the “real” american hero?

April 27, 2001, 12:22 pm

I rented G.I. Joe: The Movie on DVD the other day. As I was watching it, I couldn't help but feel a little disappointed; when I was a kid, G.I. Joe was the coolest thing Ever! But listening to the cheesy dialog (“Make like an amoeba and split!”), I realized... “My life is a lie...”

Okay, so it's not a lie, but I still feel a little weirded out.

I was relaying this experience to my coworkers at lunch and we started talking about the public service announcements that G.I. Joe had at the end of each episode (the dvd features 25 of these!). My friend, Donk, asked, “Why didn't Destro ever give a public service announcement?”.

To which I replied, “Destro is a badguy... he can't be trusted with such important information.”

Then Donk mentioned that when he was a kid, he thought the cartoon characters were like actors; he said that Destro could communicate with the audience out of character...

I like this idea...

Finally, if G.I. Joe is the “real” american hero, who are the false american heroes?