Brief Summary: What’s next? Six Flags over Springfield?

Summary: We open in the mountains, where Dusty is flying along, surrounded by Cobras. He ends up bailing out of his plane, parachuting down to the mountain. Once there, he skis off, trying to escape the Cobras. He ends up evading them, but not before he flies off a cliff.

Which leaves me wondering one thing: why’s Dusty wearing short sleeves on a snow-covered mountain….

We come back from the opening credits to find Dusty is still falling. He drops through the top of a tent to land in…Magic World!?

Magic World turns out to be an amusement park, similar to Disney World. Dusty was performing with the GI Joe Magic Arrow stunt team. Jose Riviera is there serving as an announcer for the show.

Riviera is the DIC version of Hector Ramirez, who was the Sunbow version of Geraldo Rivera. Riviera also appears in the episode “Injustice and the Cobra Way.” See that review for more on Riviera.

Some kid in a wheelchair says that Dusty is his “Big Buddy Joe,” apparently something similar to the real life Big Brothers program. He waves to Dusty, giving him a “Yo Joe!”

Onto this idyllic scene enters Cobra Commander who informs the crowd that they can forget Magic World, they’re in Cobra World now!

Duke tells Cobra Commander that he’s done some pretty snakey things in his time, but that taking over an amusement park is beyond snakey, it’s positively worm-like! Cobra Commander informs the Joes that Cobra has bought the amusement park, legally and they have the contracts to prove it. Duke asks if it’s okay if the Joe legal department takes a look at the contracts. Cobra Commander hands them over willingly.

The Joes wonder what the heck that Cobra is up to. As does Riviera.

“Is it so hard to believe after all these years of greed and evil that I’ve had a change of heart?” asks Cobra Commander mournfully.

“Yes” “Yeah” “Absolutely” chorus Riviera and the Joes.

“They’re not buying it, where’s the onion?” asks Cobra Commander. Taking the onion, CC uses it to produce a few crocodile tears. He then proceeds to give an impassioned speech, telling the assembled crowd that they’ll be seeing a kinder, gentler Cobra from now on.

Riviera asks if this means that Cobra Commander is going to honor the promise to allow the kids from the children’s hospital to come in for the opening week of the park. Cobra Commander says that of course they will, Cobra loves children, all children are welcome.

We find out that Jessee is the name of Dusty’s little buddy.

Dusty tells Duke that he’s going to stick around and see if he can figure out what Cobra’s up to.

The park opens with a Cobra-themed parade. A few of the costumed characters wear outfits that reminded me of Serpentor’s cobra hooded outfit.

Metal-Head turns to a couple costumed vipers, telling them that this is it, let’s party! The vipers remove the heads of their costumes and start arming their weapons, including a couple big weapons that are mounted on floats.

Dusty, Jesse and Grunt are watching the parade from the side lines. When the Cobras start arming their weapons, Dusty and Grunt freak (understandably so), thinking that Cobra is going to start mowing people down. They head out, trying to stop the Cobras and clear the crowd, only to end up with egg on their faces (and cotton candy on Dusty’s back) when it turns out that the weapons are firing harmless fireworks and cotton candy.

Riviera rags on the Joes for ruining the kids’ good time by jumping to conclusions about Cobra. Jesse also chimes in, reminding Dusty that he’s always told him that it’s wrong to make assumptions about people. Dusty stammers an attempt at an explanation, but gets cut off when Jesse decides that he doesn’t want to be Dusty’s buddy anymore, he’d rather have CC as his Big Buddy Joe.

Cobra Commander smirkingly remarks that kids like him more than Santa Claus. (Better watch it CC, the Beatles got in trouble for saying something like that back in the 60s…)

Back at the Joe base, Duke chews Dusty’s ass over his behavior in the incident. Apparently, Grunt and Dusty managed to cause a national scandal. Which does kind of make sense since they did start a bit of a panic in the crowd. And in front of a report who has a history of not liking them much to boot. Doh…

Duke has to go to Washington to make nicenice with the Big Wigs there. While he’s gone, he grounds Dusty and Grunt.

Once Dusty gets his verbal spanking, we finally find out what it is that Cobra Commander is really up to (since the only time CC ever had anything approaching a change of heart was in the comics, after all).

The amusement park is a front. Cobra is really drilling a tunnel into the gold reserves at Fort Hobbes.* Cobra Commander hopes that they’ll be done soon, since this nice guy is sickening to the point that he could almost take a shower. Road Pig agrees that that sounds like a lovely idea. Cobra Commander tells him to shut it and that he expects the tunnel to be done in two hours.

Which leads to the second question: Why the HELL is Road Pig in charge of digging the tunnel? He’s a guaranteed idiot! Wouldn’t Destro or Dr. Mindbender or even just a generic Techno-Viper have been a better choice?! I mean, I could almost see it if the Donald personality ever made an appearance, but he never does so why trust the big idiot?

At any rate, Dusty and Grunt sneak off base to go find out what exactly Cobra is up to. After a pathetically quick trip to Cobra World, they discover the tunneling operation in Ice Mountain. Metal-Head catches them sneaking around, but the Joes jump up and cause the wood and rope bridge that they’re standing on to wobble, flipping Metal-Head onto his back and causing him to misfire. The Joes then steal a Cobra vehicle and attempt to escape. They manage to outrun the first group of Snow Vipers but end up being caught by Cobra Commander.

The Joes are then locked in a cell with the park’s original owner and a sad looking clown.

The Cobras complete their tunnel. Cobra Commander asks Road Pig if he’s sure they made it into the fort. Road Pig says that he’d stake his reputation on the fact that they are inside the base. Cobra Commander replies: “Now, I’m really worried…”

As it turns out, Road Pig did not make it inside the fort. Instead, the tunnel ends across the street from the fort, in the yard of the children’s hospital where Jesse is staying. Road Pig waves to the kids. Cobra Commander blusters and says “This isn’t a kindergarten, evne though most of the time it feels like it!” He then says they’ll have to storm the base and orders Road Pig to turn their vehicle around. Road Pig protests that the kids are in the way, and CC tells him to get them out of the way.

The kids, on the other hand, think that CC is there to surprise them. Riviera happens to be there as well and remarks to his cameraman that maybe CC really has had a change of heart. Riviera and the kids head over to greet CC.

Metal-Head prepares to fire at the kids in order to scare them off. As he’s doing so, Riviera comes over and tells CC that it’s wonderful what he’s doing for the kids. Cobra Commander, not wanting to blow his nice guy cover just yet, knocks Metal-Head out of the Paralyzer. Metal-Head’s missles go off into a tree and Metal-Head ends up with a bird’s nest on his head. The kids laugh, mocking Metal-Head’s pain. Poor Stewie…

Riviera leaves, telling Cobra Commander that they have to go since they’ve gotten a hot tip on some whining turtles who are stuck on their backs in the sewer.

Cobra Commander calls Metal-Head over. Metal-Head asks if he can’t play with the kids a little? Cobra Commander tells him no, that they have to storm the fort. Jesse overhears the Cobras talking and heads off to try and warn Riviera. Riviera leaves and Jesse ends up caught by Cobra Commander. HE escapes temporarily by rolling over Cobra Commander’s foot.

Jesse manages to easily evade Metal-Head and Road Pig. That’s right. A wheelchair bound child manages to evade two able-bodied adults. Then again, Jesse is probably mentally older than his pursuers.

Cobra Commander goes off to steal the gold while Jesse goes off to warn the Joes.

The Cobras manage to take the base, but the gold is behind steel bars. Road Pig is unsuccessful at cutting through the bars, so Cobra Commander has a group of Incinerators step up and fire their flamethrowers through the bars to melt the gold inside. Road Pig makes the mistake of touching the molten gold, burning his finger (though not melting it off). The Cobras use vaccums to suck up the gold and run it through a press machine, turning the gold into bars for easy transportation.

The bars have Cobra Commander’s face pressed into them, leading the Commander to look lovingly at them and say “Ahh, the face that launched a thousand….” Somethings, I’m not sure what since the audio quality on that section of the tape is poor.

Jesse has hidden himself under a tarp on a truck and gets taken back to Cobra World. He then throws a tarp over Metal-Head’s head and runs off to try and find Dusty (okay, so he rolls but you know what I mean!).

Jesse frees Dusty and the other captives from their cell. They arm themselves and run out of the tunnel only to get caught again by the Cobras. Luckily for Dusty and crew, the rest of the Joes choose this moment to show up in force. Duke and Tracker are among those who show up.

Cobra Commander tells his people to activate the amusement rides. Apparently, the park is set up with Cobra weapons and equipment. For example, the helicopter ride is made up of Cobra Battle Copters. Definitely an E-Ticket ride, folks. One of the Joes notes that Cobra World is swarming with Cobras. Whoa…big surprise there!

Cobra Commander tries to escape with the gold.

Duke tells Dusty that it’s okay he disobeyed orders since he was right about Cobra being up to no good. Dusty thanks Duke and says that the real credit for the success should go to Jesse, who now wants Dusty to be his big buddy again. The Joes also wonder how Cobra Commander and the others managed to sneak off without being caught.

In the background, we can see three BADLY disguised figures moving off. All three are dressed in those oversized amusement park costumes that should really make them more conspicuous at this moment, since the only people who were in the park were Cobras. But, hey, it’s the end of the episode and we need these guys to be evil tomorrow so the Joes don’t spot them.

Cobra Commander is dressed as a rat (big surprise), Metal-Head is dressed as a bunny (with his rig on the outside of his costume and Road Pig is dressed as..err…I have no idea, but he’s wearing a sombrero and a bow tie. The three of them squabble for a moment over who stepped on Cobra Commander’s rat tail until finally, Cobra Commander has what alcoholics and born again Christians call a moment of clarity and sums up what the rest of us could have told him a long time ago:

Commentary: Chris Latta’s lines in this episode just makes it for me. The scene where the Commander is trying to convince the crowd that he’s reformed is pure gold and proof that the DIC episodes did have a few moments of brilliance.

It was nice to see Cobra do something actually halfway clever in buying the amusement park rather than taking it by force. Way to flummox the Joes guys!

The melting the gold from between the bars bit is probably fairly plausible. IIRC, gold does have a lower melting point than steel, but Road Pig should have lost a finger. And I’d think the gold would pick up impurities from the floor.

Overall, this episode isn’t half-bad. The premise is fairly sturdy, especially for a DIC episode and the dialogue helps sharpen it up. Jesse, like most of the kids in the DIC episodes, isn’t overly obnoxious and thankfully we’re not beaten over the head with the fact he’s in a wheelchair. Instead, it’s never mentioned directly and Jesse is shown being just as capable of helping the Joes as an able-bodied kid might be. ‘Course, it does help that he’s up against the collective brain trust of Metal-Head and Road Pig, but still, at least we’re spared any “See, handicapped people can be handicapable!” booshwah.

*At least that’s what I think the fort is called, the sound quality on my tapes isn’t always the best. At first it sounded like “Haul” or “Hogg”.