None of that surprises me a bit.

For the last 10 years or so, there has been a growing trend to demonize what is seen as "selling American jingoism." In that time, I meet more and more people who came of age in the 80s and when the subject of GI Joe came up, (usually when recalling 80s kid stuff while discussing the Transformers movies) openly denied that they were fooled by this thinly veiled brainwashing attempt. This is one of about 100 conversations demonstrating anachronism that has made me cease contact with my fellow faculty members, and encouraged me to keep my day job while just holding study groups and office hours in the evenings.

_________________

I had only seen a few episodes of Community (my favorite was with Betty White creating a weapon from random parts), but was amped to see this episode. I really enjoyed the switch from Sunbow style cartoon to vintage toy commercial. This was a great homage to the GI Joe cartoon from the 80s...Yo Jobra!!!

Xbox has taken forever to update this episode, so I ended up snagging it off Amazon on Saturday morning. LOVED it. I think the criticism is fair: if you're not in on the jokes, I imagine it's a pretty alienating episode. But Community has never shied away for concepts like this (DnD, Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas, the video game episode, the paintball/floor is lava episodes). It doesn't slow down to explain what's going on, it just lays out the material and is pretty indifferent if you're on board or not. It's why I love the show, and why I understand why some people don't love the show.

Some thoughts, for anyone still interested:



Here's why I was convinced that any "mistakes" I thought I noticed were fully intentional. The crowd not only has 2 Gung-Hos, but two DIFFERENT version of Road Block, Scud the Disposable Assassin (I think, between Life Line and Wild Bill in the background), what might be Doc Samson, a guy in a tux, Tiger Force Duke... twice, and a bunch of other random characters I can't place. It's obvious everyone working on the show was pretty familiar with the material, so I think all of these are quite intentional.

Earlier in the episode we saw Wild Weasel fly multiple rattlers, which I initially thought was just someone mistaking the Rattler's pack in figure as a generic COBRA pilot, but now I'm starting think it might have been a deliberate choice to get another Cobra character on screen and irritate people obsessing over every frame (guilty as charged!)



I really want to find out who made the figures for the live action segment. They did a great job. The only thing I can criticize is using Stalker's head for Shirley... That's just rough. It wasn't until I stopped to get this screen grab that I notice Shirley's figure evidently comes with her three kids! Or maybe they were mail-away exclusives...


This one is interesting for two reasons:
1) Major Dick's armored arm is custom... I can't tell if it's mashed up from 25th style Major Bludd on ARAH articulation or if it's just sculpted over an old style arm, but there's definitely an elbow joint there and it's not the original Major Bludd arm.
2)And who's he high-fiving? That's the Wingman custom body, but it looks like a head with glasses, maybe a Ximxam that didn't get finished?

Anyway, I loved it and was totally surprised there were already customs IN the episode. I'm looking forward to making my own, totally modern style versions.

_________________

You are right, that is SCUD the disposable assassin. The guy in the tuxedo looks like Mathew Burke, from AUNTIE (GI Joe The Spy that Rooked Me).

Has anyone actually worked out the recipes for these?

_________________

Major Dick looks like Shockwave v3 with a lot of sculpting for the body.

Buzzkill and Tight Ship are both 25th style Scarlett with sculpting.

A lot of the pieces are actually pretty heavily modified, for doing exact recipes might be hard, plus the video quality on the commercials is intentionally toned down a little, it seems, to look more like 80's tv, so details might be hard.

I'd be interested in finding out who made them all and seeing if they'd share some info.

_________________

I've got a friend who works in the prop department on the show; I'll ask him about it the next time I talk to him.

Do the figures feature prominently in the episode, or do they just appear briefly? Some of the sculpting looks pretty well-handled (on the white-haired guy with the eyepatch, especially), so my guess is that they brought in someone with some fabrication experience. Your average prop person doesn't have those kinds of fine-detail skills, and even if they do, the amount of time and effort necessary to finish that many figures would be more than someone could squeeze in between doing their other tasks.

Cool! Let us know what you find out! And the commercials are a pretty significant plot point of the episode, so the figures see more screen time than I would have expected.

_________________

Yeah looks like a Ximxam head. Perhaps they couldn't find a Crimson twin body?

Oh, lordy, if those figures and vehicles are still in the prop department, tell your buddy he'd better put them in a safe place (like -- maybe your collection...)

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's supposed to be Matthew Burke in the tux. I think at least one of these guys may be the reporter, Hector Ramirez. Scud the Disposable Assassin was confirmed by the Wiki article. I think the three characters on the far right in the back row are the individuals who ran that Cobra-based dude ranch that Wild Bill and a few Joes stumbled into one time, and ended up defeating Cobra with a well-timed cattle stampede. Of course one of those was the Baroness in disguise.

And I still think some of those critics were overly harsh. I mean -- I wonder how they'd like it if we picked on THEIR childhood fun!? (Or current fun, for that matter).

I think Buzz Kill's head is from the new black series Mara Jade.

_________________

What is in buzz kills right hand? A micro machine jet?

_________________

Apparently Tomax/Xamot grappling hook.
http://www.tomopop.com/ul/34081-communi ... l-620x.jpg

_________________

Great break down of those frames Dan.


I really enjoyed that episode and I'd haven't watch Community since Season2 (I just got behind in the episodes).

No. Pluv. No. TnX came with a zip line thing. What you're looking at is an Alpine grappling hook.

_________________