Backward Masking

Remember all the fuss in the 80s about backward masking and the subliminal messages hidden in commercials, rock music, and such?

Remember the G.I. Joe cartoon series?

DestroTurns out Destro did some backward masking in one episode. Check it out: In the G.I.Joe episode Sins of Our Fathers, Cobra Commander evokes a monster that dwelled in the ruins beneath Destro’s ancestral home. Destro and G.I.Joe team-up and Destro uses an ancient chant to lure the monster away. Destro is voiced by actor Arthur Burghardt, Dialtone is voiced by Hank Garrett.

I’ll admit here that I was, for all intents and purposes, a complete G.I. Joe junkie. I collected the action figures and sets, and I read the comic book religiously for several years, closely following the saga unfolding between Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow. I started to lose interest shortly after the quite ill-conceived Arise, Serpentor, Arise mini-series, though. By that time I was in seventh or eighth grade, and the whole “create-the-uber-evil-emperor-from-the-DNA-of-past-evil-people” theme was kind of silly.

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