I need to watch Resolute again to erase what I've just witnessed.

Worlds Without End was my favourite Gi Joe story when I was a kid, it was on a tape I had along with Flints Vacation. I musta watched those 3 episodes about 300 times. Havent seen it in about 10 years, wonder if it'll still hold up?

There's No Place Like Springfield totally messed me up as a kid. It's basically a Philip K. Dick story. I loved it and it horrified me at the same time.

Haven't watched it in like 20 years, but I think I need to track it down now. Does it hold up?

I remember being kinda freaked out by the episode involving Low Light being afraid of the dark. I'm not even sure why I was freaked out, or even what happened in that episode, only that I was weirded out by it.....

I always wondered why that Egyptian god was so pissed. After all he literally had a dog face.

Wow...I am actually surprised 'Grey Hair and Growing Pains' did not make the cut. It featured the classic 80's cartoon staple of age change. Cobra runs a fitness center with saunas that cause three of the Joes to age into senior citizens and three others to regress to children. Actually, that seems more realistic than anything in The Rise of Cobra...

And this series had the gall to tell kids to stay away from drugs. Talk about hypocrites.

What? No Cold Slither?

I guess that was actually one of the more normal plots this show had.

Every damn episode of that show was weird and ridiculous. Remember pyramid of darkness? Where cobra sends stowaways to gi joes space station to unleash fatal furries which are apparently furby type creatures that turn into yetis...with guns. And it's never explained how or where cobra got them...meanwhile shipwreck and snake eyes try to infiltrate cobra, disguising themselves while snake eyes still sports his body suit and facemask and both still keep their animal sidekicks in blatant view. And Polly keeps yacking even on a packed cobra subway train. It's not until they meet up with a security droid/vacuum cleaner that they are actually found out. And that's when I stopped watching.

#7 Worlds Without End...it was GRUNT, Steeler, and Clutch. You made an oopsie.

The saddest part is we all get mad about this stuff now, but when we were kids, this was awesome. When we were all growing up, none of us cared about story structure, we just wanted crap blowing up. And in my old school 80's cartoons, i only want nonsensical plots, sweet looking vehicles who are not as sweet when we buy them and a kick ass theme song.

this list proves that eighties cartoons were a little nuts. and would have had there's no place like spring field at number one for that of all the cartoons on the list is truely a little nuts. as for glamour girls the machine erased the ladies face. and surprised worlds without end did not rank higher.

You have to admire them for actually calling the McGuffin Device the "McGuffin Device" on the show.

Great list, brings back some buried memories.

Gotta be the mythology police, though - The ship's name was the Argo, thus the sailors on it were the Argonauts.

The Tomahawk was mistaken for the Argo.

You kind of have to admire them for being so boldly nuts. As a kid, I could have watched the Joes running actual Spec Ops missions, but if Cobra acted like real terrorists? They'd have to run the cartoon in the 9 pm time slot. Not that I'd mind that now. Just sayin'.

I loved these episodes as a kid. And I *still* love 'em. Though, thankfully, I never actually saw "The Gamesmaster" in syndication, for some reason——that's probably the one with the "robot clowns" mentioned. Yeah, *that* one might have turned me off the show, as a kid.

I'm relieved, though, on seeing the video of "Iceberg Goes South," above, that an old freaky memory wasn't accurate——I thought I remembered that when Iceberg turned to/from a whale, that his head wasn't what turned into the whale's head; that the parts of his that DID grow into the whale cranium were his feet and legs. In other words, that he blatantly didn't so much "morph" or "grow" into a whale, but more or less pupating like an insect, with horrific implications as to what that would do to the nervous system of a sentient being.

...however, like I said, on viewing the episode again, it seems I was mistaken. The man's head is in fact in the general area of what would become the head of the mutant killer whale form.

He was, however, laying on his BACK when the transformation began, but the whale he mutated into was laying on his STOMACH. Therefore, we have the uncomfortable conclusion that at least some of the mass that made up Whale-Iceberg's dorsal fin was actually from...well...

So yeah, GI Joe could get a little nutty at times.

I remember being deeply weirded out by There's No Place Like Springfield as a child. The melting clones have haunted me all my life, or something like that.

This didn't even cover "The Viper is Coming" a whole episode based on an ancient idiotic pun about a "viper who vipes and vashes your vindows"

What was the episode that ended with a bunch of Orangutans shouting "Yo Joe!"? That one struck me as odd.

I sat down and watched Revenge of Cobra when I got the figure pack on sale at BBTS, and it totally held up. Anyone who complains about these being lame has a stick jammed waaaaay too far up their ass.

Worlds Without End was freaking traumatic for me, as due to preferring the vehicles to the figures I had all the Joes that were written off in that episode. Between that and Hawk not showing up in the animated series to that point, it was like Sunbow was waging a war against my own personal collection.

I loved this show as a kid and I love it even more now. I've been watching all the Sunbow eps on dvd since I got the huge boxed collectors set. Yeah its goofy as all hell but you gotta keep in mind...its a kids show. Most people dont realize how much adult humor was in the show too. I'm also surprised how much they got away with. Baroness ended up scantily clad in more than one ep. Than of course there was the whole thing with Lady Jaye being related to Destro. Shipwreck is my favorite character, he's one of the reasons I joined the Navy.
All you haters go back to watching your anime porn and lighten up.

I know that they're knocking on THE PR0F3550R up-thread for being born an old curmudgeon. I'm in the same boat as him. I wasn't born a curmudgeon, but I became one at an early age. :D

As a kid I didn't like the old He-Man and the Masters of the Universe cartoon very much, which was most likely due to my reading of Savage Sword of Conan comics and the darker tone of the first four mini-comics MotU that came out before the show ever aired.

The completely non-threatening manner in which the villains were portrayed and the overly-sanitized actions and attitudes of the heroes just didn't quite cut it for me, even as a 8 year old kid.

And despite the fact that I didn't care much for the silliness very much, I still watched He-Man. And G.I. Joe. And Transformers. Back in the days when you only had 3 or 4 channels to watch didn't leave you much in the way of choice.

And while most of those toons had some eye-rollingly bad elements in them, they still had some entertaining features and did endear themselves to me. And it beat watching People's Court or Family Feud, which were the only other viewing options at the time.

Hey, watching "Once Upon a Joe," there's a goofy "Breath Mint / Candy Mint" argument at about 6:30 -- I feel like I remember characters arguing about that in more than one episode, was it some kinda running gag or something?

I mistakenly saw "Glamour Girls" as GILMORE GIRLS!

A GI JOE/ GILMORE GIRLS episode would be extra freaky!

This list needs more Gamesmaster...

That episode was insane, but it did feature Baroness in a skimpy bikini for the whole thing...

Great list, I didn't remember some of these Episodes. I will bookmark this page.

There's No Place Like Springfield is a freakin masterpiece. It had no place in a children's TV show. It was terrifying and traumatizing watching the simulants melt...and you could actually feel Shipwreck starting to question his own sanity by the end of the show.

The saddest part though was at the end when Shipwreck looks at what is left of his "family" and Lady Jaye (or someone) asks him what he's thinking about. He replies..just a dream. I know I have the whole dialog all messed up...but basically he was yearning for the "normal" life with the love of his life Maria that he had briefly tasted.

What a great episode. And don't even get me started on Worlds without End. The good episodes totally made up for all the goofiness.

I sometimes try to tell my son about the shows we watched in the 70s and 80s. I start to realize how crappy they were, but still remember them fondly. I guess he'll do the same thing with Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh.

PS: Smurfs? Time travel? Really? I must have been watching old Land of the Lost reruns and missed those...

No sins of our fathers?
The one where Destro's family castle in Scotland had an ELDER GOD living under it?

Well, I was going to chime in about how much I hated he cartoon, even back in the Eighties, but The Professor pretty much nailed everything I had to say. (HATED Temple of Doom!)

I will say this, Larry Hama, the guy who created the characters and wrote the comic for 12 years never wrote that comic as a "a kids show". The G.I. Joe cartoon WAS a kids show. Two totally different audiences there. Which is cool, I guess. Over the years I've noticed that EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER was somebody's favorite. Yes, even Raptor. Yes, even Crystal Ball.

Also: Grunt, Clutch, Flash and Steeler aren't redshirts. They're 4 of the Original 13 G.I. Joes released in 1982!

I am amazed by the hate for this show. I fondly remember all the insanity of this cartoon and have always appreciated it for what it is. Sure, the comic is great, but it never captivated me the way the first episode of There's No Place Like Springfield did. I still remember having a hell of a time waiting a whole day to see the second part.

Oh, and I have to say that I'm a little surprised that the episode with the giant blob that can only be killed by apples didn't make this list.

I can't believe how many people here hate the GI Joe cartoon. It was, without a doubt, the best cartoon of the 1980s. Is that saying much? FUCK YES, it does! Did you guys even read the episode descriptions? Characters get stuck in alternate dimensions, never to be seen again! A character gets turned into a killer whale! Shipwreck gets mind-fucked on a level I've never seen on a show, before or since! The show was off-the-hook crazy!

What are you haters? Synthoids?

The haters are simply Cobras spreading their doctrine of destruction!

You won't win snakes. Not now. Not ever!

YO JOE!

Oh my god, I always wondered if "Glamour Girls" was as creepy as I remembered. That freaked me out as a kid! Gross.

I always felt "There's No Place Like Springfield" had more of a "Prisoner" feel to it. I havent seen it in a dawg's age, but I seem to recall one or two subtle references to the classic 1967 show in its narrative.

The cartoons were targeted to children. Remember that there are ( almost) no real death or blood in the series?, and there are fantasy elements too?
If back then you didn't enjoy them and now you still couldn't stomach the series, then it's all fair.
But if you did like it, and now you wonder about its "goofyness", then just face it. It's you who changed, grown up, just like all of us. There's nothing wrong with you or the cartoon series.