Saturday Morning Memories: GI JOE

GI Joe was a staple part of my Television diet growing up.  I had the action figures and the vehicles, but I don’t think that I ever went overboard with GI Joe.  So, true to form there is a new movie coming out this summer called GI JOE the rise of COBRA.  I haven’t sought out much information about the film yet, but I did find something else very interesting.

My first exposure to GI Joe was through the cartoon.  It would seem that  in preparation for this summer’s big-budget movie Hasbro has made a NEW Cartoon mini-series.  I find this interesting because it’s a cartoon with the instructions to produce a non-tiny-child-oriented GI Joe, AND it’s taking advantage of the internet distribution model.

The GI Joe: Resolute cartoon was announced as a series of 10 five-minute webisodes to be capped off by a 10-minute finale.  The online premiere of the show leads up to its broadcast premiere on Cartoon Network next week, which will show all of the webisodes as well as debut the final 10 minutes of the storyline.  So they are going to give away the first 50 minutes of the hour long movie for free online and then show the last 10 minutes on Cartoon Network.  This way they can take advantage of the internet and then have their advertisers pay for the cable tv spots and then they’ll sell the DVDs and package them with some toys.

To help sell this new non-tiny-child, more “sophisticated” take on the characters, Hasbro has hired acclaimed comic book writer Warren Ellis.  Here’s a bit from Warren’s website, “Sam Register phoned me up and said, we’d really like you to write a GI JOE animation, at a PG-13 rating, aimed at an older viewer. I said, I’ve never seen a GI JOE cartoon in my life…I know nothing about GI JOE. It is meaningless in my world.  Excellent, Sam said. Just the guy we need.”

Here is the trailer for the series and episodes 1-2 can be seen here.

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