Ho-Ho-Holiday Special III – GI Joe: A Real American HeroEpisode 1:39, “Cobra Claws are Coming to Town” (1985) and He-Man and She-Ra: A Christmas Special (1985)

“Well, I don’t like to feel good. I like to feel EVIL!”

Your Distinguished Professors have prepared quite the holiday treat – we’re going back to 1985 with two ridiculously bad extended yuletide toy commercials! Topics discussed include constant Skeletor impersonations, our sense of nostalgia takes a punch to the gut, the weirdness of Horde Prime and the idea that both Hordak and Skeletor are just middle managers, Adora and Adam are Jesus, Jesus conveniently edited out of the Christmas tale, the terrible character design of the Monstroids and Manchines, clear competitive pressure from Transformers, the Beast Monster and the Snow Beast, the omission of Cringer/ Battle Cat, the absurdity of Adam’s voice, our attempts to explain Christmas to aliens, Adora’s fascist past, a quick reference to The Toys That Made Us, Filmation and Sunbow, the fascination with transformation sequences, Orko is a kidnapper, naked time travel, the creepiness of Adora and Adam’s relationship, Tom of Finland and Fisto, Hordak’s flying sex toy, skeletons are only real when they are inside of us and the innate scariness of a skull face, another flagrant violation of the prime directive, Shipwreck’s eventual transformation into Shore Leave of The Venture Bros., Shipwreck’s parrot is his top, Destro’s lame shrink/ growth ray, Destro’s status as an arms-designing mercenary, Cobra Commander’s mask change part way through the episode, the innate weirdness of 1980s kids’ toy franchises, Duke asserts his manliness, double bagging is a bad idea, the amazingly low stakes of GI Joe, the ”porkchop sandwiches” parody of GI Joe’s public service announcements, and our Joe code names and specialties.

Follow us on Facebook! Because You Watched Starcrash

Music credits:

"Laser Groove" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/