Season One: Episode Seven

Brief Summary: Old college rivalries lead to the strangest football game NYC has ever seen. Sergeant Slaughter gives new meaning to the phrase “be the ball.”

Summary: Sergeant Slaughter is visiting his sister in New York City. They’re sitting in her living room watching a football game on TV. Or, more accurately, Slaughter’s watching the football game while his sister is asleep in her chair. I’ve heard rumors that the DiC series didn’t have much in the way of female voice actors, so they had to sometimes skimp on appearances by female characters. It would seem logical that having Sarge’s sister asleep while Sarge talks about their childhood and such is a good way to have a female character but not have to shell out for the actress. It looks weird, since Sarge seems to be talking like he’s expecting an answer but then, I’ve talked to (or rather at) sleeping people before too. And besides, this is a pretty small nitpick when compared to weirdness yet to come.

Sarge hears a strange noise and goes to investigate. In the basement of his sister’s building, he discovers Metal-head, a SAW Viper and a Range Viper working on converting a subway station into a Cobra base. The Range Viper is complaining about having to do construction work, saying that part of the reason he left his construction job was that he prefers destruction instead (so why he didn’t go into commercial demolitions is beyond me - oh yeah, that’s right, it’s in the script).

Metal-head mentions that he used to work at the zoo, but he got fired for feeding the bears -- to the killer sharks. We also learn that the Range Viper used to play football in college and was really good except that he kept getting beat by Captain Grid-Iron (or Grid-Iron as he’s generally referred to in the series).

This is about when Slaughter comes in and starts talking smack to the Range Viper about his football career. How in the hell Slaughter recognizes this particular Range Viper is beyond me as I don’t think the Range Viper mentioned Grid-Iron by name before Slaughter shows up. See, a Range Viper’s mask shows nothing of their face and their armor covers the rest of them well enough that it’s almost impossible to tell what the person underneath looks like. Maybe Sarge has run into this guy before? Or maybe the writers dropped the ball?

The Range Viper catches Sarge in something like glorified silly string that tightens and solidifies around Sarge, wrapping him like a mummy. The Cobras then abscond with the Sarge and take him back to Cobra base, planning on using him as bait to catch Grid-Iron.

Which leads us to the question of why in the Sam Hill ANYONE would want to capture Captain Grid-Iron. I mean, it’s not like he’s a particularly high placed Joe, like Hawk. Or even particularly key to the team, but apparently Grid-Iron was meant to be this series’ Duke. Why this choice was made, I do not know.

Side note: Range Viper isn’t the only member of Cobra with a mad-on against Grid-Iron. In Metal-head’s Reunion we find out that Metal-Head went to high school with Grid-Iron and that for reasons unexplained, Metal-Head dislikes Grid-Iron. Actually, just seeing Grid-Iron in action makes me want to shoot him too so maybe the animosity isn't that hard to understand…

Range Viper comes up with a plan of sorts: challenge the Joes to a football game. The winner gets to keep Sergeant Slaughter and be declared the coolest or something. The Joes, in the form of Grid-Iron, take Cobra up on the idea.

We cut to a scene at a football stadium where the Joes and the Cobras are lined up against each other and getting ready for some football! In fact, they’re so ready they have their team names written in the end zones. Dang it, when these guys go goofy they go whole hog!

The football game is played pretty straightforwardly. I’m not a fan of the game so I can’t give you any kind of color commentary beyond the fact that the Joes and the Cobras run at each other and there’s a ball involved and for some reason CC is on the field with his men.

When it looks like the Joes are winning, Cobra does what Cobra does best! Well..no, they don’t run away, they do the other thing they do best: cheat! And boy howdy do they ever cheat. They bring vehicles onto the field and begin using them to chase the Joes down. The Joes still get the ball however and then bring in vehciles of their own since Grid-Iron knew Cobra would try something like this.

The Joes and Cobras chase each other around with their vehicles for a bit before Cobra says “Screw you guys, we’re going home!” and takes Sarge with them. The football game now moves to the streets of New York City as the Joes try to chase the Cobras down to get the Sarge back.

At first, the chase goes underwater, with the Range Viper having stuck Sarge in a radio-controlled minisub. Grid-Iron chases him and eventually disables the Range Viper’s sub enough that they have to surface.

Range Viper and SAW Viper hail a taxi by shooting at it. They then commandeer the cab so they can roar off with Slaughter. Luckily for Grid-Iron, he’s able to stop a limo which just happens to be carrying Lady Jaye to a hair appointment. She decides to go off with Grid-Iron since trying to get Slaughter back sounds a lot more interesting than sitting under a blow dryer. They use her radio to call in the other Joes.

The Vipers get cut off by a bus (because the buses in NYC always cut you off) and Jaye manages to take out a couple Dominators (Cobra chopper/tanks) with her javelins. (Yes, this is still happening in the streets of NYC, why do you ask?)

The rest of the episode is really just a series of back-and-forth hot potato maneuverings with the Sarge as the potato. The Joes manage to grab the Sarge and fake Cobra out by going through a tunnel where a horse-drawn carriage is also going through. They jump out of the limo, putting a couple stones on the accelertor, then let the limo go through first and ride out with Grid-Iron and Sarge in the carriage while Jaye gets the female driver to safety. Jaye is now out of the episode until the end, most likely to save on female vocal talent.

Cobra destroys the carriage, but Sarge and Grid-Iron ride off on the horse, with Grid-Iron carrying Sarge over one shoulder. This would, most likely, be way too much weight for the horse to carry (especially considering how Sarge is being carried, but it’s best to ignore this mote of silliness in the face of the beam of insanity that is the rest of the episode).

Grid-Iron and Slaughter take the horse down the steps into the subway, though they don’t actually take the horse onto one of the trains. GI Joe is now on PETA’s most wanted list, a more fearsome fate than the worst of Cobra’s tortures, even worse than helping Dr. Mindbender wax his nipples.

Unfortunately, the attempt to get away with Sarge is for naught since Cobra has equipped him with a tracking beacon. So, Cobra is able to track down Grid-Iron and Sarge and recapture Sarge by snagging him with a hook while flying over. Grid-Iron jumps on and grabs hold of Sarge, which means that now Cobra has the one they were really after (though why they were after him is never sufficiently explained).

The rest of the Joes watch in horror, since once Cobra gets past the Hudson River they will have gotten away scott-free…

Luckily for all, Range Viper goes past the Statue of Liberty and Grid-Iron manages to snag the line carrying him and Sarge onto Ms. Liberty’s torch. Sarge and Grid-Iron free themselves and move down the arm of the statue. Instead of the hooked rope causing the plane to circle round and round the statue, the plane pulls forward for a bit then ends up hanging straight down the side of the statue. This does not destroy the mostly hollow statue because - er because it just doesn’t okay!?

The Range Viper jumps out of the plane and into the water and tries to escape. Undertow makes a brief appearance to try and rescue the poor beleaguered Range Viper but they are both captured by the now free Sergeant Slaughter who jumped in after the Range Viper to catch him. Cobra Commander escapes and the Cobra plot is once again foiled.

On land, Jaye wonders why the Commander felt the need to beat feet out of the area so quickly. She makes a joke about him having a hot date perhaps.

Cut to a scene out front of Studio 55, a hot night club. The Commander, dressed in his full power armor regalia, walks up to the bouncer only to be told that he’s too weird for the room so beat it. Then, Grid-Iron, Lady Jaye, Sarge and Sarge’s sister (who still says nothing) show up and are allowed into the club. It is the final slap in the face of poor Cobra Commander.

Commentary: They played football for Sergeant Slaughter?! Shouldn’t both sides have been playing to lose? Seriously, Sarge is one of the better characters in the DiC series, probably because they still had the original voice actor and his characters sometimes cheezy lines just fit better in the DiC series.

Since it’s pretty clear that this episode had a silly premise, I’m not going to waste time calling attention to the sheer silliness of the idea. The actual execution of the episode is pretty good. We get to see plenty of back and forth between the Joes and the Cobras. The idea of them fighting in a populated area is kind of cringe making (especially since it’s NYC and especially since this is the post-9/11 world and we’re all more sensitive to this kind of stuff now), but there’s not a lot of collateral damage. This is a cartoon from a more innocent time (hard to believe that now, huh?) back when America was still largely invulnerable to terrorist attacks other than Cobra.

Overall, this episode isn’t too cringe-worthy unless you’re a serious football fan.

Some minor nitpicky things:

Why the hell was Jaye taking a LIMO to the hairdresser? Wouldn’t a cab have made more sense? Sure, it wouldn’t have had that nice sunroof for her to toss javelins out of but…a limo?! To the HAIRDRESSER?!

Why are individual vipers, such as the Range Viper and the SAW Viper continually referred to as if they are the only members of their unit? Doesn’t that get confusing? Wouldn’t it have made more sense for him to be Range Viper #245?

Am I the only one who thinks “Is She Really Going Out With Him?” should be playing when Jaye is taking Grid-Iron out to Studio 55? I mean, I know Flint was off doing the whole EcoWarrior thing and things were probably pretty strained between them because he looked like a complete ass, but Jaye baby he still loves you! And he’s not Grid-Iron!

Cultural Note: For those of you for whom the 70s are the decade when your parents were dating, Studio 54 was a very popular and well-known night club in New York City. It closed long before the DiC episodes were a gleam in anyone’s eye, but Cobra Commander probably could have gotten in there. Heck, he woulda had his own table.