Cold Slither

Major Bludd's loot convoy is ambushed in the desert, and the Joes raid a Cobra fortress, leaving Cobra Commander bankrupt. Tomax and Xamot of Extensive Enterprises give him 48 hours to find $200 million, and the Commander borrows from a loan shark, then flees with the cash to Zartan's swamp lair. There Destro and the Baroness unveil Operation Cold Slither: a rock band of Dreadnoks whose music carries subliminal commands.

The record climbs the charts while the idle Joes grow restless, and Breaker, Shipwreck and Footloose slip away to the concert. Duke sends military police after them, but the crowd, the police and the Joes are all hypnotised and held hostage for $100 billion. The Dreadnoks walk off over pay, Scarlett's team, on whom the music has no effect, takes Cobra's control room, and the Joes finish the night as the Average Joe Band.

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

"I control the largest criminal organization in the world." -- Cobra Commander

"That was true until today... when all of your men applied for unemployment benefits."

"Time is a precious community, and I despise people who abstruse it." -- The loan shark

"Glad to see that you are punctuation." -- The loan shark

"This is art, not exploitation." -- The video director

"5 whole dollars?" -- A Dreadnok

"Ah, ever since Cobra disbanded, we haven't had anything to do except keep the dust off the tanks."

"Cobra lulled us into complacency, and now they're beating us."

"You want more play, we get more pay." -- A Dreadnok

"No, we knew your taste in music."

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.

An army without an enemy is just a payroll, and "Cold Slither" applies that idea to both sides at once. The Joes open by winning: a desert ambush, Major Bludd roaring off in a blue Cobra vehicle with a promise to live to fight another day, and a raid that leaves chests of gold coins and jewels spilling open. Cobra's reply is to go bankrupt. Tomax and Xamot, sitting under an Extensive Enterprises sign, inform Cobra Commander that the raid has wiped out his assets and that his creditors want paying. Then comes the line that sets the tone for the rest of the episode: all of his men have applied for unemployment benefits.

What follows is a comedy about two organisations with nothing to do and two ways of coping with it. Cobra has 48 hours to find $200 million, so it does what a bankrupt company does and becomes a business. Commander borrows a million dollars at 400% a week from a loan shark who mangles every long word he reaches for ("Glad to see that you are punctuation") and carries the money to Zartan's swamp, where Destro's project is waiting. Operation Cold Slither is a rock band of Dreadnoks, miming to a song with subliminal commands buried in the record and the video, and paid by the hour.

The episode is about idleness, and the script is not shy about saying so. On the Joe side, Shipwreck lies across a couch with his parrot on his shoulder, Breaker slumps at his headset, Gung-Ho poses on a diving board, and somebody explains that since Cobra disbanded there has been nothing to do except keep the dust off the tanks. Three of them desert for the concert, Duke answers with a court-martial and a speech about discipline, and the military police he sends to fetch them are taken by the music in their turn. [1] By the time the crowd is on its knees, a Joe is spelling out the thesis for us: Cobra lulled them into complacency, and now Cobra is beating them.

Cobra falls apart on the same hinge. The Dreadnoks were hired by the hour, and in the middle of the spell they decide their shift is up and that more play means more pay. A plan that has a whole stadium chanting "Long live Cobra" is undone by a labour dispute on stage and by Joes the music does not reach. That gives the script its neatest gag: asked whether they knew about the subliminal messages, the answer is that they knew Cobra's taste in music. Cobra's weakness was never the technology; a boss who underpays his band has no hold on it when the money stops.

The studio scene is the best thing in the episode, and it earns that on small details. A director in tinted glasses cries that this is art, not exploitation, a crewman raises the union rules on overtime, and the reply is that the only union they should care about is the one between their heads and their shoulders. Then the director throws up his hands, and the note Cobra Commander gives on the shoot is his philosophy of management in one breath: you fool, this is what I want, keep the film rolling.

The weakness is the back half. A hostage crisis, complete with a $100 billion demand and a two-hour deadline, arrives late and is over almost at once. The Joe counterplan is announced with "I've got an idea" before the cut to the Dreadnoks leaving the stage, so the rescue happens in the gap between two shots. [2] A twenty-two minute slot has to resolve somewhere, which is forgivable, but the loudest idea in the episode, an enslaved crowd shouting whatever Cobra tells it, is the one the script has least time to use.

This is the show at its most relaxed: the weapons mostly stay in their racks, the stakes are a chart position, and the episode closes on the Average Joe Band singing the theme song to the audience Cobra had kidnapped. It is silly, it knows it, and we enjoyed every minute!

1 ^ Footloose is named among the AWOL trio only once, in the K.P. duty order at 19:43; he is not named anywhere else on screen, so the desertion scene is carried on screen by Shipwreck and Breaker.

2 ^ "I've got an idea" lands at 17:18, Scarlett is on the radio to Duke by 18:37, and the Average Joe Band is introduced at 20:45 as the payoff to whatever the idea was.

1. According to the G.I. Joe wiki, the "Cold Slither" song turns up again in Season 2, as a record played in "Raise the Flagg!". Not bad for a tune that Destro designed as a delivery system for subliminal messages.
2. When the Joes raid a fortress, Cobra Commander is left flat broke, and Tomax and Xamot of Extensive Enterprises give him "48 hours" to find $200 million. The same front company owns the drive-in in [Red Rocket's Glare](/cartoons/1985/episodes/red-rockets-glare/), and its branches are where Cobra tells the public to bring their valuables in [Money to Burn](/cartoons/1985/episodes/money-to-burn/), which gives the Joes their lead.
3. The Dreadnoks are hired to mouth the lyrics for "$5 an hour", and the G.I. Joe wiki points out that this is well above the 1985 U.S. minimum wage of $3.35, which explains why one of them is stunned by the pay.
4. A director in tinted glasses shouts "This is art, not exploitation" on the video set. JoeGuide suggests it mirrors the show's creators defending the series against critics who called it a half-hour toy commercial, and fans identify the director as the same George who makes the movie in [Lights! Camera! Cobra!](/cartoons/1985/episodes/lights-camera-cobra/).
5. The loan shark who lends Cobra Commander his money is a walking vocabulary mangler: "Glad to see that you are punctuation", "how can I be of abstinence to youse", "I was tryin' to be socializable". The Commander has to correct him, "That's 'punctual.'"
6. The tour group that Tomax and Xamot lead through the Cobra base is a gallery of real-world figures, according to fan sites. JoeGuide spots Fidel Castro and the Ayatollah, and the G.I. Joe wiki adds Qaddafi, billed as "Mumar"
7. Fans on the wiki and JoeGuide catch several slips. The Extensive Enterprises sign reads "Empterprise", the pool hall sign says "STNIKY'S", Shipwreck's gun is realistic when he leaves the base but a laser pistol after the commercial break, and Buzzer's mohawk turns into a ponytail between the stage and the hallway. Zartan also vanishes once the Dreadnoks leave the stage.
8. The episode ends with the Joes performing as "the Average Joe Band," singing the show's own theme to an arena crowd chanting "We want music!" JoeGuide notes that it was released on VHS by Kid Rhino as volume six.