This story reminds me getting up on saturday mornings for a long half day of cartoon watching. I was surprised to find out about 2 yrs ago that saturday morning cartoons no longer exist. I remember fondly getting up and starting the morning with the snorks, smurfs, and on down the line. I miss eek the cat, Bobby's World, and Super Dave.

So, that sounds like a nice surprise to wake up to. Unfortunately, it does not all hold up so well. I tried to sit down recently and watch VR Troopers...Abomination.

 

Nah, I enjoy Sunbow GI Joe more now than I did as a kid. By far. As a kid, it was just silly. Now, it's fun and has charm. Now, it's easy to see the writers having fun with stuff as they throw everything they can possibly think of at the wall in a desperate attempt to fill half-hours in a show designed for syndication...Meaning, the episodes had to be viewable in any order. No story arcs to fall back on, no filler episodes to be lazy with...every episode had to have its own self-contained plot.

It was an insane undertaking under an impossible schedule, and the writers deserve way more respect than they've gotten for what they managed to pull off.

 

So has anyone else seen the episode of GI Joe where the Joes are having to rebuild an orphanage that burnt down and in order to entertain the orphan kids, Shipwreck tells basically Joe-ified versions a different Fairy Tales and it actually featured like tiny and cartoony versions of the Joes and their voices were altered to sound squeaky.

I was dying laughing at how ridiculous it was while my brother asked the usual question whenever we see something crazy and strange "Are we drunk?"

 

It was pretty obvious the writer wasn't taking it very seriously either, as everyone was after something literally named "the MacGuffin device".

I probably appreciate the G.I. Joe cartoon more now than I did then, as it's easier to catch references like that, along with the occasional quip about job/pay/taxes/retirement that fly over the heads of kids, or surprisingly creepy/dark episodes like 'No Place like Springfield' and others.
Funny to see a lot of stuff from then that just plain wouldn't fly today - characters flirting with each other, bordering on family-friendly workplace sexual harassment. There seemed to be a standing order to get Lady Jaye out of her clothes occasionally.
"The Gamesmaster" stands out to me in that way, and for being a weird-ass episode in general. Baroness is kidnapped in a hot tub and Lady Jaye is snagged while changing clothes. The Baroness is stuck in a bikini for the whole episode, while everyone else is fully clothed. Lady Jaye (and writer common sense) was smart enough to get dressed again, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if an early draft intended for LJ to be running around in undies to match the Baroness, while everyone else kept their full clothes and/or uniforms.

 

Get up every day at 6am just to watch transformers!! Today we had when slingshot gets that rolls royce grill lol. I had to pull out my combiner wars Superion and play! Wish i had a Rolls Royce grill for Slingshot   B.O.T is playing right now and im thinking that Brawl must have been freaking out when he woke up inside that body. They never touched on that. Don't have UW Bruticus yet so i can't play with him yet. Forgot to mention that I'm off today but still got up for the festivities

 

OK one of our shape ways artists. Needs to make this happen

 

Sounds cool. Maybe I'll have to give it a try.

 

For me the difference between watching Transformers and G.I. Joe in the 80's and watching them on The Hub/Discovery Family this decade: I don't have to worry about the stupid Chicago Cubs having a game on causing the shows not to air (in Chicago they all aired on WGN).

 

Both series had their share of abominable episodes. Both were pretty serious and enjoyable at first, and seemed to get worse as they progressed, generally.

Season two of Transformers is pretty bad compared to the first, and season three...ugh. A few exceptions, though. Same with Gi Joe. The MASS Device and Revenge of Cobra series were magnificent! Pyramid of Darkness, mostly so (one scene in particular is pretty bad), and the rest of season one and two is a mixed bag. Jumped the shark big time for the movie, of course.

 

I love the Pyramid of Darkness episodes. If you don't mind me asking, what scene are you referring to?

 

I was a lil perv   i just wanted to see the baroness. She's deliciously dirty

 

It involved some cross-dressing, or at least I think it did? It was the eighties, sometimes hard to tell... but definitely Snake Eyes' least cool moment in all of fiction.  

 

Sounds awesome!  

 

I still watch G1 in the morning

 

I don't know that it's that they "didn't care," but the writers were obviously having fun with it all. I think it makes for a better experience overall, at least now when we're all adults. I can't get into MOTU, Thundercats or Voltron nowadays, whereas I can watch both Transformers and GI Joe (even the bad episodes) in their entirety!

I still love all those '80s properties, though - mainly for the toys. As a recent example, I tried watching the first episode of MASK. I never watched any of them as a child, mind you - I don't think I got halfway through...

I remember thinking it was cool that Mainframe and Dial Tone were hanging around playing videogames, and got busted by Beach Head in the first episode of Arise, Serpentor, Arise! One of them (can't remember which, but I think Mainframe) tries to explain it by referencing his time in 'Nam. VIETNAM! It's one thing to have this stuff in the comics and filecards, but on the cartoon it just seems funny, lol.

And I LOVE that they used the term "McGuffin Device"!!!

 

True. Also a lot of episodes did not air in my country so I saw them as an adult for the first time, while S1 and S2 got a lot repetitive, S3 was mostly awesome. So you can't say it was nostalgia, when I actually never saw many episodes when I was a kid.

I'm looking forward to how I will like GI Joe. I have never seen anything GI Joe at all. Other then the movies, which I found cool.

 

You mean the Transformers series? I dunno. I guess I'm the opposite. I feel like season one was very strong, season two less so... but season three is pretty cheesy. Probably all the aliens and stuff... But I can see why someone might like that take on it better, especially after the movie.

The animation, though... ugh. I realize that there were some colouring errors in the first season, but other than that the animation was pretty damn good, and got worse in season two and even worse in the third (after hitting its high point in the movie, of course!).

 

You forgot "their leader steals a high-power laser just to draw his face on the surface of the moon"!

Wait till you see "Viper is Coming"  

 

Viper is Coming is friggin' terrific.