Fun
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Nostalgic
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Of all the great things about television, the greatest is that it’s on every single day. TV history is being made, day in and day out, in ways big and small. In an effort to better appreciate this history, we’re taking a look back, every day, at one particular TV milestone.
IMPORTANT DATE IN TV HISTORY: September 15, 1986
PROGRAM ORIGINALLY AIRED ON THIS DATE: GI Joe: A Real American Hero, “Arise, Serpentor, Arise! Part 1” (Season 2, Episodes 1). [Watch on Amazon Video.]
WHY IT’S IMPORTANT: The GI Joe animated series existed in a kind of golden age for cartoon series based on popular toy lines. This was the era of Transformers, Thundercats, Voltron, hell, even the Go-Bots had their moment. GI Joe was the most fun, though, mostly because it had the best coterie of villains. Hissing drama queen Cobra Commander, perpetually annoyed Destro, thickly-accented The Baroness, mad scientist (with a killer bod somehow) Dr. Mindbender, chamaleon-faced Mad Max-clone Zartan and his biker-punk gang. The Joes had their fun personalities too, but Cobra was where it was at. Especially because there was always so much bickering in the ranks about Cobra Commander’s leadership. He and Destro fought like bitter ex-lovers, the Baroness was judgy as hell, and every once in a while Tomax and Xamot the spiritually-connected twins would pop by to say something shady too. Which was why it was so exciting when Dr. Mindbender decided to kick things up a notch by going rogue and creating a supervillain who would be able to rule Cobra properly. And since Mindbender seems like a literate sort, he cribbed directly from Shelley and decided to make a Frankenstein monster.
The entire enterprise was spread out over a five-part series that kicked off GI Joe‘s second season (and would, in an act of foresight that feels more akin to what Marvel would end up doing decades later, end up sowing the seeds for the eventual G.I. Joe theatrical film), with Cobra going to the far corners of the globe to retrieve the DNA of long-dead despots and murderers. In that way, this was something of a Frankenstein-by-way-of-Jurassic Park act of villain creation.
Meanwhile, the Joes added Sergeant Slaughter to their team, importing the pro wrestling persona out of the real world and into this fictional animated universe where snake monsters become men and world-domination constantly hangs in the balance.
GI Joe was great, guys.
[You can stream GI Joe: A Real American Hero on Amazon Video.]
