G.I. JOE: A Real American Hero - The M.A.S.S. Device

0:00 This special episode of A Film By is brought to you by House of Plastic Vintage Toys and Collectibles. If you are looking for that rare mail away hooded Cobra Commander figure, How Siplastic is where you want to go first? All sorts of toys from the nineteen seventies to the current hot toys out today. How Siplastic Vintage Toys and Collectibles. We've done two episodes on location there in the past and planning to go back later this fall for another one. Check them out and we'll see you there. Now join us as we celebrate the fortieth anniversary of g I Joe, a Real American Hero, The Mass Device.

0:50 A Film By is a highly entertaining podcast, streaming free on all platforms. Its purpose to discuss our favorite directors, they're underrated hits, and what we love about them. Hello everybody, and welcome back to A Phone By podcast. I'm Jeff Johnson with me today fresh from Sergeant Slaughter's boot camp. I've got Wayne Whited and Scott Hoffman. How's it going boys, Hey Jeff, thanks for having us on OHO. Everybody Yo Joe, Yo Jo.

1:32 Obviously our listeners know you guys. Our star Trek loving listeners know you both from Strange New Wednesdays. You guys just finished that up and this week, later this week, you guys will be you will be debuting a brand new limited series for a film by podcast another another Star Trek series. Yeah, so we're doing this series called Drawn Into Lower Decks. So Thisten focuses on the animated comedy Star Trek Lower Decks just like a Strange New Wednesdays. Each week we get ready for the new episode with an animated discussion about the latest not so epic mission of the USS Toritos. Awesome. I'm looking forward to it. I read I started watching the show based on comments you guys were making on Strange New Wednesdays about it, and you know it's on Paramount Plus.

2:20 And I thought an animated Star Trek cartoon with adult humor, like, I've gotta, I gotta check it out. And it does. It does not disappoint. I'm so excited. The season four is out now and I'm looking forward to hearing what you guys have to say. So let's talk about why we're covering the Mass Device mini series from the cartoon Gijoe Realmlican Hero aside from the fact that all of us here are super fans. We grew up playing with the toys, We read the comic books, we watched the cartoons. Honestly, for me, this goes this goes back a couple of months to summertime. One of our listeners, Jason Costlit, he reached out.

3:01 He gave us some positive feedback about our nineteen eighty six series that Scott, I know you were a big part of. He called specifically, he was calling out Transformers the movie, and that kind of led to more conversation about Transformers and then gi Joe. He made some requests like, hey, you guys should totally do Gijo the movie, and ever since then I've been like, man, I would love to find a way to make that work. However, today, Tuesday the twelfth, happens to be the fortieth anniversary of the first miniseries, so I thought, what better opportunity to talk Gijoe than than today. We'll focus on the mass Device. Jason, if you're listening, I hope you enjoy this one and give it time. We'll find a way to get to the movie, but for now, let's talk a little bit about the mass Device. I do want to talk a little bit about the origin, like how this even came came to be. I'm not sure sure if you guys have all the background information. How far back does Gijoe go? I mean, I remember they had the large figures like yeah, well, I'm not talking yeah, I'm not talking about like the the original the vintage Joe's from the sixties. I'm talking about like the Gijoe, the real American hero I would have been nineteen eighty two, early nineteen eighty two.

4:20 I remember when they first came out. Yeah, so, Wayne, you're you're one of the most You're one of the foremost experts on comic book side that I know. Scott, obviously you are in that conversation as well. Can either of you guys tell me anything about Fury Force? So I did see that there was there was an idea that they originally wanted to have this be about Nick Fury agent or Shield versus hyper right, well close. So the original idea that that gets floated is, uh, Nick Fury's son leads this special commando unit called Fury Force, and they're supposed to take on the villainous organization Hydra. However, it doesn't really go forward. No one really is into it, and then Hasbro has the idea that they want to relaunch Gi Joe as smaller figures. You know, they've seen how popularly the Kinner Star Wars phenomenon has is going. You know what's happening there, So their their whole plan is let's do this, but they want to promote it.

5:29 So there's a chance meeting between the companies at a charity organization charity event, and they get the idea. They're like, hey, let's let us help you. Marvel basically Marvel basically says, hey, let us help you develop this thing, and then they basically retro fit the Fury Force idea to make it work. As Gijo Larry Hamma is involved, obviously, he creates, he creates this thing, and that's how that's how it initially comes into be. So you have to remember something. This is at a time when there are very strict regulations about UH animation and toy commercials. So for whatever reason, you can only have a maximum of ten seconds of animated content if you're doing a toy commercial. These guys are geniuses because they find a way around it. Hasburg basically says, look, we're going to use the Marvel comic book to promote the toy line, and then they hire Marvel Productions to do thirty second animated commercials for the comic book. Is you have to you have to think about that. This is unprecedented. A comic book has never had a commercial. Yeah, that's that blows my mind right there. You know, Marvel's Marvel's paid five million by Hasburg to make these commercials. And because of because as of the laws that are involved, it's a clever way

7:02 to kind of circumvent the strict ten second rule. Right, It's Spring of nineteen eighty two. The commercial is everywhere, kids are eating it up every you know, Marvel's happy, Hasbro's happy. The decision is made to go all in and create a mini series in nineteen eighty three that would become known as the Mass Device when it re aired in syndication. Interesting, so it wasn't even necessarily at a full series of the time. Yeah, this was Hasbro saying, hey, you know, we found a clever way to beat the system to sell more toys. But now they're like, well, what if we just make a cartoon. And the irony here is that kids are watching the animated commercials about the comic book, which ultimately wants you to buy the toys. Now they're watching a twenty two minute animated episode based on the toy line, and the commercials happened to be commercials featuring children playing with the toys, because there's nothing wrong with that. Yeah, the animation behind those commercials was dazzling. I mean it was, as I remember, it was not like anything else that we were seeing. And you basically have these little teasers do you see every once in a while, and some of the other shows that through watching after school or Saturday mornings, and now it's blown out into an entire story which had a lot of depth and kept I remember, it kept me glued every single demosode an episode. Scott, you and I talked earlier. We had an interesting conversation. So Wayne, I'm gonna ask

8:33 you a question because I kind of did some digging and I want to hear Wayne's answer before I go forward with it. Wayne, you obviously watched the G I. Joe cartoon growing up. Yes, So when did it come on? When did you want? When were you watching it? I watched on September twelfth of nineteen eighty three, I saw the first airing of the Mass Device. I was already reading the Gijo comic. I was one of those people that were blown away by a comic commercial and ran route. It was right at the beginning of my comic but collecting era and I ran out and I picked up that I loved the comic series, and now I'm here it was on television. I rushed home from school and watched the first episode and loved it. Key phrase there. I rushed home from school to watch it. Scott, you and I were talking and you said that you were like, hey, I watched this on Saturday mornings, right, yeah, and see I couldn't remember. It was one of those things where once it was in syndication. I remember on a regular basis having to get home from school at a certain time, make sure that everything was settled. You've got your snacks, you've got your Cheetos, whatever it's going to be, and you're playing in front of the screen to see what's happening in the next episode.

9:46 But for the life of me, I couldn't remember if Mass Device came on as an after school you know, five days a week, or if it was more like a weekly released because I know there were big cliffhangers in every single one. And here and here in lies the mystery. Wayne's watching it after school, You're watching it on Saturday mornings. I'm watching it before school Monday through Friday. I distinctly remember watching it at seven am because I knew as soon as it ended, I had to run my ass to the bus stop. Oh my god, I missed. I had missed the school bus. Wow. And here's the thing. The cartoon is in syndication, so it just depends on the affiliates. The reason I saw it after school is because many of the networks had picked it up yet I lived for Northern Ohio, so there was a show on coming out of Fort Wayne, Indiana called Happiest Place. It was one of those shows at lasted an hour and a half. It was hosted by a clown kind of like Bozo, and you know, kids could go. Then they played game, told jokes, and they showed cartoons every day Monday through Friday, and I saw Gi Joe through them. That was the way we could see Gijoe and heming on at the time. I know it also played on Saturday as well, and you have their memory of remembering it in the morning. We also had one in the morning. That's how I saw Transformers. That would always air before school.

11:15 But Gi Joe was shown during Happiest Place in Fort Wayne. See in my part of the world, you had Monday through Friday. In the mornings you had Gi Joe, Jim and the Holograms, Transformers, and it was Saturday mornings. That's Saturday mornings were reserved for like Mask and Pirates of Dark Water and rub the Cube and Smurfs. Yeah. So, yeah, it all depends on where you grew up. There is no wrong answer, you know. You know, we were watching it on Saturdays. Some people were watching on Sundays. It just depended on where the affiliates could fit it into the TV schedules, the local the local schedules. Yep. I remember Saturday morning also seemed like a testing ground for a lot of things, Like there was some moment in the calendar. I feel like it was had to be around when school started, maybe when you would get this giant lineup of all these new episodes. They'd be trying out and some of them would stay on the lineup, and some of them were kind of introducing it to it and then it would go to some other kind of time slot like a Monday through Friday or something like that. But whenever it was, Yeah, I have the same kind of memories about whether you're running out to the bus after watching it or running home from the bus to catch it. It's it's suddenly kept us coming back. Yeah. And these mini series, you know, they the actual GIS series didn't start for until three years later in eighty five, So I mean, you really couldn't syndicate it very well. It's because it

12:45 just, you know, five episodes one week of showing. A lot of the networks wouldn't pick it up for just one week and pre empt their other show. Absolutely. Let's talk a little bit about Dan Thompson. He is the director this this this mini series. I know Ron Friedman is the main writer. He would also write several the other mini series that that dam would direct. But I want to I just wanted to point out, you know, I wanted to highlight some of his his filmography. So looking looking him over, he kind of makes uh for fans of nineteen eighty one. This is the key animator for the adult animated film Heavy Metal, which I know you both have seen. Oh yeah, yep, yep, moves on.

13:35 He's he does, he does. He does more than one, uh Incredible Hulk animated series. His first one ran from eighty two to eighty three that was just called The Incredible Hulk. He was a sequence director, Yeah, he did. He did a handful of episodes for the Transformers. He's on Swamp Thing, Tiny Tune Adventures. Uh. In nineteen ninety six, he is working on jaman And I want to point that out because one of our recent guests, animation director Andy Tom, who we talked to on our nineteen seventy six series for their Assaults on Precinct thirteen, Andy also worked on Jamanji, So kind of curious if if they were they were working together at some point. Well, we'll have to talk to him. We have to reach out and get Andy's thoughts on on Dan. And I'd love to get his thoughts on on Gijo because I can't even imagine what he could do no one.

14:30 Just knowing the man and knowing his background, I can imagine what a Gijo cartoon directed by Andy Tom would look like. It would be amazing, though, I promise you that Yeah, Dan did an amazing job of capturing the style that you were going to see in the comics, but also in the figures themselves. It always felt like, you know, you could you could grab them out of the screen and have them right there in your living room. It was it was so true to it, and the lines were so crisp. It just it looked like a kind of style that I had never seen before, especially for an action based cartoon like this. It was great to see Wayne. I know you you're a fan. You're a television fan. You're a fan of of these, these type the type of work.

15:13 Did you ever see any of his incredible Hulk series from ninety six? From ninety six, just just briefly. I only still a few episodes, I think there. At that time, I was getting out of college, so I didn't really have much time for television. I've actually been catching up on them. They're on Disney Plus and they're actually pretty good. I'm I've been digging them. So moving forward, you know, he does he does a lot of work on rug Rats. He's doing work on Inspector Gadget. So the guy Thompson has been around the block. When it comes to popular cartoons. It's it's just it's just very stylized. I'm surprised that he went into things like rug Rats and Inspector Gadget because it's just such a different style, you know, even while the ordinaries my kids, it's for a younger audience, right, yeah, right, and a very much more of a rounded, much more of a cartoonist style, not like the you know, the square, rigid jaw lines that you're gonna see in Hulker, like you're gonna see in G. I. Joe. But it's necesprising you had an influence on a lot of these different cartoons. Well, we're gonna take a quick break, and when we return, we'll be breaking down the mass device.

16:27 He'll price for freedom. Wherever there's trouble, G I Joe is there. It's here the G. I Joe Collection. Infantry trooper code name Grunt, Bazuka soldier code name that Water soldier hode name short fuse please a Rachael trooper code name flash Range your old name, Stalker, communications officer code name Breaker, machine gunner old name rock Conroll counterintelligence code name is Carlet's Commando code names Snake, Eyes, Peach sold separately. GI Joe from asbro. Let's talk. Let's talk about the mass device. So first off, if you don't own this, and I hope both of you do, because I know I do. But if you don't, that Wagne's not on his head.

17:10 If you don't, it is streaming free on tub not just this mini series, but you know all of it, because there's there's several mini series. There's two seasons. I say too because I'm not going to talk about the Deek stuff because it's because it's because it's garbage. Wait are you wait? Did you? First year wasn't too bad? Oh? I only recently saw that for the first time about two years ago. And I mean the first season is is well, it's okay, it is a continuation. I but the second season I ignore that. Just just ignore that. I'm ignoring all of it. G I, Joe, the movie is where it ends for me in nineteen eight. All, well, let's uh this. This mini series is broken into five five episodes, so let's start with episode one, the Cobra Strikes. I cannot watching it today. I still can't get over the fact that Scarlett pulls off this Maverick Shenanigans where she's she's basically buzzing the tower, she nearly kills Duke snake eyes and stalker. You know, Duke's super pisted, you know, can't wait to just what's he say. I'm gonna kick the mustard out of that hot dog. Yeah, it was a great line. It's a great line. But then all is okay when when

18:40 the helmet is removed and Scarlett flips her her her red hair, you know, like she's in a Pantine commercial, and then you know, everything's fine. It's like it's Scarlett. I also thought it was kind of interesting, uh snake eyes reaction, Like, here's this this valiant character that goes out of his We'll talk about it later when he's you know, kind of self sacrificing kind of moments, but not when he gets buzzed by a sky striker. He doesn't like pull his friends down. He's just like growing your own and he ducks. It's just like, man, that's cold, say guys, but I just yeah, it's fantastic. You know, it's fantastic opening for the cartoon. But damns her is she gonna you know, Wayne, is she is? She not even We're not even considering a court martial for Scarlett. All this, well, I think they're a little lenient with that, especially with with Scarlett after she's she's got connections to the Boss. I guess yeah, I guess you're right. But it gives way to a really great error attack from Cobra, you know, led by Major Blood himself, and apparently you know, as far as Duke's concerned, they're they're after the sky Strikers, the new sky Strikers. This is so we Wayne are we are we led to believe that that this this uh, this terrorist organization called Cobra has a has like how however many any jets you know, Rattlers as they're called, are they as Cobra like a full has do they have a

20:11 full air force? And Gijo's just now getting around to it. None at this none at this point, not now, at this point. This is really early in Gijo history. I mean we were when this aired that we're only two waves of Gijo. This is before the h the Rattlers and and Star Tan and Storm Shadow and all that. So you know what we got with uh, with Cobra. We got Cobra Commander Destro Baroness and Major Blood and that's about it. And a whole bunch of bumbling foot soldiers I'm talking about. Destro might have one of the most badass introductions in a cartoon ever, very mysterious. He's he's cloaked, he's got a hood on, he's got the you know these like Sherpa's carrying this, uh, these crates of of of equipment up the mountain to this just awesome looking uh temple structure.

21:07 We are dissappointed. You were expected days, Sacho Gestro. The shipment was difficult to as symbol and I lost war time climbing to this ridiculously melodramatic location. I designed the Cobra Temple to guarantee a secrecy and security. Now what have you brought me? I gotta ask something, you know, because we we want We all watched the cartoons. What's the deal with Cobra? They're they're hideouts there their headquarters. It was always like some imposing, creepy, scary tower like like we see here, or it's like some just amazing fortress.

21:55 Is Cobra wasting wayne Is Cobra wasting the money building these things? Or is it a situation where they're kind of they're moving in after someone's gone like like, you know, are they like like the spirit Halloween stored like where they just like, oh this this this giant eagle is shutdowns. So we're just gonna move in temple. This temple has been abandoned for centuries. We're moving in. You know, I don't know, I just I don't know. I always saw Cobra at Commander as being rather wasteful. I mean, he's got quite an ego. He needs those those big snake statues to to boost his his his moraleities. He's got to have them around. He just loves the snake. Everything's snake around there, just blowing the money by the millions. That's probably why they brought in later, was it tomax Zamon to take care of the finances on snake statues. Well, the most the most effective part of the cover organization is the branding department, clearly because they're the ones that are just designed the logan. They put it on every single thing that they have, with like a Batman level of branding on that. And if it was you know, if if what we learned later is true in these stories, then apparently Cobra Law put together a bunch of these towers and you know they sub let snake Mountain from heman or from skeleton or something and just left them around. But how did nobody know these things were there?

23:22 Like they don't have an aerial photography, there's no way to around suddenly, And I know it's because I've got I've got him on the brain, because we've just done two episodes of Buy Him. But I like the idea of Cobra Commander removing his helmet and it's mel Brooks and he's all merchandising merchandise. Yea, yep, yeah, put put that Cobra logo on everything. But destro So he brings let's talk about the mcguffin. He brings the three elements for for the device that we we come to find out is called the MASS device. I'm gonna give bonus points right now for anyone of you that can tell me what is what does MASS stand for? Without looking up? No no cheating, matter your alteration. And then the two other essays are just slither sounds from cover Commander, this thing's a teleporter. MASS stands for molecular assembler. Scrambler sender that that just sounds schizophrenic and confused. Let's just put a bunch of words and plunder and that'll spell mass. Well. You know when when you talking about molecules, it's it assembols them, it scrambles them, and it sends them. So you know, I mean you got you.

24:49 You two are the Star Trek guys. This is this is a teleporter. I thought you, I thought you'd be into the Mass Device. You know, Cobra's beaming people up and beaming people back. They've spent some money, so much money on logos where they can't afford the copyright infringement costs that if they just got that the transporters, they were like, I don't know, find something with SS in it. I want to talk about my favorite most likely to be in a Fletch movie character. Let's talk about the Bareness as she's giving it. This is the first time she does her disguise routine. She shows up as Major Juanita Hooper m to just be a pain in Duke's ass basically, but it leads to it leads to her helping Cobra steel this powerful satellite, and that's what's going to help the Mass Device, you know, terrorize the whole the whole world, right Yeah. By by very subtly playing with the earring like twenty times. If you have some kind of like tracking device, don't touch it, don't keep drawing attention to it.

25:56 You know that your to your point. Uh you know, a seven year old is not gonna understand that the earring is a tracking device, but you know, but at least touch it once or twice. Don't don't fidget with it the whole time you're you're busting Duke's balls, is what I would say. Exactly. This leads to, uh, you know, the mass devices. It doesn't really do what it's supposed to do at first. So Destra's like, it's cool, I got it. I'll just beam everyone there and then I'll beam them back. Duke gets taken hostage and sent to the Cobra slave quarters and prepped for this just awesome gladiator combat and Cobra's arena of sport.

26:37 Yeah yeah, and he faces off. I mean, I don't I don't know how all this person is supposed to be, but he's the giant absolutely Like It's it's kind of like so if if you're playing with these toys and you've got the Duke figure, then next to him, you've got the human figure. It that's kind of towering over him with the straps and the buckles and the studs and all of a sudden kind of stuff. The guy was gargangelin. No, I'm gonna tell you right now. So because I know, I know you guys bought the toys, or you didn't buy the toys, the toys were bought for you. I know you guys played with the toys. When I did the mass device storyline, because I was a super nerd, you know, my little brother was like, let's play, and he just wanted to like run around the house with the with the sky Striker and he wanted to just all right, this guy's gonna fight this guy.

27:27 I had to take thirty to forty minutes just to build like set design and get my storyline going. When I built my little arena of sport in the backyard, in the dirt Duke fought. If you guys remember the wrestling figures, there's like like eight inch tall rubber wrestlings from w W L j N. Yes, So my Andre the giant figure, which coincidentally was wearing blue trunks just like this behemoth in the cartoon, that's who. That's who. My Duke character thought it was perfect, so and it was size appropriate. I loved it. Yeah, And I mean at at the time, that kind of just makes me think about the kind of community play of this whole toy line, Like you didn't have to own every single character because your friend down the street does, and you basically get your collection together with his collection and other friends around the block, and you just start playing with this and you've got this this this army that you kind of build with your friends.

28:30 It was a great time. That's exactly what I did. Just described my child as to right there, get together with all the friends he had, such and such characters and vehicles I had such, and we go out and dirt and start playing Jed Joe. Yeah, so let's talk about Let's talk about episode two, Slaves of the Cobra Master. We open with Duke fighting in the Cobra Arena, and it's one thing if he's just fighting for his life, but I love the fact that both he and Cobra's Champion cover Commanders Champion, they're controlled like Destro and Cobra Commander are sitting there basically playing nineteen three's version of Nintendo. Yeah, and they're controlling all the actions.

29:15 They're my first thought. Duke is an officer, he's a man of action, but he's not smart enough to just take the headband off. Well, wasn't there some kind of pain associated with that? Wasn't it kind of like your head will explode or something? Or did they not get well? No, I mean that knows. So if it was like a running Man situation, yeah, that that would have been cool. But I know the slave girl Selena, she gives him like the little a little chip to like a little wafer or whatever to slide in between to block the signal. But she's but she she tells him it'll it'll cause immense pain, but you'll be free to do what you want. So meanwhile, I'm just like, why not just take the headband off? Yeah? I just love it before he slides that little butterscotch wafer in between in his forehead and the band that destro At some point decides I'm just gonna put down my Atari twenty six hundred joystick and just let him fight, because, like you said, he's already a man of action. Like what am I doing here? Trying to like jump abba, you know, up down, up, down, left right, left, right, start. Just let him do what he's gotta do and cover.

30:22 Commander is going to fumble arout with his joystick. Yeah. Destro is the guy that that knows that he's never going to learn the fourteen hit combo on Mortal Combats, so he's just gonna let the computer do it. You know. It's cool. Exactly. Meanwhile, you got the Jo's, so they got their own you know, they've got their own mass device. They're working to stop Cobra, and they are off on their first mission, you know, because they got to get some of these these radioactive crystals from the Sea of ice. Yeah. It's like down in some kind of arctic cave, right, Yeah, an arctic mine. Yeah, this is a Scott You were talking about how uh Snake Eyes sacrifices himself for the team earlier.

31:08 Yep. This is one of the coolest parts of the whole mini series, I think absolutely, like when you get into the mine. First of all, it's a it's a brilliant play for selling the toys because you have five different episodes in five different environments with five different teams, so you're able to really easily sell a span of teams that you want to run right out to you know, your local toys r us and and and pick him up whoever you can you can find. Probably not a great name for a character with was it snow Job? Yeah? Those originally in that maybe they could have called me Avalanche or something like that. Anyway, well, there was a there was a figure name Avalanche later there. Just yeah, it's just kind of odd. I won't go into why, but get your mind out of the gunnarts. I am just let seven year olds watching that's what Wait, what's weird about us? What's weird about a Scottish guy with a big red beard that that loves being in the Arctic and his name's snow Job. That well, I just think it's a missed opportunity to not create a character that looks like Kurt Russell from the Thing. Maybe give him a different kind an I don't know. But when they get into the cave, you've got these giant robots, you've got a new team that's that's fighting them, and you've got this chance for Snake Eyes, who I think was the coolest character on the Joe's uh to step into the spotlight save the team. And you know,

32:45 basically become radioactive. Wayne, two quick questions for you. Question one, when it comes to your preference of Snake Eyes, do you do you do you like this old school snake Eyes motif where he's got like, you know, I think Scott called him Randy Mochaman's sunglasses and like just like the body suit. Or do you prefer like the visor more Ninja snake eyes that comes later in the cartoon. I am Team Goggles. I love the for the original nineteen eighty two g I Joe's I've been spending the last two years trying to collect them and again, and the original Snake Eyes was was the best. I love how grounded the original figures were. The original team was to the military. But yeah, no original. The second one's nice, but yeah no, I'm always the original, all right, Wayne's going original that does not come with Timber, who is introduced in this mini series.

33:45 But Wayne, my second question to you, when we think of the writer Ron Friedman, chances are he's got to be a Star Trek fan, because Snake Eyes does this Wrath of Cohn Spock sacrifice situation. We even have the we even have the glass like the whole you know, yeah, yeah, I'll never forget you know. Scarlet's like, I'll never forget you. Right, he's gotta be a track fan, he was. I swear, I know he's nattached. I he he has to be a Star Trek things. I'm swear he I've seen his name attaches something Star Trek, but I can't think of it right now. They only think at that time. I can think of his names with Transformers, but it's so obviously, Yeah, that's what they're thinking of. He's it's Star Trek two. I appreciate that Scarlett takes a minute to be like, you know, she's upset. I'll never forget you. Meanwhile, the the others, you know, snow jobs like all right, like we gotta get out of here. We can't do that.

34:45 Oh look there's a ladder. I dropped out. We got a way out. We gotta go. Yeah. I know, I know I'm cheating because we We've got three more episodes to talk about. But but this is gonna be the highlight of the entire series, right the I mean, we got we got the Cobra combat of arena, you know, the Arena of Sport. We you know, so Dukes fight Andre the giant. We got, we got this. We got Snake Eyes doing what Snake Eyes does best. It's gonna be the best part, right, Yeah, I mean, especially like you know, emotional arc, it's the first time you see a character effectively die. Yeah, he didn't laugh for dead exactly. Uh.

35:28 You mentioned like Scarlett's reaction and also the kind of stuff and you you definitely saw that he was endangering. He wasn't in a in a good spot. The next time you see him, he's fighting a polar bear. So the odds are against Snake Eyes. I don't know what the writer has against Snake Eyes, but what's been a lot of peril. Well, let's move let's move on Episode three, The Worms of Death. We open up. Snake Eyes has been saved. You know, he he survives his ordeal. He's glowing, you know, he's he's like it's like Berry Gordy's the last dragon. He's got the red glow all around him because he's carrying this radioactive tube of of crystals that he's still planning on getting back to Joe headquarters. He gets attacked by a polar bear and then uh, this wolf you know that he you know, initially he saves the wolf because the wolf is like trapped in a in a and it's Paul's trapped in a little in a trap.

36:22 Yeah, why am I saying? In a trap? Yeah? He helps out that, he helps out the wolf. Then the wolf reciprocates helps him out. And then this this crazy blind hermit shows up the big laser rifle whip kind of thing that he uses. He's like an amalgamation of Grizzly Adams build Bixby from The Incredible Hulk and Gene Hackman from The Young Frankenstein, like all mashed into one massive guy. Oh no, you know who he is, and and and the math whol the math works. If you ever wondered, if you if you ever wondered what happened to Yukon Cornelius, this is him. He shows up one with his sled dogs, and he gave up on the pick axe. He doesn't lick a pick axe anymore. He just goes right years years out there hunting for silver and gold. He went blind, you know, snow blind. And now this guy, you know, I'm surprised that they never made a figure based on this guy. But he does the the obligatory let me you know, he picks up snake guys who's unconscious, nurses him back to health with what he says are our leaves and herbs. Sure so radiation poisoning, No worries, just tea. Yeah, and then the joes are off. We've got three elements that we gotta get to get this, uh, this mass of ice working. So let's go

37:54 after the second one. Uh. They're deep sea diving for the heavy water and that's where they face They face off with cobra, and that face off disturbs these these giant tube worms, these very Cobra Law like tube worms yep, with the most horrendous sound effect ever. I'll be honest, that ship was scary as when I watched as a kid. Yeah, because they're they're they're seeping out of these tubes and then they're wrapping around the Joe's wrapping around the Cobra's. Yeah, it wasn't it wasn't. Even watching it today, I had to have turned the volume down a couple of times because that growl that they have, like it was like a growl, howling bark. Yeah.

38:37 I almost wonder, like, what you know, Wayne, you mentioned Cobra law earlier. It was Cobra Law always the the endgame. Did we know we were going to get the Cobra Law because these things are right out of Cobra Law. Yeah, but not at this point. I think, see the first couple of years, Gijo is pretty grounded to military. I mean it could have it could have actually been in the real world military. It wasn't until they started going nuts around eighty six eighty seven and they started doing all the monsters and stuff. I don't know where all that came out of. I think it was, you know, we've run out of real military stuff less create our own things. But at this point now I think they were still pretty much military grounded. Well because well hold on, because when I think about when I think about some of the season of the episodes that I watched as a kid that I loved, Like they they went after h I remember, was it the Spirit and storm Shadow. We're in Scotland.

39:32 They were going after the EXCaliber sword like the Lady in the Lake, you know those up the sword. So you had episodes like that, you had episode that was years later. So I think it's interesting, like thinking about Cobra Law and how the whole thing fits into it. Like we did get a lot of like you mentioned, like the Excalar Excalibur episode, there are some things that got into a little bit more like supernatural or metaphysic metaphors, a little bit more like, you know, using your imagination. I think that really helps with when you're playing with the toys. There's a lot of other things you're able to kind of think about and explore in other ways that you're able to kind of make it more than kind of just a realistic kind of like army thing. At the same time, if you've got somebody who wants it to be more realistic, you totally can. I think it's interesting how it connects to Nick Fury's origins because as you know, as you're getting into didn't he start with Sergeant Fury and the Helly in Commanders like a very realistic war kind of comic, and then getting into modern day when you've got things like Heman, you've got things like Transformers that are also on the shelves kind of fighting for attention. It felt like it needed to be more than more than a realistic war based figure line. It had to be something that went to kind of some strange places from time to time and get really spark your imagination and go to other things. I feel like Cobra Law was

41:07 a late ad. Obviously, we didn't get that until Joe the movie. And it's right around the time with like Tiger Force and Python Force when they're mixing the DNA of animals into airplanes and things that got really really weird. But I don't know, it is kind of interesting to think about whether or not they were planning it the whole time, or if it's something that came in later in the game. Well, let's uh, I'm gonna get bogged down by the worms of Death, so let's let's move on to Episode four definitely has the coolest title out of all of them, Duel in the Devil's Cauldron. So this is the point where this is basically like a full on fight. It's the whole episode is centralized on this volcano. Destro's going after the meteor fragments for the you know, the third element that happened to be in this volcano, and it's just a all in, all, all out fight. You know, we get it. We got our first look at wild Bill though, which makes me happy. Yeah, the Dragonfly was awesome.

42:15 That was my favorite favorite ship mine too, although I do kind of question the fusibility of their plan to catch this thing a big net between skystrakers. Well, no, that was I thought the Well, initially you got three dragonflies like cable you know, with cables anchoring into it, and they're gonna, they're gonna, they're gonna chop it out. Cobra as the the hairbrained scheme of let's let's scoop it out and catch it with a a giant net on our you know what what what I can only describe as like a Cobra's Cobra version of of a of a shield helicarrier, because thing was it was like a small city flying through the air. That's interesting. I never made that connection before. They totally had hellic carriers. Yeah, Cobra did.

43:05 Yeah, you know. Interesting, But you get a great moment with the you know, now, now we're just you know, Destro's got the upper hand, so let's let's throw on some jet packs. Let's let's go after it. Scarlett gets taken hostage, though, which is interesting because it brings you back to that whole I don't remember what the girl's name was, the one that gave him Selena's spatch away for Selena, thank you. Yeah. Yeah. We get this interesting fight between Scarlett and Selena and she recognizes the ring that Duke gave her and she has to fight her way out of the same kind of predicament, right yeah, well, I mean and going back to that because I think we skipped over it. But in the second episode, she helps Duke Selena the slave girl. She helps Duke escape with a hang glider of all of all things, but he gives her like the class ring, like the g I. Joe class ring, that it was like a homing in it right right, ye standard yeah, standard, Well it's an officer's ring, right right, you know, right wing? I think that's right. Yeah yeah, so it's it's it works, Scott, it fits. Yeah yeah, she she gets she gets taken hostage. That kind of segue is right into now where you know, it feels like you it's a blinking, blinking it's over episode because now we're right into the fifth and final episode of the mini series, uh steak in the Serpent's Heart, because that's where it opens with Scarlett meeting Selena and kind of leading this this rebellion. Yep, you know, now now we got like a climactic moment

44:38 from Temple of Doom where we're overtaking the Cobra guards. But yeah, doesn't go as planned all the way, right, Yeah, And I think you raise a good point when you say blinking you miss it, because they did have you know, we got a lot of many segments that they set up, uh, that we now have to resolve and we have to kind of bring the team back together for the big climax, which I think they did really well. Yeah. Well yeah, now here's one thing that I'm I called a question. So Duke, you know, when he makes his escape, he basically he's got amnesia. He has no idea how he got back home, doesn't know how he escaped, you know, obviously feeling the effects from the mind controlling headbands. So Doc, who I know, Wayne is a big fan of He goes all stranger things, and he puts Duke in this like deep sensory deprivation tank and he's kind of talking him through his childhood and his time at college, you know, kind of kind of you know, layering it in so we can get all the way back to to to Selena. And this is this brings me up to one of my favorite, uh favorite things, favorite tropes on these Saturday morning cartoons because they're all guilty of doing it. I love the fact that at whether you're in G.

46:00 I. Joe headquarters or you're in the you're at the Hall of Justice with the super Friends, every hero's fortress or headquarters have these theater size screens and the villains can always just call you right up and do like a you know, a FaceTime with you. Yeah, early zoom, early zoom. Yeah. And if you're and if they're not doing that, then we can, like if someone's having a dream or somewhere we're reading someone's mind. It's all, it's all thrown up on the screen because the minute Duke recalls Selena, breaker and out, you know, gung Ho. And although there's there's like twenty Joe's in the in the room with them, which I would have thought Doc would be a little more discreet Wayne, I don't I don't know about his hypocratic oath, but we've we've got like twenty Joe's in the in the in the in the room with them, and Duke's floating in his briefs in this tank. And then you're and you're seeing you're reading his mind, you're seeing his mind, and then like you see Selena and they're all like whoa, hey, you know they're whistling, there's some cat calls. She's something, and I think breakers like, how do you forget a face like that?

47:16 It's like, well, I don't know what thoughts on the deprivation tank. Well yeah, I think that was a little odd, but you know, desperate times, you know that they had to get down to find out what's happened, So you know, why not let everybody else in the team. No secrets in the G I. Joe team apparently, nothing classified. Yeah, yeah, we're gonna broadcast and get some popcorn. We're gonna see all of Duke's secrets. Uh, nothing redacted. Hey, I'll be honest, Duke is not the only one who was violated with one of these things, because I remember on Spider Man and his Amazing Friends, there was a there was a time where they hooked up Iceman and you know, he got hooked up to one of these things and they had to go through his mind and see his like origin story basically pan out. And I'm like, I'm not getting in one of these things. That's that's a gamble. That's a gamble, you know. At least at least let me screen it afterwards so I can pass forward to the parts. My privacy matters. Every every sci fi show and every cartoon has its own mind probe. You know, how do you get something to scare the kids I was scared of. I wouldn't want to get hooked up to that, absolutely not. But at any rate, we know where Selin is at, we know we can we can beam in now, We've got all the elements, So the Joe's teleport to the Cobra Temple, all hell breaks loose, we get our epic showdown. Everyone's fighting, fantastic ending. I think, yeah, yeah, you're basically throwing

48:50 all the action figures into a bucket and just shaking the ball around. Everybody's fighting. You're like, all right, kids, look by the entire aisle. We're not even try to break him up in the teams anymore, just but a whole aisle to go nuts. I love the fact that this also this this, you know, because the mini series does a great job of showing the transfer of authority in Cobra. Because in episode one, Destro is just like an arms dealer who is here to help Cobra Commander and by the end of it, like him and baroness Or in cahoots and he's ready to just you know, you know, he's he's He's got more and more clever put downs for Cobra Commander as the series wears on. Yeah, and Arthur Burkhardt, who plays who plays Destro Man, he is just fun to listen to. Absolutely, Yeah, that's an unmistakable voice. They got this very much like this Megatron Star stream kind of dynamic going between the two that plays out in the whole series. But this is one of the best places and absolutely Arthur's Arthur's voice saw this man. Nobody else could have done for Destro what he did. No, but you got the end and they're all like, well, Destro got away, but where's Cobra Commander And he tries sneaking out with like a basket on his head, he's wearing a poncho. Yeah, come on, man, I mean you've got a reflective face. I

50:22 couldn't be able to hide that very much. You're not walking right by snake eyes with with that kind of get up their chance, man, I don't know. Gi Joe A real American hero the mass device. This changed. This, This was a game changer for cartoons as far as I was concerned, because I grew up loving the filmation type stuff with with he Man and Thunder, the Barbarian. Those were like kind of like my go toos before Gijo came along. And when this, when this came out, all I all I wanted was more of it. Yeah, you guys, well, and you've got to think about that. The popularity of things like Masters and Thunder really played into that kind of fantasy angle, like you could, you could interchange, you could cross over, you know, toy lines if you want to. But yeah, this one dominated. When you think about how many or how few characters actually debuted in this one compared with the final lineup of Joe's, it's insane to think about how how captivated we were with just kind of a small cast. Oh, this is so early in the g I Joe history too. I mean, you know, this, this is before we had figures of the Baroness and Duke that neither one of them had been released. They won't be released until the year after. And you know, I wanted a Duke figure, you know, but we had to We had to mail them out and mail out for him, and Baroness didn't come until the year after. And you know, we didn't get planes for Cobra

51:53 until the year after. But I mean, what they intended was to sell toy and it worked on It worked on me. I know that I wanted more gi Joe. Yeah, Wayne, as as our as our Joe expert. Let me ask you this because this is something I noticed and I don't recall it in the figure the toy figure line. We talked about the transition that Snake Eyes has in his look, but this is also a situation where the Baroness in this mini series she's in like a blue cat suit with like yellow shoulder pads on it, and like she's got like the green tinted glasses.

52:37 This is not the Baroness figure that I had. I had the one that was like an all black did way did they ever make this this figure this version. No, well they did, like later on, like in two thousand and five or six, but back then, no Baroness was specifically created for the comic books, and they transition to her over to the cartoons and she's wearing the outfit that she had in the comics until the figure came out next year in eighty four, and then that's when she got the black outfits and we had a figure of her, and then they well, I think it was either the next MANI series or this mini series after that they switched over to the action figure. Look, I think they made the right call by switching over to the all black outfit. Not that it wasn't a good design in the Mass Device mini series, like you say, with the green tinted glasses and all this other kind of stuff, but I think they definitely made the right call with the new Baroness. Look. Yeah, when I think of the Barness, I also think about Morgan Lofting, who voiced the character. Oh yeah, she, I mean, show was so amazing.

53:37 She did such an incredible job on this. I don't know if Morgan was one of the ones that that did multiple voices for characters, because I know, I know Burkhard did. If she did, I don't, I don't know, because sometimes like you hear a little bit of you know, if Arthur Burkhardt is doing Destro and then he's doing Stalker, you you you know, you know, uh, Morgan's Morgan's performance as Baroness though, was always it was just crisp. It was like it just she just sounded like a villain. We had a deal, Baroness, a deal with Cora.

54:17 Surely you can't be serious. Yeah, yeah, I could never fin down like what kind of accent she had, but it didn't matter because it was so distinct. It was almost like a what I'm thinking, like Rocky and Bullwinkle. What was her name, Natasha? Natasha? A little bit of a twinge of Natasha in there, but otherwise very distinct and a great compliment to Destro's character. So I'm glad they paired those us. Yes, great, Yeah, great pairing. Great pairings. Well, speaking of great pairings, you two are back later this week with the first episode of Drawn into Lower Decks. My understanding is the Paramount Plus did like the double the double shot. We got episodes one and two yet released. Yea, but double shot in the first one. So we'll be talking about both and talking about some of your favorite bits. So tuned in, we'll do. For those of you listening, tune in this Wednesday for the debut of Drawn into Lower Decks, and then later Friday, our nineteen seventy six series we'll be back another bonus episode. Jason Colvin of the Surely You Can't Be Serious podcast will join me for a conversation about one of the greatest baseball teams ever to play the game in a movie called Bad News Bears Nice until then, As Cobra

55:49 Commander would say, so long. I'll tell you something. It is a shame that Dave is not doing this episode with us. Well, this is not the only uh kind of mini series they did for this right, yeah, yeah, there were, there was massive yeah yeah, yeah. He can always come back if we do another one. We yeah, anyone asked.

56:46 We'll just tell him he's out seeing Cold sletherin concert. Uh, all right,