Cobra's Creatures

Flint is flying cover on a Canine Corps parachute test when Mutt and Junkyard disappear. They have been taken to Dr. Lucifer's castle, where Cobra Commander agrees to buy Hi-Freq, a weapon that controls the mind of any animal or insect, in exchange for freeing the woman Lucifer loves, Professor Attila. As a demonstration, Junkyard is turned against Mutt and the two are set loose in the jungle, hunter and prey.

Cobra then puts lions, whales and insects to work around the world and demands a list of prisoners. Doc names Lucifer as the builder, and the Joes send Scarlett into the castle disguised as Attila. Lucifer exposes her, and she and Ripcord are chained in a spider-filled dungeon until Spirit and Snake Eyes get in with Freedom and Timber. The Joes storm the castle, Junkyard comes back to himself, and Lucifer is told he will spend the rest of his life next to the woman he loves.

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

"Look, you can mess with my mind, you crazy quack, but nobody messes with my pooch!" -- Mutt

"If Hi-Freq can control a G.I. Joe dog, I will believe your weapon works." -- Cobra Commander

"Odd, isn't it, how time flies." -- Cobra Commander

"Ol' Junk wouldn't turn on me, and no blamed machine could make him." -- Mutt

"I'm sorry, boy! Honest I am!" -- Mutt

"My Attila, the real Attila, would never kiss me without insulting me first!" -- Dr. Lucifer

"You, woman, are a fraud! I have never proposed to Attila!" -- Dr. Lucifer

"Death is coming for you, on 8,000 fat, little legs." -- Cobra Commander

"A firing squad, maybe, with 4,000 short, overweight soldiers?"

"Well, Dr. Lucifer, your dream's gonna come true. You get to spend the rest of your life next to the woman you love."

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.

Love is the lever in Cobra's Creatures, and the episode pulls it from two directions at once. Dr. Lucifer sells Cobra Commander his Hi-Freq weapon for a single price: Professor Attila, the woman he loves, who is locked in the maximum security section of Stonehall Prison. The Commander wants a demonstration before he seals the bargain. The Joes watch the Commander's ultimatum from the command center. Doc names Lucifer as the only man clever enough to have built the thing, and someone answers that the way in is a sneak attack where the big brain would least expect it, namely his heart.

Scarlett goes in as Attila, in a white lab coat and black-rimmed glasses, and Cobra's own troops deliver her to the castle believing they have kept the bargain. What follows is the best-written scene in the episode. She greets Lucifer with a warmth he cannot stomach, and he tells the room that the real Attila would never kiss him without insulting him first. She tries to recover by agreeing, in the tenderest terms, that a woman never forgets the first time he proposed, and Lucifer, who has been waiting for that answer, announces that he has never proposed to Attila at all [1]. The test was a bluff, and a better one than anything Cobra Commander manages all episode. Lucifer is a villain through and through, but he knows the woman he loves well enough to be suspicious of her kindness.

Underneath the castle intrigue, though, sits a dog. Hi-Freq makes something that loves a man attack him, and Cobra Commander picks the cleanest proof of concept going: "If Hi-Freq can control a G.I. Joe dog, I will believe your weapon works." Junkyard is the right victim for a demonstration, because the one man he would never bite is the one Cobra wants him to. So the question the script keeps asking is what Mutt does when the weapon aimed at him is the creature that loves him. His answer is to spend the chase trying not to hurt his friend. He insists it is "all some sort of crazy trick." He tells the dog to "stay back, boy." When he finally has to swing a branch, he apologises while doing it. The promised head start is withdrawn almost before it is granted [2]. The quietest beat is the best one: beaten in the dark, Mutt tells Junkyard "you win," asks him to get it over with, and gets a whimper in reply.

The rescue crew is a pleasure too! Spirit and Snake Eyes get into the castle by presenting themselves as prisoners, with Freedom and Timber told to act as their guards [3]. In the dungeon, Scarlett and Ripcord are chained up among spiders, and their exchange is the funniest in the episode. Cobra Commander threatens them with death "on 8,000 fat, little legs", and a chained Joe guesses he means a firing squad of overweight soldiers.

The episode is thinner once it goes global. The title promises creatures and the first half delivers a tour: lions, a pod of whales around a freighter, a swarm that jams a Joe pilot's jets and sends him down. Cobra Commander's broadcast demands a prisoner list, and a list is as far as that thread goes. The dialogue never says what becomes of the animals, and Junkyard's cure arrives with no explanation while the Commander is shouting at Lucifer to turn the dial. When the Commander gets away, a Joe shrugs that there will always be evil and evil men, a fair thing to say and a very small answer to a worldwide animal army.

The closing taunt is the better ending, because it circles back to the first idea. Lucifer is told he will spend the rest of his life next to the woman he loves, which is, after all, what he bargained for.

1 ^ The closed-caption track prints Lucifer's accusation at 12:40 as "this woman is am impostor"; it looks like a transcription slip rather than a line the script intended.

2 ^ At 5:31 Cobra Commander orders a five-minute head start for the prey, and at 5:59 he has Lucifer release the hunter; asked about it, he says "odd, isn't it, how time flies."

3 ^ The rescue is introduced by the line "Piranha! Your swim, Snake Eyes, would have been fatal" at 18:17, but the picture on screen shows only a rounded object dropping toward dark water, so the beat is carried by dialogue.

1. This one was made first and shown late. Its production number is 600-01, the lowest in the run, yet it aired as the 21st episode of the first season run. Fans on the G.I. Joe wiki blame the shuffled order for Snake Eyes appearing in a midnight navy outfit here when he wears blue-gray in other episodes of the same stretch.
2. Scarlett's undercover stint as Professor Attila is the best gag in the episode. Dr. Lucifer sees through her when she kisses him, since the real Attila "would never kiss me without insulting me first," and then he tests her with a question about the first time he proposed marriage, which he never actually did.
3. Dr. Lucifer's "Hi-Freq" panel is built from a grid of animal icons. Fans on the wiki note the animators saved effort by showing him press only one button, with a different animal on it each time: a dog for Junkyard, whales later.
4. Spirit and Snake Eyes talk Freedom and Timber into playing guards, so the eagle and the wolf march their two "prisoners" into the castle. A Joe fan guide complains that the Joes lower their weapons before the order to surrender is even given.
5. Cobra Commander promises Mutt a five-minute head start and then sets Junkyard loose at once: "Odd, isn't it, how time flies." Junkyard's eyes glow blue whenever the Hi-Freq signal has him.
6. The spiders that swarm Scarlett and Ripcord make her yell "I hate spiders!" The same sentiment shows up again in [Skeletons in the Closet](/cartoons/1985/episodes/skeletons-in-the-closet/), where a character facing a giant spider says "I hate spiders."
7. The closing public service spot has Alpine helping a kid who lost his brother and ending with the series catchphrase "Knowing is half the battle." A Joe fan guide records that this episode was also issued as a volume in the commercial home-video series.
8. Dr. Lucifer appears in no other episode of the season, and he gets his comeuppance by being locked up next to the woman he loves. Another Cobra-captured scientist shows up soon after in [Primordial Plot](/cartoons/1985/episodes/primordial-plot/), where Dr. Massey is forced to clone dinosaurs for Cobra.