"That Was Way Too Close!"
July 7, 2009 7:51 PM   Subscribe

"That Was Way Too Close!" Wonderfully absurd escapes from mortal danger in the original G.I. Joe cartoon.
posted by nooneyouknow (36 comments total) 9 users marked this as a favorite
 
When you're a kid, it didn't matter that the characters managed to escape death in such blatantly absurd manners every week. When characters are that badass, you just know you gotta get the toys, and thats what mattered.

Obviously this was the point, so kudos to those evil bastards who created GI Joe creators for knowing their target audience; kids eating sugary cereal on a Saturday morning who would pester their parents to buy them stuff.
posted by Effigy2000 at 8:09 PM on July 7, 2009


I was disappointed that the slideshow did not include the one where Flynt escaped a nuclear fireball with a mighty, "yo, Joe", as the rest of the team, Lady Jane, in particular were getting bummed that they may have lost him. Oh yeah, a NUCLEAR mushroom cloud was not going to do any reaping that episode.
posted by jadepearl at 8:13 PM on July 7, 2009


Also; [this is good]

Further; wow. I never made the link before that the guy who voiced Starscream, Chris Latta, voiced Cobra Commander as well. In his Starscream voice, of all things.

Wikipedia also suggests that he was the original voice of Moe and Mr Burns in Season 1 of The Simpsons. Can anyone confirm this or is this another example of Wikipedia's history by consensus?
posted by Effigy2000 at 8:13 PM on July 7, 2009


I have no idea if this is a regular occurrence, but we walked into Active Surplus in Toronto on a very snowy night a few days before Christmas last year. On a monitor by the cash they had the intro sequence/theme song to GI Joe: The Movie on repeat. We were in there for about half an hour and it appeared to have been going on for a long while before that, and no one seemed to want to turn it off.

I'm sure some Toronto MeFites will be able to visualize this scenario perfectly with a minimum of effort.
posted by avocet at 8:13 PM on July 7, 2009 [1 favorite]


TOKEN NATIVE AMERICAN CHARACTER: "I feel another presence."

TYPICALLY 80s EVIL ASIAN CHARACTER: "That presence feels you as well. COBRAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!"

Heh, classic. To quote Family Guy, that's good ol' fashioned family racism, right there.
posted by Effigy2000 at 8:17 PM on July 7, 2009 [1 favorite]


Snakes Eyes in Boy George drag? I think I must have repressed that memory.
posted by stinkycheese at 8:23 PM on July 7, 2009


I was about to comment about what an incredibly thin post this is, but then I noticed the tiny well-hidden "next" arrow in Slate's "Video Slideshow".
(In case anyone else has the same problem)
posted by mrnutty at 8:27 PM on July 7, 2009


Effigy2000: not only did they have us pegged then, they still have us pegged. Is this some kind of G.I. Joe Blue for the upcoming HASBRO produced movie?

And I think the part where the bald eagle grabbed the shuriken in his beak is just begging to be a meme of some sort.
posted by idiopath at 8:31 PM on July 7, 2009


Effigy2000: Wikipedia also says, under entries for Moe Szylak and Montgomery Burns, that Christopher Collins was the original voice for both of those characters, although he was replaced early on for both of them. Since it also says that Christopher Collins is a.k.a. Chris Latta, I would say that, at least Wikipedia is internally consistent.
posted by hippybear at 8:33 PM on July 7, 2009


My GI Joe days were the early 70s, before all this newfangled 'animation' or whatever you young punks call it. Anyway, my mom did get me a GI Joe, one of the talking ones, where you'd pull a string in the back and Joe would say stuff. To go along with Joe, they also got me this really cool scuba set, which I promptly put on Joe and then me and Joe went swimming. When I got out of the water, I pulled Joe's string to see what he had to say about his new scuba outfit, and he kinda slowly and wetly drawled something unintelligible. Turns out, talking Joe wasn't really intended to go scuba diving, and he sounded mentally challenged forevermore.

Later on, I got a new Joe, and his hair felt so real, I shaved him with my mom's razor. Ended up taking a few chunks of plastic off with the hair, and after that he basically looked like a tough (yet penis-less) radiation survivor, with little patches of hair and sharp angled cuts into the plastic.

Ah, Joe and me, we did have some fun times.
posted by jamstigator at 8:33 PM on July 7, 2009 [4 favorites]


For some reason, the slate show wouldn't run for me in firefox, but opening the Cobra browser (IE) allowed it to work. Hm.
posted by maxwelton at 8:34 PM on July 7, 2009


The animators must have been so fucking annoyed that they had to always always always remember to draw the little henchmen parachuting their way to safety whenever their planes got tagged by a laser.

But still, as a young'un, I still always felt like G.I. Joe was way cooler than other shows, for the simple reason that, despite the 100% survival rate of the drones, there was absolutely no disputing that the Joes were indeed at least intending to kill them.
posted by jeremy b at 8:43 PM on July 7, 2009 [1 favorite]


Is it just me or does it sound like Shipwreck was voiced by Jack Nicholson?
posted by banishedimmortal at 8:45 PM on July 7, 2009


Me and my brother used to watch the show actively rooting for a death of any kind.

Occasionally we would catch a plane getting shot down where they forgot to draw the guy parachuting out. We counted that as a victory.
posted by drjimmy11 at 8:50 PM on July 7, 2009 [4 favorites]


Jesus Christ, Spirit fucking flew a fucking jet with a bald fucking eagle perched on his fucking shoulder. That'd be one hell of a scene in real life.
posted by boo_radley at 9:02 PM on July 7, 2009 [3 favorites]


G.I. Joe was an important cartoon in my youth, if only because it gave me my first taste of gay culture.

Hey, look! It's a bunch of muscular dudes wearing leather pants and no shirts! That guy over there wears a totally glam silver mask! Big mustaches for everyone! Way to rock that sailor suit with only the bottom button of your shirt buttoned, Shipwreck. Green and gold sequined snake costume? Totally fierce, Serpentor! Now let's go party with a guy whose codename is "Snowjob".

God bless you, Hasbro. Yo Joe, indeed. Yo Joe us, every one.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 9:14 PM on July 7, 2009 [10 favorites]


Correction, July 7, 2009: This sentence originally misidentified this Joe as Roadblock. He is in fact the other on um..Stalker.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:19 PM on July 7, 2009 [1 favorite]


Needs more porkchop sandwiches
posted by ijoyner at 9:23 PM on July 7, 2009 [1 favorite]


I feel sorry for any Joes whose actual legal name is Joseph.
posted by Tomorrowful at 9:25 PM on July 7, 2009


And I think the part where the bald eagle grabbed the shuriken in his beak is just begging to be a meme of some sort.

Eaglesoft beat you to the punch.
posted by furtive at 9:30 PM on July 7, 2009


I loved G.I. Joe (and the toys) and the A-Team, but even as a wee child, it bugged the shit out of me that none of these guys could shoot worth a shit. I mean, these are the best of the best, or, if you will, a crack commando unit. The A-Team promptly escaped from a maximum security military prison. Not slowly, not after a while, they had shit to do! But the only people who ever got shot were A-Team members. It infuriated me as a kid (I might have been too hung up on this stuff.

Later, I discovered Starblazers (Uchu Senkai Yamato, dubbed in English) and Tour Of Duty, and in those shows, people died in every episode. My bloodlust was satisfied.

Counseling? Me? Why do you ask?
posted by Ghidorah at 11:37 PM on July 7, 2009 [1 favorite]


Oh, and obligatory McSweeney's Journal of a New Cobra Recruit
posted by Ghidorah at 11:38 PM on July 7, 2009 [3 favorites]


See also: Something Awful's Cobra After-Action Reports
posted by mhum at 12:14 AM on July 8, 2009


GI Joe PSAs
posted by metaplectic at 12:41 AM on July 8, 2009


HQ PSAs here
posted by metaplectic at 1:26 AM on July 8, 2009


Good God, G.I. Joe was stupid. Between it, Voltron, The Dukes of Hazzard, Knight Rider and all the other moronic shit I watched religiously as a kid I'm surprisd I dindt davalop brane damige.
posted by The Card Cheat at 4:06 AM on July 8, 2009 [3 favorites]


MetaFilter: tough (yet penis-less)
posted by DU at 5:16 AM on July 8, 2009


The bubble spear in hot mud thing reminded me of "Call Upon The Sea Ponies".
posted by soundofsuburbia at 5:33 AM on July 8, 2009


Man, I had everything for G.I. Joe, the toys, the comics, the cereal, the mail-order figs, everything! But yeah, the accuracy in G.I Joe was abysmal, xcept when it came time to cut a rope in half with one shot taken at 200 yards.
posted by Vindaloo at 6:00 AM on July 8, 2009


G.I. Joe was an important cartoon in my youth, if only because it gave me my first taste of gay culture.

Hey, look! It's a bunch of muscular dudes wearing leather pants and no shirts! That guy over there wears a totally glam silver mask! Big mustaches for everyone! Way to rock that sailor suit with only the bottom button of your shirt buttoned, Shipwreck. Green and gold sequined snake costume? Totally fierce, Serpentor! Now let's go party with a guy whose codename is "Snowjob".


As brilliantly parodied in "The Venture Bros.", when Brock visits his old OSI teammates, the flamingly gay "Shore Leave" and "Mile High", who are now "cured" of their homosexuality and constantly talk about Jesus while still speaking in a ridiculous lisp and wearing Village People-esque sailor suits. An earlier episode even recreates the G.I. Joe cartoon intro, with a logo and theme song (OSIIIIIII!) for the OSI, and mirrors G.I. Joe's infamous "no one dies, ever" rule with extreme, over-the-top violence.
posted by DecemberBoy at 6:11 AM on July 8, 2009


Later, I discovered Starblazers (Uchu Senkai Yamato, dubbed in English) and Tour Of Duty, and in those shows, people died in every episode. My bloodlust was satisfied.

You sound like the kind of kid who, when playing with Lego spacemen and knights, made sure to turn the heads around in their helmets so the smiling faces didn't show when they were lying dead on the ground. By that, I mean you sound like the kind of kid I was.
posted by Spatch at 6:30 AM on July 8, 2009


> I never made the link before that the guy who voiced Starscream, Chris Latta, voiced Cobra Commander as well. In his Starscream voice, of all things.

holy crap you're right!
posted by xbonesgt at 7:09 AM on July 8, 2009


Say what you will, but the Joes got to meet Osiris and Destro was in a damn Lovecraftian cult. For the budding mythology/fantasist geek, this show was awesome.
posted by khaibit at 7:24 AM on July 8, 2009


G.I. Joe was an important cartoon in my youth, if only because it gave me my first taste of gay culture.

If I wasn't behind a corporate firewall, I'd post the amazingly hilarious Venture Brother's send-up of GI Joe. It was like a 3 minute parody in the middle of a flashback to Brock Samson's early days working for OSI. And let me tell you, there were no parachutes...

Speaking of which, the main reason I glommed to anime as an adolescent was because they KILLED PEOPLE. I remember my first night in Japan in 1986 (I was 13). I turned on the TV in the hotel, to be immediately greeted by that scene from the Fist of the North Star movie where a gang is forcing one man to saw another man's head off. Somehow, that kind of forever spoiled shows like GIJoe and Transformers for me in the space of about 30 seconds.

If anyone cares to dig up youtube links to these scenes, this comment will be complete.
posted by Edgewise at 7:27 AM on July 8, 2009


I had some GI Joes, until a friend showed me how to turn them into 'mutants' by setting them on top of light-bulbs in the basement and coming back later. It's a wonder I didn't burn the house down.
posted by lucasks at 8:02 AM on July 8, 2009 [1 favorite]


the venture brothers take on GI Joe.

unfortunately I can't find the scene that immediately follows it where the Joe-alikes seen at the end of that clip, including their version of Shipwreck, make fun of brock sampson's outfit.
posted by shmegegge at 8:37 AM on July 8, 2009 [2 favorites]


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