Case Study of G.I. Joe PSA Parodies

By:
Matt Makowka

Description & History

Description

Name: Fensler Films G.I. Joe PSAs

G.I. Joe PSA Parody Video Collection (Part 1 of 2)

G.I. Joe Reggae

G.I. Joe Nosebleed

G.I. Joe - Skier

Famous Last Word

Purpose:

Production value: amateur remixes utilizing a blend of overdubs, minor edits, and a liberal dose of nostalgia

Summary / Description: The G.I. Joe PSA (Public Service Announcement) parodies of Fensler Films consist of 25 videos taken from the popular mid-1980's cartoon, itself based on a wildly popular toy at the time, G.I. Joe. Each video typically clocks in well under a minute - usually between 30 to 50 seconds - in which old cartoon footage is overdubbed with verbal non sequiturs or just plain nonsense that combine equal parts absurdity with oddball humor. Topics range from a minute-long belching match (literally) to Native American mumbling, warnings against downloading to offers for body massages, pork chop sandwiches to pimping, and everything in between.

History

According to Knowyourmeme.com, the PSAs were added to the end of the original G.I. Joe cartoons (which spanned 1984-1987 and 1989-1991 by Sunbow/Marvel and DiC Entertainment, respectively) to fill a quota of "educational material." It is from these PSAs that the (in)famous "Knowing is half the battle" mantra comes (link lists complete roster of original PSA messages). Many cartoons of the era - He-Man: Masters of the Universe, She-Ra, Jem, and more - would continue this trend by adding PSAs to the end of their programs as well.

Around 2003 (pre-Youtube), Eric Fensler created roughly a couple dozen parodies of the G.I. Joe PSAs and hosted them on his site, http://www.fenslerfilm.com/, in QuickTime format. The original 25 files can still be accessed on his site. Brief analytical descriptions of all 25 videos are available on Wikipedia, many of which include details on where Fensler inserted visual edits and the sources of particular sound clips (e.g., the Native American and Japanese dialogue). In every one of the PSA remixes, Fensler and his friends rewrote the script, inserting bizarre humor and distorting the characters' voices with what sounds like a vocoder. In some cases, music is inserted and minor edits are made that mock the low-quality animation of the time or merely contribute to the remixes' bizarreness/humor quotient.

On September 9th, 2004, Hasbro issued a cease and desist letter to Fensler, claiming that his videos violated copyright. According to a commenter on Knowyourmeme.com, it was Ebaumsworld.com's action of hosting the videos on its site but making the egregious mistake of plastering its logo on all of Fensler's videos (and implicitly claiming ownership of all of them) that brought these remakes to the attention of Hasbro and its lawyers. In response to the letter, Fensler removed the videos from his site, but not for long. As is often the case with Internet memes, by the time Fensler complied with the order, his videos had gone viral and their removal from the web had become next to impossible. Eventually, Hasbro lawyers backed down on their threat (either because the phenomenon had reached critical mass and could therefore not be stopped, or because their case was weak based on grounds of the protection of parodies under the First Amendment), and Fensler soon placed the video files back on his site.

Since the near-lawsuit debacle, the Fenslerfilm PSAs have resurfaced on Youtube to a wider audience and greater fanfare. To be expected, Youtubers have taken up the torch Fensler helped to light by remixing Fensler's works or creating other "nostalgia"-evoking cartoons and PSAs.

Date discovered: 2003

Peak popularity: N/A. Since the clips predate YouTube, statistics are not available from when the videos originally released. This reviewer suspects that the cease-and-desist order by Hasbro in 2004 likely delivered a huge boost to the videos' popularity at that time.

Original Site:  http://www.fenslerfilm.com/ 

Remixes / Parodies / Responses:

Some have taken Fensler's videos and attempted overdubbing them with their own (altered) voices and sound effects. Others have taken Fensler's original audio and used it to overdub other videos completely unrelated to G.I. Joe. Lastly, even more have tried their hands at creating new parodies of G.I. Joe cartoon clips. In this reviewer's opinion, none of them hold a candle to Fensler's originals. 

Appeal and Audience

Who is the likely audience? Why do they respond to this video? 

One could argue that the videos initially appeal to those who grew up in the 80s surrounded by that era's toys and associated media (Saturday morning and after school cartoons, tie-in movies and video games, McDonald's Happy Meals, etc. : see Retrojunk). They play on the nostalgia of anyone who grew up during that era in America or appeal to any of the generations who grew up watching syndicated reruns of the original G.I. Joe cartoon. In recent years, these mock, remix PSAs broadened their audience to anyone interested in 80s kitsch, the just plain weird, and/or the just plain (usually) funny. Besides shear entertainment value, these videos have virtually nothing to say in the way of a political, economic, or social agenda.

Social and Cultural Factors

[Identify social conditions that influence the viral transmission of this object. Social conditions, trends, attitudes, laws, etc. that intersect to lead to the creation and circulation of this viral structure?]

The Fensler Films videos emerged on the Web during the early days of affordable high-speed Internet (to the typical household consumer), nearly two years before YouTube was due to burst onto the scene and forever change the face of networked cultures. They were likely one of the first examples of online-only remixes of earlier video media in the sense that they utilized the QuickTime format to subtly yet dramatically alter copyrighted content such that the resulting parodies could not be said to be rip-offs of (or profited from) the originals. Without the YouTube format to give them greater publicity and spread the meme more rapidly, the videos maintained a quasi-underground status as a kind of best-kept-secret directory of jokes.

It should be stressed that these videos came of age on the Web.  They were not mere digitized copies of prior remixed content uploaded to the Web. Their success can likely be attributed to the fact that they struck a chord with "kids" in their early to late twenties (at the time of their release), who recognized the property from their childhoods and were not afraid to poke fun of their not-too-distant pasts (reveled in it, in fact) and who were themselves acquainted or becoming acquainted with the production of their own digital media content (hence, the amateurish, yet remarkably decent quality of these videos). In essence, Fensler Films' G.I. Joe PSAs stand as a prime example of an early viral video phenomenon, one that succeeded by tapping into an 80s-nostalgia zeitgeist well prior to rise of the 800-lb. gorilla that would be known as YouTube.

Resources / Further Information

Wikipedia - Fensler Films

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/gi-joe-psas