The Viper is Coming

At a party in his renovated firehouse, Barbecue takes a phone call from a man who says "The Viper is coming, 575." The Joes treat it as Cobra's code and read it as coordinates that lead them to the South Pole, where they find a Cobra Rest and Recreation Base and a fight with holidaying troopers and Snow Serpents.

Further calls send them to West Point, where Cobra attacks a parade, and to the Extensive Enterprises tower, where Destro is waiting. Destro, meanwhile, suspects the Viper is a Cobra traitor and accuses Major Bludd, while Tomax and Xamot argue against it. After a battle in the tower the Joes learn that none of Cobra's men know who the Viper is. A final call announces that he will come at noon, and a window washer arrives to ask for Barbecue and offer to wash his windows at an hourly rate.

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

"Mr. Barbecue, this is the Viper." -- The caller

"The Viper is coming, 575." -- The caller

"What if those are the latitude and longitude?" -- Scarlett

"Oh, naturally, it would have to be the South Pole. They must know how I hate cold weather." -- Barbecue

"Enjoy your stay. Oh, and no tipping, please." -- A recorded voice

"Why would Cobra send us a message that leads us right to one of their own R&R bases?" -- Scarlett

"We would never send you a message, you, you spoilsports." -- A Cobra trooper

"Say no more, or I will suspect you, too." -- Destro

"Why, Destro, I do declare. Don't tell me you're the little old Viper." -- Scarlett

"I'm the Viper. I've come to vipe your vindows." -- The Viper

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.

Every clue in "The Viper Is Coming" is literal, and the trick of the episode is that the people receiving them are professionals who have been trained to expect a code. A man telephones the renovated firehouse where Barbecue is throwing a party, announces himself as the Viper, and says "The Viper is coming, 575." From that moment the Joes decode, Cobra suspects a traitor, and nobody considers that the message might mean what it says.

Both sides assume that a mysterious caller must be working for somebody. The Joes read 575 as latitude and longitude, 5 degrees east and 75 degrees south, which puts them at the South Pole. What they find there is the best idea in the half hour: a Cobra Rest and Recreation Base Number 3, welcomed by a recorded voice. It lists volleyball in the Cobra Commander Gymnasium, lunch in the Destro Dining Room and a floor show at the Zartan Entertainment Center, with the Cobra Cuties tonight and no tipping, please. A blue robot waits behind a carved counter, troopers carry trays in gym shorts, and the fight that follows pits the Joes against holidaymakers and Snow Serpents, over a pool table and a bullet-torn red sofa. [1]

The script is cleverest when it takes the same joke to the other side. Destro, convinced that the Joes are intercepting every move, concludes that the Viper must be a traitor and settles on Major Bludd, who protests that he came close to being captured himself. Tomax and Xamot, finishing each other's sentences, point out that Bludd has been with them constantly and that nobody builds a new R&R centre and then tells the enemy where it is. Destro warns that he will suspect them too. It is a mole hunt for a mole who does not exist, run by men who cannot imagine that the telephone is just a telephone. Scarlett's drawled reply to Destro in the tower, "Why, Destro, I do declare," is the tone the episode keeps! [2]

The standout is the last minute, which pays out everything the first minute planted. A window in Barbecue's firehouse is cracked in the opening scrum, and someone remarks, "Guess I won't be needing that window cleaned." [3] At the end an old window washer in a straw hat turns up and introduces himself as the Viper. He explains that he has come to "vipe your vindows" at $5.75 an hour, starting on the west corner, top floor first. Most of the phrases from the telephone calls resolve: the 575 is a wage, "west corner" is where he starts, "top floor first" is how he works, and "noon today" is when he arrives. The Joes have spent the half hour chasing their own assumptions, and the reveal is kind to them, since all they lose is dignity.

The weakness is that the West Point sequence is the least inventive of the set pieces, and we found ourselves waiting for the next phone call. Cobra's attack on the parade ground is stock action: tanks racing across the dirt firing red lasers, Scarlett shooting from a jeep, the stands cheering, a surrender at the end of a countdown. It is competent and quick, but nothing in it could not appear in a straight episode, and it sits between a resort and a skyscraper that are both funnier.

Within the run it is a holiday: a half hour in which Cobra has an R&R base, a mole hunt and a Scarlett in a Southern accent. The only person in the right place at noon is a man with a squeegee.

1 ^ The decoding is nonsense that happens to land somewhere real: a message the Viper never meant as a code sends the Joes to a Cobra base, then to West Point, then to a tower in the city, each at a moment when Cobra is up to something. The script does not explain why, and Scarlett's remark that a Cobra message would not lead them to a Cobra base is as close as it comes to noticing.

2 ^ Destro addresses her as "little Scarlett O'Hara" and she answers in a Southern drawl, which is the joke.

3 ^ The cracked window is on screen at about 2:05 and the line about not needing it cleaned comes at about 2:07; the subtitle track gives that line no speaker, so we do not name one.

1. The Viper's "575" turns out to be the price list. The mystery caller who sent the Joes to the South Pole, then West Point, then the Extensive Enterprises tower finally arrives as a window washer who has come "to vipe your vindows" at "$5.75 an hour", starting "west corner, top floor first". The gag is planted early: when a guest crashes into a window at Barbecue's party, a Joe cracks, "Guess I won't be needing that window cleaned."
2. Destro greets Scarlett as "little Scarlett O'Hara", and she answers in a Southern drawl ("Why, Destro, I do declare"). That is a pun on the Gone with the Wind heroine, but it also uses her surname. The Joe fan wiki notes that suggests the story is meant to come after [Captives of Cobra, Part I](/cartoons/1985/episodes/captives-of-cobra-part-i/), where the O'Hara family is introduced, even though this one aired five days earlier.
3. Cobra's holiday camp is called "Cobra Rest and Recreation Base Number 3". A recorded announcement lists a Cobra Commander Gymnasium, a Destro Dining Room and a Zartan Entertainment Center showing the "Cobra Cuties" at 7:00 p.m., with no tipping. One fan guide thinks the robot receptionist is a dead ringer for Robby the Robot.
4. The Joes call the Extensive Enterprises tower the tallest building in the world, and the company pops up all over this season as a Cobra business partner, from the drive-in chain in [Red Rocket's Glare](/cartoons/1985/episodes/red-rockets-glare/) to the tanker with its name on the side in [Money to Burn](/cartoons/1985/episodes/money-to-burn/).
5. Cobra is as baffled as the Joes. Destro suspects Major Bludd of being the Viper, Bludd protests that he has been nearly captured all day, and Tomax and Xamot trade lines to point out that Cobra would never tell the Joes where its own resort is. Near the end a Joe wonders "if the Viper even knows who he is."
6. During the West Point tank battle a Joe says "Now I know how Custer felt." The Joe fan wiki adds that Custer himself was a West Point graduate, and suggests the Cobra troops give up so easily because the cadets' rifles were empty, a bluff the episode never states.
7. Fans have picked at the code: 575 is read in the episode as 5 degrees east, 75 degrees south, which lands in Antarctica. The Joe fan wiki says a more natural reading would be 5 north, 75 west, near Bogota. Fan guides add that the "Now you know" tag at the end has Roadblock warning kids away from downed power lines.
8. This was episode 39 in the broadcast list, although it carries production number 600-22. USA Network's cut-down reruns trimmed Barbecue's hamburger line, the robot's floor-show announcement and a few other bits, according to the fan episode guide.