Cartoon Disassembly 101: Session 3 (guest blog series)

The following was originally written by the homie Galen Henderson... With his permission, and in response to a Facebook status message about how comically asinine the villains' plots were on Voltron while I was snowed in this weekend led him to share this piece with me. With his permission, I am presenting it to the two of you.
There are surely more parts to this series, but I will be sharing the all of them with you complete with link.

[Phlip note - that was it for all of them right there]

And now we will get right down to business...

So far, we've delved into a lot of sicko minds. Mine mostly, but I have been having fun and I know you all have been as well. This week's class.... it's a tough one for me. And there was a slight problem. Tonight's class was supposed to have been taught by me and Professor Shadow Dragon. However, due to unforeseen circumstances, he couldn't make it cause he was dealing with a few unruly and not-so-bright humanoids. So that means that we'll only have one Cartoon to dissect for today's lesson. Like the Tick once said: "It's All Good. Just Put It In The Happy Box!!" And so that's what I did.

This week we go str8 into the heart of what was one of the greatest action cartoons of the 80s. I'll discuss the other on a later date. But back to this week's lesson. This week, we go military with GI Joe.

Now for me, this is what 80's cartoons were all about; a kick ass cartoon series, some of the best action figures around (especially when they introduced "GI Joe with the Kung-Fu Grip"), and even a slammin' comic book series.

How the hell could you go wrong?

That was then... this is now.

Now as the storyline goes, GI Joe is supposed to be the absolute pinnacle of every single military installation: Army, Navy, Air Force, yadda, yadda, yadda.

Or in their own words:

"G.I. Joe is the code name for America's Highly Trained Special Missions Force. Their Purpose: To Defend the World against Cobra. A Ruthless Terrorist Organization Determined to Rule the World." Yo Freakin Joe!!!

When I was a kid, I memorized and almost lived by those words! Now don't get me wrong.... there's still a soft spot in my heart left for this cartoon... it's just seeing it now... it's kinda different.

Ok, I'm getting a bit nostalgic here, time to refocus.

Now as anyone in The Conglomerate knows well enough, that GI Joe was nothing but a large scale glorified Gang War with no clear winners. It's been times where Cobra is ready to OFF some of the members of GI Joe (kinda like 20 to 1) and then another Joe makes the save and Cobra's ready to give up and punk out. Where the hell did Cobra Commander find these guys from, Rent-A-Peon Inc.? Also, did the Joes get the people from the same place, cause really......

Now the guys over at SomethingAwful.com have done what I'm currently doing, but they did it with a lil' more detail. They discussed some of the episodes. From there you will see just how truly incompetent Cobra, and GI Joe for that matter, really are.

Now it's no secret that everyone had their favorite Joe/Cobra member. Mine break down like this:

Snake Eyes - The Ninja that never said a damned word but whupped MUCH ass whenever he was in an episode. Plus it also helped that he was knocking boots with Scarlett... whom Duke was hittin' as well.

Storm Shadow - The Ninja on the Side of Cobra. Another bad ass. I mean hell, he took a damn Cobra HISS Tank apart barehanded!!! 'Nuff Said

Destro - Now... a lot of people don't know this, but he was a Black Man. Here's the facts: His cool demeanor, was hired out by Cobra but ran his own thing at the same time, plus he has some fine thick women that threw themselves at his feet. The fact that proves this is Destro II, Destro I's son. In the new comic series, they show Destro Jr's mother who got dumped at some point by Destro Sr. He always had a problem with the Authority figures in Cobra (Cobra Commander and Serpentor), but didn't take crap from anyone while he ran the show. I could go on & on about Destro, but I think that these prove my points perfectly.

Cobra Commander - Now he had some pretty decent ideas for taking control of the world. But his incompetence showed way too many times which caused him to get defeated time & time again.... and he was soon replaced by...

Serpentor - Now for some one who was made from the DNA of some of the worlds greatest War Generals and Leaders, he was a lil' piss-ant cry baby. When he didn't get his way, he'd have a temper tantrum just like a spoiled brat and pass the blame on to everyone else EXCEPT for himself for still having the stupid incompetence of Cobra Commander and just about everyone else in the Cobra Organization.

Now I could go on and on about each individual character. But dammit there were too many of them and they all had their own problems. So I'll end it with that 'lil prick Serpentor. Now next week, I'm not sure what I'm going to speak about just yet.... so be prepared for any and every thing.

To quote the Sarge (Sgt. Slaughter who was made into a character for the show & was a wrestler of the same name): "At Ease, Disease!!!!"

Class Dismissed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!