Lasers in the Night

Amber, a night-school student who wants to do something that matters, volunteers at a G.I. Joe martial arts exhibition, flattens Quick Kick on the mat and starts dating him. Meanwhile the Baroness, on Cobra Commander's orders, sets out to take a laser guidance system the Joes have developed. A lab fire leaves a hoarse Lady Jaye at Joe headquarters, and that night the Joes change their security code to 10-6-9, which Cobra then uses to bring Rattlers through. Lady Jaye's SkyStriker apparently goes down in the sea, the guidance system is gone, and Duke decides the spy is Amber.

Amber goes to Snake Island to clear her name and meets Lady Jaye in a Cobra control room, who turns out to be the Baroness. Quick Kick follows, the real Lady Jaye and Gung-Ho turn up free, and Cobra Commander's plan to paint his face on the moon comes apart.

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

"Martial arts isn't just chopping and socking. It's a discipline that teaches total concentration." -- Quick Kick

"I said I'd go easy. Yeah, but I didn't." -- Quick Kick, then Amber

"History is made by people who do things. What do I do? Nothing." -- Amber

"I want to do that. I want to be a Joe, like you." -- Amber

"Plenty dangerous, Amber. Plenty." -- Quick Kick

"I am, but I'm not Lady Jaye. You may call me...the Baroness, and call yourself a fool." -- The Baroness, disguised as Lady Jaye

"You've wasted millions on this, this cosmic graffiti?!" -- Destro

"Hey, where are the other prisoners?"

"Oh. They got bored and left."

"Oh, Jerry, don't ask for the moon. We have the stars." -- Quick Kick, imitating Bette Davis

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.

The easiest person to suspect is the one who asks to be let in. Amber comes out of a night class on Greek heroism, where a professor says that history is made by people who do things, and announces that what she does is nothing. She is a candy striper, she runs charity fairs, she teaches karate to children, and she wants to be a Joe. By the middle of the episode the Joes have decided she is a Cobra spy, while the actual spy has spent the episode in Lady Jaye's uniform, believed without having to ask for anything.

Marv Wolfman's script comes down to this: trust goes to whoever already looks like they belong, and goes there most easily when a stranger is on hand to take the blame. Cobra does not need a clever cover story. It needs the Joes to have someone to be suspicious of, and Amber supplies herself by wandering into the hangar and the map room with wide eyes. Duke announces the new SkyStriker security code, 10-6-9, in her hearing, and nobody in the scene appears to think that is a risk [1].

The script plays fair with the real culprit, and the Snake Island turn is a pleasure for it. [2] After the lab fire the Lady Jaye we see is hoarse. She tells Duke she is fine, tells him again, and when he says to have Doc look at her throat because he does not like the sound of it, she answers "If you insist, Duke." Anyone who wants the clue has it from the first scene after the fire, which makes the second viewing great fun! When Amber blunders into the Cobra control room and asks if Lady Jaye is a Cobra agent, the reply is the best exchange in the episode: "I am, but I'm not Lady Jaye. You may call me the Baroness, and call yourself a fool." She then explains the plan in one sentence: because the Joes thought Amber was the spy, they never saw her steal the guidance system. The suspicion of the outsider was the disguise all along.

Around that sits Quick Kick's courtship, the warm part. He does film impressions the way other men tell jokes: Bogart on the walk after the exhibition, Jimmy Stewart under the full moon, John Wayne when he is asked to vouch for Amber, Cagney when he is caught, Bette Davis in the last scene. Amber guesses Wayne for the Stewart and has no idea who Jerry is in the Davis. The gag makes him likeable and shows she is never quite in on his references, and it pays off when the episode ends on her turning his own line back on him: "Oh, Quick Kick. What am I going to do with you?"

The weakness is the payoff. A test report praises the long-range laser guidance system as precise enough to shoot a gnat off the rings of Saturn, and the Baroness risks her cover, a burning lab and a faked radio call to get it. Cobra Commander uses it to paint his face on the moon so that everyone will know Cobra is undefeatable, and Destro's reaction is the sensible one: "You've wasted millions on this, this cosmic graffiti?!" The script knows the plan is silly, since it hands Destro that line, but knowing does not turn a clever theft into a threat the audience can fear. A face on the moon is a striking image and the animators clearly enjoy it, but it is not something to be frightened of.

The Joe side earns its ending. The team apologises for pegging her as a spy, Amber replies that she gave them reason enough and did everything wrong, and then, offered a place on the team, asks whether she might finish school first. It is a quiet, generous end for a guest character who spent most of the episode being wrong in public. The one person in this story who never faked anything is the one treated as the fake, and she is the only one who leaves with her name intact.

1 ^ The caption track labels the first cry at the burning lab, "Lady Jaye. Lady Jaye!" at 6:10, as the Baroness, and a Cobra monitor shows the code 10-6-9 on screen at 10:37, which is how we know Cobra has it before the Rattlers arrive.

2 ^ Gung-Ho is the one held with the real Lady Jaye, and when she asks whether he knows Amber he says he has never seen her before (about 15:51); the other prisoners, asked about at 18:16, are said to have got bored and left.

1. The woman the Joes pull from the burning lab is the Baroness in a Lady Jaye disguise, and she answers in a hoarse voice. When Duke asks, "Your throat still bothering you, Lady Jaye?", she says, "Just a bit." She reveals herself with "I am, but I'm not Lady Jaye" once Amber barges into the Cobra base. It is not her only disguise: she is Dr. Entwhistle in [Haul Down the Heavens](/cartoons/1985/episodes/haul-down-the-heavens/) and Mary Belle in [Where the Reptiles Roam](/cartoons/1985/episodes/where-the-reptiles-roam/).
2. Quick Kick is the show's movie impressionist, and the episode is stuffed with his bits. Humphrey Bogart from Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Jimmy Stewart from It's a Wonderful Life, John Wayne, James Cagney, and a sign-off of "That's all, folks" all turn up, and JoeGuide notes the A-Team line "I love it when a plan comes together" at the climax. The Joe wiki's list adds Steve Martin and a Mae West line.
3. The joke at the end is that the impressionist gets stumped. Amber does Bette Davis with "Oh, Jerry, don't ask for the moon. We have the stars," and Quick Kick can only say, "Jerry? Who's Jerry?" until she explains she is doing Bette Davis from Now, Voyager. His earlier line "Amber, what am I going to do with you?" comes back to him at the close.
4. Cobra Commander's plan is to burn his face into the moon with a stolen Joe laser guidance system, and Destro's verdict is "You've wasted millions on this... this cosmic graffiti?!" Destro has a gripe of his own, too. Earlier he tells the Commander, "Our agreement specifies that I supply all your weaponry."
5. JoeGuide guesses the title nods to the song "Strangers in the Night," and one of its reviewers argues that the full moon works like a chorus, appearing at the first meeting of Quick Kick and Amber, the lab fire, the boat ride, and the final shot.
6. Duke lets a civilian who has just broken into a top-secret base take the tour, and the day's security code, 10-6-9, is announced in a room where she can hear it. The Joe wiki's continuity list finds this unlikely, and finds it just as unlikely that Duke later offers her a place on the team.
7. No other episode of the season names Snake Island. It is where Cobra holds Gung-Ho and the real Lady Jaye, and where Cobra Commander unveils his moon laser.
8. The Joe wiki spots a seating glitch in the briefing room: Spirit, Flash and Dusty are at the table in one shot and gone in the reverse angle. JoeGuide also lists several cuts made for later USA Network showings, including trims to scenes with Amber and Quick Kick.