Dr. DVD

Remember these shows? Remember the cartoon movies? Remember watching them after school? Remember the joy of finding a great under the Christmas tree from these areas?
I do! I love these shows and hope to see some of the original series out on DVD.
I thought Transformers should have ended with the movie, the series really went downhill after that IMO.
G.I. Joe was good until the movie IMO. The Cobra-LA crap really ruined a lot of the show's military grounding. However, I think the first two mini-series, including The Revenge of Cobra, were superb. Loved Destro, Duke, Zartan, and the Twin brothers. I actually thought the Serpentor storyline was halfway decent.
Some of my fondest after school memories consisted of coming home in early September to watch the new G.I. Joe and Transformers series kick-off, usually with one after the other!

mikehunt

got both movies on dvd

thejammy

Mee too!

RaptorsFan

I loved the cartoons, but the TOYS are the best!!!!!! I spent days and days having G.I. Joes (thats what we called them) wars!!!!!!!

My favorite toy was the personal carrier that floats!!! G.I. Joes in the bath tub ruled!!!!!

Bcolon

My favorite episode of G.I. Joe was when they got warped to the alternate timeline where Cobra was winning the war and Steeler stayed behind to help the now good Baroness defeat Cobra. Very cool. Just like the classic Star Trek episode Mirror Mirror.

mikehunt

sounds cool, wish I remembered it

Spicollidriver1

I remember that episode it kicked a$$.

fourwalker

I remember really well the two miniseries for G.I. Joe. Seemed like they really liked to show the one where Cobra had to get all the materials for the super laser gun thing a lot. Then there was that other one where they made the emperor dude. Although I really don't remember the G.I. Joe movie that well, it was like where Cobra Commander goes back to that cave of snake people where he was born, or something like that.

The coolest thing about G.I. Joe was that it was a non-violent war cartoon. Dang, the agility and reaction time of those soldiers, being able to jump out of a tank/plain/jeep/space station without being hurt

Tigger

The 2 Twins were..... Tomax & Xamot

The first movie was the Mass Device. G.I. Joe and Cobra had to search 3 places around the globe to get the 3 particles that would fuel the Mass Device, capable of transporting anything, to and from their location.
1) Glowing Red Crystals (Snake Eyes is helped by the blind man.. )
2) Pool of Heavy Water (The screaming tube worms)
3) The Meteroite that was stuck inside the Volcano

The Second movie is where Destro creates the Weather Device. G.I. Joe deflects the beam, sending it back to Destro, thus breaking the device into 3 parts and causing massive global weather anomalies.

These 2 movies... along with the Voltron Movie (Where the Lions meet the Vehicles) were the greatest movies I had ever seen in the 80's. Even today I still play my old VHS tapes where I had raced home from school, taped it every day for 5 days to have the complete movie.
It will never be the same again.

Serpentor... he sucks.

Spicollidriver1

Didn't that first movie have Sgt Slaughter, and those guys with him, and there was a new guy trying out or something. Man I loved GI Joe, and Transformers.

mikehunt

new guy was Lt. Falcon, voiced by Don Johnson

Spicollidriver1

Yeah that's right wasn't that like his only gig for quite awhile he just kind of dropped off.

TheBang

This 2-part storyline is available on VHS. It was released by Rhino last year as Vol. 1: Worlds Without End.

Dr. DVD

Did G.I. Joe have any continutiy to the storyline after the movie or was that it? I don't seem to remember them making anything that followed the destruction of Cobra-LA.
Transformers is a case where I think it would have been best to end it all with the feature film. Everything was tied up so neatly, and the episodes with the Quintessons as the villains stunk. Trypticon was cool, but the rest of the post movie era sucked.

thebear

The coolest movie was when they created Serpentor out of the DNA of the most ruthless people in history... that was way ahead of its time. Truly groundbreaking stuff right there.

Cat

These shows were so cool and it is dissapointing that you can't see them on tv anywhere. I liked GI Joe better than Transformers, but not by too much. What about the GI Joe comic that was out. That was an awesome comic. It wasn't campy at all, it was a very serious comic and nothing like the cartoon except for the same characters.

Cat

yecul

Are there any repeats of GI Joe on tv? I've seen Transformers on local stations and maybe even Cartoon Network, but never GI Joe. Hekc, I've downloaded Transformers episodes in Real, but never seen GI Joe lying around. Does no one care?

Dr. DVD

Yo Joe!

thegame370

Man i loved those cartoons. I had tons of toys of GI Joes and Transformers. They were my favorite cartoons besides Thundercats. My fav character from GI Joe was Storm Shadow, wasnt he the coolest! And from Transformers i liked ofcourse, Optimus Prime and Starscream.

TheBang

The Sunbow Animation contract for producing animated G.I. Joe cartoons ended with the release of The Movie. After rebidding for the contract, DIC came in with an offer way below Sunbow and won the rights to produce new animated episodes.

A year or two passed after The Movie, and then the first 5-part mini-series from DIC was broadcast. I believe it was called Operation: Dragonfire. In it, the Baroness found Cobra Commander in his snake-form (from the movie), and somehow transformed him back into a human. Cobra Commander (in his new battle armor), seized control of Cobra again from Serpentor, and used some device to merge Serpentor with a pet iguana. They also used this device to Pythonize their vehicles, making them invisible to radar. And some other things happened, which I forget.

The next year after Operation: Dragonfire, DIC continued with 2 full seasons of new G.I. Joe cartoons. They had various storylines featuring Eco-Warriors, Toxo-Vipers, Ninja Force, Hitman and the drug guys, DEF, and all those other specialized groups which were in the toy lines at the time (1990-1992). Generally, the quality of both the animation and the storylines for the DIC episodes were very poor. Most people hate them in comparison to the Sunbow episodes, and we wish they never happened.

Dr. DVD

Now that I know, I think it was better to end everything with the movie. Of course the movie itself was nowhere near the level of mastery found in the original mini-series. Give me the premise of Cobra Commander as a deformed white supremacist guy over the Cobra-La/Serpentor lines any day of the week.
I hear that the comics actually had Cobra commander as a Hitler type man without the supernatural element and references were made to Vietnam. Furthermore, I hear that the main couple was not Scarlett and Duke, but Scarlett and Snake-Eyes! Also, didn't Duke die in the movie? I know they said it was a coma but I read the line was just dubbed in at the last minute to avoid being too dark for regular TV.

TheBang

Oh, totally! The first mini-series was great because Cobra was this mysterious, powerful, secret cadre that was threatening the world. They would succeed in many of their operations, and they captured the leader of the counter-terrorist team that is supposed to stop them right off the bat! And Cobra Commander was a menacing, evil tactician (up until he was captured) and not the sniveling, inept coward that they portrayed him as in the regular series.

Yes, well, there were a lot of differences in the comics. At the end of the Vietnam War, Cobra Commander's brother was drunk and killed Snake-Eyes' family in a car accident as they were on their way to the airport to pick up Snake-Eyes. Cobra Commander blamed Snake-Eyes for the tragedy and went on to form Cobra to exact revenge (or something like that). Snake-Eyes was met at the airport by Hawk (before G.I. Joe was formed), who gave him the news about his family. Snake-Eyes then went to Japan and started training at the ninja compound with Storm Shadow and his family. Snake-Eyes and Storm Shadow had been in the same LRRP patrol in the Vietnam War, along with Stalker and Wade Collins (who later became a Crimson Guardsman). One day at the ninja compound, the Hard Master (Storm Shadow's uncle) was imitating Snake-Eyes' heartbeat and breathing to teach a technique. At the same time, Zartan was outside the compound, with a bow and arrow, trying to assassinate Snake-Eyes under orders from Cobra Commander. But he was fooled and killed the Hard Master instead. The ninjas blamed Storm Shadow, thinking that Storm Shadow was jealous of Snake-Eyes since the Hard Master had begun favoring Snake-Eyes over Storm Shadow and had planned to give the ninja business over to Snakes instead of Storm Shadow. Storm Shadow ran away and joined Cobra, in the hopes of learning the true identity of the Hard Master's assassin. Snake-Eyes later became a recluse in the Rocky Mountains, until G.I. Joe was formed and Stalker and Hawk recruited him. That's where he first met Scarlett at the first day of training. They took a liking to each other. On one of the earliest missions, there was an accident, and Snake-Eyes was disfigured by a blast of flaming jet fuel while rescuing Scarlett.

Anyway, the whole thing gets more and more convoluted. It turns out Firefly was at the the ninja compound too, as the Faceless Master. Blah Blah. A lot of the comics are actually pretty good. I'd suggest that you go out and try to pick some up, but they've come into huge demand in the recent years, and it would be difficult and expensive to pick up the entire series.

Yes, this was the original plan. At the last moment, they added in the dubbed line at the end about Duke coming out of his coma, after the Transformers Movie debuted and there was a big outcry at the death of Optimus Prime. Lt. Falcon, as introduced in the movie, was supposed to have been the replacement for Duke's role, just as Rodimus Prime replaced Optimus.

Dr. DVD

Wow!!! Thanks for the info. Hopefully I can find some old comic books.

Dr. DVD

If, by some fat chance, G.I. Joe were made into a feature film, who do you think should tackle the project?
If they want the good-ol know how of the first two mini-series, I recommend Simon West as the director. If they want the Serpentor era supernatural stuff, I think they might want to go with Stephen Sommers.
In terms of casting, I really can only recommend Arnold Vosloo as Destro, and maybe Angelina Jolie as the Baroness.

Tigger

I've often been curious about a G.I Joe live action movie. Like almost all cartoon-crossovers/video game crossovers, I wish they would stay accurate when it comes to uniforms, weapons, personal touches like helmets, headgear and so on. Here are my picks for actors/actresses to play in a G.I Joe live action film. Although they may be older or younger than the part, wrong voice, not exact and so on, I am reaching into my past and present to get as close as I feel as possible. Remember these people at the height of their careers. I feel they could act the part and do a solid job. Here we go:

Director: John McTiernan/Michael Bay
Producer: Jerry Bruckheimer

G.I. Joe
--------

Duke: Arnold (Of Course) Schwarzenegger (Predator, Commando)
Scarlett: Famke Jannsen (X-Men, Golden Eye)
Flint: David Morse (The Rock, The Green Mile)
Lady Jaye: Carrie-Anne Moss (The Matrix, Red Planet)
Snake-Eyes: Chow Yun-Fat (Crouching Tiger, Hard Boiled)
Hawk: Tom Skerritt (Top Gun, Contact)
Spirit: Rodney A. Grant (Dances with Wolves, Wild Wild West)
Roadblock: Cuba Gooding Jr. (Pearl Harbor, Men of Honor)
Gung-Ho: Bill Paxton (Aliens, Near Dark)
Stalker: Bokeem Woodbine (The Rock, The Big Hit, Sopranos)
ShipWreck: John C. McGinley (Platoon, The Rock)
WildBill: Barry Pepper (Saving Private Ryan, The Green Mile)
BeachHead: Edward Norton (Fight Club, American History X)
Alpine: Bill Duke (Commando, Predator)
Doc: Clarence Gilyard Jr. (Top Gun, Die Hard)


Cobra
-----

Cobra Commander: Vin Diesel (Saving Private Ryan, Boiler Room)
Destro: Ving Rhames (Pulp Fiction, Mission: Impossible 2)
Serpentor: Brian Thompson (Cobra, Dragonheart)
Zartan: Vernon Wells (Commando, The Road Warrior)
Major Bludd: Joaquin Phoenix (Gladiator, Return to Paradise)
Baroness: Milla Jovovich (The Messenger, The Fifth Element)
Dr. Mindbender: Christopher Walken (The Prophecy, King of New York)
Storm Shadow: Jet Li (Romeo Must Die, Lethal Weapon 4)
Tomax: Hugo Weaving (The Matrix)
Xamot: Hugo Weaving (The Matrix)