Just after Sgt Slaughter had defended America's honour against The Iron Sheik in that infamous Boot Camp match at Madison Square Garden, Sarge was second only to Hulk Hogan in terms on popularity in the WWF. With that popularity came stardom and Slaughter was keen to capitalise on that while he could. One avenue that opened itself up was that of the G.I. Joe cartoons. It was an obvious affiliation given Sarge's gimmick as military personnel. This all must have seemed too good to be true for the former WWF Champion and so it proved to be. Vince McMahon blocked any initial attempts for one of his biggest stars to appear in the cartoons and have G.I. Joe styled action figures made. This didn't go down too well with Sarge who was becoming increasingly unhappy with exclusively representing WWF. He wanted to be in the cartoons which would clash with his WWE schedule. To get around this problem he requested that he be given six week paid leave from wrestling. Of course, at the thought of going six weeks without one of his biggest stars, McMahon rejected. Slaughter would fail to appear at a few WWF events and was subsequently fired. He would appear in the cartoons and have his own action figure released a year later.
