Sometimes There Is Not Enough WHAT

Sorry, not buying it. I’m not sure which is a more desperate move — drawing parallels between the release date of GI Joe or including Glenn Beck’s innate profundity.

That said, I’d like to think an actual self-respecting filmmaker (yes, even a documentarian) would spell “coincidence” correctly, even if s/he didn’t know where to use an apostrophe.

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Y’know, for something called “Mindbender,” there’s not much of the good doctor himself.

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I thought this was funny as hell. Its certainly no worse than any of the other conspiracy theories out there.

Although, Bush’s actions over the last eight years might have made more sense if we actually were fighting COBRA.

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God, I hope someone really believes this. This may be my favorite 9/11 Conspiracy Theory in a long time.

Of course, if we’re REALLY lucky, it’ll all turn out to be a viral marketing campaign for the new G.I. Joe movie.

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Not enough faked evidence and tortured logic. I give this conspiracy theory a D-.

Of course, if we’re REALLY lucky, it’ll all turn out to be a viral marketing campaign for the new G.I. Joe movie.

That would be totally awesome.

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>the popular concept of Al-Quaeda has been at
>least as much inspired by Bond Villains (with
>that rediculous map of a make-believe base that
>they reference in the clip) and other pulp bad-
>guys going all the way back to Fu Manchu (the >sinister oriental badguy is a definate bin Laden >trait.

In Alan Moore’s “LOEG Black Dossier” (Fu Manchu was the villain in the 1st volume) the big enemy James Bond was supposedly fighting was Dr No. But it was actually an alibi so he could kill a post-war british industrialist so a weapons contract could go to american manufacturers (it mirrored the same status in Vol 1 with Manchu as the State’s enemy, even if the guy was real and a bastard). The name of the villain was a joke from the american intelligence on the brits: “There was NO Doctor”. I always thought that was a poke at Bin Laden somehow. Considering how the volumes were about how empires’ imaginarium have difficulty in telling its heroes and monsters apart (and how monsters spawn), seems somewhat apt in its pulpiness.

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For the record, I wrote the episode “20 Questions” which featured Cobra using an underground lair to launch an attack on the midwest. The episode was devised as a satire on network news shows and Geraldo Rivera in particular; I created the character Hector Rameriez as a spoof of Rivera and once his name clear the legal department, we used him several times again whenever we needed a newscaster (he also appeared in episodes of TRANSFORMERS and JEM).

I picked an underground lair because we hadn’t done an underground lair yet. We did 65 shows in the first season, 25 in the second, and three 5-part serials (one of which was edited from the never-theatrically-released G.I.JOE: THE MOVIE, also written by yrs trly). After episode 20 we were constantly looking for new twists to add to the stories instead of just straight army vs army combat (which was what Hasbro wanted, albeit with no bloodshed).

As a result we did episodes like “Once Upon A Joe” (a fairy tale with Joe chibis), “The Traitor” (a two parter involving an undercover operation go awry, plus a return appearance by hector Rameriez), “Red Rockets Glare” (Cobra infiltrating the world via hamburger stands), “The Spy Who Rooked Me” (spoof on James Bond), “Cobrathon” (Cobra does a Jerry Lewis type fundraiser), and others. Steve Gerber, Flint Dille, Doug Booth, myself, and a battalion of very capable freelancers were constantly trying to stay one step ahead and not fall into repetition. We also had a pretty deranged sense of humor and political POVs across the entire spectrum so the shows tended to have pretty far ranging topical references and in-jokes.

And speaking specifically of politics, at the time the show aired the Soviet Union was still a going concern and we accused of Red-bashing. Makes no difference that Cobra was a fascist terrorist organization dedicated to power for the sake of power, several critics accused us of stirring up anti-communist feelings. We ended up introducing a group of Soviet commandos who were the parrallel to the Joes and who worked their side of the Iron Curtain in the fight against Cobra. This team were clearly depicted as allies. Likewise, we took great care not to depict Middle Easterners in a negative light, especially since DJ/voice actor Casey Kasim walked off a TRANSFORMERS recording session when a baddie who was a parody of Momar Khaddafi was introduced.

So, I don’t know if this guy is for real or not but if he’s is, he’s wrong re the origins of G.I. JOE plot elements. If the Twin Towers took a beating it’s ‘cuz every landmark in the world took a beating at one point or another. The shows premiered in early September ‘cuz that’s when kids were back in school; all the networks and syndicators launched their major new shows in the early fall back then.

But this is a hoot and I’m passing the links to everyone I know who worked on the series.

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No, I’m Buzz Dixon. Ron wrote the first two JOE serials and the first draft of what was supposed to be the JOE movie, but when it was thrown out Hasbro was still contractually obliged to give him sole writing credit. I wrote the script for the movie and was listed as script consultant or some such; I was a staff writer for the first season and story editor for the second.

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Did the guy who made the Cobra Commanders voice also do Starscream’s voice? They sound quite similar, in my opinion…

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