G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero Mini-Series 1, Episode 2
"The M.A.S.S. Device Part 2: Slave of the Cobra Master"
Original Airdate: September 13, 1983
Writer: Ron Friedman
Director: Dan Thompson
Cast: Michael Bell, B.J. Ward, Chris Latta, Arthur Burghardt, Rob Paulsen
Well, I talked a big game in the last recap, about the many levels of G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, how it taught generations of kids the power of teamwork, diversity, and inclusion. It is that. My foot is not in my mouth. I am eating no words, here. But — G.I. Joe is also a toy commercial. Some episodes (a lot of episodes in this first big stretch) are here to show off the various vehicles available at a number of price points. Capitalism, baby! America! And that brings me to Ron Friedman's G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero ...
Ron Friedman is absolutely a legendary screenwriter, and he was one of those before he got involved with G.I. Joe. The man wrote multiple episodes of [deep breath] Get Smart, Gilligan's Island, The Andy Griffith Show, Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, The Ghost & Mrs. Muir, The Partridge Family, Love American Style, The Odd Couple, Chico and the Man, Starsky and Hutch, and — good lord — 32 episodes of Fantasy Island. That's all before he pivoted to animation — at the behest of Hasbro.
Now, Friedman low-key strikes me as a Stan Lee type, in that he's very much a natural storyteller and he's lived a life full of stories that he clearly wants to tell. According to Friedman, it was Hasbro and Griffin-Bacal Advertising who decided they didn't want the G.I. Joe cartoon to be written by — Friedman's words — "dummies or incompetents." So they sought out live-action TV writers, over 100, and Friedman got the job. And in a smart move, Friedman said he convinced Hasbro to make not only one episode, but a five-part G.I. Joe mini-series — hailed at the time as the first-ever animated mini-series. "That will give kids the chance to start bonding with the characters and seeing them as people," said Friedman. He wasn't wrong, and I assume he also made a lot more money writing a mini-series than he would have writing a one-off.
Now: "Slave of the Cobra Master"!
Duke (Bell) has a giant problem, and his name is Ramar (Peter Cullen). They're being forced to brawl in Cobra's Arena of Sport, an underground coliseum that Cobra Commander (Latta) built under his massive, snake-adorned super secret castle to entertain thousands of troops. Cobra Commander is not subtle.
The subtext isn't subtle, either. Maybe it's because I'm also reading Sean T. Collins' Prisoner recaps (part of Pop Heist's line of boutique, subscriber-only recaps), but this whole plot feels like G.I. Joe's mission statement writ large. Cobra Commander and Destro (Burghardt) are literally controlling these two men with joysticks, like a proto Street Fighter (or that one scene in Old Dogs with Bernie Mac ... I'm sorry, I don't know why I went there). This is a fascist goof and his arms dealer bud putting those they deem lesser-than through the wringer for their own entertainment. Come to think of it, this scene is nothing like Old Dogs!
But Selina — a soft-spoken wisp of a woman with jet-black hair, a fellow prisoner, and the first in a long line of consequential female guest stars — intercepts Duke and sneakily hands him what looks like a gold stick of gum, or a shiny piece of tape. Whatever — the point is, Duke can slide that between his forehead and the control device and regain his independence. Now Duke has a means of escape, he just needs an opportunity.
I also need to point out that one of the arena guards is just a beefy, shirtless man in jeans, boots, a black hood, and a spiked belt. Like, did he just come with the arena? He's like a pool boy but for coliseums — he maintains a number of underground arenas in the area. He's the best around! Five stars, please!
Back at Joe HQ, Professor Vandermeer (Cullen) conveniently explained how a M.A.S.S. Device works between episodes. Come on, Ron! You don't just get to introduce a massive, diamond-tipped weapon that runs on pop rocks, seltzer, and glitter sand and not tell us anything about it! What does M.A.S.S. stand for? Mature Adults Serpent Society? Matter Atomizer Social ... Security ... ? Moving on.
This is where Professor Vandermeer lays out what will be the plot of this and the next 13 episodes of G.I. Joe: this doohickey runs on a number of components that are scattered across the globe, and the Joes have to get to them before Cobra needs a refill on "catalytic elements." First up are the pop rocks, which are actually radioactive crystals found near the arctic circle in The Sea of Ice, which is said dramatically, but really just describes any body of water near the arctic circle.
That leads us to our first stop on the world tour: a trip to the arctic with Scarlett (Ward), Tripwire (Paulsen), Snake Eyes (he cannot talk), Flash (he does not talk), and Snow Job (also Paulsen).
Okay — Snow Job is hot. I mean, he's the Joes' first cold weather trooper, and he's a very sexy man. He is one of the Joes that, yes, I have a crush on. And this is part of the G.I. Joe experience! I've spent a lifetime listening to grown men ogle the Baroness. Y'all can handle my thirst for this redheaded ski soldier who sounds a lot like Cliff Clavin. That's a Boston accent and Snow Job's filecard says he's from Rutland, Vermont. I dunno, I'm from Tennessee, so all these Yankee accents bleed together for me. But after doing some research on the Vermont accent, I actually think Rob Paulsen nailed it?
This is what I'm interested in: Every G.I. Joe character is an amalgamation of so many influences, all being developed more or less simultaneously. Imagine if Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, Chris Claremont and John Byrne, and Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely all developed Cyclops at the same time. Because I can't do this for rifles or tanks but I love Snow Job, let me see if I can break down all of his components:
- Ron Rudat (Designer) and Kirk Bozigian (Product Manager) develop and design an "arctic trooper" action figure.
- Larry Hama (Marvel Comics writer) writes the filecard, naming him "Snow Job," an Olympic biathlon hopeful from Vermont who loves pranks (some might say cons).
- Ron Friedman sets a scene in the arctic to introduce Snow Job, one of the new 1983 action figures. Presumably he's looking at the filecard, but none of Larry Hama's specifics make it into the script.
- Russ Heath designs Snow Job's look for the cartoon, going off Ron Rudat's figure design.
- Rob Paulsen records his part as Snow Job, and he sees the filecard because he gives him a Vermont accent.
- Larry Hama introduces Snow Job into the comics in G.I. Joe #11, published February 8, 1983. Snow Job is a prankster. Penciler Mike Vosburg defines his look for the comics.
All of this happens in the span of, I don't know, six months? Dozens of people working together to develop a fully-formed character for three different mediums — four if you count the figure and the filecard separately. And this is Snow Job, a character I would describe as borderline B/C-list at best. Isn't this cool? It's ice cold!
The Joe team arrives at this arctic Chernobyl, outpacing Maj. Bludd's team. What the Joes don't take into account is that Cobra's already been there and, in addition to all of the convenient mining tools they've built into the cave, they've also built defenses! A half dozen S.N.A.K.E. robots (1983 retail: $2.49) spin out of the rock wall and attack! The Joes fend off the robots and Snake Eyes hops in a sleek mine car and goes off to pluck some deadly pop rocks from where they naturally grow in this arctic cave. Realism!
Of course there's another trap! As his troops pin the Joes in the cave with laser fire, Maj. Bludd remotely lets loose a cloud of radioactive crystal gas, which rushes to fill the cave (as gas does; Science!). Snake Eyes makes an instinctual decision to hit a failsafe button, sealing himself in the cave with the gas. He and Scarlett say goodbye, their hands on opposite sides of the glass.
Yes, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan was in theaters in the summer of 1982, when Ron Friedman was writing this episode. What of it?!
The failsafe also opens an escape hatch above the team. They leap onto the ladder and climb their way to safety.
So — as perfunctory as this episode is, I applaud Ron Friedman for going this hard in Episode 2. It's giving "Night of the Sentinels." If you're a kid in September 1983, and I'm talking 4-6 years old, and you see Snake Eyes wall himself off with a hot purple cloud of killer gas and watch Scarlett cry over his impending demise ... that's gotta hit hard! And it's not like Snake Eyes was the Morph of the group, either. This is like Wolverine being left for dead. The kids are definitely tuning in on Wednesday afternoon for part three.
This is also the clearest sign that Scarlett and Snake Eyes have or had something going on in the cartoon. I thought she and Duke had bants last episode, but that's nothing compared to this. What's the full history, girl? And what will I be able to infer as I overanalyze future episodes?
Back at the Silent Castle, Duke finds the right moment to break free — and break free he does. In the best action sequence of the episode, Duke scales the arena wall, hoofs it down a corridor, tackling troops along the way. He arrives at his rendezvous spot with Selina and, y'all, Selina essentially runs this place. She goes wherever she wants. She is never under anyone's control. She already has a Viper Glider (1983 retail: $4.20) stashed away for Duke. It's like Selina has used her appearance and presumed weakness against her captors. Duke gives Selina a ring (not like that) and takes flight.
We get an aerial chase via glider, which leads to Duke commandeering a H.I.S.S. tank (1983 retail: $6.39) and ... outwitting the two dumbest Cobra Officers by holding his breath in mud.
Duke is then rescued by more 1983 Joes looking for screentime, Doc and Cover Girl. Cover Girl's character design is wildly off from what has been on toy shelves for a few months at this point. I'll dig into that in a future recap.
And our cliffhanger: All of the world leaders travel to a remote island so they can tell Cobra Commander that they're not going to cave in to his demands in person ... and are promptly kidnapped via the M.A.S.S. Device.
STRAY BLASTS
I'm going to use this section to answer questions that I've posed in previous recaps, starting with the origin of the Silent Castle. As I mentioned last time, Cobra's giant snake temple debuted in the series premiere and then popped up in the comic mere months later, in the iconic "Silent Interlude" issue of G.I. Joe.
In an episode of 3DJoes' G.I. Joe Debriefed, storyboard director Larry Houston said this about the creation of what would become known as the Silent Castle:
"I'm friends with Larry [Hama], and he told me that he happened to see it on the show. He asked me about, I said, 'Yeah, I designed it.' It was just something real quick. They needed something real fast. So I was like, okay, let's do a castle."
And thus the hottest piece of real estate in Trans-Carpathia was built.
I also wondered last week about the erasure of Hawk from the line via the cartoon, even though he had a figure, a lead role in the comic, and was the star of the first comic commercial. I don't have any firm answer yet, but I think it's a safe bet that he was removed because Duke was essentially a 1:1 replacement for Hawk. If you look at the 1982 characters — Flash, Zap, Grunt, Short-Fuze, Rock 'n Roll, Steeler, all of the guys in green — they are largely used as background troops for the leads. The leads are the new 1983 characters and the three most visually distinct 1982 characters: Snake Eyes, Scarlett, and (less so in this episode) Stalker.
Next time: the Joes battle a bunch of creepy sea worms and I try to untangle the origins of the Baroness.
Thanks to Half the Battle, Yo Joe!, 3D Joes, Joe Guide, and Joepedia for all of the research.
Until next time, reading is half the battle!
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