Cobra's Candidate

Colonel Sharp sends a handful of Joes into a city where street gangs are terrorising supporters of mayoral candidate Robert Harper. Scarlett and Lady Jaye pull Harper out of a wrecked rally, but the Dreadnoks, who are paying the gangs on Cobra's behalf, capture several Joes. The two women trace Harper to Tomax and Xamot and overhear the scheme: the attacks are meant to push voters his way so that he can arrest the gangs once elected.

They hunt down the gang leader Pelar through her ten-year-old brother Tito, but she will not believe them. When Cobra's pier ambush leaves Tito in a burning building, Pelar abandons the Dreadnoks to save him and her gang turns on Cobra. Cobra rescues Harper in full view of the crowd, his link to the terrorists is exposed, and Greenway wins in a landslide.

Voice talents, as credited on this episode's closing titles. The Sunbow credit crawl lists the company of voice actors and does not assign roles, so no role attributions are given here.

Liz Aubrey Jackson Beck Michael Bell Gregg Berger Arthur Burghardt Corey Burton Darlene Carr Francois Chau Peter Cullen Christian Czingland Pat Fraley Barbara Goodson Dave Hall Johnny Haymer Zack Hoffman Kene Holliday Michael Horton John Hostetter Buster Jones Stan Jones Jimmy Keegan Christopher Latta Hap Lawrence Pat Lentz Loren Lester Ketty Lester Mary McDonald Lewis Morgan Lofting Mona Marshall Bill Morey Rob Paulsen Bill Ratner Hal Rayle Neil Ross Dan Roth Will Ryan Marilyn Schreffler John Stephenson B.J. Ward Lee Weaver Frank Welker Michael Yama Keone Young

"The "enemy," Lady Jaye, is barely old enough to vote." -- Colonel Sharp

"Too bad we have to keep pulling our punches with these punks."

"Yeah, well, don't forget, they're just kids."

"You and your gang have been had."

"The Blue-Jean Brigade blew it, mates." -- A Dreadnok

"Cobra Commander knows I can't read." -- A Dreadnok

"You Cobras aren't ambitious enough. Why limit yourself to fixing elections? Why not the World Series, too?" -- Zap

"Cobra does not reward failure, worm!"

"I hate it when we back a loser."

Transcribed from the episode's closed-caption subtitle track and converted from capitals to sentence case. Speakers are named only where the track or the picture makes them clear.

Hardly anyone in Cobra's Candidate is working for the cause they think they are. Pelar's gang believes Cobra is its patron, a source of money and protection against a candidate who wants them jailed. Harper believes he is running an honest campaign. The Joes, sent into the city by Colonel Sharp because the police have lost control of the streets, spend the first act believing they are refereeing a gang war. Each of them is a lever in somebody else's plan, and Gordon Kent takes his time showing whose hand is on which one.

Harper promises law and order from a podium while Rick and Pelar are already out on the street, leaning on a man in a purple room for the right answer to a poll with one question. Sharp briefs the team and tells Scarlett this is no full-scale assault; she hopes the enemy knows that, and he replies that the enemy is barely old enough to vote [1]. That line sets the rules for the episode. Later one Joe complains about pulling punches with these punks and another answers that they are just kids. In the candy store and the soda shop the Joes are hampered rather than outgunned, which gives the action a texture the usual laser skirmish lacks.

The best scene is the least active one. Tomax and Xamot congratulate Harper, and a monitor brings in Cobra Commander. The plan is laid out in plain words: the gangs think Cobra wants Greenway to win, which makes their hatred of Harper more real; their attacks swing the voters his way; and once he takes office he can simply arrest them and keep his campaign promise. A children's cartoon from 1985 has its villains manufacture a crime wave in order to sell the crackdown. Harper starts the scene asking congratulations for what, learns that he has been bought, and asks only about the gangs. Scarlett and Lady Jaye hear all of it through a pane of glass from a rappel line, and the fact that nobody else knows what they know drives the rest of the hour.

The one who notices that they are all being used turns out to be the person nobody wanted in the gang. Tito is ten and sells his services as a guide for twenty bucks. The Joes tell Pelar the truth and she calls them liars. Her gang then laughs Tito out of the rally as a baby who should be home with his mama. When the buildings go up with him inside, the argument lost in her mother's candy store is won in a second. She runs into the fire, and the Dreadnoks, told to do what they are paid to do, find a gang that no longer wants to be their flunkies. The Joes' evidence persuaded no one. A frightened kid did.

Cobra gets its share of the good lines. A Dreadnok handed a written order says Cobra Commander knows he cannot read, a small joke about who Cobra recruits. Zap, a prisoner at the time, tells his captors they are not ambitious enough: why stop at fixing elections when there is a World Series to rig? The verdict on failure is that Cobra does not reward it, and the twins close the story by sighing that they hate backing a loser [2].

The weakness is the ending's machinery. Harper's exposure does not come from anything the Joes do with their information; it comes from Cobra rescuing him in full view of his own supporters, which undoes the careful scheming by carelessness. The Joes win by default. A slot this short has no room for them to deliver the proof, and Whittier Greenway, the man the election is supposedly about, is a name in the dialogue and a bar on a results board [3].

Pelar's turn is earned by her brother rather than by a lecture, and the Joes, for once, are the ones who have to hold back. Cobra's Candidate is modest, and we are glad the show let a ten-year-old win the argument!

1 ^ Sharp's briefing runs from 2:18 to 2:41, and the subtitle track has him address the reply to Lady Jaye.

2 ^ The figure in the blue and red battle suit on a ledge at 10:17 and 10:38 looks like a Crimson Guard Commander, but a cry of "They hit Xamot" follows at 10:42, which points to one of the twins. The screen never says which.

3 ^ The reporter gives the result as the greatest landslide in history with 98% of the vote in; the twins wonder who cast the two votes for Harper, and offer his mother and his wife.

1. Tomax and Xamot split a line while talking to Harper: "Who could ask for any..." "...thing more?" Fans on both the G.I. Joe wiki and JoeGuide catch it as the tagline from a 1980s Toyota commercial dropped into the dialogue.
2. The gang that opens the episode "taking a poll" talks in a voice fans compare to Marlon Brando in "The Godfather," and the rebellious look of the gang is credited by fans to James Dean in "Rebel Without a Cause." JoeGuide also ties the Blue Jean Brigade to the mutant gang in "The Dark Knight Returns."
3. This is one of the stories where the Joes are told to hold back. Colonel Sharp says the president asked for a unit of Joes and insists "this isn't a full-scale assault," and later a Joe grumbles that it is "too bad we have to keep pulling our punches with these punks," only to hear "Don't forget, they're just kids."
4. Cobra's scheme is nicely cynical. The street gangs are described as Cobra's pawns who "think we really want Whittier Greenway to win," so their attacks on Harper swing the voters his way. Harper's plan is to "simply arrest" the gangs once he takes office, so Cobra is using the gangs and Harper at once.
5. A Dreadnok says "Cobra Commander knows I can't read" when handed a message. The G.I. Joe wiki attributes the line to Buzzer and points out that his filecard says he was once a sociology professor. It is the same Buzzer who runs the explosives class in [Countdown for Zartan](/cartoons/1985/episodes/countdown-for-zartan/).
6. The G.I. Joe wiki says Firefly's remote detonator for the bombs planted in empty warehouses around the pier looks very much like the synthoid controller from [Synthoid Conspiracy, Part I](/cartoons/1985/episodes/synthoid-conspiracy-part-i/). Firefly also gets a nicely petty exchange with Zartan, whom he calls "swamp breath."
7. The G.I. Joe wiki lists a couple of slips. Right after the first commercial cliffhanger, a quick cutaway shows Zap and Snake Eyes running when it ought to be Zap and Spirit. And Scarlett sits in the front seat with Wild Bill, vanishes when he says "Did you see that?", then is back in the next shot.
8. The final radio report has Greenway winning "by the greatest landslide in history" after Harper's Cobra ties come out, and Tomax and Xamot mutter "I hate it when we back a loser." JoeGuide notes that a USA Network rerun cut Tito's vow to "start my own gang" along with several other lines.