 Hello everybody hooded co-commander 788 here I have more Cobra Convergence 7 presenters I would like to introduce audible interlude so guys could you introduce yourselves say who you are let everybody know what you do and where to find you. We are audible interlude a GI Joe podcast. I am your host Dave West codename phantom troublemaker. I am your co host Noel wood codename crapshoot and I'm your Cobra intern that's still just trying to figure everything out codename Legion Cub. So we have podcasts that are available every single Friday wherever you get your podcast you can follow us at audible interlude podcast on Instagram. And we also do live streams every other week, although sometimes more often. We are thrilled to be taking part in Cobra Convergence. This is our second year. We have super secret exciting plans for our Cobra Convergence live stream with our very special guest hooded Cobra Commander 788. We just were three lifelong GI Joe fans we both grew up with real American or both all three of us grew up with real American hero in the 80s. And we just have had kind of similar paths. As far as our fandom of GI Joe, but I think along the way we've each had sort of different steps in different directions. Christian and I both got really deep into the 25th anniversary and the the modern style. Joe figures, whereas Noel kind of avoided all that and stuck with vintage the whole time. But Noel, maybe you want to talk a little bit about your your GI Joe path. Well, as I've said several times my introduction to GI Joe was through my uncle, who had a lot of the 1960s and 70s Joe's. Going to my grandmother's house and getting into my uncle's black stash of toys and he eventually bequeathed all of them to me so I had several of the 12 inch Joe's my favorite one being the Mercury astronaut. I still have I showed it off a few episodes back but I still have my my Mercury Lander. And it's one of my favorite, my favorite Joe toys of all time. So when GI Joe came around in 1982. My dad was actually encouraged me to play with GI Joe because I you know my dad was in the Navy so he was okay with me playing with like military toys. And I fell in love I, you know, got several Joe's for Christmas in 82 I got was clutch of the vamp a Cobra officer. And also, oh, flash were my first few Joe's, and I was hooked from there and said I've always been a vintage collector. It took a while to even get me into classified. But the advantage will always be a ring will always be my jam. I think being part of a podcast kind of pressured you into classified a little bit more than the then you know if we hadn't started it because we started in 20 about three years ago in 2020 right as classified was getting ready to happen. The world of Joe was very very different when we started the show because originally it started on the needless things podcast we just did a GI Joe episode. And we just had great chemistry which I knew that we would. And I thought you know what, because needless things went for 400 episodes. And I really just wanted to try something else because that podcast was about everything. And I really wanted to focus back down on on to my number one love which was GI Joe. And after we recorded a couple of needless things episodes about GI Joe, I was like, man, I want to get together with these guys and and just do a show and really, really focus on one thing. I really want to have fun. I really wanted to be entertaining. We are not the GI Joe Wikipedia. Part of the reason we're doing this show is to look at different facets of Joe and learn more and get educated and discover things that we've never looked at before. Christian, you like know way more about 90s Joe than I ever did. Well, and so for like my Joe journey. It started in 82. But where it now doing the podcast I realized I was lucky is by the time I was out of Joe, right, not necessary out of toy and toy collecting but I was sort of done with Joe, we were getting into the 90s. It was it was the wild colors. My younger brother was at the age where now he was into Ninja Turtles and GI Joe was doing Ninja Force, and then he got into GI Joe. As we have looked at some of those later figures, you know where people are like, oh, the neon and the drug enforcement and GI Joe in space with like stiletto spaceships and Pogos and I'm like, oh yeah. And, and so, you know, I'm not anyone that listens to the podcast knows I'm not a fan of the Ninja concept in GI Joe, but because my brother was. I get this very inner I a different perspective because I don't see it the same way that no and phantom does. But then I can, you know, reach out to my younger brother and be like hey, do you remember this as a kid at that time. What drew you to it, because as an adult me looking at it, I'm going, what, what were they thinking, you know, it's also been given me a love, like I, one of my very first projects when we started the podcast, I bought a rat and customized it and fell in love with it and I was like wait, underneath all these garish colors. There are still some really cool figures and really awesome vehicles. So, yeah, so you each have kind of a unique perspective so you each bring something to the table. But one of the things that I find is common of a lot of folks that I talked to is that they were into GI Joe as kids but then they got out of it for a while not everybody did some people stayed in in it for the, you know, basically all the way through. But did you guys have that experience where you got out of it for a while but then later on as an adult you came back in. You know, it's funny, I until, I don't know what point I realized that I really have kind of been in it. My GI Joe went from 82 when I bought my first figures or when my mom bought me my first figures off of one of the spinner racks at Eckerd until about 87, although I had a couple of 88 figures which I didn't realize they were 88. Like until we started doing the show, I really didn't go back and look at when everything happened and how like organize it by year and all that kind of stuff. But I had Storm Shadow version two. It was one of the last figures I must have bought because by 88 I was getting into Ninja Turtles like that I never really stopped collecting toys but Joe for me ended 87 88. But then in 97, when the Toys R Us, that monstrosity of a set that we've talked about on the show, we did a segment about it, the Stars and Stripes Forever set. When that came back, I got back into Joe and I've been back into Joe ever since, which I kind of didn't realize but I went through when they did the 97 stuff, the real American hero, the O-rings and then on into Valor versus Venom. And everything, G.I. Joe versus Cobra and then into 25th anniversary. So I kind of didn't realize it but I have quite a history of Joe there. Whereas, like I said, Noel, you've had a little different experience. Yeah, so I'm also a big Lego person and in the world of Lego, they have a term for those years, which is called your dark ages from the time that you put them away as a kid to when you start playing with them as an adult. And I mean, my dark ages were from like 87. Essentially, once there was no cartoon to support anymore, and I was also at that point in time, I was like 12, 13 years old, I was losing interest. So really, I didn't pay much attention to G.I. Joe for the rest of the 80s, for the 90s. I kind of like would, you know, if I saw somebody at school who had one of those catalogs, I'd sneak it and just kind of see what was in it or whatever, but I just didn't really have a good idea of what was going on. I did start doing other toy collecting back in the 90s. I started collecting Transformers again, and I was reading Toy Fair magazine and that's how I became aware that they were reissuing G.I. Joe. And that Stars and Stripes Forever set. So today, it was kind of a reawakening. To me, it was probably what kind of killed it for another couple of decades, because I was excited. The idea of getting like those original figures again and as soon as I walked in Toys R Us and I saw that thing I was like, Well, I'm not buying this. And I walked out and I just put it all aside for several more years. And it wasn't until, and I still had, I still had some Joe's and I was actually still, if I, if I was at a yard sale or if I saw something at a thrift store or an antique shop, and I mean, I'd pick it up, but it was all just sitting in boxes. And it wasn't until we started doing this podcast that all this got back up on the shelves. I had stuff in storage for years and years and years, but once we started doing this, I pulled out all my figures restored all my O-rings, got them all back up there so they could be up for display. And now I can't stop. And see when I graduated, when I went off to college, I started working part time in comic shops. I was still toy collecting even though I was out of G.I. Joe, and I would say those in between years when Dave and Noel that were in their dark ages. Every time I went to the toy store, I still went and looked at what G.I. Joe was putting out because we're talking this is the era of street fighter, Mortal Kombat, Sergeant Savage, and that's probably the closest I've ever been to being like the cliche. I would have been popular on YouTube at that point because I would walk by the G.I. Joe section and just go, what is this crap? Like, it's you should be putting out the original figures. That's what people want. Did they learn nothing from generation to transformers? So that sort of just, I was out until the 25th line. And you know what's funny? I always forget about Sergeant, I always talk about 97 is when, you know, Stars and Stripes forever. I kind of started back in, I always forget about Sergeant Savage because I had a few pieces of Sergeant Savage, but it was just so annoying because they were too big. Yeah. I even started on Extreme. I even remember buying that first issue of the G.I. Joe Extreme comic. First of all, because the cover looks so cool. Yeah. And then once you got inside, it was a whole different thing. But I was like, I was always willing to try something. Yes. Yes. Yeah, yeah, for sure. So you have kind of different stories of coming back in or in the case of Dave, you know, we're never out for very long. But I've had the pleasure of meeting you guys at Joe Fest and you guys did the opening panel at Joe Fest this year. Was it last year as well? Yeah. Yeah, so I know this we're in Cobra Convergence here, but we're still pretty fresh off of Joe Fest. Can you talk kind of about your Joe Fest experience and how that went? Oh yeah. Joe Fest is incredible. We, my son and I went for the first time in 2019. And I, you know, I really didn't know what to expect from it. And it was just the, there's so much more than just G.I. Joe, because if you go, you know, the dealer room, there's tons of different stuff in there, which is great. But it's also this incredibly pure concentration of G.I. Jonas. And just talking to people, you know, anytime you can get into a community that shares something that, you know, I mentioned wanting to start a show that was focused on one thing. And there's something just really special about, you know, meeting somebody and knowing that you have that one thing in common, knowing that you've got that one thing to talk about. And granted, there are lots of different facets of G.I. Joe. And there are lots of possibilities for G.I. Joe conversations to take turns. But in general, everybody's there to have fun, appreciate G.I. Joe and its many forms. And this year, just, I mean, the best year ever, we did that opening panel. We did a game show for the first time ever, the big Joe game show, which we had a great time doing, gave away lots of fabulous prizes. Got to talk to all kinds of people, people who knew the show. Like when we were doing that panel, and we said, who here has heard the show? And like most of the room raised their hands. That was amazing. That's great. You know, you love that kind of thing. And we just want to have fun. The whole point of audible interludes to have fun with G.I. Joe. G.I. Joe is for everyone. And we just, we want to be inclusive. We want to have fun. We want to talk about G.I. Joe. We're not, our motto is enthusiasm over expertise. Because half of the point of the show is for us to learn more about Joe, because nobody knows everything. We want to look at facets we've never looked at before. We want to look at things that we didn't know about. We want to talk about shadow ninjas, you know, whatever. But yeah, Joe Fest is a great opportunity to, to be live and in person interacting with Joe fans and to meet the incredible Rich Murphy. Everybody needs to check out everybody needs to get on Instagram and check out Rich Murphy. He is awesome. Yeah, absolutely. That is one dude that I met before Joe Fest as well. Quite a fellow. Absolutely. So I didn't want to interrupt. The other two of you have some Joe Fest experiences to, to share. Oh, sure. Yeah, I mean, I'll just same thing. Well, I started going kind of in the, you know, in the hole that got filled when the official G.I. Joe conventions went away is when Ed started doing Joe Fest and I, you know, the first couple. I remember the finest I was always there doing stuff with with the finest booth the time. It's, you know, in our home state of Georgia so it was much easier for us to go there than some of the other Joe cons that were in far away places. And it just part of what rekindled by mass rebuying of Joe stuff was just walking into that amazing showroom or that amazing dealer room floor and just finding like all those deals on toys that like I had forgotten existed. And this year. No different. I spent, spent a little bit more money than I. Well, not more than I really expected to but more than I really wanted to. But you know, it's, it's just great to when you're in the zone, you're just like, oh, you know, more, more cool stuff, more cool nostalgia but also getting to see like all these all these great people getting to talk to our fans. And we met several people that are, you know, just regular listeners of ours and it was great just actually getting a chance to talk to them one on one and you know, get to hear their stories to. And this was actually my first year. I was not able to go last year because of work and I, you know, I had seen pictures that have been posted. I did not prepare me for the scale of the convention. I, I am in a lot of very niche fandoms and conventions that happen for those fandoms are maybe a quarter of the size of Joe fest. In my mind. I was thinking that dealer's room was only half the size of what it was, and having produced my background is in event production. So in Florida, all the years I spent helping, you know, being part of putting on anime conventions. All the years at dragon con and I'm sure Phantom and Noel can attest to this too when you're walking around, and you run into people who know you. It's because of like them seeing you and interacting with you whereas with the podcast, when we were at Joe fest, and you're walking along. Somebody yells out Cobra intern. And you're just like, what, what, like, so it's, it's amazing to be able to get to meet like Noel said to be able to meet and actually have conversations with these people that are enjoying the craziness that is audible interlude. It's a craziness. Well, before we move on, I did want to say thank you for being in Cobra convergence. Again, so thank you guys. Also, thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak a little bit at your, at your Joe fest forum I appreciate that. But thanks you guys have been very generous. Last year I got a hatch, just like the one you're wearing it's a nice hat it's pretty cool. Before, before I move on though I do want to remind everybody that audio audible interlude will be posting their Cobra convergence presentation on the day that you see this so as you're seeing this there should be a link in the description of this video so please check that out immediately as soon as you're done here. Go ahead and subscribe to them make sure that you follow them make sure that you don't miss an episode, but you guys are in this for the second year. I haven't had a chance to ask you guys, and it's kind of my favorite question. Is there a Cobra character that is your favorite, the one that speaks to you once that's the most important to you. Who is your favorite Cobra. For me, my favorite Cobra and my favorite GI Joe character is Firefly. When I was a kid that something about that urban camo something about that backpack with the toolkit like that is one of my top five action figures of all time I love Firefly I he was the lead operative on every mission that went out I actually when I was a kid I had a friend named Peyton who was a little bit older than me and who had a little bit more GI Joe stuff than me and had this basement where he had a Cobra base on one side and a Joe base on the other side that he had built up out of just styrofoam you know remember how exciting it was to get a new like a piece of electronic equipment when you were a kid and you'd get the styrofoam out and the styrofoam packing would be a base of operations for something. Anyway, we would, when I'd go over to his house one of us would be the Joe's one of us be the Cobras, but every single time Firefly was always the lead of any Cobra operations I just I love that character at the word saboteur sabotage saboteur like it's just cool. I just I just Firefly is awesome. For me it's it's always been scrap iron. There was just something about like getting that figure and it was really of it was the most deluxe figure that you could really buy Carter at that time because it came with that little rocket launcher which was like almost like having a small vehicle with it. So it was one of my favorite toys because of that, but also just the way that he was portrayed and you didn't see him a lot in the comics or the cartoon, but he played a like a pretty big role a few times like I mean he was the one who killed the soft master. I was reviewing episode four of the range of Cobra and he's the one that stops Duke in in Honda Lou and their tracks when they're, you know, trying to escape so I always like seeing when those things he was one of the when I first started doing costuming he was one of the characters it was one of my dream costumes. And before I was able to secure a properly made helmet from Pit Viper Studios. I tried my first hand at molding my own scrap iron helmet and it was a disaster, but after thinking that much money into it I had to go out and wear it in public at dragging So I eventually did go with the proper costume but yeah just always one that send me and so when they showed the classified version, he was immediately in my card at like one minute after he went on sale. So I'm detecting a 1984 theme so let's see if we keep the trend or if we keep the trend. So, over the years mind has changed but if I look back for when I was a kid. It was Tomax and Zaymott, because the whole course again twins aspect made for great storytelling with play. So, Well, I'm afraid that's not from 1984. Thanks for playing. I am always the one that throws the wrench that my favorite cobra is eagle eyed Joe. Honestly, I thought it was gonna be monkey wrench. That would be appropriate. So again thank you guys for participating and a reminder for everyone to check the link in the video. We've got a few more minutes here. And I'm trying to make sure that I give you guys enough time to talk because I want to hear from all of you. But as we wrap up here for the last few minutes. I guess I'll turn the turn the forum over to you guys to say whatever final words you want to say to the audience. And again, I will encourage everyone to check out their presentation for Cobra convergence, which you should be able to see right now. We're Joe fans. We, there are. We like to say anything G I Joe is good. Everybody likes different things. We don't all love every single aspect of G I Joe, but we want to see G I Joe in the world. People appreciating G I Joe, we want to talk about G I Joe, we want to discover new things about G I Joe, you know, Noel was talking about the dealer room at Joe fast and finding those things that you had forgotten existed. But it's also great to go in there and see things that you never knew existed like figures because even even just the 82 to 94 range of a real American hero there's so much in it. And, you know, I've I've gone up and down yo joe.com and 3d joes.com. But there's always the weird vehicle that you see in person and you're like, What is this? I don't remember this thing. I actually had the opportunity. Second, there's a great great toy shop in Georgia outside of Atlanta called second chance toys. And a friend of the show Kelly Hudson works there. And he gave me kind of a sneak peek at some of the Joe stuff they had in the back room and there was this big giant vehicle that I felt like I'd never seen before. I know I have because I've gone up and down 82 to 94. And there's this craft that came out of the front and there were like two different bubble. I love bubble, whether it's a helmet, whether it's something on a vehicle, give me a good bubble and I'm happy. And he's showing me all like all these vehicles that are new to me, because it's all post 87 stuff and then we go back and we look at 12 inch figures and so we've barely scratched the surface of that stuff. We really need to focus more on that but it's just GI Joe so much fun. It's so it's so inclusive. I learned so many life lessons from that goofy sunbow cartoon about people working together about equality about teamwork about all of these just critical social and life lessons that this brand has taught me and you know it's, it's, it's what we grew up with and it's it's important, but it's also fun. And like I said, GI Joe is for everyone and that's just what you know that's what we're here for is to have fun with Joe. I'm just happy that we're living in a time where really we have an embarrassment of Joe product that's out there for us so when you we were just kind of going down the list of everything that was revealed this last month and GI in Joe June, or Yo Joe June and to if you would have told me four years ago that we were getting this much content this much product and you know we don't even have like a proper cartoon show or anything like that. At this point isn't that crazy there's not even any media right now. Yeah, I mean we got we got a live action movie. It's been was it two years now. But I mean really that's that's the extent of it but yet we're still getting so much product to the point where it's like, I can't even keep up with how many things have been announced, or we've gotten reveals, or I've already pre purchased at this point in time it's, you know, it's a great time to be a Joe fan and it's, I mean, it's great to have a luxury of being able to pick and choose and, you know, I see a lot of negative comments about stuff online and I'm not going to say that sometimes I don't get a little bit cynical about some of the content that gets put out. But I mean really, there's, if you don't like this offering, there's going to be three or four more things that you're going to love so there's there's always something out there for everybody I think. Yeah, it wasn't that long ago when we really didn't have anything. And, and no prospect of having anything. But now in recent years it's just started to pick back up and now we've, we have a steady flow of new product and different kinds of product as well, licensed, you know, official has lab retail, all this stuff so I, I think I'm on the same wavelength with you there. Well, and all of these ancillary companies as well we've got Super 7 we've got icon heroes we've got all of these licensees, we've got a new role playing game like it's wild how much stuff there is out there and like Noel said you can't keep track of it all. Yeah, when I hear people complaining about the Super 7 reaction figures I'm like, there's a million other things that you can buy. Let me love those things. Well, I will all in this, just by giving another great plug for audible interlude a GI Joe podcast. I just want to say, you know, phantom brings to the show passion and love. And my gosh, his photographic memory from when he was a kid is astounding. Noel brings Noel is our wiki for Joe. Yeah, you could start describing Oh there was I vaguely remember this panel in this comic and he'll be like, Oh yeah, GI Joe special missions issue 12 page 13. Yeah, that's a little bit of an over. No, no. I, I go for the deep dives and again like if you want the weird and where did that come from. And so I think that by bringing the three of us to those three perspectives together. Listen to us. One, you're going to have a good time. And two, we like to hear your perspectives as well. Like they said, there's no right or wrong way to love GI Joe. We may not like something, but you love it. And we want to hear what makes you love it, because that can change our attitudes. I got out. I sold off my overings when I got into 25th. And I was just like, Oh rings from doing this podcast, every purchase I made at Joe Fest was overings. So, the point is that people should tune in for passion and love. That's right. That's what we bring to the table and candles, but you know, sincerely, thank you guys for being in Cobra Convergence again and thank you for being so cool at Joe Fest and on your show. I guess I'll wrap it up there. But I again I want to remind everybody there will be a link in the description of this video that will take you to audible interlude. So you can check out their Cobra Convergence seven presentation. Thank you guys. And I will wrap it up and I guess we'll all see you in the convergence. Absolutely. Thank you so much for letting us be a part of this. We love it. We're happy to be here. Awesome. Thank you guys.