Yo Joe! Or whatever your name is. Get eyes on this list of surp൲rising things you may not have known about G.I. Joe. Why? Because if you don’t, the commies, er I mean, Cobra wins! You are a Real American Her, aren’t you? Of course you are; this classified docuꦚment is for patriot's eyes only. What do you mean fr𝓀eely viewable on the internet? This intel briefing is for Uncle Sam’s chosen few only, you included. These colors don’t lie!
As a warrior of liberty, you know that G.I. Joe was a cultural phenomena that dominated the cartoon, comic book, and toy worlds for years. Even with the disappointing live-action reboot (I blame the terrorists for that one), G.I. Joe remains firmly entrenched in the hearts and minds of people everywhere to this day. Speaking of the reboot, we’re sticking to origi⛦nal cartoons, comics and toys🐽 only on this operation.
It was just so gosh darn cool if you’ll pardon my French. Lazer shooting robots were squaring off with square-jawed patriots armed to the teeth with sweet weapons and even sweeter codenames. There’s Snake Eyes, Shipwreck, Roadౠblock; that one guy is just named Falcon, how righteous 𒐪is that?
In modern America, it’s hard to imagine patriotism NOT goi🌌ng hand in hand with screaming eagles, fireworks, gunfire, and excessive flag waving. Before G.I. Joe came along, loving America was a much more subdued practice. But G.I. Joe (with some help from the 80s) gave patriotism a kick in the pants ൩and made freedom radical enough for the kids to enjoy.
So stow the chatter soldier. Load up your laser rifle, strap into an implausible yet awesome vehicle, and get brainstorming for a wicked cool codename. You ༺can’t have Brainstorm; 💫I already called dibs. Got a good one? Holy crap (sorry, Jesus) that codename is rad! You win, let’s assault these facts. Yo Joe!
25 The Cartoon Exists📖 Because Two Guys Had To Number One
It seems fitting that the most masculine Saturday morning cartoon ever would have its origins in a men’s room while two guys were taking a whiz. No He-Man is not more masculine; you know why. Just two guys talking about freedom and jus♎tice in a womanless sanctuary, nothing weird about that.
The story goes that the president of Marvel and the CEO of Hasbro toys . The CEO lamented to the Marvel head that they weren’t having much luck rebooting G.I. Joe for the kids of the 80s. The Marvel president assured the CEO that his team had the best creative minds anywꩲhere, and to bring over their ideas so that Marvel could see what they could do. They struck a deal, but I’m not sure if they shook hands afterward.
24 Marvel Saved It From Being Absurd
It’s a good thing the urinal gods united the two men by fate, or we would have gotten a much stupider G.I. Joe. When Hasbro pitched their ideas to Marvel, the comic book giant scratched his head and said “seriously?” Hasbro imagined 𝓀that each cha🐟racter would have a different name, like “G.I. Joe,” “G.I. Fred,” “G.I. George” and so on. They hadn’t even considered creating bad guys for the Joes to fight. Hasbro was even oblivious to the “Smurfette” rule and had no plans for female characters.
🌺Marvel set the toy company straight, however, for the betterment of humanity.꧃ Off the top of their heads, they told Hasbro that G.I. Joe is a codename, not an individual. It’s a super elite task force that fights terrorism, not in war. This distinction was necessary, as we will see later.
23 The Vietnam War Almost Killed G.I. Joe
Later is now. As you may know, G.I. Joe was a popular toy back in the 60s. The post World War II and Korean War America was a very black and white time (pardon the expression). Freedom good, dictatorships bad. American soldiers heroes, pinko commies villains. But you h🐼istory buffs know that late in the 60s, lines got blurred and colors mixed into a confusing tie-dye.
By the time the Vietnam War was in full swing💯, U.S. soldiers were suffering from some pretty bad publicity. Popular opinion shifted away from patriotism, and Americans had their fill of war. Sales of the all American G.I. Joe toy predictably plummeted. It got so bad that Hasbro tried to rebrand the Joes as explorers instead of soldiers. It was exactly as dumb as it sounds.
22 Star Wars Saved Him
So if things got so bad, how did G.I. Joe do so well in the 80s? You can thank🉐 the Jedi for that. Up until the late 70s, action figures were just dolls with a different name. They were standard doll size at about 12 inches high. As we talked about, their popularity began to slide and G.I. Joe even went on hiatus for a while, staying off of store shelves in the years leadingܫ up to the early 80s. Enter Luke Skywalker.
In case you just popped out of a fallout shelter, there was this thing in 1977 called Star Wars. It was cool. So cool in fact that it revived the flagging action figure market by popularizing smaller, mostly plastic action figures. Gone were the lovingly crafted and articul🔯ate dolls of the past. Now came the hordes of colorful plastic figures of star wars. Brighter colors, and you can afford way more of them because they are cheap plastic from China? Now you’re speaking America’s language. G.I. Joe hopped on the bandwagon and we got the highly successful relaunch of the early 80s.
21 They Tried A Comedy Episode, It Did Not Work
Let’s get a show fact in here the appease the cartoon crowd. Why? Because this is Ame🌼rica. We Americans get what we want, or else. The G.I. Joe cartoon was all about fighting Cobra, saluting the flag, and . One day, however, a writer for the show had the grand idea to have an episode dedicated to comedy. Well, not so much comedy as💧 one stupid jok𝓰e that takes half an hour to get to the punchline.
starts with the Joes having a party in a renovated apartment (seriously). They then proceed to commit a bunch of pratfalls and physical gags like falling out a window and spilling food on Scarlett (no really). Then, Barbecue gets a phone call wherein a mysterious voice tells him, “The Viper is coming 5:75.” The Joes obviously assume this is code for a Cobra attack and leap into action trying to figure out where the attack will happen. Afteꦬr an ENTIRE episode of this, an elderly Slavic man with an accent arrives stating that he is the “Vindow Viper, here to vipe your vindows for $5.75 an hour.” I wish I was kidding.
20 The Show Had No Substance, Unlike The Comic
Anybody that was a kid in the 80s and 90s knows (now) that most of the Saturday morning cartoons were jus𒈔t extended commercials for the toys associated with the sho🔯w. G.I. Joe was no different, as there was a new character or vehicle every week not counting that Viper guy, at least I don’t think he got his own action figure. Characters that outlived their profitability got shoved to the periphery to make room for the new blood. Even popular characters would get sidelined when a newer, more expensive charꦆacter came along.
This commerciaওlization was in stark contrast to the comic, which preceded the show. Marvel helmed the comic, of course, and it was a much more mature outing. The guy in charge of theꩵ comic, Larry Hama, had military experience and turned the comic into a thought-provoking story that dealt with geopolitics and the ethics of war. They even created the first female Joes and had to twist Hasbro’s arm to get them to make toys of them.
19 Peter Who? X What Now?
A lot of people forget that the G.I. Joe comic book came before the T.V. show and was the driving force behind the franchises surge in popularity. With the minds of Marvel at the helm, they built a universe from the ground up as they ✅are wont to do and the results made a big splash in the scene. The book surged to even greater heights of popularity with the added mark🌺eting of the show and toys.
How popular was it? For a while in the 80s, G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero comics. Think about that for a second. A comic about action figures from the 60s beating out Peter Parker and a🌃ll of the accumulated X-Persons. Maybe that’s why companies put so much faith in reboots these days.
18 Nick Fury Missed Out
But wait, what was the inspiration for G.I. Joe? I imagine hearing you ask. Fear not soldier of freedom, I got you. Many ideas that went into the G.I. Joe relaunch of the 80s, such as it being an elite anti-terrorism team, cam𓃲e from that guy Larry Hama we mentioned before. He was working on a title called Fury Force, itself a revisit of WWII character Nick Fury.
Marvel passed on the title, but soon after Hasb🍌ro came to visit. Hama then rolled his ideas into G.I. Joe. So instead of a government super team named S.H.I.E.L.D. 🃏taking on Hydra, we got a different government super team named G.I. Joe taking on a different serpent-themed villain organization called Cobra.
17 The Red Snake
It’s no coincidence that Red ⛦Skull’s skull is, well, red. It also isn’t an accident that Cobra’s symbol is red. Back in the Cold War, the color red was associated with Communism and the Soviets and therefore evil. Allusions to Communism was an easy way to generate “cheap heat” for your villains and get audiences hating them.
The creators of G.I. Joe wanted to take it 🌼one st🍸ep further and make Cobra a straight up Soviet organization. Cooler heads prevailed, however, and to avoid any international resentment, they made Cobra into the mustache-twirling world dominators we know and love today. As a bonus fact, there was a Soviet equivalent to G.I. Joe called The October Guard. The Guard also fought Cobra, but they still weren’t painted in as favorable light as the Joes.
16 First Illinois, Then, The World!
Spoiler alert. Cobra never takes over the world. The Joes are just too dang American to allow that. Nobody drives international politics with a heavy hand unless it's Uncle Sam! However, Cobra did manage one small victory, in real life no less. The site of Cobra Commander’s greatest victory was... Spri♑ngfield, Illinois.
In a public ceremony, the actual mayor of real-life Springfield pledged allegiance to Cobra and . Now you might be saying, “That was just a publicity stunt by a cosplayer for a G.I. Joe con🔜vention that was in town.” But that is just trying to cloud the facts. We need to send troops to Springfield A🍨SAP. I know it’s only a flyover state, but that’s their plan! Start somewhere no one will notice and take over the country! Wake up sheeple!