Money to Burn

A poker game among Rip Cord, Breaker and another Joe is cut short when every dollar in the room flashes out of existence. Destro's thermomolecular ignition transmitter is working, and Cobra Commander goes on television to announce that the nation's money is worthless and that anyone who wants new money should bring their valuables to Extensive Enterprises. Flint's team finds the brokers behind the scheme, Tomax and Xamot, who hide behind the letter of the law.

The Joes intercept a wealthy client of the twins, Miss Madeline Henderhaunch, and Lady Jaye takes her place on the flight to the twins' vault, a Cobra temple hidden inside an invisible mountain. Her cover is blown, Rip Cord parachutes through the hologram, and the Joes fight Cobra's polar troops across the snow until a rain of gold-coloured coins breaks the Cobra ranks. Back at the card table, the game resumes.

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

"Did all your cash just do the big flash?"

"They're right. They're within the law. There's nothing we can do." -- A Joe

"Then we have one thing going for us: he doesn't know how to wait."

"Cobra's money is as good as anyone's. In fact, these days, it's better." -- Tomax and Xamot

"But never keep a Henderhaunch waiting." -- Miss Henderhaunch

"Just one more question: did you really expect anyone to swallow such utter hogwash?" -- Lady Jaye

"My instincts say that mountain isn't there!" -- Rip Cord

"Ace, this is wild! I just fell through a hologram!" -- Rip Cord

"Greedy fools, forget the money! It's only a gold-plated battle Cobra polymer alloy!" -- Baroness

"Just like Cobra, you got money to burn."

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.

Nearly everyone in Money to Burn is bluffing, and the episode keeps its eye on whose bluff gets called. It starts at a card table, where someone says a player is "flying without a chute" just before every dollar in the room goes up in a pink flash [1]. It ends at the same table with the hand finally played. In between, a wrecked economy, a counterfeit heiress, a mountain that is not there and a fortune in gold that is not gold all turn on the same question: who is holding what they say they are holding.

The plot Roger Slifer builds around that is smarter than a cartoon about burning money has any right to be. Cobra does not steal the currency; it destroys it. The Joes' own analysis is that you cannot reprint what Cobra will simply burn again, so that "buying and selling have been replaced by rioting and looting." Cobra Commander's follow-up broadcast is the nastiest joke in the episode. Having erased the nation's cash, he advises everyone to take their valuables to Extensive Enterprises, where all goods will be exchanged for Cobra currency, and the man who lit the fire is now the pawnbroker. A Joe makes the one sensible observation available: the Commander only has to sit back and let the country fall into his hands, and "he doesn't know how to wait."

The Joes' difficulty is a legal one, and the episode is clever to leave them stuck on it. Tomax and Xamot say they are merely brokers, trading halves of the same sentences until the Joes have no answer, and one of the team has to concede that "they're within the law. There's nothing we can do." The solution is a con. The Joes intercept a rich client the twins are courting, and Lady Jaye takes her place on the twins' plane [2]. Before the capture, the real Henderhaunch has just announced that one should never keep a Henderhaunch waiting. The vault tour that follows is the high point. The twins walk her through a mountain-sized treasure house, call one room "just an ancillary operation," and explain a room of equipment as a way to keep in touch with the New York office. She lets the lies stack up, then asks whether they really expected anyone to swallow such utter hogwash.

The scene works because the twins' double act fails them there. Everywhere else, finishing each other's sentences is a way of out-talking a room; here they are two men with one story and no spare half.

The best use of the theme, though, is on the mountainside. Rip Cord looks at an invisible peak and says his instincts tell him it is not there, Ace shouts at him to pull the cord because the mountain is real, and he falls straight through a hologram. The opening game's taunt about flying without a chute comes back as a skydive, and the man who jumps anyway is right. At the end the Baroness, furious, tells her troops to forget the gold coins raining on the snow because they are only a gold-plated polymer alloy. They scramble for them anyway, and Cobra's own troopers fall for the oldest con there is.

Where the episode lets us down is the landing. The collapse of a nation's economy, which the first act treats seriously enough to put a riot in a lobby, is closed by a pun. Back at the card table someone remarks that "now that we've got some money back on the table, let's finish this game," and that is the only acknowledgement that the crisis is over; nothing says what became of the transmitter or the currency. The joke is good, but the gap it covers is large.

Still, the closing line about Cobra having money to burn lands, because the episode has spent its twenty minutes on that title!

1 ^ The card game is cut off at 4:00 and resumes at 20:55 with "let's finish this game"; the closing punchline is at 21:27.

2 ^ The subtitle track never states when Lady Jaye takes over from Henderhaunch. The evidence is the "check on our guest" at 10:32, the homing signal at 11:18, and the spy reveal at 13:26.

1. The "Blinks" armored truck that Tomax and Xamot ride around in is a send-up of Brinks, a joke noted by both the Joe fan wiki and the fan guides.
2. The episode is framed by a poker game. Rip Cord, Breaker and Ace are mid-hand when every bill in the room vanishes, and the finish returns to the same table, with Rip Cord explaining how he got past a polar trooper ("Tied his shoelaces together"). Fans note it is Ace who loses despite his file card saying he never does, and the title gag lands in the last line: "You got money to burn." The Joes play cards again in [The Great Alaskan Land Rush](/cartoons/1985/episodes/the-great-alaskan-land-rush/).
3. Tomax and Xamot tag-team their dialogue so tightly that a Joe fan guide compares the Joes watching to a tennis match: "We've done nothing..." "illegal." Later, when one twin is knocked down, the other gives up on the spot, prompting a Joe to say, "I didn't even touch him!"
4. Lady Jaye goes under cover as the rich visitor Madeline Henderhaunch (fan sources spell the name more than one way). The fan wiki points out a costume continuity slip around the moment she drops the disguise.
5. Roadblock's "Pennies from heaven?" when the fake coins rain down is a reference to the Bing Crosby film of that name, according to a Joe fan guide. Someone then has to explain that the coins are only "gold-plated battle Cobra polymer alloy."
6. An elevator sound at Extensive Enterprises was sampled from 1960s Star Trek, say fans on a Joe episode guide. Roadblock plays the gourmet here: "Hey, man, I'm a gourmet."
7. Cobra Commander's hidden mountain base is invisible even on radar, and Rip Cord drops straight through a hologram: "I just fell through a hologram!" The fan guide counts a Flight Pod with three engines, one more than the toy.