Its funny because as a kid I thought both the cartoon and Sgt. Slaughter were kind of lame compared to the stories I envisioned for the Joes while playing with the figures (I never read the comics until after I got rid of all my GI Joe toys in a garage sale the summer before I started junior high). The laser guns, nobody dying, Slaughter, "yo joe", etc. Just lame.
Without the comics my friends and I just had the file cards and our own imaginations. I don't think we even knew that Snake Eyes wasn't supposed to talk. I always had him talk with a gravelly voice along the lines of Boba Fett's original voice in ESB.
Anyway when we discovered the cartoon we watched it because it was GI Joe but there was a lot we made fun of. Slaughter was kind of annoying because out of the blue they just make this cheezy real life guy "Super Joe" who overshadowed all of our favorite characters. But now its all part of that 80's charm, in all its ridiculousness, because for better or for worse in spite of its own cheeziness we were still entertained.
Slaughter's cool enough now, but the peach filecard years are still where its at.
