Uh-oh.

First off, let’s get this out of the way: I was never a proper American boy. I only saw a handful of episodes ofThundercats,He-Man, andTransformers. I straight up can’t even remember watching a singleG.I. Joe and I certainly didn’t own any of the action figures. Truth be told, I can hardly recall what the hell I was watching. I think it was the sillier stuff likeLooney Tunes and other lighthearted fare that everyone’s forgotten about—shows likeDenver the Last Dinosaur,Bobby’s World, andWidget, the World Watcher who taught you about saving the environment just likeCaptain Planet did, but nobody was listening to him except little old me. Hey, I also likedThe Real Ghostbusters andTeenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Those are still cool, right?

I thought I should mention this because the obvious criticism I’m going to get is that this episode just isn’t for me, so I might as well own up to it in advance. “G.I. Jeff” is a loving homage to the old G.I. Joe action figures and animated series of the eighties and, unless you were into all that mess, I can’t imagine this episode holding that much appeal for you. It certainly didn’t for me.

The main issue is that the success of the episode feels like it rides pretty heavily on nostalgia and recognition of a bygone era of budget animation and cheesy toy commercials (though I honestly can’t say if toy commercials have actually changed that much; I haven’t seen one in some time). It seems to me that either your familiarity with this old junk will be triggered from frame one and you’ll be grinning the whole episode or you’ll sit there, stony-faced, at times bewildered, like yours truly.

But, look, it’s not like I don’t get a lot of this stuff. Choppy animation and lip-synch mistakes were hardly exclusive toG.I. Joe. It was a goddamned epidemic back in the eighties. Seriously, grab a DVD of your favorite show and watch an episode or two. I mean, Jesus, what kind of stupid kids were we? We had no quality standards whatsoever.

I also happen to know enough aboutG.I. Joe to get the joke, or rather the driving force of the entire episode, that, ironically in a show ostensibly about war, it causes a huge upset when someone actually dies. The explanation (kids’ cartoons in the US can basically never show anyone getting killed) is one I suppose a viewer unfamiliar withG.I. Joe might work out on his or her own or maybe they’ll just go along with the premise even without understanding its origins. However, it still comes off very much like an in-joke to me, which is why it feels like such a bad choice that so much of the episode’s conflict is hinged on this concept. Even if you don’t find it befuddling, you still also have to find it funny that this American cartoon trope is being deconstructed. And this is the problem with the entire episode: if you have no interest in seeingG.I. Joe simultaneously homaged and parodied, there’s not a lot here for you.

“But,” I imagine you might argue, “isn’t the homage/parody formula a big part of manyCommunityepisodes?”

Indeed it is! But the best themed episodes ofCommunityare enjoyable as both homages and as solid episodes of a sitcom about a group of unlikely friends at a community college. This way, even if you don’t understand the source material for the homage, at least you still get a great episode of one of your favorite shows.

I’ll go one step further: if the episode doesn’t function as a decent half-hour ofCommunityfirst and foremost, it is a failure.

The problem here is that the humor, by and large, doesn’t even feel veryCommunity-like. I notice Dino Stamatopoulos (who also plays Star-Burns) is credited with writing this one and most likely the animation studio he started with Dan Harmon produced this episode, just as they did the Claymation episode. Dino has been a writer on “normal”Communityepisodes too, so I’m sure the guy is capable of great work in the right context, but I’ve never appreciated his personal output. He didMoral Orel and is currently responsible forHigh School USA!, both shows that I feel go for cheap, amateurish jokes and shock humor.

“G.I. Jeff” is a lot more like a Stamatopoulous original than an episode ofCommunity. It’s got dumb lines about Cobra Commander maybe being gay for Destro and a rather pointless bit at the end where his flesh gets burned off. Some of the wit is still in there. They didn’t make me laugh out loud, but all the character names (Buzzkill, Fourth Wall, etc.) are certainly clever and I like how Shirley won’t stop mentioning she has three kids. Also, at least one running gag about the budget animation—the way the characters keep using rocks to club their way out of every situation—got me pretty good. Still, tellingly, I found myself laughing most at Chang thinking he was Korean and the “It’s a old boy” mug, all of which showed up once we were finally out of the cartoon world.

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Rating:

2 out of 5

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Written by

Joe Matar|@Joespirational

Joe Matar loves TV shows, but hates advertising. Cartoons and sitcoms are his favorites. He likes other media too, but who cares about that? Joe is…