This series' concept was originally created for the Marvel comic book using a reworked series proposal by Larry Hama originally called, "Fury Force," where the son of Nick Fury, Executive Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., organizes and leads a special commando unit of that intelligence organization to fight the villainous secret organization, HYDRA. While that proposal did not go forward, the toy company Hasbro approached Marvel Comics to create a comic book of their revived G.I. Joe toyline, the characters and equipment of which could be advertised on television with much less regulation than straightforward toy commercials. To that end, the "Fury Force," proposal was redesigned to match the toy line with Marvel writer Archie Goodwin suggesting reworking HYDRA as Cobra for the villain. That idea was accepted with some reluctance from Hasbro as they had some trepidation at how well an army of villains would sell. However, sales of Cobra action figures and accessories soon made up 40% of the toyline's sales.
The lyrics refer to "G.I. Joe against Cobra and Destro". Starting with the second mini-series, that line would be changed to "G.I. Joe against Cobra the Enemy". Additionally, international versions of the cartoon omit ANY reference to Cobra in the song lyrics, merely referring to them as "The Enemy", and changes the tag-line "A Real American Hero" to "International Heroes".
The scene in the opening montage of Flash firing his laser rifle at a target is actually taken from the commercial for the "G.I. Joe #1" comic book.
Most of the vehicles from both G.I. Joe and COBRA were based on actual military vehicles.