Vineyard,

Massachusetts. She has a famed romance with Flint.

And we should also note that Marissa Fairborn

from Transformers is their daughter. Uh -huh.

Yes. Had to throw that in there. Of course. We're

not going to say which Marissa Fairborn it is.

What? Well, it could be the G1 Marissa Fairborn,

or it could be the hot bikini clad kiss players

Marissa Fairborn. Oh, good lord. I meant the

cartoon, man. Anyways. Anyways. Scarlet, Shipwreck,

Sergeant Slaughter. I thought it was cool to

see Sergeant Slaughter in a cartoon. That was

awesome. That was one of my favorite characters

to actually see on the Joe side next to Duke.

Yeah. Well, I mean, if you were a fan of early

80s wrestling, which a lot of us were back in

the day. Hulk Hogan was my hero. So the fact

that Sergeant Slaughter is an actual person,

he's not fictitious, you know, he's there doing

the drill sergeant thing. It's funny that you

brought up the wrestling though because the wrestling

angle is actually what got Sergeant Slaughter

written out of the cartoon eventually. In wrestling

he had turned bad at one point or turned to the

foreign side. It was kind of like that where

he turned on and he partnered with the foreign

guys, you know, I think they had some cheap,

you know, Middle Eastern type characters and

he sided with them and the people in charge of

G .I. Joe said he has to be written out. You

got to get him on a cartoon now. Did that happen

before the cartoon was canceled? Yeah. That was

at the end of the Sunbow. He wasn't brought back

for Deke. Right, okay. Yeah, Bazooka, Quick Kick.

dusty beachhead gung -ho lieutenant falcon wetsuit

and leatherneck okay now if you guys wanna have

a free -for -all and discuss any of those I guess

I don't remember any of them outside of shipwreck

which is the one I just saw earlier as annoying

as shipwreck was I remember him Besides the Duke

I remember shipwrecked. I don't try because they

use him so much But I actually remember him quite

a bit from the cartoon, and I remember actually

liking him his character as a kid Yeah, he the

episode. I saw today. He is extremely clumsy

Yeah He's got a they actually create the people

that created and created him with the image that

he was supposed to be kind of one of those swing

characters that could be good, could be bad,

and they tried to, I don't know if they succeeded

or not, but they tried to model him off of Jack

Nicholson. I kind of see that. That's kind of

weird. I thought that was kind of interesting.

Moving into the villains of the show is Cobra.

The first one that's listed here is Serpentor.

He took over leadership of Cobra in Season 2.

He was created through breakthrough in cloning

research by Dr. Mindbender from the DNA extracted

from the unearthed remains of the most ruthless

and effective military leaders in history. That's

pretty good for a dentist. Oh yeah. It's an ant

clone. A what clone? This is ant clone. Oh, ant

clone. Huh. You know, I don't really remember

this character so... Whoever wants to take that

one. You don't remember Serpentor? No. Serpentor

was badass. Serpentor made Cobra look like a

little... Serpentor made Cobra look like a little

bitch. Cobra made Serpentor look like a little

bitch in the deep series. That's true. Anybody

who watches the deep series I feel sorry for

though. Well the sad thing is it's not that bad.

But we'll get some of the storylines. Yeah, we're

gonna do that later Yeah, there are worse GI

Joe series than the league series I don't remember

serpent or a lot because I watched more of the

early episodes away And I didn't I didn't have

to see all the later ones, but serpent or hit

it. He just has a cool design He has a kid you

gotta like that as a kid You've got to be attracted

to that you want that action figure. Yeah, he's

got snakes on his shoulders You had Cobra Commander,

the supreme leader of the terrorist organization

Cobra An arch nemesis of the Joes wears a light

blue uniform and his signature battle helmet.

Of course, we can't go without talking about

Cobra Commander without talking about Starscream

because yeah, Chris Lada. They go hand in hand.

Yes, pretty much. And pretty much every attempt

by Cobra Commander got foiled by one or two of

the Jo teams. Just like the majority of Starscream's

plans failed against Megatron. Only Cobra Commander

was a badass for being a coward at the same time.

Actually, it's funny. I was looking on BBTS,

BigBadToyStore .com, and there's actually a G

.I. Joe Sunbow series Cobra Commander Mighty

Mug figure. Next up is Destro, born in Callander,

Scotland. Destro's full name is James McCullen

Destro, the 24th? Yes. Wow. Wow, that'd be a

pretty good name. Especially on a birth certificate.

Yes. The Destro clan has designed and sold weapons

for centuries, and Destro is the head of their

current incarnation. A military armament research

syndicate, he wears a mask forged from beryllium

steel. Oh no. Okay, who's gonna say it? I'll

have to chime in a little bit, just because I

gotta chime in on Destro. Destro is by far my

favorite character in the whole series. No, go

ahead. Go ahead. I was gonna say who's gonna

chime in with the beryllium baloney Yeah, um

Destro is a one badass character. I do have to

admit that go ahead and finish what you're gonna

say Kevin I usually don't like the bad characters

more than I like the good characters. I mean,

you know for me to like uh... one of the evil

characters more than a good character for a lot

that's for just i don't know if it was a map

i don't know if it was the voice uh... but he

was just he added a a good and i think the one

of the reasons i like your job so much was because

you didn't just have one that group you had like

cobra and you know his you know it's basically

clone troopers and then you had dextro and the

baroness and then you had uh... dark and his

guy so you had like all these little different

games i think that made it kind of and made it

fresh every time instead of just the same bad

group uh... what i found interesting watching

the dvd i know i'm referencing a lot of that

but uh... one of the writers of and that when

he was creating both the good side of the bad

but he was trying to create a mark at the uh...

and like a family grouping like duke at the dad

and yet carl at the moment you know he would

argue saying that you always had to have the

crazy uncle or the weevil cousin or this or that

and I thought it was interesting when he was

talking about the bad guys he actually referenced

Destro as the dad of the group and Baroness as

the mom and Cobra as the crazy uncle. Cobra is

also the whiny bitch. Yeah, and of course Zartan

was the weasel cousin and stuff like that, but

you know I thought it was kind of odd that he

put Destro as the dad or kind of like the head

of the group, but I always kind of thought Destro

was the better leader of the two. Yes. Mr. Pantor

is grandpa. God. That's horrible. I always liked

Destro. Destro had been my favorite and I, well...

You didn't see this so much in the cartoon, but

later on when Destro kind of struck off on his

own and formed the Iron Grenadiers, I was pretty

certain that Destro was going to whoop up all

over Cobra Commander and take over. And I think

one thing that helped out, I think it's the same

reason why I like Destro and Storm Shadow, is

because they were bad characters that had a couple

good traits. Like you had Destro was a bad character,

but he kind of had that class or that honor type

thing to go in with them. Same with Storm Shadow.

He didn't want to beat someone unfairly. I watched

an episode today where the Native American character

Spirit was in a jail cell and I don't remember

who was trying to do his art hand or somebody

was trying to smoke him out or put laughing gas

and Storm Shadow comes in and he's like, no,

you can't do that. That's not an honorable way

to fight your enemies. So I kind of liked that

they had a couple bad characters that had good

quality. It kind of made them cool to watch.

Yes, very much so. Then you have the Baroness,

Anastasia de Cobre, serves as Cobra's intelligence

officer as well as lieutenant and personal pilot

to Cobra Commander. That's hotty. Yeah, exactly.

Yes. And she does Cobra Commander's laundry.

That's probably not all she does. Well, she does

restroom. She's my boot baroness. Oh crap, I

was gonna say she polishes his chrome mask, but

whatever. That's a problem. That's what we've

got to squeeze, you don't have to do a lot of

stuff. That feels like I can't make out with

you, we're just gonna have to skip that stuff.

Anyway. Then you had major blood. An Australian

he served the Australian Special Air Service

Regiment in French Foreign Legion before becoming

a mercenary. I know Major Blood's like a supposedly

a major character, but I don't really remember

him. He was a major character that kind of got

faded into the background real quick, I think.

I was really surprised that he didn't have like

his own private army. You know, Destro's got

his own private army. Tomax and Zamat have the

Crimson Guard. You know, Zartan's got the dreadnoughts.

I was really surprised Major Blood didn't have

his own little subgroup behind him. Maybe like,

just mercenary types, you know? Yeah, unless

some of the Cobra ones were supposed to be his

and some were supposed to be Cobra's, I'm not

really sure. Nah, I think that he was just supposed

to be, you know, like a lieutenant in the Cobra

ranks, but never really... He was in the cartoon,

but he didn't... He didn't really do much. He

was like Cobra Commander's best friend that he

couldn't throw away. Then you have Storm Shadow

best known as the Cobra Commander's ninja, bodyguard,

and assassin at times. You said this is one of

your favorite characters, Kevin? What that? You

said this was one of your favorite characters?

I like the good aspects of Storm Shadow. I mean,

I like Destro better, but I just like the fact

that, you know, you have that bad guy that still

has some sense of, whatever, honor, I guess,

if you want to call it that. And I just realized

something, looking at Tomax and Zamot, it's basically

Tomax backwards. You are killing me. What? They're

their mirror images. Well, I don't know. I didn't...

I don't have the DVD set, unlike some people.

I didn't watch all the... I don't know any of

these characters, half of them. That's actually

quite funny because I never actually noticed

that before. Are you serious? Yes. You were both

killing me. Yeah, I'm reading it on the script

right now and it makes perfect sense, which you

just brought up. No comment from anybody else.

What always confused me about Tomax and Zamod

is that They're the leaders of the Crimson Guard,

and the Crimson Guard is basically lawyers by

day, soldiers by night, and they're lawyers and

CEOs and such. Tomax and Zemot more than once

are shown in their business suits. But when they're

not being CEOs of the Crimson Guard company incorporated,

they are circus acrobats? It just doesn't make

much sense. It's like, wait a minute, so they

grow up in the circus and then decided to get

MBAs and became... I'm not sure. I'm not sure

how that works. Okay, so moving on to Dr. Mindbender,

a mad scientist and master of mind control and

interrogation. But his expertise does not stop

there as he has also specialities in genetics,

cloning, and some cybernetics. Okay, so I guess

you're gonna be Was he only in G .I. Joe? He

didn't make an appearance in Transformers, did

he? No. No. No, that was Dr. Arkeville. He should

have, though. It would have been awesome. It

would have been cool. Yes, we know Cobra Commander

did. Snake. Old snake, yeah. But Dr. Mindbender,

if you read his card, actually says that he was

a dentist, and he was trying to come up with

an anesthesia Anesthesia that would keep people

from feeling pain and ended up driving himself

evil And then afterwards learned genetics that

cloning in cybernetics This is kind of an odd

mix because you don't find too many cybernetic

teeth No, no Zartan, he is the mercenary who

often worked directly for Cobra Commander and

is one of the main villains in the G .I. Joe

remark, a real American hero comic and animated

series. Yeah, he's kind of weird to me. The episodes

I watched today, he was in both of them and I

don't really like him that much. I always liked

him. He had my favorite line. I can't remember

exactly which cartoon it was, but he says, you

know, take all the time you need. I'm paid by

the hour. Yeah, that was this one. That, yeah.

Oh, I love that. I still use that line. Well,

you know, I should say I did when I was a consultant.

Yes. Take all the time you need. I'm paid by

the hour. Yes, for that company, that one remain

name was... Well, no, not... I worked full time

for that company, but I've been a consultant

for many other companies. Yes. And then you have...

Zorana, the sister of Zartan, and Zander. Zorana

is a master of disguise who can fool even the

best military specialists. Again, you know, if

you guys want to take the remaining two characters,

Zorana and Zander, I don't remember any of these

characters. I don't remember them too much specifically,

but I think it was, like I said before, it's

just good to have so many different, like, whatever

you want to call it, clicks of... or different

groupings of bad guys. I kind of like that part.

Yeah, Zartan was the leader of the Dreadnoughts,

and you've got Zorana and Xandar, who were directly

related to them. But the action figures, I believe

they all change color. So if you put Zartan out

in the sun, he would turn blue. And I'm fairly

certain Xandar, if you put him in the sun, he

would turn blue. I'm not entirely certain about

Zorana. But I wasn't really thrilled with that

particular character because it's like she's

got pink hair Xander's got red hair and Zartan

although he's got this hood you always wonder

what color hair he's got He's got red hair anime

blue or something. Oh, is it red? Yeah, how do

you know? Because I saw in the episode today.

He's got black eyes, right? Yeah. Yeah, he has

red hair. Yeah But you know aside from this immediate

family You've also got the dreadnoughts that

are not listed here, but there was quite a few

of them Don't don't blame the researcher it wasn't

on wiki if it's not on wiki it doesn't get into

the scripts Yeah, I don't remember what his name

was but the guy with the long blonde hair and

they all sounded like they were Australian yeah,

yeah, it was a ripper torch and Oh help me out

here, I don't know You're drowning. I can't remember

what that guy's name is. Yeah, I don't know.

It was the three main ones. Buzzer. I refer to

it as Buzzer. And then you end up with some that

were... that they had as action figures but didn't

have them appear in the comic or the cartoon.

Like Road Pig and the guy who drives the dreadnought

mobile. And then Zanzibar, who was the the Dreadnought

pirate. He was a pirate, man. He was awesome.

But that was always my favorite subgroup was

the Dreadnoughts. I thought they were cool. All

right, we are going to be moving on to the voice

cast. And as the majority of the four of us know,

this is basically for the majority, it's a crossover

between Transformers and this as far as voice

actors. You had Charlie Adler as Lolite, Jack

Angel played a couple of voices. I actually find

this very weird. You guys said that Zaymott and

Tomax are identical twins. However, Michael Bell

and Corey Burton voiced either one of those characters.

Michael Bell did Zaymott and Corey Burton did

Tomax. So if they're identical, why would they

sound different? Because they're two different

characters. That's true. Of course, Michael Bell's

main role, obviously, is Duke. He also played

Major Blood. Grimlock is in this series. Holy

crap, Greg Berger. Fireflyer. This is one of

Greg Berger's first listen transformers. That's

basically what launched his whole career. You

got Arthur Berghardt for Destro. Wow, Peter Cullen

was Xandarin. So I forget, was it you Michael

that said he was blue or something? Xander turned

blue. Oh, Xander turned blue in the sun. I wonder

if he has a cab or a trailer next to him, seeing

as how Peter Cullen voiced him. He keeps those

in subspace. I don't actually see them very often.

They just disappear on their own. You got Pat

Fraley who played Ace, Airtight, and Wild Weasel.

Dick Gaudier played Serpentor. Ed Gilbert played

General Hawk. Dan Gilbazan played Slipstream.

Hey, wait a second. That's a female. Anyway,

never mind. That's a Transformers animated reference.

Never mind. Slipstream sounds an awful lot like

Spider -Man. Why is that? Yeah, exactly. Huh,

I wonder. The thing about all these voices, though,

is that it would be really, really cool if they

were all in the same episode, but they were chopped

up. Each one of them maybe appeared in maybe

two or three at the most, with the exception

of Lady J and Flint in the second season, and

ones that ended up being main characters. But

occasionally, you'd have one or two side characters

pop in. Yeah, right. Of course, Chris Lotta played

Cobra Commander, Frostbite, Gung Ho, Ripper,

Steeler. And then I'm just kind of gonna run

through these because this actual segment is

running long here Rob Paulson alert late snow

job and tripwire Yeah, well Frank Welker does

everything Copperhead flash freedom junkyard

poly short fuse and timber Oh yeah, those are

under his name there. BJ Ward played Scarlet.

Wow. Princess Allura was Scarlet? Holy crap.

I did not know that. She offered most of the

unnamed female characters too. Oh, did she? Yeah,

like if there was a female or an old man or a

child or something that was needed as an extra.

You guys know some of their split. As a voice

actor you could. At one point the only contracted

on a show for three voices For one particular

episode So if she wasn't going to be in there

since she was the only usually the only female

if you had cars usually didn't have you know,

Lady J or Whoever in it. So she'd be the one

that got stuck doing but you know two extra roles

just for the heck of it since her character was

only ever used as one I thought that was a relatively

new rule you know it's been a long way around

back then but what happened was because you had

so many different episodes and different stuff

like that you would have people that got away

with like frank walker having you know eight

voices or however many things like he had like

a million on every show but i think in one actual

recording session for a show you could only do

up to three so you'd never see like you know

freedom and junkyard in the same steps Right,

you wouldn't see more than three of his characters

in the same episode, but with her, since you're

only going to have one, you know, she's probably

going to be there that day. She'd do all the

extra work. So who would you say is your all's

least favorite or most favorite voice actor for

a voice from this show? Steve, you can go first.

I'd have to say my favorite voice actor is Chris

Lada, obviously, because I like Cobra Commander,

so I'm very biased. I can't really say any, like,

worst voice actor because every character has

pretty much, for the most part, diverse voicing

for the characters. So I can't really say anybody

is bad at whatever they're playing. Right. What

about you, Michael? You know, I would normally

chime right in and say Chris Lotta, you know,

because, hey, it's Starscream. Yeah. but honestly

I really liked Destro and the Baroness together

as you know they were almost always together

oh yeah but you know I think he had a really

cool voice it was almost like Darth Vader -ish

except without all the respirators you know yes

the automated respirator and the Baroness was

just kind of you know it's like what accent is

that is that It's not quite European, but it's

not quite Slavic. It's kind of You know, it's

kind of it's kind of weird you I'm thinking like

Transylvanian or something. Yeah. Yeah You can't

quite put your finger on it, but I thought we

thought she sounded cool. What about you Kevin?

Um, it's there's so many uh -huh. I mean it's

critical commander and Starscream weren't exactly

the same it'd be I put him as my favorite, but

The quality of voice acting was just unparalleled.

I mean, you couldn't, you know, you have some

people who they retire or, you know, that pass

on and someone takes over their voice. Nobody's

taking over Chris Lata's voices. I mean, you

can't do that. You can't, like, you can't re

-replicate that voice. But, um, I think my favorites

are, um, Arthur Burkhardt, who did Death's Troll.

Um, I don't have a computer or anything in front

of me, so I can't remember exactly who did these

voices, but the guy who did Shipwreck. Yeah,

it was Michael Bell. Yeah, Shipwreck and Zartan,

I liked a lot. And DJ Ward, I thought, did fantastic

with Scarlett. My least favorite would be Dick

Gaudier, just because he, out of all of them,

did the least difference in his voices. And he

even admits this on the DVD. He says, you know,

I didn't change anything for any of the voices.

You know, this is this guy, this is this guy,

this is this guy, and it's the same voice for

all of them. So, I mean, and he was... One that's

not, I don't know if this is right to say, but

he's not necessarily a true voice actor. He was

a Broadway star. He was a old school, you know,

actual actor. So he was kind of one of the ones

that they brought in as more of a celebrity type

or a well -known person, you know, that they

brought in to do voice acting. So he just didn't

have the schooling, I think, that, you know,

Michael Bell and some of these other guys did.

Jack Angel. Oh crap. Steve, why don't we just

take a quick break? This is almost running 40

minutes long on this one, so we'll be right back

with the behind the scenes segment. We'll be

right back. It is now time for the behind -the

-scenes segment. Research for this show wasn't

hard, but it wasn't like all in one place. Obviously

we're going to be talking about the Deep G .I.

Joe version a little bit later, but for this,

you know, the early 80s version, I had to go

to like four different pages on wiki to find

this. One of the origin things I found was a

real American hero was a revival of the original

12 inch 30 centimeter G .I. Joe brand of the

1960s and 70s. After the 12 inch figure had been

absent from toy shelves for a few years, G .I.

Joe was reintroduced in three and a half or three

and three fourths inch action figure format following

the success of Star Wars and Micronauts scale

toy lines. Prior to G .I. Joe's relaunch in 1982,

Larry Hama was developing an idea for a new comic

book called Fury Force, which he was hoping would

be an ongoing series for Marvel Comics. The original

premise had the son of Shields director Nick

Fury assembling a team of elite commandos to

battle neo -Nazi terrorists Hydra. The idea was

mixed, but Hama used the basic premise when he

learned of Hasbro's plans to resurrect G .I.

Joe Toyline. Each G .I. Joe figure included a

character biography called a file card. Hanna,

or Hama, was largely responsible for writing

these file cards, especially for the first ten

years. When developing many of the characters,

he drew much from his own experiences in the

U .S. military. I gotta say, that part's cool.

That is terribly cool. I had no idea that Hama

wrote all those. Yeah, and actually that was

the first that was the first Toy series whatever

you want to call it that ever used you know like

a file card or what he called on Dossier with

with the information on on each character and

you know since then it's almost become standard

where You see that in a lot of cartoons since

then but that was the first one that did that

Hmm I used to collect and Just to chime in because

you had said that you know the shift from the

12 inches to the three and three fourths actually

what it was what killed the 12 inch figures was

It all comes back to this was oil prices and

and things like that that were going on in the

world at that time It became too expensive for

them to produce the 12 inch figures And the prices

were going to be too steep for people to buy

them. So that's one reason why the 12 inches

went by the wayside. But like you said, Star

Wars, when they did that three and three force,

all of a sudden it became feasible to do it that

way. And they were fine producing the three and

three force. Their only rule when they were producing

the toys is every year's line, you had to be

able to own the entire line for $100. If you

had $100. You were supposed to be able to buy

each year's entire line, and they wanted to make

sure they never went above that. I don't know

how many years that lasted, but when the first

series of toys came out, that was their goal.

Hmm, that's interesting. I thought that was kind

of cool for them to actually try to make it feasible

for the everyday person to try to own the whole

line. I thought that was kind of cool, because

most toy companies try to just bleed you out

of however much money they could get out of you.

Yeah, very much so. Yeah, I wonder how that affected

the vehicles, because I know a lot of the vehicles

were just expensive. The aircraft carrier? Well,

yeah, the teratron. But even the early stuff,

like the MOBAT, the tank, that was expensive.

I mean, it was a remote control. Well, not a

remote control, but you could make it go forward

and backward and turn. Originally, I don't know

how many actual figures. I'm not a huge mongus

G .I. Joe. I don't know how many figures are

in each series. I know originally there was only

ten figures in the three and three fourth line,

but I don't know I'm assuming subsequent years

had 20 or 30 figures in each line, but I don't

know. Fantastic use of pause there while you

type. I don't know who the original ten characters

were, but I know that there was originally ten

of them. Yeah, and they all looked the same pretty

much. The original ten all wore green fatigues

and you could tell them apart by their facial

hair. Or like Clutch had a beard. I think the

only one you could really tell apart was Zap

because he had the red pad zones. Yeah, they

did get some when you talk about the vehicles

and stuff like that. And they did get some pretty

cool perks. The guys that were designing these

toys, they actually got to go to actual military

bases. And not only military bases, but they

got to go to like, I don't know what the technical

name for them is, but they got to go into military

facilities that were trying to design weapons

for the future. And they got to see what some

of those designs were before, you know, before

they ever were completed or before the world

saw them to try to, you know, kind of... take

some of those ideas and then combine them with

whatever crazy schemes they wanted to create

the GI Joe vehicle. So I thought that was kind

of cool that the military actually let them into

their facilities to see, you know, not necessarily

top secret information, but to see what they

were designing for the future. Hmm, that reminds

me of a certain live action Transformers director,

bastard. Michael Bay made my childhood. The overall

premise for the toy line revolves around an elite

counter -terrorist team codenamed G .I. Joe,

whose main purpose is to vend the human freedom

from COBRA, a ruthless terrorist organization

determined to rule the world. In 1994, Hasbro

transferred control of the G .I. Joe toy line

and brand name to the newly acquired Kenner Division,

who promptly canceled the real American hero

toy line and replaced it with the new Sergeant

Savage and his Screaming Eagles toy line instead.

After a brief revival in 1997 -98, the tour line

was revived as Real American Hero Collection

in 2000 to the mass market. In both cases, previous

molds were reused and some characters had to

be renamed due to copyright issues. Another relaunch

was made in 2002 under the theme G .I. Joe vs.

Cobra and new designs and characters were introduced.

Sometimes I really hate copyright law because

it's not the same toy. if it doesn't have the

original name. Yeah, that's something that is

pretty crappy about that whole law. Hezbro .com

officially announced a new line of 25th anniversary

4 -inch G .I. Joe figures on January 18, 2007.

The line is primarily based on the characters

and designs from the early part of the Real American

Hero line. Which, that's kind of cool. Yeah,

those are really nice. They're like hyper articulated,

but they pay an amazing amount of homage to the

original designs. They're really nice. Holy crap,

the creator of Jim was a writer on this show.

I'm just looking into writing credits here. You

got Buzz Dixon, Ron Friedman, Flint Dilley, David

Cairn, Carla Conway, Jerry Conway, which majority

of these people wrote stuff for Transformers,

obviously. That's that's the chick that created

Jim Well, she also did at Beast Wars and Beast

Machines episodes. Well, and actually they say

on her scripts were so good that they needed

no editing Yeah, I believe it Ted Peterson Beth

Bornstein Steve Mitchell I'm not recognizing

anybody else really. Well, Larry Hammer, but

he pretty much was some of the creative team.

Go ahead. Do a quick note on one of the ones

you called out there, Friedman. He was one of

the main writers, actually, when it all... Hammer

was the main comic book writer. He wrote all

the comics, but for the TV series, Friedman was

the one that really kind of... developed everything.

And I think he's one of the keys in making G

.I. Joe what it was. Before he became involved

as a writer, he actually was involved in special

studies where he was like in these test groups

and different pilot studies where he would go

and play with toys with kids and figure out which

things caught their interest or what grabbed

them about different toys, whether it was card

games or board games or you know. more action

figure type stuff. So I think that experience

really gave him an insight into when he was doing

the cartoon, how am I going to grab these kids'

attention in three minutes or in two minutes.

So I think he was usually the big reason. I mean,

obviously they had a good cast with Buzz Dixon

and Flint Dilley, but I think Friedman really

helped out in writing. You should get some feedback

on that. All right. Very, very much so. I've

actually, since you haven't been on the show

recently, Kevin, I've actually combined the writers

and directors. I actually couldn't find any directors

for this show, but I did find, as far as series

produced by, Joe Bacall, Jim Duffy, Tom Griffin,

Michael Charles Hill. Those are really the only

names that I recognize. Obviously Joe Bacall,

Jay Bacall, and Tom Griffin. Joe is, I believe

Joe is the father, Jay is the son, and then Tom

Griffin is Joe's partner as far as G .I. Joe

slash Transformers. I thought it was interesting

too. When they went to get their main writer,

which was Friedman, they actually set out and

had a purpose to not find someone that was an

animated writer. They actually went and auditioned

people that were writers for live action. TV

series for, you know, actions and dramas on TV,

you know, adult type shows. And they specifically

went away from the normal, which was getting,

you know, just an animated writer who had experience.

And that's how they found Friedman. He had actually

had no, very little experience ever doing animated

writing before. But I think that kind of helped

bring the show and make it not so, I don't know,

kiddie's the right word, but... a little bit

more advanced than some of the other stuff that

was out there. No, this show, now that I've watched

a couple of these episodes back then, I can see

why parents would not want their kids back then

in the 80s watching these types of shows, because

all this violence really wasn't for kids. I don't

know. It was a very violent show. I don't think

it was that bad. I'm sure there's more stuff

that's violent now, but I'm saying back then,

at that time, I know for a fact that my aunt

would not allow me to watch Transformers at her

house because she thought they were too violent.

That's just the way it is. Especially with all

those lasers hitting people. Yeah, those things

that don't exist. Oh wait, they never hit anybody.

I don't think they actually hit anybody, no.

Only in the episode where they go into the alternate

earth and there's G .I. Joe's bed on the ground,

I guess that was kind of more of a good book.

I mean, they would do things like Lady J would

throw a stick at them and the stick would explode

and instead of like, you know, hand grenades

popping out, there'd be a net and the net would

lift everybody up and they'd be like, oh, we're

caught now, you know. I hated that. Yeah. It

was a little more mature though than some of

the other cartoons out there. Meaning, let's

just compare it to Transformers for a second.

I know Transformers are machines and these are

actual people. But in GI Joe, you actually had

boyfriends and girlfriends on the show. Like

you actually had people that had relationships

with each other. You had connotations to kissing

each other or stuff like that or having love

interests. So I thought that kind of helped make

it more... where it wasn't a show where you were

going to give up right after you turned 10, you

know, because it was too childish for you. It

was a show where you could watch it and kind

of still have interest even into your teen years.

Well, they could always watch The Girl Who Loved

Power Glide. But anyway, that's a whole other

monster. Or they can watch G .I. Joe Resolute.

Oh, God. Let's not get into that. I would love

to get into that. No, let's not get into that.

That falls out of the timeline, thank you very

much. It happened after 1999. Plus, Steve, you

and I already covered that on Geekcast Radio,

so anyway. Moving into the actual show, there

was actually the mini -series before the actual

cartoon started up. The first G .I. Joe cartoon

series was produced by Marvel Productions and

Sunbrow Productions to follow the success of

the Toyline by Hasbro. G .I. Joe premiered as

a five -part mini -series on September 12th,

1983. uh... miniseries or like a five -part miniseries

that's going to be shown the whole week for a

kids type show and there was a lot of people

that thought that that was a bad idea and thought

it was going to you know it would never work

but I guess every single day of those five days

the ratings went higher until at the end of the

week it was just you know beyond a hit and with

the success of that animated introduction A second

mini -series was aired GI Joe the Revenge of

Cobra on September 10th, 1984. As far as the

Real American Hero, this five -part pilot mini

-series was alternately aired under the title

The Mass Device. During the series' syndication,

Cobra develops an experimental teleportation

unit known as the Mass Device, which has the

ability to transport matter to any global location.

using satellite to relay the teleportation beam.

GI Joe must stop Cobra by creating a mass system

of their own, but first they'll need to gather

the three rare elements to power the device,

which consist of radioactive crystals, heavy

water found in the depths of the ocean, and fragments

from a giant meteorite. Yeah, so basically it's...

It's basically, you could pretty much equate

the G .I. Josier, and I'm not trying to say anything

bad, I mean, you could basically equate this

to Counter -Strike, where it's terrorist, anti

-terrorist. Oh yeah. And they did that because

they didn't want to have the bad guys be from

a specific country. They didn't want to have

any backlash from having them be from Korea or

being from, you know, Russia or, you know, whatever

it was. That was their way to just say, oh, they're

terrorists. And that's anybody. I don't know.

Yeah. You know, you just throw them in a blue

uniform with a red snake on the front and put

a silver mask on them. And hey, they're Cobra

Commander clones. They were ahead of their time.

Yeah, exactly. Michael or Steve, do you guys

either want to take the Revenge of Cobra or Pyramid

of Darkness miniseries and talk about those?

I remember them so much being in miniseries,

I may have been too young to really know at the

time. Okay, well, that's just the way the information

was presented in wiki, so I will just go into

the main series. Following the initial two miniseries,

the regular series began airing September 16th,

1985, debuting with the third five -part story,

The Pyramid of Darkness. A public safety lesson

was usually featured at the end of each episode,

using Jajo characters in brief scenarios to imb...

To impart safety tips to children, these lessons

gave birth to the catchphrase, and knowing is

half the battle. In each episode's opening title

sequence, famed voice actor Jackson Beck states

that G .I. Joe is the code name for America's

daring, highly trained special mission force,

its purpose to defend human freedom against Cobra,

a ruthless terrorist organization determined

to rule the world. It makes me want to break

into the theme song. Well, actually, it's funny

you mention that because I have the theme song

and I'm actually going to cut that out, just

the voiceover part, and it's going to actually

be the intro to the show before the actual whole

theme. Nice. Because the cartoons were produced

as a vehicle to sell the toys, as Michael said,

each episode typically focused on a particular

G .I. Joe character, giving almost everyone a

moment in the spotlight. The animated series

was not directly tied to the comic book produced

by Marvel Comics, although several concepts such

as the October Guard, Springfield, and Serpenter

were all featured in the comic book and the animated

series. They were actually given direction from

Hasbro as far as which characters needed to be

featured in which episode oh Hasbro would actually

tell them we want this story to be about this

and you need to have the Baroness and you know

Flint and whatever roadblock in it right right

you know due to toy sales at one point Scarlet

actually almost disappeared from the cartoon

altogether because her toy wasn't selling very

well wow In season two featured former WWF and

then current AWA professional wrestler made cartoon

hero Sergeant Slaughter who appeared in the five

-part season opener Arise, Serpenter, Arise.

The general consensus amongst fans of the GI

Joe series is that program reached its peak in

its second season with the introductions of Sergeant

Slaughter and Serpenter. Slaughter was a popular

member of the cast and even gained his own action

figure. However, after a 1990 -1991 WWF storyline

in which Slaughter turned traitor, during the

first Gulf War, Slaughter was disassociated from

the franchise. As far as the cancellation, Sunbeau's

G .I. Joe, a real American hero, series ended

November 20th, 1986, after 95 episodes. For various

reasons, Sunbeau Productions did not continue

production for a third season. Despite G .I.

Joe's success, no other studio offered to produce

a new season until 1989 when Deke took over.

As far as the film now, I don't really remember

this film. My two main 80s films was Transformers

and The Secret of the Sword, the He -Man film.

I don't even ever remember seeing this. Because

of the Transformers film is why you don't remember.

Exactly. This actually killed the film. No, they

split this movie up into, I think, like three

or four episodes. Five. It was five. Yeah, it

was five. Okay, put it on TV. That's the only

reason I saw it. I didn't even realize it was

a movie. It was originally going to be a movie

on the big screen, just like Transformers, and

because Transformers was such a flop, and because

of the, you know, a couple different things,

they scrapped the idea to make it a - live, you

know, an actual movie on the big screen, turned

it into basically a straight to VHS movie, but

then so that people could see it, broke it into

five parts and showed it on TV too. And not only

that, about that movie, Duke was supposed to

die in it. Yes, I will be bringing that up in

one second because it's actually very funny.

like you were saying Duke was supposed to die

in it Hasbro said to Sunbow the only way that

you can kill because originally before the switch

before it was Transformers then GI Joe when it

was originally going to be GI Joe then Transformers

Hasbro told them if you kill Duke you must kill

Optimus Prime I thought that they had killed

Optimus Prime and there was such a huge backlash.

Well, there was. You know what? Now we can't

possibly kill Duke because I'm not going through

that again. They had actually already, this could

be conflicting reports, but they actually had

already finished the movie and had basically

almost finished the movie and had Duke die in

the movie because of all the directions and at

the last second had to throw a scene in at the

end or something. With a line suggested that

he hadn't died even just in a coma or right exactly

Here's the information in the script that I grabbed

despite popular misconception Duke's death was

not planned as a result of Hasbro ordering the

writers of Transformers the movie to kill off

most of the original Autobot characters in all

actuality Duke's death was the inspiration for

killing off the Autobot leader Optimus Prime.

The writers for G .I. Joe asked for permission

to kill Duke in which Hasbro agreed on the condition

that Prime also be killed off in Transformers.

Production had begun on G .I. Joe first and was

thus expected to be released first. During the

production of the two films G .I. Joe's production

schedule got held up while Transformers finished

production and the release dates were changed

and Transformers received the theatrical release

in 1986. Optimus Prime's death sparked some backlash

among fans for killing off such a popular character.

From the parents from having their children in

tears after the scene, Hasbro backtracked on

allowing Duke's death and had new dialogue inserted

stating that Duke was only in a coma and that

he was able to come out of it off -screen at

the end of the film. Duke reappeared as a prominent

character in the Duke series in two episodes,

The Mind Mangler and Channel... indicating that

his recovery from the injury in a coma was complete

enough that he was able to return to active duty

as part of GI Joe. According to story consultant

Buzz Dixon, however, if you watch Duke goes into

a coma sequence with the volume turned down,

it's obvious that Duke actually dies at the end

of the scene. In fact, the Japanese -language

laserdisc release of the film, The Issue of Duke's

Death, was actually left unedited. So if you

get that and you watch the laserdisc, of course,

again, who the hell has laserdisc these days?

You know, it's just like getting stuff on VHS.

Who the hell has a VCR anymore? But you know,

the Japanese are known for... Either editing

stuff out or leaving stuff unedited. I don't

know again I really can't say too much about

this about the actual GI Joe movie because It

I just I don't think I've ever seen it if you

haven't seen it. You need to see it It's probably

just some of the best GI Joe stuff there has

ever been The five -part movie is awesome Too

bad it's not on that DVD set Well, I almost said

Sunbow. Shout Factory didn't get permission to

put it in there. Oh, but they did, but they didn't.

Well, they didn't get actual permission to put

it in there, but they left space in if they eventually

do. Right. Yeah. Right, they have a spot for

it. They have a spot that says 1987 G .I. Joe

movie. Yeah. 1994, sorry, direct -to -video release

for Sergeant Savage and the Screaming Eagles.

In 2003, Real FX Creative Studio produced a cartoon

based on a real American hero, although it was

only a direct -to -video CGI movie, G .I. Joe's

Spy Troops. Managed to spawn a second movie,

G .I. Joe Valor vs. Venom in 2004. Any planned

follow -ups, however, have been shelved to make

way for Hasbro's latest incarnation of the G

.I. Joe universe, G .I. Joe Sigma 6. Although

Sigma 6 is superficially connected to a real

American hero, its continuity is self -contained.

and Hasbro is not expected to return to the real

American hero line. Sigma 6 was just... God,

I hate that show. Agreed. I tried watching it

after the... I remember when Fox was running

it. They were running it right after the new

Turtles series back then. Oh, God. I don't even

know where to begin with. Huh? by truth despite

your people well yeah but i mean sigma i don't

think i ever caught those two films the spy trooper

thing or the uh... or the valor versus venom

i've never seen those but uh... you know i'm

not going to fix it was said that bad but they're

not that means that they're mad Do have some

trivia here as I mentioned earlier Larry Hamill

was the writer of the file cards written on the

back of the packaging of the GI Joe toy line

At one point Cobra is going to be at one point

Cobra was going to be Soviets But this idea was

trot because it was considered culturally insensitive

Well, at least they dropped it In one episode,

Destro has to recite an ancient incantation to

defeat a monster. If the incantation is recorded

and played backwards, it says, anyone listening

to this message backwards is a real dweeb. Wow.

Dang. Sergeant Slaughter, a real -life professional

wrestler, became a member of the G .I. Joe team

during the show's second season. sergeant sergeant

slaughter provided the voice for the animated

character the animated sergeant slaughter remained

a member of the g .i. joe team later seasons

even after his real -life counterpart became

an anti -american heel wrestler teaming up with

an iraqi general general admin and i don't know

against hulk hogan at wrestlemania seven during

the time 1990 persian gulf war Real -life Chicago

Bears football star William The Refrigerator

Perry became a member of the GI Joe team in late

1986 with a codename Fridge. A special edition

action figure was issued but Fridge was never

featured on the animated series. Well, that kind

of sucks. Neither was Matt, but he was a figure.

Let's not go there. Just not going there, you

know better than that. I'm gonna find a way to

find that figure and buy it. Join the GI Joe

team in 1987 in fact Marvel Comics GI Joe order

of the battle issue number two contained a dossier

for Balboa and Hasbro designed a prototype figure

with Sylvester Stallone's likeness. Oh my god

Oh my god, please you can have sergeant slaughter,

but you can't have Rocky as the as the GI Joe

boxer I just find it very very strange that what

I thought it was interesting is that there His

counterpart, which would have been Big Boa, was

an actual action figure. Yeah, he was added to

the Cobra roster, complete with boxing gloves

to act as Rocky's Cobra counterpart. But he ended

up being the Cobra trainer, which would have

been more like a foil to Sergeant Slaughter.

The line of action figures included one for Zartan

and Swampmaster, a villain who could camouflage

himself like a chameleon. However, the figure

was taken off the shelves in late 1986. Zartan

could camouflage himself, though. This confuses

me. Like I said, he had a vehicle that he came

with. I forget what it was called, but it was

like a little swamp skiff that he would ride

on. Right and it changed colors too. Yeah, um

do we have any other thoughts on the actual show

Steve? You're awfully quiet over there. Yes.

I'm still awake. Don't worry Yeah, you're not

you better not fucking fall asleep in this show

You guys start you guys start hearing You know

Steve's asleep Darth Vader over there No, it

would not I guess we can move unless Kevin do

you have any other thoughts on the final show

or the final the the actual show of the 83 series

Yeah So moving into the music the series original

music was done by Johnny Douglas and Robert J

Walsh and of course, you know Everybody remembers

the theme to this show This is one of those top

themes that you just don't know and I'm sure

it's probably either if it's not number one or

two it's probably in Kevin's top ten of his CD

collection he has made. It's not in the top ten.

What? It's not in the top ten. What is wrong

with you? You gotta, oh there's so much, there's

so many songs about, when you listen to 400 Beams

songs it's... It takes a task to get you down

to top 10. It is in the top 20. I'll give you

that much. Okay. Well, at least it's in the top

20. At least it's there. Yeah. What do you guys...

I mean, do you guys have any thoughts on the

music for this? Honestly, when I was watching

the episodes I was watching today, I'm like,

hey, wait. That's Transformers music. Like, during

the actual episode. Not the actual theme song,

but just during the actual episode. And of course,

as we've said before, Transformers and G .I.

Joe, they're pretty much interchangeable as far

as writers and crew and stuff, but I heard...

I lied. What? I lied 28. Oh, you're going to...

I actually put Thundercats, Union Man, and Transformers

all ahead of it. Oh my God. Anyways, while I

was watching the episodes I was watching today,

I recognized music that I had recognized from

Transformers. I guess it's kind of cool. I don't

know. I guess it probably cut costs. They reused

a lot of the music and a lot of the sound effects.

Yeah. Well, it was the Saving Studio doing them

both. Yeah. What did you say, Kevin? I said they

even reused some of the plot. Oh, yeah. That's

true, too. So going into the legacy segment here.

Kevin hasn't been on the show in a while and

I gotta say, I've actually looked at the IGN

list and even though I don't agree with it, I

realize that they, I mean as I've said before,

I realize everybody has to rate stuff. At least

G .I. Joe beat out some really, really horrible

cartoons. It is ranked at number 19 on their

top 100. Which I can kind of... It's quite possibly

the worst cartoon ranking ever though. Have you

looked at the list ever? Yeah, I've looked through

all 100 of them. As far as other G .I. Joe series

in 1989, Deke Entertainment produced a second

G .I. Joe series starting with a five -part mini

series titled Operation Dragonfire. A regular

series was broadcast in 1990, also lasting two

seasons to yield 44 episodes. The next few years,

various cartoons tie into the G .I. Joe franchise

were released. But they had no hearing or no

bearing on the real American hero mythology.

Former ARH executive in charge of production

Lee Gunther's new studio Gunther Wall Productions

was contracted and created a new series titled

GI Joe Extreme in 1996 featuring new characters

and villains with the 1985 and 1990 series. This

series was distributed by Claster. I don't even

remember Extreme. I do. And that was on the Power

Block, I believe, along with Beast Wars. Oh,

okay, yeah. No. There are comics for G .I. Joe.

In 1982, when Hasbro relaunched their G .I. Joe

franchise with G .I. Joe, a real American hero,

it was supported by Marvel Comics Series. The

comic book history of G .I. Joe, a real American

hero, has seen three separate publishers. and

four main title series, all of which have been

based on the Hasbro toyline of the same name.

Without the comics, there would have been no

show. True, true. Because of their unique way

of advertising the comics. When they advertised

the comics on TV, they did so using animation

before there was ever a cartoon, and it was so

well received that they were like, maybe we should

do a whole cartoon about it. So that was kind

of neat how that happened. True. I think all

four of us can agree there wasn't one single

cartoon show in the 80s that wasn't a toy commercial

for a toy company. For the majority. But I do

have to say something about that because that's

one of the things that pisses me off more than

anything else is when people write all the stuff

off as toy commercials. Yes they were all toy

commercials but there was toy commercials and

then there was toy commercials and what I mean

is you had your series that were made only to

sell toys and they didn't give two ships about

the period what i mean it like and shurianne

dino writers all this bullshit great episode

and don't have to and then you have to go to

the transformers which yet they were a toy commercial

but people gave a shit about what they were doing

with that mark my language but but the writer

actually cared the producers actually cared their

voice talent actually cared it wasn't just a

job You know, they were all voice, they were

all toy commercials, but at least these were

done with, you know, some integrity and they

were trying to do, at least put out a product

that was good. Yeah. Unlike some of the other

crap that we had in the 80s. As far as the toy

line, the figures were three and three -fourths

inch tall at roughly one -eighteenth scale throughout

the original toy line. Production from 1982 through

1994, figure construction remained relatively

the same. The most notable changes were the second

series addition of the swivel arm articulation

in 1983, which allowed for forearm to rotate

above the elbow. Initial figures can only bend

their elbows. In the fourth series, ball joints

replacing the former swivel necks, both dramatically

increasing figure's poseability. You know, if

you guys want to talk about some of the toy lines,

that's fine. I'm not a GI Joe toy collector.

I never had that many of the toys, but I remember

playing with them more than I remember playing

with about any other toy because I had a next

-door neighbor that probably had over 100 of

them. And I just remember taking them and going

outside. We had some in trees. We had some in

bushes. We had some on the dirt. We had them

everywhere. It was just like GI Joe heaven. No,

I probably when I remember playing with transformers.

I remember playing by myself You know, it's transforming

over and over again But when I remember GI Joe's

I remember playing with like two or three friends

and just combining everything we had and having

them outside Right, right, right You guys Steve

or Michael do you guys have any memories of the

actual toys? I know Michael you were saying I

don't know if you said this on air I think you

said it back in general memories thing about

your friend that had like two of each one or

whatever Yeah, they had a lot of the toys The

earlier vehicles were all very close to actual

military hardware. And my favorite was the Dragonfly,

the helicopter. And the Dragonfly was just chock

full of features. I mean, it could carry two

figures up front, and plus there were peg holes

on the landing struts. So people could actually

hang on the side of the helicopter to carry them

around. It had guns in the front that would swivel.

It had rockets on either side that you could

pop off and throw at people. It had a trigger

that you could pull on the back that would spin

the rotors. There was a winch underneath that

you could drop a hook down and carry people or

other vehicles or things around so it could actually

carry things with it. It had so much detail,

like the stickers. little tiny little stickers

that would say not a step next to the engines

or you know careful hot you know pointing to

the outtake of the the engines. I think it's

pretty safe to say that the GI Joe line had better

vehicles than any other toy line possibly ever

and I know you can make an argument with the

mask with cars and stuff like that that's kind

of shifted into another thing. The mask was on

three and three -quarter though. Yeah, no, that's

true, but I just think the GI Joe vehicles were

number one ever Well, they started off really

nice be again because the the dragonfly looked

like a real Cobra attack helicopter the the MOBAT

tank looked like a real tank a lot of the other

stuff that they they sold you know the missile

systems and The jeeps all that looked like real

military hardware and it wasn't until that you

get into you know 1990s let's say when they really

started running out of hardware and they started

making stuff up it's like well you know what

would be cool is if we had you know this giant

tank tread looking thing with that would sprout

helicopters out the top of it or something Yeah,

exactly. They're just making stuff up at that

point. And it kind of got lame because they didn't

know what color to make it. You end up with like

a lime green, you know, weird looking helicopter

thing. Yeah, whereas, you know, the earlier stuff

was, in my opinion, the best. They had some boats

and stuff like that that would actually float

in the water and stuff like that. I think the

hydrofoil floated, the Cobra hydrofoil. And I

gotta just bring up the aircraft carrier again.

That may be the most impressive toy I've ever

seen in my life. I never owned it, because I

think it was the most expensive out of the whole

line. But the aircraft carrier, you could literally

hold your entire collection of Joes in it. like

on it in different places. If you have a chance

to look it up online, I mean, it was just so

impressive. Like, they showed it on a... Wasn't

that, like, six feet long? Or something ridiculous?

Yeah, they showed it on a commercial with three

kids around it and stuff like that. It's crazy.

Yeah, I remember seeing the commercials for that.

Yeah, I've never actually seen one up close.

Now, I've seen the pterodrome. And that thing's

big. Yeah. I've never seen it in real life, but

the commercial's impressive. That thing's like,

what, two and a half feet in diameter? It's a

big place. It's like two stories tall. And they

actually said when they brought in the aircraft

carrier to show the team or whoever was doing

it, I don't know how they do that. But they said

they brought it into the room and the people

didn't realize that that's what they were showing.

They thought that they were going to pull stuff

out of it to show. They didn't realize that that

was the actual toy that they were going to try

to sell. Yeah. But it worked like a real carrier.

I mean it had like an elevator so that you could

put the helicopter on a platform and the whole

platform would then go under the deck so that

you could store it. And it actually had like

a little tow vehicle so that once the helicopter

or jet or whatever was under deck, then the tow

vehicle would come and tow it into place. It

was just so when you're a kid you like something

that where you can put Not necessarily just like

throw all your figures in and close it up and

it's a carrying case But where you can actually

like pose all of your figure somewhere on that

on that on the ship. Oh, yeah It's like a diorama

that you stored in your bedroom I think that's

where Transformers started to get the idea for

citybots like Metroplex and Fort Max and Tripticon

to capitalize on having a carrier or something

that you could carry around with some of your

toys, anyway. Right. Even now, my Metroplex is

posed in city mode with minifigs all over it.

Good Lord. I think the most impressive part,

though, is we're not just talking about one of

the city blocks where you can fit, like, I don't

know, how many figures can you fit on there?

10, 12? Half a dozen meatops, yeah. This aircraft

carrier, you could fit, like, 50. Like you could

put like 50 of your Joes on it. What? Yeah, exactly.

What are those going for now? I don't know. It's

probably very expensive. Going into the VHS and

DVD releases. In the 1980s, various episodes

were released on VHS by Family Home Entertainment.

In 2003 -2004, Rhino Entertainment began releasing

G .I. Joe, a real American hero, on DVD in Region

1. They released the original miniseries in 2003

followed by season one in two volume sets in

2004. The first half of season two was released

in late 2004 but the remaining episodes were

never released. These DVDs have since gone out

of print as Rhino lost the distribution rights.

In 2008 it was announced that Hasbro had reacquired

the worldwide distribution rights to the Sunbow

library which includes GI Joe. In March 2009,

it was revealed that Shout Factory had acquired

the rights to re -release the G .I. Joe on DVD

Region 1. They subsequently released Season 1

Part 1 on July 14, 2009. Season 1 Part 2 was

released November 3, which is a couple days ago.

Or well, by the time this episode aired, it would

be a couple of weeks ago. Shout Factory also

released a G .I. Joe complete series collector

set on July 22, 2009. The set includes all 95

restored episodes on 17 DVDs, new interviews,

exclusive feature ads, archival Hasbro toy commercials,

and collectible 60 -page book. Yeah, me want.

Me go to Illinois and steal Kevin's. Go ahead.

I mean, I love the Transformers collection and

there's nothing wrong with it. But the way the

Foot Locker is actually made, it is a far superior

actual design as far as how it goes. The Foot

Locker itself is more sturdy. You have an actual

hard case that it's all in. The way the DVDs

are stored in the Foot Locker, it's just, this

set is absolutely remarkable. Yeah, I've seen

the pictures of both. And of course, being a

Transformers fan, I want the Transformers set.

And I understand that they, reading through news

articles, right before they released it, they

weren't going to actually make a case like an

actual Matrix, or a Matrix replica, or something

like that, or anything really that special. They

just made it into a really, really hard cardboard

box, which... At least it's a hard cardboard

box and it's not flimsy like a lot of the other

DVD complete series sets are sometimes. But the

G .I. Joe set, they really went all out with

that. I mean, it's not often that you get a friggin'

metal footlocker filled with G .I. Joe stuff.

They only left up one thing. The only bad thing

about the footlocker is the way you close the

footlocker, it has like a little metal like latch

type thing like you would have on a... lunch

box or whatever you want, any type of thing like

that. But the way they did it is, the latch is

on the bottom, and if you were trying to put

it on a DVD rack, you can't display it with the

G .I. Joe symbol facing out, and it sitting flat.

Oh, I see what you're saying. Yeah, that, yeah.

Because the latch is on the bottom, so you have

to like, be creative, and there's no way to change

the insert that's in the front. So it goes upside

down. Yeah. So you could put it flat. So that's

the only bad thing about it is it makes it harder

for you to actually display the thing like on

our actual BBB stand or rack or something like

that. Now you see what I would do is I would

get a very like if you don't have a if you don't

have a footboard on your bed I would get a very

very low table like you know extremely low and

just set it on that at the foot of your bed.

That's what I would do. a couple other things

about the, you know, some cool features about

this DVD. It basically comes, there's two books

of DVDs, and you've probably seen pictures of

them online, or if you want to, you can see what

it looks like. But the first book, every cover,

it's the first, I believe, nine DVDs, every disc

has a different picture of one of the good guys,

one of the Joes, and it's kind of a who's who

of the head Joes. And then on the second book,

which is discs 10 through 17, It's all the Cobra

and Destro and, you know, all those, all the

bad guys with, obviously, the last spot being

reserved for it. So it's G .I. Jones, the movie,

1987, and it's empty. So that's pretty, a pretty

cool way to do that. The book that comes with

it's cool. It has character profiles. It has

an intro by Seth Green. And it has, you know,

it has summaries of every episode plus full -size

pictures of some of the main characters. It comes

with tattoos, not that I cared about the tattoos.

The one gigabyte dog tag flash drive that it

comes with is kind of cool. It's loaded with

two GI Joe comics. And it also includes a folder

labeled download that stores the individual comic

pages as JPEG files in the event that you want

to access the images to use as screen favors

or wallpaper, et cetera. Oh, cool. So that's

kind of cool. And I know you kind of mentioned

some of the special features, but since I've

watched them all, I'll just touch on a couple

of them real quick. The first three discs all

have very limited bonus features. Basically,

they had an interview with Rob Friedman, one

of the writers. They split it into three very

short parts, and that's what's on the first three

discs. The fourth disc has... knowing it's half

the battle of the PSAs. It has the original 1963

Toy Fair presentation, has toy commercials from

Hasbro, and has a printable script. The eighth

disc has... gotta flip through this book here

with one hand since I'm on the phone. The eighth

disc has Everyday Heroes, The History of G .I.

Joe. It's an in -depth look at... action figures,

the comic books, the animated series. It is an

awesome feature. I just watched that. It's an

excellent feature. It also has more PSAs and

more toy commercials. The 12th disc is where

it's all at though. The 12th disc is where the

bonus features really kind of hit home for me.

They have creating the G .I. Joe animated series

and it's a look back at all the development and

the writers and the producers of it, followed

by voices of a real American hero. which is a

roundtable discussion with eight members of the

voice cast. It has Jack Angel, Michael Bell,

Greg Berger, Arthur Burkhardt, Dick Gaultier,

B .J. Ward, and Corey Burton. It's just an absolutely

awesome discussion. They have the exact same

thing on the Transformers one, except instead

of B .J. Ward they have Frank Welker, and I think

there's one other difference too. Those two discussions

the two voices actors roundtables on the GI Joe

and transformers are easily the best in my opinion

the best bonus feature on the whole thing yeah

more PSA's more toy commercials and then the

last disc of the whole thing has Green shirts

the GI Joe legacy, which is an intimate look

at those most touched. It's just kind of a fan

thing That's the only one I haven't seen yet.

I had a conversation with Larry Hammer which

is an in -depth interview with the comic book

writer that we talked about. More PSAs, fan material,

toy commercials. And somewhere, I don't remember

what disc it is on. It has the... Oh, it's on

this one. The fan material is actually the fan

-made episode or whatever it was that I think

you were referencing earlier. It's all over YouTube

or something like that. Oh, the fan -made PSA.

I don't know. There's fan made something on it.

I haven't watched it yet. That's the only feature

I haven't watched is the two fan ones. So I don't

know exactly what it is, but it's some fan made

thing that's on the last disc. But the bonus

features are pretty good. There's a few repeating,

like if you watch the bonus features on one disc,

you might hear some of the same interview questions

on another disc. But it goes more in depth or

stuff like that. But the bonus features are pretty

cool. All right. I guess we're gonna move on,

so I guess we're gonna take a break and we will

be right back. Thanksgiving is just one week

away, and Christmas is right around the corner.

Are you looking for a gift for family members

and friends that is slightly not the average

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from the Geekcast Radio Network, and besides

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it. Episode 25 is in the can. Kevin came back.

Yay! Kevin will be back on the show. Probably

for the next little while, Kevin will be back,

most likely and definitely, through this... Telephone

connection that we have even though he won't

actually be on the actual computer But you know

at least we have a way of getting him on the

show Final thoughts on the GI Joe Sunbow series

Michael you can go first Yeah, final thoughts

I think I pretty well covered it. I mean it was

a good leap portion of my childhood I hope Michael

Bay doesn't come and try to ruin it Although

they did make the G .I. Joe movie. I haven't

seen it. I will never see it. No, I will. I mean,

it just came out on DVD. I'd like to see it.

I just didn't want to go spend seven bucks to

go see it. This isn't even something I want to

waste a dollar six at Redbox. No, not for me.

I'll waste it for you. I'll waste it for you

just so you can see it. It's not as bad as you

think. I've heard it wasn't that bad. I, you

know, I... I was reading about it ahead of time,

and basically said, you know, this is going to

be utter crap, and I'm assuming... That's what

I thought when I went into it, and I came out

a completely different opinion. I don't think

I'll, it's kind of like with Bayformers, you

know, I'll go and I'll watch it and I'll enjoy

it, but I don't think I'll end up being a fan

of it. I'll always be a fan of the 1982, you

know, original stuff. But it's kind of like the

Transformers. I'll always be a fan of the G1

1984 stuff, but I just can't get my head around

the movie stuff. Yeah. And it'll probably be

the same with the G .I. Joe, where, you know,

it's neat, it's a different take on it, I appreciate

it, but it's not... You're G .I. Joe. It's just

not right. Yeah, exactly. Steve, what about you?

Final thoughts? Definitely a very memorable and

good series from the 80s to a spectacular voice

cast. A lot of memorable characters and then

some that aren't so much. But yeah, it was definitely

one of those 80s shows next to Transformers that

got me hooked onto my nostalgia. Right, right.

And what about you, Kevin? I honestly have to

say, I have a friend that I watch a lot of animation

with and crappy movies and stuff like that, and

he's a little bit younger than me, kind of a

different generation, but we work together at

Target. And when I got all these cartoons, you

know, Transformers, G .I. Joe, I've shown him

Thundercats and He -Man and Copts and, you know,

all that different stuff. And out of all of them,

he could most watch the G .I. Joe one. He loves

Transformers and stuff like that, but the G .I.

Joe ones he's get into more than any other one,

so I think that's kind of a test of how well

it stands up. Overall, a huge part of my childhood,

like everyone else is saying, easily amongst

the 80s cartoons, which are the best ever, top

three, along with Transformers and Teenage Mutant

Ninja Turtles. Right, yeah. I would have to agree.

Even though I don't remember watching this as

a child, Just watching the episodes that I watched

today on YouTube are the ones that I could find.

I really did find myself enjoying it. So, you

know, Michael, you can stop saying that I hate

it because I don't. I never did. You know, you

know, I just, I didn't remember it. You know,

that was all. I mean, you know, the whole point

of actually, you know, again, the whole point

of Tooncast is to go back and remember stuff

that you may have forgotten. And I know that

in previous episodes, you know there's some things

that once you start talking about it you start

remembering stuff you're like oh yeah I remember

you know I remember that so I mean it's kind

of jogged my memory a little bit and I do want

that that complete DVD set eventually so what

you're saying though is you hated it so much

that you repressed the memory of actually seeing

it no I'm saying that you're twisting my words

you need to shut the fuck up series or or something

else and thought it was you know i saw this series

uh... no no no no no no that's that's a discussion

for another episode so tangent expert random

completely random uh... thank you for joining

us here on tunecast there are several ways to

get in contact with us leave feedback for the

show the first year is it w w w dot d cast radio

dot com and find all the other gcr and podcast

there You can also comment on each episode through

Facebook or through the website itself. The second

is you can stop by PredaconEmpire .com slash

Nexus. Yes, we have new forums. Because, yeah,

V Bulletin, they wanted 200 bucks. And, eh, wrong,

they ain't getting it. Ain't that right, Steve?

Yes, because that's why I get the Nexus forums.

And it's free and it functions and has all the

old posts and everything. So, yeah. Visit there.

Yes. And get all your GCR and Transformers discussion

topics there. The third is you can leave the

show feedback and iTunes. Thank you for everyone

who has left feedback. New listeners, current

listeners, please leave more feedback as you

go along. The fourth is you can visit the www

.earth -2 .net forums. That's a great geek culture

website over there. You can find our threads

for the shows in the self -promotion section.

And the fifth is the email address, which is

gcrintunecast .gmail .com. We now have a voicemail

line. Call us and leave us your thoughts on each

episode. Be sure to say what show you're leaving

the message for and your name. The number is

502 -526 -5821. You can follow us on Twitter,

the show name there is gcrntunecast -tfg1mike.

Steve, what's your Twitter? scp21. Kevin's, even

though he's currently without internet, his is

bosskdog, you can follow him on there, even though

he's not active. And Michael, what is yours?

A -M -C -A -N, I'm just gonna drag this out all

the hell out of here. Uh, C -T -M -I -C -H -A

-E -L Mickey Mouse. We hope you enjoyed this

episode of Tincast and wish you would join us

next time when Kevin will be returning with me

to discuss a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. For

now, I am TFG1 Mike with... Take it away, guys.

I'm Michael Wilson. Goodbye. and Steve Megatron

Phillips. Saying in the immortal words of Optimus

Prime, transform and roll out and thank you for

listening until next time. And knowing is half

the battle. Yes, and knowing is half the battle.

This I command. Oh good lord.