A Geek History of Time - Episode 211 - GI Joe and Latchkey Kids, Reaganism vs Reagonomics Part III

Episode Date: May 13, 2023

Like they they advertise one match when crashing a car into one of the wrestlers. Not a total victory of Russia, which now we're seeing. He goes on. He's got a gigantic bag of flaccid dicks. Sorry, conti. Which when you open them up, you find out that they're all cockroaches and stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know if anybody else is ever going to laugh this hard at anything we say.

We can actually both look out my window right now and see some very pretty yellow flowers that I'm going to be eradicating. Nu-i văzută. Nu-i văzută. Nu-i văzută. Nu-i văzută. Nu-i văzută. Nu-i văzută. Nu-i văzută. Nu-i văzută. Nu-i văzută. Nu-i văzută.

Nu-i văzută. Nu-i văzută. Nu-i văzută. Nu-i văzută. Nu-i văzută. This is a KGSU time where we connect and murder into the real world. My name is Ed Lola. I'm a world history English teacher at the middle school level here in Northern California. And my podcast partner here has taken a certain amount of enjoyment in giving me a hard time recently about the fact that I fell out of the habit of listening to our podcast when my job changed and I was no longer spending two hours a day on the

train and thus my ability to listen to, you know, half of an episode a day disappeared. But I have recently picked up the habit of spending some time walking during my prep period in the morning. I go out and I walk two laps around the kind of cross-country track that we have at my school and then in the afternoon, I walk two more laps around it, adds up to a total of about, to not quite two and a half miles for the day,

doing that. And in the morning, I put on a workout mix that I've got on my phone, because in the morning, I really need the motivation, because like force me to run through a brick wall, please, I need the psychological help. And in the afternoon, I'm not pushing myself quite as hard, because there's no time limit for me to get my laps done.

And so I have started listening to our podcast again. And it's been fun. It has also made me very sad, however, because I just started the first of the episodes about Speedball. And Dr. Gabriel Cruz is just so damn funny. And I missed being on the show with him that time. And Dr. Cruz, if you're listening, am I really

surly? I don't, because he said you're trading one surly bearded calf for another. And I'm like, well, okay, like if the shoe fits, but am I really that bad? But yeah, no, I'm really sorry that I missed being here when he was on because yeah, he's just an awful lot of fun. Folks, if you haven't already done it, check him out on TikTok. He's awesome. And also his podcast, but it's Office Hours for Dr. Cruz. Dr. C. Yeah. Office Hours for Dr. C. Check it out because he's he's he's he's fucking brilliant. Well, I don't I don't know how else to say it. So anyway, that's that's what I've had going on. What about you? Well, I'm Damien Harmony. I am a Latin teacher and a US history teacher up here at the high school level up here in northern California. And I concur. It was a really, really fun episode,

pity that you weren't there. But I hope you enjoy the rest of it. It will get darker and sadder. Because they always do. Yeah, true. It's true. It's interesting that that's where you've caught up to. Where did you stop off? Like, where did you leave off? Well, I'm going to admit here that I'm not starting where I stopped and coming up. I actually, the first one that I actually wound up, like my phone podcast app said, oh, hey, here's Blade Runner. I was like, okay, well, I guess I'll start there and you know, and I've bounced around. Gotcha. So, uh, so tonight, um, you know, I'd love this, too. Um, so I programmed, uh, a friend of mine gave me an Alexa, one of the little disc-shaped one, looks like a hockey puck. So I put it, okay, yeah, the hockey puck. Yeah, so my kids would have, uh, one up here that

they could listen to music with. And I often will play pure gins or gregs pier gins the morning song. Okay. I go to wake them up. Okay. But I knew that my son tends to want to know what time it is after his shower is over. So I programmed it to trigger a routine when he asks what time it is. And by the way, we changed them all to a from Alexa to computer because Star Trek. Okay. So here, computer. What time is it? And it because that's the trigger phrase, it starts playing Snoop Dogg's Ain't Nothing But a G thing. thing. And he immediately tells it to stop because that wasn't what he asked. And then, you know, it stops. And he says, computer, what time is it? And it starts up again. And I'm hearing this while I'm making my bed from the laundry, I'm hearing this through the wall and he's just Computer what's his time is it? And so then he puts an announcement through because I have one in my room

And he puts an announcement through and he's like dad stop it And then I hear Julie is sitting up for her brother dad knock it off like from another room And then computer what time is it da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da to see me laughing that hard. My side's hurt from laughing that much. And then I took, I got rid of that routine because actually it's probably good that a kid knows what time it is. But I knew that that would be so good. I absolutely loved it. Oh, yeah. Like I was tears in the eyes. Sides were hurting. Like he wanted to like get me back. But I was, yeah, but I was too busy laughing so hard that I was doubled over and like ready to collapse that he just starts laughing like crazy. Yeah, it was good. Oh, yeah, it was good. Oh, yeah, it's good. Yeah. Good times. I'm going to hold onto that one.

I'm putting that in my pocket. Yep. Yeah. I just, it's got to be like a standard. When mine gets a little older. And then just have it play, you know, the escape, you know, do you like piniacolata? Like it is.

Yeah. You know, just, yeah, whatever, whatever phrase your wife says recently when she asked to, right, you know, or Rick Roller. I mean, it's really, you know, oh, oh, yeah, that's, that's good. Yeah, that's good. Evil, but good. I like it. But then the trick is, I mean, you got a deep program routine afterwards. Oh, yeah. No, you got to. It probably is an important

question that they're asking or it's important to them. So yeah. Yeah. So anyway, let's see, when last we talked, you're talking about, I believe Ace gets shot down repeatedly because every flipping up every time. Yeah. Yeah. And I made a John McCain joke about. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of like having wharf on the enterprise. Like, yeah, how do we know this enemy is really, really bad ass? It beats the shit out of the clean. It beats the shit out of wharf. That's that's actually a codified trope. The wharf effect. Oh, really? Yeah. It's the name. The name on TV tropes. Anyway, the name for it is the worth effect. That makes sense. I think it's honestly a accidental spin on

the black guy getting killed first in a horror movie. Yeah, it's, I mean, there, yeah, it's that phenomenon comes from the same root narrative. Yeah, we need to establish how strong this thing is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How this brute force will not be the only thing that works. So how do we know that this is a new threat? It's shot down ace. Oh my God, you know, how do we know it's a threat?

Duke's in a coma. Oh my God, and then you like start doing the tally marks, you know, like, you know, how many times is, yeah, I genuinely think they need to retire, Duke. Yeah, because his, his judgment has to be significantly impaired by the repeated brain trauma, right? Like, you know, not even, not even coma's, like, look at all the time he gets knocked out on top of that. Like, oh, yeah, forgot French. Like, that's gone. Yeah, he's, he's been flashy thing to so many times. Like, yeah. So, so, so space force of G.I. Joe. Um, so they,

yeah, and, and remember it was, uh, it was they took out the satellite that brought Fox news. Um, so that's good. But the second season There's a huge shift in focus in GI Joe. Okay, so the it's it's it's 1986 now. Yeah, because or is it yeah it's 86 No, is this when when sunbow stop producing and it went to a different Deep company. Yeah, okay. All right. So, and I actually, it's funny. I didn't chase down that tendril of those story, although that one is a fascinating one

because there was so much meat on the bone just in what was going on that I've gotten completely about the psychology connection until after this thing had gone to print. So there is a huge shift in focus. First off, it's much more complex. And I mean that literally there are subplots, there are over arcane plots, there are storyline plots for characters. So in the first season, I do remember that. And the first season that you have archetypical characters. And they, how do they, yeah, I mean, honestly, it feels like the difference between

TNG and DS9. In the first season, you have these archetypical characters. The bad asses do bad ass stuff the way the bad asses do. Roblox always rhymes, scarlet, does disguises and martial arts, snake eyes never shuts up. You know, Duke goes into coma's like this, you know, that's their thing. Yeah, bazooka's moron alpine's a wiseass. Yeah. Quick kick is always quoting 1940s movies. Right. You know, and that's that's kind of what they do repeatedly, right?

Yeah. But yeah, and this one, the characters actually shift and change and you have development. And in addition to continuing to sell the shit out of their toys, G.I.J.O.s is actually starting to sell kids after school on the concepts of science. Like they actually are very focused, not just on sci-fi, but science itself as the entry into it. I mean, there's still militarism to fight science. Don't worry, but it's like the first five episodes. And this is another thing. It's kind of cool. Each season opened with a new mini series, you know, a five-parter. So in the original was, you know, the adventures of GI Joe.

And that was it. It was that five-parter. And then when they went for a full season for season one, it was the continual adventures of GI Joe. It was a five-parter. And it was the weather dominator. Okay. Yeah. The master ice and then you had the weather dominator. All that satellite shit that we're talking about. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

This time, it's a rise serpentor arise. And I remember that. Yeah. And it starts by talking about DNA. Yeah. And I mean, it quickly goes completely off the rails into crazy batch it's pseudo science. But it does start with DNA. I actually had the serpentor figure with this little snake shape fly-ture thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, a rise serpentor arise. They talk about DNA. They talk about the mortal coil being a helix, a double helix, Dr. Mindbender's dreams. They talk about, um, uh, yeah, again, they talk about how you get DNA. They call it what it is.

Uh, it was a dinosaur, uh, nucleic, um, deoxy-well-falkylic acid. That, yeah. Um, yeah. So, uh, yeah, all those things. Okay. It talks about it. It's really quite something. And additionally, they kind of open up with a discussion on the new chain of command,

or they clarify the chain of command, which is, again, a more militaristic kind of take on things, right? And they codify the chain of command in which is again, a more militaristic kind of take on things, right? And they codify the chain of command in G.I. Joe. So regardless of rank, it starts with, and like to the point where they're scolding beachhead, um, and telling him, well, you're not in charge. First, it's hawk, who's new to the cartoon, but he was already in the comics. Yeah. Then it goes to Duke, even though he's a first sergeant, then the Flint,

even though he even knows a first lieutenant. And then to Beachhead, who I think is also a sergeant or a lieutenant, I'm not sure which and Beachhead's. I have to look it up. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. Was beat.

No, trying to remember, Beachhead was supposedly brought to the team from the Navy or the Marine Corps. I can't quite tell. He wears... He wears... Yeah, well, he wears like the knit cap ski mask. Yeah. Yeah, the Barclays. Yeah, it's more in the Balaclava, but yeah, it's essentially that.

He talks as though he's from the southeast, so that tells me it's more Marines. Yeah. Well, because he talks like he's from North Carolina. And you compare asylum into that kind of thing. But yeah, so beachhead, and then they're joined by Sergeant Slotter, who is equal in rank to beachhead as it turns out. Oh my God.

Okay. So yeah, and Sergeant Slotter is, of course, a training sergeant. Okay. So beachhead is a sergeant major, which means he has to be a Marine because that's, that's an army or Marine Corps rank. Okay. So yeah, first sergeant, sergeant major. Okay.

And I don't understand why, yeah, it's because they're not, they're a pseudo military unit, not a actual like military unit. That's the only reason that Duke out ranks Flint. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's, it's whittle. Um, so it's 1986. And we get to talk about DNA and sergeant slaughter here, which I am delighted about. So I mean, you knew that I'd get to bring wrestling back into this somehow. Oh, I mean, it's you. So yeah, of course. So Sergeant Slotter, okay. 1986, Bob Remus, his wrestling career began in the 1970s and starting in the late 1970s, it started to kind of start gathering steam. There's actually vanishingly little that I could find on the man. But when he wrestled like so many, he started in the AWA, okay, huge territory. If you're tough, Verne Gagne is going to want to use you, okay. But he was kind of a journeyman at the time and he kind of dallyed at the top of the middle of the card, or he was

at the bottom of the top of the card, you know, kind of down to the champion sometimes. And so as a result, he'd move around to different promotions a lot. So as soon as his big angle with the AWA finished, he signed in with the WWF, which actually by that point, it might have just been the WWF. I never really looked into when they changed his sometime in that. But in 1980, he came in as a heel. And he was a heel who had so perfected his cobra clutch that he offered a $5,000 bounty to all any who could break it. And a cobra clutch is essentially a modified sleeper hold. Okay. So don't think of it as the camel clutch.

That's where I sit on your lower back and pull up the action. Right. Yeah. That's that's something for the iron sheet. The cobra clutch is a modified sleeper hold and basically you're pinching their arm to their neck. It's almost like an arm triangle, but you're standing and you're behind the guy. Okay. Also, we've seen it as the million dollar dream. Okay. Yeah. So, uh, but he perfected it. And it's just interesting to me that Sergeant Slotter started with a move called the cobra clutch. Yeah. you mentioned that in that dinged. Yeah. Okay. Now that's almost two months of, uh, uh, $5,000 bounty. That is like almost two months of presidential astrologer salary. Oh, shit. Yeah. Okay. Oh, anyway. So I had forgotten about that, but thank you for bringing that back up. Sure. Okay. So this led to a couple of good angles, one where he got to wrestle white meat,

baby face, Bob backland for the title. And then it went on to an angle with the aged, but excellent veteran Pat Patterson, one of the only guys who was kind of out in, in private, but amongst the boys, everybody knew who's queer. But in public, people did not. And he didn't actually ever. 1980. 1980, yeah. And Bob Acklin is actually the first international,

or no, the first intercontinental champion of the WWF. Oh, okay, cool. No, did I say Bob Acklin? I meant Pat Patterson, I apologize. Pat Patterson, yeah. Yeah, Pat Patterson. So he's a French Canadian who really was very successful in San Francisco.

Okay. He and Ray Stevens were part of an incredible tag team, incredible chemistry. And so he, he comes back to the WF and according to WWF lore, he won a tournament in Rio de Janeiro for the Intercontinental Championship. The thing is in a really show and real. Yeah.

I was going to say, really? Okay. So Sarge and Slaughter and he got into a huge feud and it ended with a brutal and bloody, only eight minutes long, alley fight match that essentially set the tone for a long while as to the height of bloody violence that you could expect from essentially a proto hardcore match. Really? Yeah, it's really like, I'm not a big fan of brawling wrestling, but it is compelling.

Like these guys, like you could see, there's real hate there. I mean, they do a good job of drawing in the entire crowd. And I want to say it was at Madison Square Garden or it might have been at the Boston Garden. But I'm pretty sure it was Madison Square Garden. And it is bloody. And I mean, these are guys who essentially look like your uncle who's been a long haul trucker for 30 years, right?

So their bodies are not that impressive to be perfectly honest. You know, they're not the big beefy cake guys yet, but they just draw the whole crowd in. And I mean, Bob, or Bob Remus, Sargeis Lott, or he's balding already. These guys look old. But oh, my God, they commanded the crowd. So after that angle, he goes to the NWA, mostly, and remember, NWA is all over the country,

but mostly stayed with Jim Crockett's territory in the mid-south territories. And Sargeist Lauder gets his first real singles title push, winning the US Heavyweight Champion title in a tournament, beating Johnny Weaver, who's an old timer that everybody really respected. But like, you know, when Johnny Weaver loses to you, you must be something, right? Okay. So he beat Johnny Weaver in the first round. In the second round, he beat Jay Youngblood. In the third round, he beat for the championship.

He beat Ricky. No, I'm sorry. He. Yes, yes. Third round, he beat Ricky Steamboat. Okay. And Ricky Steamboat. Oh, wow. And Jay Youngblood were part of a tag team.

Okay. Ricky Steamboat is brownish. And Jay Youngblood played a guy who was an Indian, native American, but with the long headdress because apparently that's all of them. So, uh, but he went through both of those guys who were in a tag team at the time, right? So he plowed through a bunch of good guys. Get the US heavyweight championship. Good, sorry.

Yeah, I had to. Especially when you realize that Ricky Steamboat's real name is Dick Blood. Bullshit. Nope, that's serious. Yeah, especially when you realize that Ricky steamboats real name is dick blood. Bullshit. Nope. That's serious. So you plowed through dick blood. Why? Why did he change it? I know. Because he was never a bad guy. Actually, yeah. Okay.

It's a point that. All right. There you go. Yeah. So eventually before he goes off to Japan to wrestle giant Baba, which is quite a big deal. He loses to Wahoo McDaniel, uh, who is by this point, he's aged and bloated, but he is a brilliant 1960s wrestler who was actually of chalk, dark, Chickasaw heritage. Oh cool. Actually played football. I want to say for the jets. Um, and yeah, he was a legit tough guy. Um, but, uh, if you look up pictures of Wahoo McDaniel, you're like,

really? That guy, people paid money to see that guy. And the answer is yes, they did. Charisma is a thing, man. Well, yeah. Yeah. Remember, remember, remember Indy and D the charisma stat does not necessarily mean you're good looking. It means you're compelling exactly and What the McDaniel is the epitome of that Like you also don't know you smart Yeah, yeah, yeah, don't don't come at me with your hyper bowl. So. So he comes back to the WWF in 1983, we're another run, right? And this is this is kind of how journeyman wrestlers would do six months here, four months there, a program here, a couple programs there, maybe a turn. And then you know, you'd try to get

out when you're still hot. That was something that the fabulous freebirds were really good at. You might recognize the fabulous freebirds from the opening of Highlander. Okay. Remember, he's at the wrestling match. Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay. There's the bearded guy who kind of purses his lips and wiggles his hips and he's got the blonde hair. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the fact that the three words, all right, which is ridiculous that they'd be in New York at that. Actually, oh, maybe it's not. No, it's not because they did spend like a hot cup of coffee in the W. I have to chase that down. But not right now. So I'm going to write that down for myself though. But so he comes back for another run in WWF in 1983.

And I think by this point, Vince had bought the promotion from his dad, Vince Sr. And he ran another program with the still champion Bob backland. And he still comes in as this drill sergeant heel character that he and he came into the marine march song. He's one of the first people to come into music. And it starts with a whistle and he's got a whistle and he's got a riding crop and he wears that. Yeah.

Oh, yeah, the DI campaign hat. Yeah, yeah. I think it's a. I don't think he did it himself. I think it was somebody else made it form. But yeah, whether it's DIY or not, I don't know. Oh, it screw you anyway. So he has another program with Bob Backlin. Still can't get the title off of them. Now we know that Bob Backlin will lose to the Iron Sheik in December of 1983 through kind

of hinky means, basically Arnold Skullin throws in the towel while Bob is in the camel clutch and and by the way, as I think I've said before, the Aaron chic is a legit shoot wrestler, like he's a good wrestler and Bob backland would not lose to anybody who wasn't a legit wrestler. Yeah, you you have mentioned that before. Yeah, but it's like, no, no, if I'm going to lose, I got to lose to somebody who actually knows their shit. Yes. Like you're not.

Yeah. Now, chic was more chill about like losing a Hogan. So Hogan wins the title off of the Iron Sheik in January of 1984. I forget exact date, but Sarge's slaughter then turns face for probably one of the first times. Certainly in the WWF, he turns face because the Iron Sheik is bad mouthing America and he is a drill instructor. And so now he's defending the honor against the Iron Sheik, fighting for America. And you know, Hulk Hogan is taking off with the Americana with the I am a real America song or American song and

all that kind of shit. All that stuff. Yeah. And it leads into a program with the Sheik that so when you're the champion and you lose to the other guy, it's really easy to be like, I demand a rematch, right? We want Hogan to go on and fight other villains though. Yeah. To build him and build him and build him. And you know, we've already seen the big payoff of him beating the Aaron Sheik.

And it was pretty, uh, what's the word decisive? Okay. At the same time, though, you've still got like, this guy used to be the champion. You've still got that rub. So you pair him off with another feud that matters. And it's not for the title anymore, right? And that way, okay. Yeah. And I get Hogan to fight the, the, the heel factory that would come. That way, you kind of get Hogan to fight the heel factory that would come. Okay. So this leads into a program in the summer with that finishes off with a boot camp match in the summer of 1984. Okay.

Again, Sergeant Slotter is really big on like kind of the hardcore wrestling style in a lot of ways. Let's fight Nodikus. Let's do big brawl around the arena and shit like that. And here's where I get to be livy. Yes. Good. Good.

I just, I love how when we're talking about this stuff, you're able to bounce between the two, it's like the duality of man brought together. Like, you know, I'm this Latin scholar who knows all the stuff about classics kind of, you know, by exposure. And I'm going to apply all of that to sparkly murder gymnastics.

And now I get to be livy about live action beef cake soap opera. Right. I don't see the problem. Well, you know, the Romans, man, they're the bifte cannon of the ancient world. There are so many layers to that metaphor. There are. And yes, Archimedes was George McFly, you know. They'll get you in the right fair. Yeah. So some say that Sargent Slotter left for the AWA because Vince McMahon didn't want

him making money with the GI Joe cartoon. Voice War and the likeness. And it's true that Vince McMahon really hated not being the sole source of income for the independent contractors that he only offered opportunities to not guaranteed money. Yeah. Others. Well, because he's a prick.

Let's. Yeah. I mean, it's come on. Yeah. And it's one of those I'm trying to build an empire. You know, you know, who you reminds me of? He reminds me of the guy in Kentucky Fried movie. Oh, yeah.

Okay, we're building an empire of incredible strength. Yeah, that's not, that's not wrong. Yeah. But yeah, he wanted to be the sole source of income. He doesn't like people moonlighting in any way, shape or form. He would get to sign off on whether or not they went to Japan to do like a six week stint. You know, like you could easily do like, Hey, um, injure me in this match, you know, K Fave, injure me and you know, bleed and all that. And then I'll be back in like six weeks. I'm going to go run a program over

in Japan. Um, there's no VHS tape trading yet. Like the, the, the, yeah, well, yeah, we're talking about the early 80s. Yeah, there's no way you need to worry about that. Yeah, exactly. And McMahon would regularly say, no, we need you here. Um, and then he wouldn't use people for like two or three weeks. It's like motherfucker like, like, like, is like, as, as retaliation for even asking. No, I don't think so.

And that's the weird thing. It's like very often that kind of stuff was through like mild neglect and like just because he's running three shows a day sometimes. Yeah, okay. You think that they would get work, but then you know he put them on the sea loop. Maybe that would be retaliation or just a reminder. Okay. You know, here's so you know you're working out of high school gymnasia, you know, um, and then on the B loop, you're working out of like armories and shit.

And then on the A loop, you're working out of like civic center auditoria. Yeah. You know, yeah. So, but yeah, so McMahon really doesn't want to, uh, he doesn't want to share his talent with anybody. Yeah. Yeah. And, and he, he basically told certain slaughter, no, uh, you don't get to, uh, you know, you, I, I, I don't want you. If you do voice work and sell your likeness and stuff like that with GI Joe, the

cartoon, you can't work for us. Um, so that, that's one side of the story. Others say that he left after he asked for a six-week paid vacation and didn't get it and chose to no show a Montreal show. Okay. I'm inclined, again, I'll keep living it up. I'm inclined to say it's more option A than it is option B. So, to say it's more option A than it is option B. So yeah, although what's interesting is if you correlate when he interviews, it's when he is working on a Legends contract with the corporation that is now the WWE. Okay.

So, but he leaves. He leaves. By 1985, he is back in the AWA. And again, remember, we've gone back a bit, right? Yeah. So Hulkamania is run've gone back a bit, right? Yeah. So Hulkamania is running a while, brother, right? Um, geez, by March of 85, you have the first WrestleMania. Um, okay. And uh, Sargis Latter goes back to the AWA where he had found success. Has Verne Gania always wants more brawlers and tough guys. And so, and when he's at the AWA,

Virganya was like, no, no, you can go ahead and do that stuff. That'll actually draw eyes to us. Right. So he sees it more like that. Now, Virganya is also trying to sell kids toys that aren't even related to wrestling. He just wants a piece of it. There's like these ninja spinner toys

that might not come for another couple of years, but it's weird. And Ghani is looking for ways to gather more money because his, his, Federation is kind of one of the few to stand out still. Okay. So Vince McMahon had gone through and what he would do is he'd offer balloon payments.

He would say to a promoter, you know, hey, I want to buy your territory. I will pay you a dollar right now. And I promise that by this date, I will have paid you the full value of your territory. And if I miss any payments, you get to keep all my money. And but at the end of it,

if I pay you the whole amount, then your territory's mine. And while I'm paying you this dollar, if I pay you the whole amount, then your territories mine. And while I'm paying you this dollar, I want to be able to use your stars. And people kind of saw the writing on the wall quite often, or they were like, shit, he's going to give us his money for free because there's no way that he can keep up these payments. And McMahon would always keep up the payments. And he would just gobble up these territories. Mm-hmm.

And there are very few that he treated with any real respect. Calgary, the Stampede territory he did, and I want to say Memphis he did. But other than that, he's like gobbling up a lot of the little territories. So Verngania sees this threat and he's okay with this happening. So he brings in more brawlers because he's like well, I've got top guys here. I've got Rick Martell here I've got Nick Bachwinkel here. I've got big Scott Hall because that was the AWA's answer to Hulk Hogan like if you look up a Scott Hall, you'll see Razor Ramon You'll see the guy from the NWO or, but if you look up Big Scott Hall, you'll see him in his infancy in the in wrestling where he's got like mouse brown hair, big old magnum mustache mustache nice. He's just got he's yo he's like 295 pounds of just solid fucking

month son of a bitch really. He's a big old dude like if you look at him he is deceptively small because he's always around people bigger than him but he's like six foot eight he's a and he's around people bigger than him. Where did they find these seven foot fucking behemoths like shit goddamn space marines. Right. Yeah, it's wild. Like if you think about like, Roddy Piper is like a really small wrestler, right? Dude, 6'2, 250. Like at his peak, right? If you look at him and they live, he is enormous. Yeah.

Well, oh my God. Yeah, but he's wrestler small. So so Vern Ganya, he brings in Sargent slaughter, right? Oh my God. Yeah, but he's restless small. So, so Vern Ganya, he brings in Sarge's slaughter, right? And slaughter begins wrestling for the AWA while wearing tights. And he typically will wear a singlet with long pants. And so, you know what I'm talking about, like the two straps and it comes down like you're able.

He's wrestling wearing tights that had the words GI Joe up the side like it's piping. Okay. Up and down the leg seams. And it has like the three colors, you know, how like the GI Joe has like the red, white and the blue and this is GI Joe in the middle. Yeah, yeah, that's on his tights. Oh, shit. Okay. And so Ganya wants to make use of that. And he creates a title for Sargent's Law to win. And it's called the AWA America's Heavyweight Championship. It's essentially

a secondary belt for the AWA that's like the US title or the Intercontinental title. And he wrestles all kinds of people. He wrestles, wrestles, uh, Colonel DeBeers, who is a South African, uh, Colonel. Oh, and he says some racist shit. Uh, wow. So you actually went with DeBeers, holy crap. Okay. Um, yeah. Yeah.

Right. Head along the nose, but you know,, how did he gymnastics? So you know, Wow By the way, I just I had to I looked up big Scott Hall and holy shit Mm-hmm. Yeah, not only were you not kidding. I think you undersold it Yeah, he's he's a big dude like God, right? Yeah, he's And he was green Like they paired him with Kurt Henning, who was the son of Larry the Axe Henning.

And Kurt Henning is a fantastic technical wrestler and he taught Scott all kinds of stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. But anyway, so yeah, his biggest money and profile matches won't come until after he's done working with GI Joe. So I'm gonna kind of put a haltonous career there.

Okay. So in a rise to Pantora rise, we have a double helix. We are introduced to a man named Dr. Mindbender and he is a cobra's top interrogation expert, scientist and apparent BDSM expert. If you look at how he's dressed, yeah, yeah, yeah, they go all over the world again, grabbing DNA from different places. So go to the place, get the thing, right? Yeah, um, cober commander, to open this this five

part, or cober commander has led a disastrous attack on the G I Joe base that should have been a route because he's using these new battle Android troopers bats. Um, and they're kicking the G I Joe's asses and the G I Joe's, by the way, the whole reason that everybody's arguing with beachhead and telling him you're not in charge to the beachheads, like they're all soft and, you know, we need to train them more. And then in the middle of all that Cobra attacks their actual base and it should have been a route. And the only reason why it wasn't a route is because Sargent's slaughter comes to the GI Joe's rescue and that's it. The GI Joe's are getting their asses handed to them prior to that. But Sarge comes in and breaks all of the new anjoids. And therefore, it goes down as a loss.

And whether you lose by one or you lose by 50, it's a loss, right? Right, yeah. So, now the upper echelons of Cobras leadership, and we're talking Destro, Baroness, Dr. Mindbender, who's suddenly there, Tomax and Zaymont. All of them are talking about how clearly Cobra needs new leadership. And so the result is Dr. Biden Mejers plan to gather the DNA and make the leader that they need. Okay. So that means that they're taking DNA

from the following people. Julius Caesar Napoleon, Attila the Hun, Philip the Second, Alexander the Great, Ivan the Terrible, Vlad the Impaler, Hannibal, Gingas, Con, Resputon, Montezuma, Geronimo, and Sunsu, which they sub out Sergeant slaughter zone DNA instead of Sunsu's. Right. Because they do manage to stop him from getting Sunsu. Right. Yeah. But by and large, that's.

Okay. Yeah. So back up. Yeah. So back up. Yeah, Alexander the Great and his father, Philip, the second Philip, Macedon. No, that was Philip the fourth. Okay. Yeah. I believe I believe if you go further east of Rome, I'm fucked. Okay. Fair. I'm pretty sure that was Philip the fourth.

Okay. So, yeah. But yeah, that's an impressive group of people to stir up the juices of. That's a long-ass list is what that is. Yeah, it is. And several of them are just like reports that come in. And the thing G.I. Joe doesn't know where they're going next. So, it's real hard to, to, yeah, react, right? Yeah.

I think at one point they are guarding Napoleon's DNA in France, and they get beaten, which happens. And, and what's kind of cool about this is that GIO legit doesn't know what's going on. And they think that Cobra is using, and this is the complexity that I'm talking about. Normally GIO doesn't know where they're going to strike next, and we've got to figure that out. But now, it's not only that, but they don't know what it's for.

So they think, they actively think, as in, like, they say this out loud, that they don't know the real nature of the plot, but they think that they're trying to build an army of super soldiers genetically. Okay. So that's what they think is going on. Now, by the time they figure it out, it's like the fourth episode of a five-episode arc. Oh, shit. Yeah, and at that point, Sergeant Sada gets captured.

Right. And he grabs the, Sargent saw it or gets captured. And he grabs the DNA capsule and throws it and then they capture him. And they use his DNA. So they use Dr. Minebender combines his DNA with all the rest. And meanwhile, Cooper Crayer. Because of course, like any good fertility doctor, he has to, he has to throw his own material in there. Yeah, precisely. You know, there's no log against that. Yeah. So, um, yeah, I love that like so many people now their argument is, well, it's not illegal.

Yeah. people now their argument is, well, it's not illegal. Yeah, how about it's fucking skeezy? It's wrong. It's wrong about, can we go with that? Maybe. But did you die? It's like that. What's up? Did you die?

So, a co-worker man in the meantime has spent the whole time trying to sabotage this plan, because he doesn't want to give up leadership. He doesn't even push the side. And he's actually working with scrap iron, who is kind of a new-ish overguy. He's a mechanic mostly, but like he seems to be Cobra's version of beachhead in terms of the hierarchy. Yeah, it's weird. Yeah. Yeah. So really what you have is a Fisher at the top, right? So eventually, Sir Pentora rises. Yes. Okay. It's not as dark. He's not as dark physically as the Sir Pentora who's in the comics. Yeah. And it's can't be as fuck too. And one of his first acts is he beats the living shit

out of Sarsha's slaughter. Just, yeah. Tears is as open. And eventually Sir Pentor takes Cobra and they storm Washington and they successfully take over the city, which if you notice that this is like the first series after the one where they controlled the media.

So you have kind of chronologically. Yeah. It's oddly, oddly, appreciate it's really weird. It what if, and I'm not a big conspiracy theorist, what if the people who were running shit, this was the height of their capabilities to understand plans, is that they're just watching like, old reruns of GIGO, like.

That is way more believable than the shit actually being peddled on the right. Like I can hear that and go, you know, I can buy that. Like, that there's actually a note of plausibility to that. Yeah, where Eric Trump is trying really hard to like keep back the name Sir Pentor. Like, in like, you know, Oval Office meetings. Yeah. Why have an idea?

Just like, you know, when Sir Pentor, what was that? Nothing. No. So, why have an idea? Just like, you know, when Sir Pentor, what was that? Nothing. No, so eventually, would it be would it be Eric or Donald Jr. though? Oh, Donald Jr. would be talking a mile a minute. He's the reason why they'd have so much DNA. Because he's just like, you know, he need to get, okay, here's which, you know, just

yet. Okay, here's which. Yeah. Just. Peruvian marching powder. Yeah. Um, so anyway, sorry, so eventually they lose, right? G.A. Joe wins the day. Uh, but there's a new game in town in the stakes seem very much deepened ultimately. Um, to the point where point where the president is threatened with murder, like they don't represent the president because this is Ronald Reagan at the time. They don't represent him. They just have a bunch of senators who are like the president would never, well, then he'll die and we've already captured him. Okay, we'll relent.

Like, it's a real quick turnover. And then after this, it's almost as though they had another episode in the can from last season that they didn't use. Yeah. Because none of the characters that we just saw are in this. There's no mention of serpentor or anything like that. But then after that, so you got the first five, a rise, serpentor, a rise. And then you have like a weird bottle episode that seems to be

like a throwback. Yeah, we forgot this from the previous season. Let's not waste it. It would be like in the middle of this, we did the Alamo episode. But then after that, they get into some of the new character concepts, right? Okay. So one of the main concepts is computerization. They push on this a lot in 1986. Well, the bats became a huge thing. Oh yeah, well, because they had little holograms inside. Oh yeah, no, I had one. It was like lenticular though, so you could do that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I actually wound up pulling my bat figure apart because I had, well, hold on. I had a first edition snake eyes model or snake eyes toy that had stupid goggles. Where he had the stupid goggles and where he didn't have the elbow twist. Right. Right. And his right arm had elbow twist. Right, right. And he was up and down. Yeah, and his right arm had gotten broken. Oh, okay.

So I pulled the bat apart and gave Snake Eyes a cyber arm. Okay. And then took, I used a dime in my thumbnail to scrape the cobrolo go off, because the sleeves on the rubber are about armor black, so they matched with his outfit. So I was able to give him a cybernetic arm, which was more capable than his regular human arms. So it made sense.

It was cool. We can rebuild him. We can take technology. Yeah, I did. So there you go. All right. But then my little brother, we used to joke in the family. There were two jokes that were pervasive in the family. One, all of us were named after a

different, uh, winning the poo characters. And I was EOR. So that should tell you plenty. Uh, two, um, I was like 11. Okay. Two that my little brother would grow up to become a stress test engineer because he would take his toys and he would push them against the wall and lean into them until they broke. Okay. Later on, he did start kind of sitting all of his characters, all of his guys, he rebuild them and take Magneto's body and put it underneath so-and-so's head and shit like that. He really did get into that, but for the longest time we thought he'd be a stress test engineer because of how much he took things to their breaking point. Wow, and he was systemic about it too. It was really, yeah, systematic about it. Yeah. So anyway, there's an episode that pops up called

Computer Complications, and it's an episode that highlights the character named mainframe, which that should tell you right there how old this is. Jesus. For people who don't know a mainframe is a giant room computer. Essentially, you know, um, now at least now a days the closest thing to a mainframe is a server farm. There you go. Basically and server farm just doesn't sound cool as a name.

It really doesn't know. They probably call him crypto. Right. No. No, crypto would be a cobra agent. That's true. That's true. So it highlights him.

And what's interesting is that he immediately gets into a romantic relationship. Well, not immediately. It grows through the episode with Zartan's sister, Zerana. Okay. So you've got the Baroness, right? Yeah. Objectively, the hottest of all of them.

Yeah. It's an objective fact. Yeah, it's an object of fact. Yeah, she is objectified and yes. Well, yes. But see, I'm going to push back on objectively the hottest female character, objectively the hottest of the Tobra characters. I have a thing for Scarlet, which I know you don't share, because it's the genetic thing you always talk about

But yeah, yeah, see yeah, so there you go. So for weird-ass fetishists at Scarlet, but for normal people it's Baroness Yeah, yeah, and besides you know Baroness is like a total dumb so mommy. Sorry Mommy Yeah, but okay, so you had Lady J. Yeah. Yeah. Short brown, bouncy hair. Uh, but it was, it was, you know, short and kind of style. You had Scarlet who had her hair in a ponytail and you had cover girl whose hair was kind of forgettable, but it was short-ish, but it was kind of long. It was, I mean, I don't know.

Dore's day long maybe. So, but then you had Zeranna, whose hair was Sean Young from Blade Runner Short. It had that wild, dangerous kind of shortness to it. Okay, well Sean Young in Blade Runner had her hair up in a 1940s doose or hair wasn't really that short. Never mind. Like it was style like she was wearing a snooze.

Oh, never mind. I, again, this is what I mean, sleep through movies. Yeah. But who, who had really short hair like that? Anyway, you could probably look up Zorana and see what I'm going to do. Yeah. But it's, it's very stylized. It feels very punk rock to be perfectly honest. hair like that. Anyway, you could probably look up Zoranna and see what I'm going to do. But it's very stylized. It feels very punk rock to be perfectly honest.

So she's got that, but she's also Zartan sister. So she's a mistress of disguise, right? Um, right. So the plot is that there's a space probe that contains anti matter and it crashed into the ocean. And both the Joe's and Cobra trying to get it because it's got anti-matter. And Zeranna is sent in to sabotage GI Joe's robot submarines that they were going to use

to raise the Sunkin battleship or the Sunkin aircraft carrier, the USS Flag. Right, right, right. She goes in under the guise of a government computer specialist. And at one point, she straight up threatens to bring mainframe up on harassment charges. It's 1986. And she calls out his kind of creepy, I want to date my co-worker, I'm hitting on you, and I'm in charge of you vibe. And she's like, I will bring you up on harassment charges.

Okay. Which, that's, it's really interesting to see what they nail, like what they grab onto and what they really, you know? Yeah. Yeah. It really is.

Yeah. I'm gonna say, if you're gonna compare her hair cut to anybody in Blade Runner, it's Darrell Hanna. Okay. In Blade Runner. Okay. Yeah. Okay. But yeah, I mean, you see her hair. You see the punk rock that I'm talking about, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. So she's there to sabotage their robot submarines that mainframe is programming. In her deep cover, she ends up falling for mainframe too because he apologizes and he's, you know, let me take you have for coffee and all that. What's especially notable is that this relationship actually remains through the rest of the season and it remains as a source spot for each of these two characters.

In fact, later on in the season where they're all shrunk down to children from an overactive youthful formula gas, okay. Mainframe is one of them and she lets him go. Like straight up, she's like, you know, get out of here. You know, go free and he thanks her. The other thing, like first off, you don't see complex arches period in season one. Secondly, you certainly don't see them stretch over the whole season. And thirdly, mainframe is interesting because in the very first times that we see him, he mentions his kids and Halloween and how much they loved Halloween. And he also mentions his ex-wife. Hmm. So there's a couple of things here.

He has a life outside of GI Joe. Yeah, which we've never heard about anybody having before. Right. I mean, Flint does go to visit his cousins, right? Yeah. And roadblock goes and visits his parents with the red rocket in. And, you know, they do grab all the relatives and brainwash them for that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right? Um, including like, uh, gun hose 200 plus cage and relatives. Um, but, um, but, uh, and so, you know, we meet Scarlet's three brothers and her dad, you know, and we meet a few people, but mainframe is talking about an ex-wife and his children, how much you miss them. So this means that he has at the very

best split custody. He's got a life outside of G.I. Joe. And most importantly, he's had sex. Okay. Yeah. Because he's got kids. Yeah. Okay. It's the first mention of any sex at all. And which is wild. Because you see Baroness and Destro getting all smoochy, and you see Flint and Lady J hint at a relationship and Scarlet and Duke the same. And you see Shipwreck trying and trying and trying

to hit on Covergirl. And he falls in love with like a cobra woman at one point who's been genetically modified. So her skin's blue. But mainframe has fucked and main frame has children as a result of that fucking and main frame is divorced. All right. Yeah. So as a result of this episode, here's the other thing you have overarching things that

are that are happening as a result of this episode, the USS Flag sank because Cobra got the probe, but then they crashed their aircraft into the flag and both sides lost, which is also a rarity in GI Joe. Yeah. So another episode actually saw us. Interesting. This is, I'm sorry, this is 86. Yes.

And Cobra's aircraft crashed into the flag carrier. Yeah. On what level do you think that's a callback to Kamikaze tactics in World War Two and, you know, the the the the Japan yellow peril thing? Like, I don't think much. I don't because cobra is not coded as being in any way Asian. Okay. And there also it was not a suicide run. Okay. It was, you know, because that guy got out. It's it's fucking G.I. Joe of course.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, of course. But it's still sank it. I mean, don't get it wrong. The whole thing crashing into a thing and sinking it.

Absolutely. That's there. Okay. But I think that's maybe where't get it wrong. The whole thing crashing into a thing and sinking it. Absolutely. That's there. Okay. But I think that's maybe where it where it ends. Okay. Just that occurred to me. Like this is the mid 80s. Wait. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And again, kids are watching this at home alone. Right. So another episode sees a sea captain trying to commit suicide after refusing to give up his commission on the USS Montana, I want to say. And then serving Cobra with complete with like a red admiral's outfit and betraying the United States so that he could still be the captain of his ship.

Like okay. Yeah. I mean, it's like again, this is a complexity that we have not seen wow right and is and his crew presumably went along with him or did Coburn know he plays all the sailors apparently you're the only one that's needed on a ship if you're the captain so yeah his crew is just charged okay because there. I think Cobra brought all their guys. But that, all right. Yeah.

But yeah, I mean, here's a guy who's like saying his life is not worth living. He's hitting it suicide. Like, that's the option. Wow. Yeah. In another episode, they go to Bangkok, but you know, go to the place do the thing, right? But it's totally fucking Vietnam. And I mean, it's totally Vietnam because you have it complete with GI Joe helicopters dropping

napalm, but on Cobra planes. Small squad fights, but with Alcobra using the villages as cover. So GI Joe is still firing into the village, but Cobra is using villages as cover. So GIO is still firing into the village, but Cobra is using the villages cover. We'll talk about her, you're imagining. Yeah, you look sure. What? Oh, it gets deeper and weirder. I understand, I watched all this.

Like this, and a lot of these things that you've been talking about, like, yeah, okay, I remember that, you know, I kind of vaguely recall that. Yeah. Yeah. How do I not remember this at all? Good question. Okay. This one centers around the dirt, the dust children who Leathernick knows them, talks to to them because apparently he was there. And Leatherneck being the Marine, right? Yeah. Well, they've got several Marine, like they've got Gungho

and Leatherneck, Leatherneck, anyway. Yeah, and Beachhead. And then you've also got Wetsuit who's a seal. Yeah. And he and Leatherneck hate each other, but they're the best of friends, they're frenemies. But Leatherneck straight up talks to the Joe's about, I think this is the episode that Beachhead's voice

is voiced by someone different too, but he talks to the Joe's about the dust children and about how the dust children are kids who are fathered and abandoned by American GIs during the last war. That's what the plot centers around. The fuck? Yeah, really?

Yes. I mean, it centers around heavy. Yeah, it centers around that and like, hella racist accents. But the reason why they're going into the jungle to fight against Cobra in who's using these villages as cover is because they're actually trying to stop Cobra from harvesting a special mind control gum that comes from a refined source of a plant juice that can be medicinal or it can zap your brain. comes from a refined source of a plant juice that can be medicinal or it can zap your brain. Yeah, opium to heroin.

Opium in not Vietnam Vietnam. This is in a kid's heart tune. Like we watched alone. This is this is this is such an example of animation ghetto leading to really serious shit being just out there without anybody paying any fucking attention because it's a cartoon. Right. Like I'm I'm I'm gobsmacked. Yes. I thought you would be with this particular episode. Ock and A.

Yeah. Wow. All right. So the next episode, you see the G.I. Joe's fighting against Cobra and they accidentally burned down an entire orphanage in pursuit of something. You're going to love this. Cobra has gotten a hold of this device. Oh, no. And the G.I. Joe's are trying to get them to,

they basically fight it so that actually it drops, and now everybody's hunting down this device. And this is the reason for the, the orphanage getting burnt down. And so G.I. Joe is rebuilding the orphanage while some of them are looking for the device. Would you like to take a guess at what the device is called? No, I just lay it on me.

The McGuffin device. Fuck it. Yeah, because the writers were just like, you know what? They're kids. Yeah. Yeah. Fuck it. Like, come on.

Let's have fun with this. Let's play with it. Why? Absolutely, you know, to know what it does. Exactly what shipwreck needs it to do at the end. And that's what it brings to life like this fairy tales that he's telling the orphans. So that they can then go fight Zartan, the fairy tale characters can. Yeah.

Yeah. We just, that's like the, the, or that everybody is hunting for in Avatar being called unobtainium. Yes. Yes. Just, just hang a lampshade on it. Just totally. Yeah. No, we're not even, you know what?

And any time anybody is that brazen about it, I look at it and I'm like, okay, one of two things is going on here. Either are you that fucking lazy? Or are you actually looking at me, the audience member going, no, fuck you. I'm like, you know, no. I'm just, I'm not, you know what, I'm not going to play around about it. I'm just going to fucking tell you outright. Right.

Like, you know. Right. Yeah. I'm not, I'm not going to define what the hell this thing does. It's just critically important and you need to fucking do it. We have a narrative, follow rules of the narrative. Like follow the MacGuffin device. Well, what do we call it?

The MacGuffin device. Yeah. Sirs? Yeah, yeah, you mean not as a placeholder? No, no. No, no, that's actually it. Yeah. Well, what's it do?

Whatever you need it to do. Yeah. Well, what do we say it does in the story about that? About, yeah, that's pretty much it. So here's what I do find interesting, that shipwreck is the one with whom all the orphans identify the most because shipwreck admitted in the previous season that in fact he's also adopted. Right?

He was trying to do. I do remember that detail. Yeah. So kind of interesting, especially since he's the one who's always looking for love, especially since he's also the horny sailor. Like there's a few aspects there, right? Yeah. And he's got Paulie with him and Paulie is, you know, an adopted bird as it were. Yeah. Oh, Christ, there was an episode where Pauli got grown to be really huge too. I don't know if I covered that in here, but anyway, no, but we're walking, we're walking. Yeah. So the next episode focuses on lifeline. Um, and lifeline is a new character and he dresses all in red and white and he looks like Swiss flag. And he is, he helps a woman and her father. He rescues them. He works with lift ticket a lot. Lift ticket is the one who like flies basically hewies, but they're

turned into rescue hewies. Yeah. And they save a socialite and his daughter from a sinking yacht. And what we find out about Lifeline, we actually find it out about them in the very first episode. Liftig, it says, hey, can you pass me out of the range? He's like, I don't know if I feel comfortable helping you fix a vehicle that has weapons on it. And so, he's a pacifist. He's a pacifist in the way that people in 2015 went to CrossFit.

He will tell you all about it. Yeah. At every opportunity. Because you asked him, like, hey, do you have like a level that we can use to measure the studs? Well, as a pacifist, it's like, what? What? Yeah. So the daughter falls in love with him and just showers him with gifts, including like a golden helicopter, which yeah, I vaguely remember this is another one of the ones I vaguely remember. Yeah. Her name's Amber.

And he goes to her house to let her know. And he's, here's the thing. Lifeline is this guy who is just, I mean, irritating. But at the same time, he is deeply moral. Yeah, he doesn't. And over others, he's just irritating with it. Yeah, he's just intensely earnest. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So he goes to her place and he tells her that like, Hey, you can't keep giving me gifts and trying to give me new uniforms and shit. Like, you know, we already have a dress code in G.I. Joe. It's really loose. But have you seen Gang Ho? If you haven't, don't. Yeah. So, but, uh, you know, it's, uh, so he goes to her house and while he's there Telling her that it's over and that it never really started

Sir Pentor shows up Because Sir Pentor as great as he was in the beginning of the season is now reduced to essentially holding up and robbing a rich man That's it. That's the whole thing. That's his goal to roll a rich guy. Wow. Yeah. Huh. And Cobras' desperation continues, by the way, way because the next episode they literally run a telephone to raise money for criminals and terrorists. Yeah, I remember I remember that pet. Yeah, the camp in that one was was overwhelming. So yeah, like like as an 11 year old, I watched that would go on.

Right. Wow. Like I remember having episodes that I did not like. This was one of them because of how fucking cheesy it was. Yeah. And also any episode where you are like highlighting and focusing on dial tone, like, you know, fuck, you know, as a as a character. Yeah. Yeah. Just like come on. The least of them, you know, same same with oh god What was his name is it airborne the guy who was the chemical weapons specialist? Oh, yeah, yeah, but neither of those code name, but yeah, yeah, yeah so

But yeah, they're they're running a telephone to raise money for criminals and terrorists in order to delete all known terrorist activities from every international database in the world. Because apparently already there's international databases in the world in 1986. Um, it's, it's so bad. But yeah, by the way, it's not airborne. Mm-hmm. It's worse than that. Air assault.

Air tight. Air tight. Oh my god. We know whose day it was in the barrel that day. No All right anyway. Sorry. So yeah, there's there's a huge no, please. I'm glad you did that. He actually taught me that seeds have a little bit of cyanide or arsenic in them from last season. Oh, yeah, okay, so but but again He's not a very interesting character So there's a huge you know, it's interesting the both of those characters wore the same roughly the same shades of green and yellow Yeah, yeah different kind of pattern, but yeah, same color.

Yeah, but there's a huge focus on the efforts through computers in this episode, which I found interesting. In general, you have the term hacking being used, maybe green actually hacks into their system. And you actually have a computer virus in this episode. He talks about inserting a computer virus in this episode. He talks about inserting a computer virus and they actually explain to 11 year old you and that would have made me six. Yeah. Like was I verbal at that

point? No, like nine year old me. Um, but he us, after school, while we're home alone, what a computer virus is and how it works. You have the how it works aspects. You have repeated, you have DNA that's been explained, you've had this, you've had pacifism, you've had like a lot of shit getting explained to us. Yeah, no, you're right. And then I even wrote down this quote from that episode that, that episode quote, I think is mainframe saying it, yeah, those lines must be for the

modem hookup that interfaces with the FBI's mainframe. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Now, and the funny thing is, the funny thing is that's that's techno babble that isn't techno babble, that actually means shit. Yeah, that named things that actually exist. Yeah. That actually work together and actually work together that way. Yeah, it's not like bring me a Hydro Spanner, which I think is a Hydrogen wrench. I don't know. Yeah, like I wonder, yeah, like what?

A lot of people like, well, where's the water? I'm like, no, no, it's like hydrogen. It's, but so the first cyber law, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, was enacted in 1986. Okay, then. IBM released the IBM Personal Computer XT model 286, which operated up to three times faster than earlier models of the PCXT in most applications. Also, 2400-bod BPS modems came out on the market that same year.

The hacker manifesto was published in January of 1986. So, computers are a thing and they're starting to become much more universalized in personal home life. Well by that time, my family had bought an IBM PC Jr. Okay. And I wanna say 85? Okay. No, it might have been in 84. We got our family's first computer.

I think the year that the PC Jr. was released, which would have been 84, it was while we were in Hawaii. Uh-huh. And yeah. So yeah, 86. Yeah, it's still a very new kind of thing. Right. For sure.

Okay. Cool. Yeah. Yeah. It's um, I, I mean, when I met my dad, we, when he moved in, uh, we had, I think an Osborne, something or other computer where, like, you could play a text-based game and ding when something would happen.

Yeah. And then we got the Atari ST500, I want to say. Had no hard drive, had just two small disc drives with the three and a half inch floppy's. I didn't have much time. Hard plastic ones. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Because the PC Junior, we got one that had two floppy drives. And it was the actual floppy, yeah. The kind of plasticized cardboard. Yeah. copy the kind of plasticized cardboard. Yeah. And I want to remember, what I still remember about that was we always used the top drive

to put in the disk for the operating system. Okay. And you'd boot the computer up with that one. And when the computer was running, you'd open that, you'd undo that drive and then put whatever it was, you wanted to run on it. Wow. In the other drive, close that and then run the program. Wow.

Because the computer didn't have enough RAM. Right. Or didn't have enough hard drive space to store. DOS. Yeah. Oh, yeah. We. Yeah, it was, it was, dos. Yeah, oh yeah. It was, it was, yeah. And if I were to tell that story to students today,

they'd look at me like, the what disk? Right. Like floppy, what? Right. Like, yeah, for us it was, you had the two disks, the one on top, the a drive in the B drive. Yeah, and Based on what game you were playing or what program you were running you would you know, it was just it was very modular You know, it's like okay now insert disc 2 now reinsert disc 1

Insert disc 2 yeah, and yeah, that I could play ultimate too two. Uh, uh, uh, ours was dad, dad liked, uh, King's quest. Okay. And yeah, the original one, which, you know, not even, I don't think it was even eight bit graphics. Wow. So that's yeah. So, uh, yeah, all of that's happening and they're, they're hacking and putting in a virus and doing all this. Now, after this, there's another attempt to get more money for Cobra, of course. Quite frankly, it's wild how many episodes revolve around Sir Pentor, the genetically purposely created leader, and all of his efforts are on fundraising. Maybe they gave him a double dose of so- So, Kelly, is teaser?

You know? Maybe the game has been so clearly a teaser, you know? Yes. Well, Napoleon was, Napoleon was, was not above a good grift himself. But like Caesar's whole reason for being was to, you know, stay ahead. I mean, that's, yeah. But anyway, I took over the entire Roman political system just to pay off my debts. Yeah, just just to just pay off the mortgage. Yeah, you know, you know, you guys could have passed a law like forgiving student loans.

No, no, this is better. No, no, no, no, I had to take the army across the Rubicon. This was the only way. So yeah, he, what do you call it? Sir Pentor, yeah, he's this time he's trying to raise money by funding a youth stealing technology for a woman named Madame Vale who's a fashion mogul, who's literally stealing youth from models in her employ. And in exchange, she'll give Cobra lots of money. I mean, it's literally just that. So hire these fashion models, bring them in,

hook them up to a machine, and she sucks their youth out in some sort of weird way. Extensive enterprises, brokers this deal. So they're back in the day. And there's actually two of these episodes in the second season, which is really oddly specific, where you have old women trying to be beautiful or essentially by stealing from young women.

Weird. It is until you start peeling the layers back. Okay. I don't mean that as a facelift joke either. The thing is, beauty in the 1980s tended to revolve around fitness and nutrition, encouraging athletically toned bodies, body suits, and track suit bottoms. Okay. Yeah.

In Jank Fonda. Yeah. Yeah. Got it. In 1985, John Travolta and Jamie Lee Curtis started a movie called Perfect, which was a dramatic romance that centered around a Rolling Stone reporter who goes to do an exposanna computer manufacturing plant, and is accused of being a drug kingpin. Okay. Now, I think it's the owner of the computer manufacturing plant who's accused of being a drug kingpin.

Oh, okay. Um, but he also researches another story about how empty and image conscious Los Angeles is. So, Travolta's character finds the sports connection, which is openly advertising itself as a fitness club where singles can meet. And he gets the green light from the club owners to use it for his story. So, John Travolta decides that he wants to focus on Jamie Lee Curtis's character at the center of his story. Curtis leads the club's most popular aerobics class where many couples have met while their bodies are gyrating side by side. Now, she doesn't want to be in his story, implying that she had been burned by the press in the past,

but she's totally down to get to know him in the personal sense. Okay, this movie's got sex, it's got image, and it's got a robic sex play. I don't know how it lost $7 million at the box office, but you know, especially when you watch this. Okay, so you've watched about a minute and 50 of this. What are your reactions? So, yeah. Okay. Play again. Okay. So, because you're right, we should be recording your reactions. Yeah, because yeah. Sweet Jesus. All right. So so at around the same time, when you're talking about, you know, during the 80s, the standard of beauty,

you know, having to do with the athleticism and fitness and all that, side note before you hear my commentary about the scene. Some time around 83 or 84, my mother developed a thyroid issue. I don't remember whether I want to say it was hypothyroid. She thought she was going crazy for like nine months because that's what hypothyroidism will do to you. And she got diagnosed with it. One of the things that Dr recommended to her was, okay, you need to, you need to, you know, if you exercise in addition to the, you know, thyroid

medication and everything we're going to give you, exercise is one way to help kind of control this. Sure. And my mother became one of the converted to aerobic exercise. She took it up with the zeal of the converted. To this day, now I will simply say she's in her 70s. I will simply say she's in her 70s. And my mother goes to more than one exercise class a day, five or six days a week. She is, this is a thing for her, something she is passionate about. And so I have by proximity, I've seen a lot of aerobics classes. I've seen a lot of aerobics classes. I know aerobics classes. Aerobics classes are good friends of mine. And this is no real aerobics class is what I have to say about this. You know, your mom being the expert,

I do believe it is incumbent upon you to send her this link and ask her, is this what she's doing? No, I'm no. Okay. No. For the same reason that I'm very glad what you said about my wife coming into the room while I'm watching the scene did not come to pass. Speaking of which, you should hit play. Yeah, I should. So just real quick, what, what, what is the time stamp where you're at? Okay. I am at 208 out of four minutes 55. All right.

And we have already seen the clip started with the most unrealistic neck gyration, like neck mobility taken to 11 exercise. The very beginning of the clip, I was like, oh, okay, this is Hollywood fucking around. Like no. And we have moved to like, ornograthic hip thrusts. In synchronized everybody in the room.

Yeah. Okay, hitting play. God damn it. All right. And Jamie Lee Curtis is an expert. Like I can't help but think Jamie Lee Curtis like between shots was like, okay, how am I going to sell this? Yeah. I'm going to like, no, I'm just going to take this completely over the top because come on. And now they're doing this weird like leaning, leaning forward, doing a low, fairly low squat, leaning forward and, and like doing a spine torsion thing with

their shoulders. Uh-huh. And now they're back up to a higher level squat and they're back to the back to the pornographic hip thrust again. And John Dervolta clearly is wearing a sock in his shorts. Like, come on. Like, no. Yeah. All right. And there's still, it's all hip thrusts. Yeah, well, you got to isolate this hip.

There's nothing else going, like, no. There's no, okay, no. They're not lifting their knees. There's no, like, this isn't actually if you're good, oh, now they're on their backs. They just like rapid cut to, they're all on their backs doing, doing, which is at least a real exercise,

but the way they're all doing it is. Oh, and yeah, have you gotten to the slamming part yet? Yeah, the what part? The part where they're slamming it. Oh, yeah. Yeah, like what part the part where they're slamming it. Oh, yeah, yeah, like come on. No, that's. Okay, and now and now doing doing hip some kind of lag All right, that'll do. Okay, and crunches. Yep, crunches. All right, that'll do. Yes. Okay, and crunches. Yep. Crunches, all right. That's.

Uh-huh. And yeah. And yeah, Travolta is really overselling it here. Yeah. So like I said, I don't know how this movie, perfect, lost $7 million at the box office. I do, do you want a list, like just out of this scene by itself? No.

Okay. All right, go ahead and turn it on. Wow. So, so. Yeah, I have. Oh, my God. That's, what have you done to me? Well, it's what I've done. You're algorithms. That's what have you done to me?

Well, it's what I've done your algorithms. That's really gonna piss you off. Oh shit. Oh, the amount of shit that I get in my social media advertised to me, I'm like, why is this? Oh, right. I wrote an article or I wrote a podcast. Yeah, right.

The podcast. Yeah. I was doing research. Yeah. Order food. Great. God, good. Order food. Great. God damn it. Oh, yes, food in a bucket. Love it. Right.

So, so in the 1980s, super models and bodybuilding became a very popular sensation, along with leg warmers and big hair. Arnold and Sly were in peak form. You talked about this in your masculinity episodes. Oh, yeah. Cynthia Rock Rock, or Roth Rock, Cynthia Roth Rock. God, I can't say her name.

Anyway, she got her start in 1985. She's a white female martial artist. Yeah. A lot of cop movies where she's the cop who can kick really high. Yeah. Jane Fonda was selling her workout tapes, VHSs, right? And Karen Carpenter had died of anorexia nervosa induced by heart failure, or which induced a heart failure. Yeah. Beauty was the queen, but not without a lot of harm that was bubbling up.

Belemia nervosa showed up in the DSM3 in 1980. From there, the cases seemed to skyrocket, although I think it's much more that people knew specifically what they're looking at and they knew what they're looking for. When did Princess Diana reveal that she had had an eating disorder? I want to say they didn't come for another couple years. That was the, I think it was late 80s.

Okay. But by the 1980 mid 1980s, uh, Belimian nervosa was up to about 40 per 100,000. Okay. Which is pretty high. Uh, in fact, Dana Plato's last episode of different strokes was the Belimia episode that aired on January of 1986. Yeah. Very special episode. So clearly beauty and the damage that it does is in the public consciousness. The pressure of looking perfect has become an unhealthy obsession for some and then that brings us back to GI Joe. Okay. Absolutely is willing to sacrifice other people's lives because she's working with extensive enterprises and she's evil as shit and yeah, and that's G. I. Joe's take on it. Okay, militarism against capitalism again. Yeah, exactly Reagan fighting Reagan. Yeah.

Okay. Also, the 1980 saw a market increase in the cryopreservation efforts as well. Right. And so it's really no wonder that Cobra thinks that human vanity will let Cobra squeeze humanity for all its money to avoid aging, which is actually what they were plotting. Okay. They also do an episode of genetic tinkering, creating animal human hybrids in a Jamaican biodome for Arctic animals in Antarctica.

Okay. Yeah, that's a sentence that I got to write. That's the algorithm look at. Now, this is 86, right? So it's well ahead of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and George W. Bush's State of the Union Speech where he mentions the dangers of human animal hybrids. Right. Right. It's yeah, you know, so one of the things we haven't we haven't talked about very much so far is is the the relationship between like where the TV show went and where the comic book went. And it strikes me now, you say, this is before Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

This is before the TV show. Right. But Eastman and Laird had started the comic. I got to look it up to double check. I wanna say they'd started the comic by now, I think. They started the comic in 1984. Okay, yeah. All right, so there might have been, I don't know, there might be something there. There might be something there, you're right, there might be something.

But it's before TMNT became what it became. Yeah, it's certainly before the cartoon. The comic was, if I recall, it was just mirage comics. It was an independent comic. Oh yeah, yeah, it was not, yeah. I, that being said though, Marvel certainly had plenty of freelancers So it's not like they wouldn't have known Eastman and Larry yeah, and and Eastman and layered were parodying daredevil Oh fully in the like all over 100% like so

You got the same cause of the powers your master is named after a part of wood stick or splinter splinter hand versus foot clan exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So. Okay. All right. So you've got all of these things going on, but what I'm not mentioning right now is what I'm actually going to finish off. This has turned into a four part series. What I'm going to finish off with in the next episode. And that is specifically Reagan based things.

So this has been the entirety of what we saw this time was culture, culture, culture, right? Right. It's all the stuff that's in the zeitgeist. In the next episode, we're going to actually take a look at how Reaganism versus Reaganism is also an aspect or taking on other aspects of Reagan himself. So that's yeah. Okay. So that's where we're going to go with in the next episode. But this is actually a pretty good place to stop. Okay. If only because you need to take a steam

and get a towel around your neck after all that aerobic work. So. She made a Christmas God almighty. I was. You know, we have a lot of $7 million in that. It's just something. Yeah, I can't. I'm like, I'm not even to entertain the sarcasm there. No, I totally believe totally believe it. Yeah. Yeah.

But notice we're going science computers science computers. Yeah beauty issues. Um, highlighting pacifism a couple times. Yeah. And yeah. And rehashing Vietnam. Yeah. Yeah. The dust children suddenly, honestly, that kind of deserves its own watch along. I would, I agree. I think that's something. Yeah.

That might be something we put in the can for a while. Stick a pin in that. Yeah. But anyway, so what have you gleaned so far from season two of GI Joe? What have I gleaned, Jesus? You know, I think it's interesting that at the same, what occurred to me over the course of all this, and there wasn't really a good time because it's a big picture kind of thing, and there wasn't really a good time of because it's a big picture kind of thing, and it wasn't really a good time to bring it up until now.

Sure. But what occurred to me is, so the second season of GI Joe is 86. And by this time, I had also been watching RoboTech since about, I wanna to say probably 84. And RoboTek was from the very beginning all about the overarching story arcs. overarching story arcs. Right. You know, the furt and I mean, it was it was Japanese animation,

you know, dubbed into English and with some of the some of the more egregious problematic Japanese cultural elements taken out. I really need to do an episode at some point about the adaptation of Robotech from Japan into American. But, you know, and but the thing is because it was based on an anime series and anime never had the same level of animation ghettoification that that Western animation did. It was by necessity built around more serious plot lines, like it was a huge big deal the day after the Robotech episode aired where Roy Falker died. Right.

In the first season, that was like nobody at school could talk about, well none of the boys anyway. At school could talk about anything else. That's why we never had any kind of cultural touchstone like that at my school. There was never everybody. Clothes as we came was shockingly pro wrestling. That wasn't all of us that was just about eight of us.

Yeah, but I was like that with cartoons. You know, to be fair, I was attending a kind of a niche private school at the time So you know, it wasn't exactly a huge group and we all had certain traits in common, but You know, it was it was a huge big deal like oh my god, we're a fucker is dead Because no American cartoonity ever done that no, yeah, and so quite the opposite in fact Oh, yeah, and then and then now we're talking about um, you know two years later

some of well that that same kind of interest in longer story arcs and continuing subplots and all of that kind of stuff. It's still bolderized and all of that kind of stuff. It's still bolderized, but that's showing up here. And I don't remember consciously noticing the storylines in GIGO getting more complicated. But I think there was a movement there in that direction that this was a driving part of because GIJAH was such a big property. into the rest of the genre because it's after that that we start seeing things like in the very early 90s Late 80s we start seeing pirates of dark water which was one big long overarching plotline Yeah, you know

So I mean narratively that's that's something that that sticks out to me That's something that sticks out to me. So yeah, that's kind of what strikes me as an overarching call it systematic. Systemic, there you go, systemic kind of structural change in the genre and the way the genre was working. Yeah, and I think that there's, and we'll kind of discuss it in the next episode. There are very specific reasons why it got more complex and deeper. Okay. In the second season. So yeah, cool. Well, what's what you're going to recommend for people to read? What's you going to recommend for people to read? Well, with a continuing theme from the last couple of episodes,

as sort of homework in preparation for what I'm going to talk about cyberpunk, I very, very strongly have not recommended it yet. And I'm going to now, I very strongly recommend Mona Lisa overdrive by William Gibson, I very strongly recommend Mona Lisa Overdrive by William Gibson, which is the first novel in the sprawl trilogy. And it is the codifying novel for the genre of Cyberpunk. That's the argument I'm going to make is that that is where the tropes get fixed. It is also an amazing work of fiction, and Gibson is artful in his prose. It's written in a language that was completely different from what science fiction had sounded like before it And so it is seminal on multiple levels at once

Highly how they recommend find it After we finish that one then go read the sequel Count zero interrupt, okay, and the third book in the series Wait hold on I'm sorry. I'm only so overdrive is the third book in the series. Wait, hold on, I'm sorry, I'm gonna leave the overdrive is the third book in the series. It's also awesome. Neural answer is the first book in the series. Nerf. I

In my head the cover of Mona Lisa overgrowing always sticks harder, but yeah, Neural answer is the first one. So the whole sprawl trilogy basically Highly recommend William, check it out. Okay. How about you? I'm going to recommend to people we hear by refuse, Japanese-American resistance to wartime incarceration. It is a graphic novel written by Frank Abe and Tamiko Nemura. Ross Ishikawa and Matt Sasaki did the artwork. And I mentioned that just largely

because it is in all Japanese and Japanese American collaboration. But the book, it actually is, it's really cool. It tells the story of a Sacramento woman, tells the story of a Sacramento woman, Mitsuya Endo, who basically challenged and broke the Japanese internment in incarceration.

And she didn't wanna be a part of it, but at the same time, like essentially it was, it was, you know, short version. In her case, they, they said, like, can you say that she's in any way disloyal? She doesn't speak Japanese. She's a Methodist. She works for the DMV. She, like, she does all these things. Can you say in any way that she's disloyal? They're like, no, and they're like, then you can't send her to the goddamn camps. And the Supreme Court decided a bunch of cases that day. I think here by Ashi and Cory Matsu both got decided that same day.

Endo as well. And it was like, oh God, what was the court case? It was like, Endo X, not Milite, but it's another term where they were just like, yeah, basically they can't keep people. They didn't tell them that, but like it, it was really cool. You have this very honest. Okay. 20 something

young woman who Basically proved the lie that it was so anyway Please please go check that out. I think it's a fantastic read And okay, it's it's I love when people fight back so Yeah, I'm I'm gonna have to check it out, you know, I've never heard of the court case. Yeah. Yeah. To my embarrassment. Holy shit.

Okay. Yeah. Well, you know why is because what do you call it? The Kuramatsu and Hayabashi. Hayabashi. It's late. But those two court cases, Hayabashi, there you go. Those two court cases, they take the lion's share of the attention.

Okay. So that's, yeah. That's why. Cool. Cool. Where can people find you if you want to be found? Um, right now I don't want to be found. But we collectively, we collectively can be found at woblewoblewoble.geekhistoryoftime or geekhistorytime.com

Geek History of Time or Geek History Time.com. And on Twitter, we are Geek History Time. And you obviously, listener, whoever you are, if I can break the fourth wall for a moment, you have found us. So wherever you did find us, please subscribe. Please give us the five star review that you know Damien deserves for the sacrifice he went through to watch all of GI Joe through in a marathon binge session for these episodes.

So, so, repay his sacrifice for the sake of your entertainment by giving us a five star review. And where can you be found, sir? First off is hero by Aashi. That was the trouble I was having. All right. Okay. Yeah. So Korematsu, hero by Aashi and Yasui took the lion's chair of the attention. So sorry to bounce back into that, but it was really bothering me. I wasn't getting the name, right? Yeah. So you could find me. Let's see, best place to find me is in Sacramento on May 5th, uh, because the April 7th show probably is already run. Uh, May 5th at Luna's, um, and if this for some reason comes out after May 5th, which is going to be a banger of an of a show, it's, it's, there's gonna be a lot of good folks on that. Then also come see us on the June second show, which will be just a really, really good one. So yeah. And by the way, it's

ex partate, Indo, that's what it was. All right, right. Yeah. So anyway, sorry, all over the place, but I wanted to make sure I did write by these people. But yeah, so May 5th and June 2nd come check out capital punishment, bring $20, $10 for your ticket, the other 10 so you can buy some merch and some nachos and some other good food. Shout out your favorite idea for puns and we will take it and run with it. It's a lot of fun.

So, cool. Well, for a geek history of time, I'm Damien Harmony. And I'm Ed Blalock. And until next time, remember, knowing this half the battle.