Gi Joe: Season 1 - Part 1 [DVD] [2004] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]

This volume should include the following episodes:

The Pyramid of Darkness part 1
The Pyramid of Darkness part 2
The Pyramid of Darkness part 3
The Pyramid of Darkness part 4
The Pyramid of Darkness part 5
Countdown for Zartan
Red Rocket's Glare
Satellite Down
Cobra Stops the World
Jungle Trap
Cobra's Creatures
The Funhouse
Twenty Questions
The Greenhouse Effect
Haul Down the Heavens
Synthoid Conspiracy (part 1)
Synthoid Conspiracy (part 2)
The Phantom Brigade
Lights! Camera! Cobra!
Cobra's Candidate
Money to Burn
Operation Mind Menace
Battle for the Train of Gold
Cobra Soundwaves
Where the Reptiles Roam
The Gamesmaster
Lasers in the Night

The episodes are re-mastered in similar fashion to other Rhino sets, which is to say excellently. There's maybe one "new" error in the episodes (involving a card read by Mutt that must have been changed late in production), and two that have been corrected by digital means. The intros and credits, however, are not restored (as seems to be the case for the majority of said clips on the sets so far). The sound has been restored again with a new 5.1 mix, but there's a new wrinkle-the original audio has been included for *all* episodes, and identified as such. (In the past, the 2.0 track has been a crap shoot between a down mix from the 5.1 or the original audio.)

As for extras, there are two good interviews with Christy Marx and Wally Burr, and 24 of the classic PSAs (many of which did appear on the G.I. Joe: The Movie DVD, though)-which leaves about a dozen PSAs across Seasons 1 and 2 to be shown on future sets.

There are some relatively minor drawbacks, though. Other than the Pyramid of Darkness episodes, the intro is the one from Season 2, as opposed to the correct Season 1 intro. None of the episodes conclude with a PSA before the end credits, which may or may not irk some (even though so many of the PSAs are collected on disc 4). The PSAs themselves are in dicey shape (as to be expected when the 35mm masters for them are nowhere to be found), but two are in particularly poor shape-Torpedo's swimming PSA is sped up (implying that the only surviving version is a poor transfer), and Quick Kick's warning about getting help from adults when building tree houses looks suspiciously like it was cribbed from someone's bootlegged copy from the '80s (which means an official version may be lost forever). Also, the two computer-corrected moments (one involving Destro's Robotopus in Pyramid of Darkness and the other involving a close-up in Cobra's Creatures") may irk some viewers. However, given the popularity of some of the episodes making their first appearance on home video (such as the Pyramid of Darkness 5-parter), it's impossible to give nothing but the highest recommendation possible to this box set.