On the other hand, I thought, I'm out of stuff to review and it could be fun to take a look at the Sunbow series. To take a look at What Went Before, maybe even to compare Sunbow to the series that came after it. After consulting with a couple people whose opinions I trust, I decided to finally bite the bullet and go forward with the idea.
Besides, I'd already reviewed GI Joe: The Movie, how hard could the rest of the series be?
So, here it is: Sunbow: The OTHER Animated GI Joe Series.
To understand how Sunbow's GI Joe series came about, you have to understand the history of GI Joe, with special emphasis on the late 1970s.
Here it is in a nutshell: GI Joe debuted in 1964 as America's Movable Man of Action. Unlike previous toy soldiers, he wasn't an immobile statue set in a particular pose (think the tin soldiers of the 1800s or the green Army men of today). GI Joe was fully poseable, so boys could act out whatever military missions they wanted. GI Joe was a landmark toy. The term 'action figure' was coined for him by Hasbro execs as a way to try and get around the conventional wisdom that boys wouldn't want to play with a 'doll'. Even so, the figure was a big gamble on Hasbro's part.
It was a gamble on Hasbro's part that paid off big-time. In 1965, Joe had $23 million in sales (1973 proved to be Joe's biggest year in sales: $26 million). Unfortunately, as time went on, war toys fell out of fashion. Hasbro attempted to alter the line, creating new figures that didn't have the same military emphasis as the original figures, but by 1978 the writing was on the wall and Hasbro ended the line.
In 1980, a group of Hasbro execs brought forward a proposal to try and bring Joe back. This idea was shot down by then-CEO Stephen Hassenfeld. The execs tried again in 1981, pitching the idea that would become the Real American Hero line that many of us grew up with.
The new line wasn't just an attempt to bring back Hasbro's signature boys' toy, but also a way to try and compete with the phenomenal success of Kenner's Star Wars toyline (approx 100 million in sales in 1978). The new Joe figures would be approximately the same size as the Kenner figures but would feature more points of articulation and have gear that they could hold or that could be snapped onto them.
The reason GI Joe debuted in 1982 was because Hasbro execs wanted at least a one year window of opportunity to 'grow' their brand before Return of the Jedi hit theatres in 1983.
As part of the marketing strategy for the new toyline, Hasbro's advertising agency came up with the idea of adding in a comic and a cartoon. Both the comic and the cartoon seem to have been ways to generate 'hall talk' among school-aged boys (what modern marketers would call 'buzz'). The comic was also used as a way to do an end-run around then-current regulations regarding advertising in children's TV:
As the Reagan years wore on, children's TV would be substantially deregulated, paving the way for the free wheeling era of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. But broad deregulation was something marketers only yearned for in the early eighties. Networks and stations still adhered to a voluntary set of guidelines (established by the National Association of Broadcasters) limiting toy commercials. Specifically discouraged was excessive animation, which might mislead minds too young to distinguish reliably between fantasy and reality. "Fantasy is such a healthy part of play, " Bacal would later say, "and they weren't permitting it except under the most rigid of circumstances, like having to say 'You can imagine' before you could say anything." But there was no rule against commercials for comics; no one h ad ever seen the need. "You're kidding," Marvel's chairman said when Schwartz offered him $3 million to advertise the new title. Schwartz wasn't kidding. He trusted kids to make the connection between comics and toys. (Miller, 35-36)
And, one can assume, the same connection between cartoons and toys. Something that was probably helped along by the fact that the animation for the comic commercial was done by the same company that did the animation for the cartoon series. In fact, Marvel Productions, the entertainment arm of the comic publisher, co-produced the GI Joe cartoon (among others) with Sunbow Entertainment, a subsidiary of Griffen-Bacal, Hasbro's advertising agency.
Here's how it breaks down: both the comics and the cartoons were based on the Hasbro toys and intended to help move them, the comic featured animation from the cartoon's studio and the cartoon was co-produced by the company that did the comics. If this were any more incestuous, we could slap a crown on it and call it "King."
To an extent, the Sunbow cartoon was a twenty-two minute toy commercial. It was conceived of as a way to demonstrate the toys and the characters and intended to help introduce new characters and toys as they were produced. The cartoon was just one aspect of the original three-pronged marketing plan of toys, comic and cartoon.
And before any comic fans start getting too smug, please keep in mind that the comic was a 22-page toy commercial created as part of the same marketing plan as the cartoon.
Luckily for us, the cartoon and the comic were both handed over to people who knew what they were doing when it came to storytelling. And Hasbro was smart enough to listen, at least most of the time (*cough*Cobra-La*cough*).
And with that said, on to the reviews!
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Note on Updates: I made something of a promise to myself when I decided to undertake this project: I'm going to be reviewing the Sunbow series from DVD. There's a couple reasons for this: Firstly, because I'll have all the episodes in actual broadcast order and secondly because DVD suits my particular review style very well. I do all of my reviews by taking notes on the particular episode and then sit down with the notes and type them up on computer. Being able to start and stop a DVD is a lot easier than having to start and stop my sixteen-year-old VCR.
For now, the only episodes I have on DVD are the first two miniseries. But, once I'm able to get my hands on the actual episodes on DVD, expect updates at least weekly.
Sunbow Episodes:
GI Joe: The Movie Cobra-La, Lt. Falcon and Duke almost snuffs it. Hooboy...