Hearts and Cannons

The Joes' cargo plane loses two engines in a storm and the Mauler is ejected so that it can limp home. Dusty and Footloose jump and land near a Cobra weapons range, where Destro congratulates Dr. Nancy Winters on a plasma cannon she built in return for a promise of freedom. The pair sneak into the base, steal a jeep and drive her out.

Pursued across a minefield and through a sandstorm, they are separated. Footloose and Winters reach a ruined temple where Jabal, who first mistakes Footloose for Cobra, has found the fallen Mauler. With Dusty's help they fight off Destro's plasma tank; Winters spots the weak point in the tank, Dusty jams its wheels and Footloose fires. Jabal reveals he is a king and takes Winters to see his palace.

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

"You have what you wanted, Destro. Now I want my freedom." -- Dr. Winters

"Nancy Winters. "Dr. Winters" to you." -- Dr. Winters

"I'm Dr. Footloose, and that's Dusty up there. He's just an intern." -- Footloose

"To a land mine, you're, like, just something heavy, same as this."

"Out of the question! That would improve their chances of escape." -- Destro

"A thousand pardons. You are no Cobra slime." -- Jabal

"Watch my dust, metal mouth! Here comes High Gear!"

"I liberate his country, and he steals my girl!"

"And I think you're still deeply deluded."

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.

Who is rescuing whom? Footloose and Dusty drop into the desert to save a scientist. Alfred Pegal's story, scripted with Larry Houston, spends its running time establishing that she understands the weapon at the heart of it better than anyone else on screen. Dr. Nancy Winters designed Destro's plasma cannon, and much of what makes the rescue work is hers.

The set-up is brisk and a little grim. Cobra troops count 140 villagers into the back of a truck under Major Bludd's eye, "enough for Destro's needs," while a hooded man swears a thousand curses on the snake warriors. Then the tone swings. The Joes' cargo plane loses two engines in a storm, the cargo has to go, and Footloose and Dusty jump into the ozone. Footloose supplies the comedy, talking in a drift of "like" and "man," and Dusty is the sober half, the one who drives the stolen Cobra vehicle and keeps his head. The pairing is sharp, and it gives Dr. Winters two very different men to put up with.

The episode gets interesting once Dr. Winters is out of the base: she is an engineer being rescued by two soldiers, and she is the one who knows the machine. A voice shouts that Destro's plasma cannon "will cut you to pieces," and someone on the radio knows the rear of Destro's tank is not armored. When it is pointed out that she invented the other cannon, she says "I'll give it a shot" and aims the Mauler's gun. The standout scene, though, belongs to Footloose. Winters has stepped on a glowing pink mine and the defenses are announcing a death zone. Footloose settles into a lecture on how everything is everything: to a land mine she is just something heavy, "same as this," so she should lift her foot gently. It sounds like patter and is, apparently, a working piece of engineering, because they walk out in single file with blasts going off behind them [1]. The least serious talker gets the one technical idea.

Destro gets the best villain beat, and it is a matter of administration rather than menace. His troops stop at the edge of his own automatic defenses, a trooper begs him to switch them off because pursuit is suicide, and Destro refuses: "Out of the question! That would improve their chances of escape." He then orders Rattler Squadron to open fire on his own men if the chase does not resume in ten seconds, and the troops answer with the Cobra chant. The logic is airtight on its own terms, and it makes Destro a danger to his own side while the Joes simply walk through the gap.

Jabal supplies the other lift. He ties Footloose to a temple wall and tells him he has come there to die, then notices the G.I. Joe patch on a camouflage sleeve, the same sign as "the chariot which fell from the sky," and apologises for being a bit fanatical. The chariot is the Mauler jettisoned at the start, so the episode quietly closes that loop [2].

The weakness is the finish. The scientist who has just spotted the decisive shot is invited to see a king's palace, and the two Joes bicker over who saw her first. "I think Nancy likes me," answered with "I think you're still deeply deluded," repeats the exchange from the jump about Cover Girl. The bookend is neat, but it hands the last gag to the two men who did the least thinking, and the woman who has been steering all along gets one bright "I'd be delighted" before the credits.

It is a comic desert runaround with a better brain than it needs, and the brain is Dr. Winters's. We wish the show had given her the last word!

1 ^ The sequence runs in short beats from 7:19 to 8:44. The recorded death-zone warning at 7:19 is repeated at 9:05 when Destro's own troops reach the same line, and the blasts at 8:36 follow the order to pursue.

2 ^ The Mauler leaves the plane at 2:24 and Jabal shows it to Footloose at 14:52; Footloose then radios Dusty from its hatch. Cobra Commander is heard only once, answering that same kind of radio call at 16:39.

1. The Joe wiki lists a pile of Star Wars parallels: a desert setting, two heroes springing a woman from an evil organization, a superweapon beaten by hitting its weak spot ("Shoot for the rear of Destro's tank! It's not armored!"), and a closing medal ceremony.
2. Even Destro is off form. He is normally the cool counterpoint to Cobra Commander, but the Joe wiki points out that here he orders his men through his own minefield: "How dare you stop! Resume the pursuit at once!"
3. The aired story differs from the official Sunbow synopsis. In that description a storm forces a transport pilot to drop the Mauler, and Dusty and Footloose stay with it and learn of an alloy that conventional weapons cannot harm. On screen the plane loses two engines, the Mauler is ejected to lighten the load, and the pair jump because "time's flying and we're jumping."
4. Fans on the Joe wiki say the title plays on "hearts and minds," the phrase for winning an enemy's loyalty.
5. Footloose introduces himself to Dr. Winters as "Dr. Footloose" and says Dusty is "just an intern." His surfer talk is in full swing; in [Three Cubes to Darkness](/cartoons/1985/episodes/three-cubes-to-darkness/) he is the one who compares a creeping sense of dread to a killer wave sneaking up behind you.
6. Somebody signs off with "Happy trails!" as they make their getaway, echoing the "Happy trails, Gung-Ho!" at the end of [Battle for the Train of Gold](/cartoons/1985/episodes/battle-for-the-train-of-gold/).
7. The Joe wiki says the Mauler is weaker than the plasma cannon tank. It ends up in the temple of Jabal, who recognizes the Joe sign as the one on "the chariot which fell from the sky." Two weeks earlier it had been stuck in traffic in [Bazooka Saw a Sea Serpent](/cartoons/1985/episodes/bazooka-saw-a-sea-serpent/).
8. A fan guide counts three trims in the old USA Network print, of about 30, 7 and 24 seconds. The longest cuts Destro's voice-over and a bit of chatter between Dusty, Footloose and Dr. Winters.
9. The Joe wiki also documents a Now You Know safety segment tied to this one, Barbecue's reminder not to pull false fire alarms.