Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians!

This DVD contains 8 half-hour episodes. Two of the eight episodes feature split adventures and as a result there are 10 adventures but 8 actual episodes. This installment of Super Friends was much more serious and heavy on character studies...there was no narration, which will be noticed right away. In all of the episodes of the series William Woodson was heard as the narrator...his catchphrase "meanwhile...at the Hall of Justice..." became as synonymous with the series as the superhero's themselves. In this installment, which hit Saturday morning TV in 1985, there was no narration and the Hall of Justice had received a make-over. It now looked like an intergalactic headquarters one might find on a far off planet in the galaxy.

The appearances of the characters were more defined as well...more realistically drawn as compared to their previous look. One important note...the super-hero's were officially calling themselves the Super Powers Team...even the villains who for years had referred to them as "Superfriends" were now calling them the "Super Powers Team".

This review will obviously contain spoilers so don't anyone out there get angry when I reveal surprises and other interesting things that take place within these episodes!

There are several episodes in this 1985 series that are years ahead of their time. In one episode, the brilliant "The Fear", Batman is center stage as is the homicidal villain, Scarecrow, who is played more sinister than he was on Challenge of the Super Friends. New voice actor as well...the previous voice was provided by Don Messick. Cyborg is introduced in the first episode, "The Seeds of Doom", as a reluctant super-hero who ultimately becomes one of the Superfriends by the end of the episode. Lex Luthor appears at the beginning of this episode working the controls of a mechanical spider. He's soon captured and isn't seen for the rest of the episode. The Para-Demons of Apokolips are featured in the series...referred to as Para-Drones.

As you can tell, Darkseid becomes the main recurring villain in this series. Cyborg, by the way, is played in the first few episodes as a renegade of sorts...but he struck up a friendship with Ronald Raymond/Firestorm by the end of the first episode and by the third episode he's completely accepted his new job as a super hero.

"The Fear" tells the story of Batman's origin...it is noted that this episode was the very first time Batman's history was recalled in animated form. In the episode there are appearances by Alfred as well as Commissioner Gordon. In a unique scene we have Batman and Robin, for the first time in the Super Friend series, appearing as their alter ego's: Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson. Diana Prince, a/k/a Wonder Woman, makes an appearance at the Wayne Manor. Jonathan Crane, a/k/a Scarecrow, uses fear to control Batman's mind...throughout much of the episode the Super Friends are oblivious to Crane's secret identity. Dick Grayson innocently remarks to Alfred that Batman's acted strange ever since he left Crime Alley. This causes Alfred go drop his dishes...for only he and Bruce know the story of Crime Alley. Bruce reveals the history of Crime Alley and explains that's where his parents were killed...which is ultimately what inspired him to become Batman. Parts of the dialogue in this episode was lifted from a comic book series called The Untold Legend of the Batman.

Darkseid, a God from Apokolips, is the main villain of this series...just as he was in the previous installment in 1984, The Legendary Super Powers Show. In one of the episodes, one of the 12 minute offerings, we have "The Case of the Stolen Super Powers". In that episode we are treated to an appearance by the Penguin and Felix Faust...of course, everyone knows the Penguin is one of Batman's main villains. In the episode Felix uses his black magic to cause Superman to lose his powers. At the start of the episode Felix and Penguin are sharing a jail cell. As Felix casts the spell, Superman's powers leave him, and fly toward the prison. Penguin, sensing possible fame as a super-criminal, leaps in front of Felix and takes the powers for himself. Penguin, with Superman's powers, busts out of jail and flies away. Felix escapes, too, floating to the ground using Penguin's trusty umbrella. Felix vows revenge, summons Phantoms to track down Penguin who'd become a major media celebrity. While back at Felix's hide-out he ultimately causes Superman's powers to vacate Penguin's body. Felix now possesses Superman's powers while Superman, using help from a flying mechanism, enters Felix's cave. Wonder Woman and the rest of the Super Friends arrive. Firestorm uses Felix's newly acquired powers against him and transforms Felix's helmet into Kryptonite. Wonder Woman uses the power of her lasso to force Felix into relinquishing Superman's powers. At long last Superman has his powers restored while Felix and the Penguin are sent back to jail...with the news they'll be sharing the same cell again.

The Joker, Batman's #1 enemy, turns up in the episode "The Wild Cards". The episode starts out with a gang of petty criminals who are seen breaking into a building. Watching from a distance is a mysterious shadow figure who ultimately shows up as Ace claiming to be an admirer of the gang. He offers his help he turns them into the Royal Flush Gang...based upon a group of bandits from the past who dressed up as playing cards. In this gang there's King, Jack, Queen, and Ten. Later, during a battle with the Super Friends, King uses a red heart from a playing card to shoot out red sun energy...causing Superman to get weaker. Firestorm and Wonder Woman are also captured. They set their eyes on Batman and Robin before Ace shows up instructing them to return to the House of Cards.

Ace, a one time member of the original gang in the '60s, is revealed in this episode to be the Joker in disguise. Within the House of Cards there's a device which transforms the Super Friends onto playing cards. Later, thanks to a tracking device Batman planted on the bottom of the one of the flying cards, the rest of the Super Friends arrive at the House of Cards. They soon discover that within the fortress there must be a portal of some kind as Apokolips can be seen when looking outside the windows. Batman remarks that "inside it's Earth and outside it's Apokolips!". For those who don't know, Apokolips is the planet from which Darkseid comes from. After another battle, Ace and the Royal Flush Gang are captured by Batman and Robin. Once captured, Batman reveals that Ace is none other than Joker in disguise. Later, Ten, is about to reveal to Batman how Darkseid's card transformation device works but at the last second Darkseid enters, shoots Ten with his Omega Beams, and releases the captured gang as well as Joker. The Super Friends flee...but are soon captured...or are they? Jack and Batman fight...and later it's revealed that during the battle Batman changed costumes with Jack in an effort to rescue the other Super Friends. Once Batman (as Jack) releases the rest of the Super Friends from the playing cards he reveals how he was able to turn the tables on Jack and sneak into the House of Cards. Joker's consistent mishaps and failures irritates Darkseid to the point where he throws Joker out of Apokolips...with the episode ending with Joker falling out of Darkseid's star-gate into the waiting hands of the Super Friends.

That episode and the other episode I just wrote about "The Case of the Stolen Super Powers", mark the only appearances on the Super Friends series of The Joker and The Penguin. The two villains were missing in all of the other versions of the series.

In "The Darkseid Deception" we're told a story of how Darkseid learns of Steve Trevor, the boyfriend of Wonder Woman/Diana Prince. In the episode Darkseid captures the real Steve Trevor, transforming him into a mindless idiot. Darkseid assumes the identity of Trevor in an attempt to finally have Wonder Woman for his bride and co-ruler of Apokolips. In "Escape from Star City" we're told of a space city that features only two living beings: Moco and his daughter. Moco created Star City to escape Earth and it's destructive ways. Samurai grows puzzled why Moco doesn't want to have any involvement with other human's...he becomes further puzzled why Moco seems easily irritated and distant. It's revealed that Darkseid and company have captured the real Moco and have placed a robot android to take his place. Darkseid has his sights on taking over Star City which in his mind is a perfect location to ultimately take over Earth. The real Moco is rescued while Kalibak destroys Star City...thinking it's what Darkseid wants. Later, we see Darkseid genuinely in shock when he watches Star City fall apart. The scene ends with Deesad and Kalibak looking at Darkseid who apparently had been sitting in the same position for hours...with both of them hoping that Darkseid never finds out who really caused the destruction of Star City.

Brainiac makes an appearance on the episode "Brainchild" about Cyborg being captured and used in Brainiac's experiment. Brainiac created a gigantic commando robot and he implanted Cyborg's mind into it. Superman and Firestorm battle the indestructible robot until it's discovered that the robot still has some of Cyborg's humanity. They use the human side of the robot to cause it to overload and short circuit. Once this occurs Cyborg's mind is returned and he wakes up from suspended animation.

In the bizarre episode, "The Bizarro Super Powers Team", we get to hear William Woodson's voice narrating the opening sequence...telling us about the square planet known as Bizarro World...but he isn't heard again throughout the episode. Bizarro turns several of the hero's into Bizarro's while Mr. Mxyzptlk acts as the teacher who trains the transformed bizarro's into being so-called upstanding citizens. Ironically, Superman doesn't make an appearance in this episode...but at the last minute a bizarro Mxyzptlk is created by Wonder Woman and because everything's backwards when it comes to the Bizarro race Mr. Mxyzptlk's duplicate is referred to as Mr. Kltpzyxm and through a bizarre set of circumstances the real Mxyzptlk is tricked into saying his name backwards and is zapped back to the 5th Dimension. The bizarro version of Mxyzptlk has idea's of turning Bizarro World into a beautiful place, which alarms Bizarro, who voluntarily goes back to his own world to try and save it.

One of the most recalled episodes from fans of this series is the final episode, "The Death of Superman"...which is a wonderful episode! In it, the episode starts up reporting on the news of Superman's death. Darkseid doesn't believe it. The Super Friends send Superman's body off into the sun and make their way to the Fortress of Solitude. Firestorm in the meantime goes into a fit of anger as he was the one with Superman at the time of his death. Later, Firestorm gets into a fight with some of Darkseid's warriors...only to be captured and taken to Apokolips. Darkseid uses a device to force Firestorm to recall the hours leading up to Superman's death. We're told of how the two of them were on a planet where Superman became exposed to kryptonite. Firestorm was unable to get help and as a result Superman died from kryptonite poisoning. Darkseid revealed that he wished that he would have been the person responsible for Superman's demise instead of some freak accident. Later, at the Fortress, Batman and company enter and meet up with one of the various Superman robots that guard the Fortress. They explain Superman's death while the robot reveals that Superman had long been searching for an antidote to kryptonite and that in one of his recent experiments he put himself into a trance. They look at Superman's curious position on one of the computer tapes...which was exactly the same position Firestorm found him. It doesn't take long for several of the Super Friends to make the assumption that Superman's still alive but in a self-induced trance to slow down the effects of the kryptonite exposure! In the end Superman is revealed to be alive...which stuns Darkseid and just about everyone else.

The DVD contains the following episodes:

1. The Seeds of Doom
2. The Ghost Ship / The Bizarro Super Powers Team
3. The Darkseid Deception
4. The Fear
5. Wild Cards
6. Brainchild / The Case of the Stolen Super Powers
7. Escape From Star City
8. The Death of Superman

Super Friends...They're in the Mail...

After several months of putting it off I finally got around to ordering the DVD's of the first season of the Super Friends. The episodes were released in two separate Volumes last year and those particular DVD's are the only ones missing from my collection. They should arrive in the mail within the week...probably near the weekend. I'd only seen a few of the episodes because back when Boomerang was airing them the channel would stick them on at Midnight and since I work nights I was never home to see the episodes...except on the weekend when I was home. It'll be nice to have all the episodes...from what I read there will be 2 DVD's in each collection with 4 episodes per DVD. There were 16 episodes produced altogether. The series ran 1 season and was ahead of it's time...considered a 'flop' originally. Later in the decade with the emphasis on escapist television drama and a live-action Wonder Woman series it was decided to re-run the 1973 Super Friends episodes which led to the eventual premier of The All-New Super Friends Hour which introduced the world to the Wonder Twins and Gleek (they replaced Wendy and Marvin and their Wonder Dog from season one). The original 1973 series, though, set in motion the overall formula for the remainder of the Super Friends programs that were to air throughout the late '70s and into the mid '80s.

Ted Knight narrated the first season's episodes...at the time, as far as animation fans are concerned, he was closely associated with the Filmation super-hero cartoons of the late '60s that were still airing in reruns on Saturday mornings in the '70s. Knight did the voices of The Joker, Riddler, Mr. Freeze, Simon the Pieman, and Black Manta to name just a few...in addition he was the narrator on those super-hero cartoons. Knight became a huge television star beginning in 1970 with the arrival of The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Knight played Ted Baxter on the series from it's debut in 1970 through it's final episode in 1977. It was in 1973 that he was called on to narrate the first season of Super Friends. By this time the adult audiences knew of him as Ted Baxter and I bet a lot of them were unaware of his contributions to children's cartoons.

This was also at a time when TV personalities often downplayed or hid their association with cartoons.

Meanwhile...when the Super Friends series was brought back with new episodes in 1977 (after a 4 year hiatus in production), William Woodson was the new narrator...and he, too, did character voices. Unlike Ted Knight, Woodson's voice roles in the series were in the category of incidental voices...characters that aren't part of the regular cast but are used to help support the storyline in a particular episode. Woodson would remain the narrator from 1977 through 1984. His voice appears in one episode of the series in 1985, ("The Bizarro Super Powers Team"), but in that particular version, (Galactic Guardians), the producers didn't use any narration on the rest of the episodes.

Ted Knight footage is easy to find on-line...videos of him are readily available on You Tube. William Woodson, on the other hand, not so readily available. One video clip, in particular, is a 1962 episode of The Rifleman. In this clip Woodson portrays the Sheriff of Red Creek. The episode aired on April 30, 1962. Woodson's footage begins at the 7 minute, 5 second mark but the bulk of the Woodson footage doesn't kick in until the 9 minute mark. This is where Woodson's character and Rifleman, Chuck Connors, have an intense confrontation.

Superfriends...The Classic Era...

Somewhere along the line there seems to have been an unwritten rule come along in which it's become popular(?) to make fun of the classic era of the Superfriends. I love the classic era. I've got most of the DVD collections of this series...the only collection's that I don't have, as of now, are the first season releases from last year. Like a lot of fans I'm waiting on news to come along that the 1979 episodes, titled World's Greatest Superfriends, are coming to DVD as well as the short episodes from 1980-1982. Commentary on-line suggests that the 1979 episodes won't be released due to the copyright issues of the literary works that were borrowed for the series...it was in the 1979 episodes where the Superfriends were placed in the land of Oz, for example, as well as battling foes in Camelot (referred to as Camelon in the series). There are other episodes from the 1979 series that were conventional episodes such as "Lex Luthor Strikes Back" where Lex and his bumbling assistant disguise themselves as various Superfriends with the help of a projector ray. The assistant, of course, is based on Ned Beatty's Otis character in the Superman movie a year earlier.

However, in spite of the belief that copyright problems may prevent the 1979 episodes from being re-released on DVD it should be noted that the DVD collection of the 1978 episodes features an installment called "Attack of the Vampire" which uses the actual name, Count Dracula, and then there are installments, also from 1978, titled "The Time Trap" and "Fairy Tales of Doom". In each episode the Superfriends come face to face with literary characters. Julius Caesar appears in "The Time Trap" while King Arthur is mentioned in the same episode. In the Fairy Tales episode Toyman sends several of the Superfriends into the books of fairy-tales: Gulliver's Travels, Alice in Wonderland, as well as Jack and the Beanstalk. I think if there's a serious push for the 1979 episodes to get released on DVD there'd be a compromise or deal struck in some fashion or another.

The desire from fans is to have all remaining episodes of the series released on DVD.

Of the 7 DVD collections that I own I find myself watching Challenge of the Superfriends the most and second to that is the 1983 Lost Episodes release from 2009. Lately I've been watching more of 1984's The Legendary Super Powers Show but I've watched each of the collections a lot...so there's not any specific release that I'd consider an absolute favorite. It simply depends on my mood...if I want to see episodes with Darkseid I'll pull out the 1984 episodes. If I want to see the hour long episodes I'll watch one of the two volumes of The All-New Superfriends Hour from 1977.

There have been 9 DVD collections released of the Superfriends over the course of the last several years. I don't have the 2 volume set of the first season episodes but I have all the other collections. It was in the first season where Ted Knight played the role of the narrator and the Hall of Justice was referred to as the Hall of the Justice League. Ted Knight was chosen as narrator, I assume, because of his history with voicing cartoon characters in the 1960's super-hero cartoons. A lot of people forget that Knight was the voice of The Riddler, The Joker, Mr. Freeze, Black Manta, Torpedo Man, Tusky, and Imp during the late '60s in the Filmation produced cartoons. Knight was the narrator of the 1967-1968 Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure as well as the 1968-1969 series, The Superman-Batman Adventures, and he voiced a lot of the villains. Knight's narration in the first season of Superfriends wasn't that out of place at all if you know his history with the franchise. Yes...before anyone can ask...it's the same Ted Knight who appeared on the Mary Tyler Moore Show, Too Close for Comfort, and the Caddyshack movies. You can find episodes of these late '60s super-hero cartoons with Ted Knight's involvement on You Tube. Those familiar with William Woodson's narration (1977-1984) and unfamiliar with Ted Knight's, of course, will find it odd to hear someone other than Woodson deliver the narration. I'm including this video of a 1967 Aquaman cartoon because it demonstrates Knight's vocal abilities as Black Manta. In the clip you'll hear Knight as the narrator, too...



For those who stumble onto this and don't own any of the DVD collections available here is a list of the officially released Superfriends collections...

1. Challenge of the Superfriends; 2004 (1978)

2. Superfriends, Volume Two; 2005 (1978)**

3. Superfriends: The Legendary Super Powers Show; 2007 (1984)

4. Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians; 2007 (1985)

5. The All-New Superfriends Hour, Volume One; 2008 (1977)

6. The All-New Superfriends Hour, Volume Two; 2009 (1977)

7. Superfriends: The Lost Episodes; 2009 (1983)

8. Superfriends, Season One, Volume One; 2010 (1973)

9. Superfriends, Season One, Volume Two; 2010 (1973)

(**)- in the 1978 hour-long series, Challenge of the Superfriends, the program was broken into two parts. In the first half hour the episodes revolved around the Superfriends and the Wonder Twins battling an array of small-scale villains, scientists gone mad, alien monsters, and local crooks bent on controlling the world or unleashing mayhem all over the world. In the second half hour the episodes revolved around the Superfriends, minus the Wonder Twins and with an increase of super-heroes, battling super-villains led by Lex Luthor. The villains resided in the Hall of Doom and they collectively went by the name of The Legion of Doom. When the DVD's were being released the company decided to release the 32 half-hour 1978 episodes in two separate DVD's consisting of 16 episodes per collection. Superfriends, Volume Two features the 16 episodes with the Wonder Twins as part of the line-up while the first collection released, Challenge of the Superfriends, features the 16 episodes with a line-up of 11 Superfriends battling the 13 member Legion of Doom.

The super-heroes in the episodes with the Legion of Doom include: Superman, Batman and Robin, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Green Lantern, Flash, Hawkman, Samurai, Black Vulcan, and Apache Chief. The last three heroes were created for the 1977 series and hadn't appeared in any comic book or other animated series beforehand. They were included in the Challenge series, too, in an effort to offer more story opportunities.

The Legion of Doom members include: Lex Luthor, Black Manta, Grodd, Toyman, Sinestro, Brainiac, Bizarro, Captain Cold, The Riddler, Scarecrow, Solomon Grundy, Cheetah, and Giganta.

Superfriends: The Lost Episodes...

As most people are aware that frequent this animation blog, I am a fan of the Superfriends series. For those who aren't frequent visitors here, I am referring to the 1970's and early 1980's animated versions of the DC comics superheroes. Today the Superfriends are referred to by their technical name, The Justice League. Once upon a time they were called the Superfriends. As you can see on the DVD cover there is Batman, Superman, Aquaman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, the Wonder Twins and Gleek. Green Lantern fans beware, though, there isn't a lot of him in this series. His biggest impact during the classic era is in the series Challenge of the Superfriends. These lost episodes are considered to be the more obscure episodes in the series because of the lack of repeated play on television. In fact, these 1983 episodes never aired in America until 1995. They aired on a USA Network show called The Superman-Batman Adventures. The series consisted of reruns of the 1960's and 1970's superhero cartoons and on some episodes they'd sprinkle in an early '80s short episode of Superfriends. All of these episodes aired on that USA Network series but even still they're not as familiar to most. This DVD consists of 24 short episodes...8 half hour episodes in all. Each episode contains 3 separate adventures that run roughly seven and a half minutes each.

Here are just some of the stand-out episodes in my opinion from this collection...

Warpland: Superman and Batman are pulled into another dimension where they meet up with an alien race headed up by Super-Frog. The voice of the frog is provided by Frank Welker, giving the super amphibian the same voice he'd provide for Darkseid. The alien's have their headquarters...none other than The Hall of Zoom. Superman is turned into an Eagle while Batman is turned into an actual bat. They battle Super-Frog's forces and once they leave the warp they revert back to their natural selves.

Mxyzptlk's Revenge: This episode features Batman and Superman matching wits with the 5th Dimension prankster, Mr. Mxyzptlk. In one memorable scene Superman almost passes out from green bean exposure...Mxyzptlk had placed Superman on a farm where green beans become a substitute for kryptonite. They eventually trick their way out of the 5th Dimension.

Revenge of Doom: This episode begins with a couple of inquisitive workers asking Batman and Robin a lot of questions about the Hall of Doom. The two workers turn out to be Lex Luthor and Solomon Grundy in disguise. Suddenly all members of the Legion of Doom have appeared and we're told that the Legion is back in session. Given this is a 7 and a half minute episode not a lot of the members of the Legion have speaking roles even though they're visibly present. Unlike in the Challenge of the Superfriends series, in this episode the Legion of Doom is captured.

Two Gleeks Are Deadlier Than One: Grodd and Giganta make an appearance in this episode where they kidnap Gleek and replace him with an android duplicate. The android was sent there under the notion that all of the Superfriends would be meeting at the Hall of Justice. One by one evil Gleek zaps the Superfriends into oblivion...but who really ends up with the upper hand? You'll have to watch for yourselves.

Bulgor the Behemoth: Apache Chief gets the most action in this episode where a writer's creation comes to life after a lightning storm...well, I should say, the writer turns into his own creation. It's up to Apache Chief and Superman to put a stop to the destruction and get the creature transformed back into the writer.

The Krypton Syndrome: In this fantasy adventure, Superman is zapped into a time warp where he finds himself near his home planet of Krypton before it exploded. He prevents the explosion of Krypton and saves the lives of millions in the process...but once he returns to his own time he discovers how Earth looks extremely different. He realizes when he saved Krypton from exploding that nobody on Earth knows of a Superman...and therefore his life on Earth never happened. Seeing that the Earth needs a person like 'Superman' to protect it from villains he decides to go back into time again but this time to make sure Krypton explodes.

Prisoners of Sleep: In this adventure, a mysterious floating figure known as Sleep starts a nightmarish reign of terror which soon finds Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman enmeshed in the nightmare world with the possibility of never waking up. Thanks to some mortals, the three Superfriends "wake up" just in time.

Return of the Phantoms: This episode is something of a sequel to an episode entitled Terror from the Phantom Zone that aired in 1978. In this 1983 cartoon, the three Phantom Zone villains named Hull, Romlock, and Logar, escape once again to cause trouble for Superman and the other people on Earth. In the end they're zapped back into the Phantom Zone.

Video Victims: In this quirky episode, Bizarro plays an arcade game which features arcade versions of several Superfriends. The episode starts out on Bizarro World, the square shaped planet where everyone looks like imperfect zombie duplicates of Superman and Lois Lane. Bizarro returns to Earth and immediately creates trouble. The episode also doubled as a mock of video games in general...including a Pac-Man style character.

Those are just the episodes that stand out the most among the others. Brainiac makes an appearance in the Superclones episode. El Dorado and Aquaman are the two victims who are cloned. The two create a world of problems for the Superfriends by telling a court of law that the entire Justice League has turned evil. The real El Dorado and Aquaman free themselves from Brainiac's trap and make their way to the courthouse.

There's also an episode where Superman and Wonder Woman are captured by aliens and forced to play spaceball...this episode is called The Recruiter. It's anyone's guess why the short episodes from 1983 were released first instead of the ones from 1980...but there's no complaints from me...this is a step in the right direction at getting all of the short episodes released on DVD.

Scooby's Laff-a-Lympics and more

There will be a couple of DVD releases coming in January 2010. One of them is the long-awaited release of "Laff-a-Lympics" onto DVD format by a major company. The plus side is that the episodes are finally being put onto DVD circulation but the down side is, from the looks of it, it'll be a 4-episode per volume collection. There were 16 episodes produced of the series in 1977-1978...and it all adds up to 4 volumes of "Laff-a-Lympics" on DVD containing 4 episodes each. Now, of course, I would have preferred the episodes be released in one complete collection...8 episodes on 2 discs...but that isn't the way it's going to happen. So, what consumers should do, is purchase the first volume that's available for pre-order at Amazon and other on-line stores.

"Why...it only contains 4 episodes???!!???!!"

Well, for those who take that approach here's something important you should know. The company that's releasing this Volume One collection is pretty much going to base their follow-up plan based on the success rate of the DVD. What this means is if the first volume of episodes doesn't show any sales success then it'll more than likely cause the company to decide against releasing further episodes. You can't take a wait and see approach or have the opinion of "I'm just going to wait until a proper release comes along" because the on-going release of more episodes of "Laff-a-Lympics" onto DVD will be based on the sales success of this Volume One collection that hits in January 2010. You all can do whatever you want to, of course. I'll more than likely purchase the collection.

In another report on DVD releases pertaining to vintage cartoons we have the news of the upcoming release of the original "Superfriends" with Wendy and Marvin and their dog aiding the Superfriends. This original series wasn't as heavily reran as later episodes featuring the Wonder Twins...I believe at some point earlier this year the original episodes ran late at night on Boomerang. Well, anyway, fans of the series have been hoping for a release of the original episodes for years and in January 2010 they will get their wish. The original run of the series featured Ted Knight as the narrator instead of William Woodson. Also, the original episodes had a much more limited animation style than the series that became more well-known. The DVD will feature 8 episodes and they each ran about 45 minutes in length...an hour when you factor in television commercial interruptions. There were 16 episodes produced of the original series, which was on the air during the 1973-1974 season. As with the "Laff-a-Lympics" release, the plans of following up "Superfriends" with the rest of the episodes will depend on the success of the Volume One collection.

All-New Superfriends Hour, Volume Two review

Volume Two of this DVD set is just as great as Volume One, released over a year ago. In this new collection we see the remaining episodes missing from Volume One. A random sampling of what you will get when you buy this collection are 8 episodes. The episodes originally ran an hour when broadcast on TV but minus the commercials each episode is roughly 45 to 50 minutes in length. Each episode is broken into four separate segments as well, which is why it's advertised as 32 episodes. The first segment features a team-up between two Superfriends. The second segment features the Wonder Twins on adventures revolving teenage issues/peer pressure. The third segment is the main attraction, a story involving all of the Superfriends and the Wonder Twins. The final segment teams up one of the Superfriends with a guest super-hero. Batman and Robin, since they work as a team, are considered "one" hero in the team-up's.

Batman and Robin along with Superman appear together in the episode "Man-Beast of Xra" where an evil scientist, a woman named Dr Xra, unleashes man-beasts on the city with the help of her nervous accomplice. The professor is voiced by the show's narrator, William Woodson. Xra is voiced by Jean Vanderpyl, who became popular as the voice of Wilma Flintstone.

Aquaman's primary villain, Black Manta, appears in an episode entitled "Water Beast". In the episode, though, he's only referred to as Manta but the character design is clearly based on Black Manta. Aquaman gets a lot of screen time in the PSA segments where safety and health tips are dispensed. He also appears in the magic segment's as well. The rest of the Superfriends rotate with Aquaman in those PSA segments. In one safety segment, Aquaman warns a kid about attempting to roller skate with rusty skates and suggests he have a grown-up oil them. In the episode "Frozen Peril", Aquaman and Superman go on the mission of defrosting the world after an undersea villain, Sculpin, freezes the surface. John Stephenson voices a few characters in this episode including the villain.

The Wonder Twins appear in their own segments and one of them in this collection is frank by 1970's standards...Saturday morning TV standards specifically. I speak of the segment called "Prejudice" where the Wonder Twins tackle the subject when two bikers refuse to help a stranded motorist due to the color of his skin. "Pressure Point" deals with a kid named Jerry who feels insecure and sets about to show how talented he is at motorcycling by attempting to jump a canyon.

"Mummy of Nazca" is a story of an evil scientist who uses a mummy to do his dirty work. The doctor's name is Cooroff, loosely based upon Karloff, as in Boris Karloff, the actor who appeared in the Mummy horror movie 77 years ago in 1932. Henry Corden voices Professor Cooroff. In a rare moment in this series, Superman appears as Clark Kent for a period of time in this episode as he takes the Wonder Twins to the museum. Judging by the script, they didn't know Clark Kent and Superman were the same person.

"Forbidden Power" is a story about an evil scientist who sets off to find the ultimate power...Batman, Robin, and Wonder Woman stop him.

"Day of the Rats" features Batman, Robin, and Black Vulcan in Gotham City attempting to clean up the rat's that have littered the city. The rats turned evil because of a mechanism in the sewers. It's one of the few episodes where a main villain wasn't featured...just a bunch of evil rats flooding the city and terrorizing businesses. It was like the film 'The Birds' but with lots and lots of rats. By episode's end, Black Vulcan destroyed the mechanism controlling the rats and they changed back to their normal behavior.

In an episode called "Tiny World of Terror" we have a greedy scientist/inventor who doesn't get co-operation from his colleagues with one of his schemes and he gets his revenge by shrinking them...he soon shrinks the Superfriends as well and they have to over-come their height disadvantage in order to stop the scientist, named Professor Strickland. His partners who he shrunk were Professor Wong and assistant Mary. In a funny scene, the tiny Superfriends encounter all sorts of animals climaxing with Superman hopping on a giant spider and riding it like a bull. In "Tibetan Raiders", Flash guest stars and joins Superman in the Himalaya's to rescue passengers from an airplane that crashed. Flash isn't voiced by Jack Angel, so it was unusual seeing the character with a different voice.

As you can see, a lot of these stories center around an evil scientist or a professor who becomes vigilante-like and sets about to "rid the world of war" or "end all suffering". William Woodson, the show's narrator, often provided the voices for the assistant's and sometimes he was the voice of the main villain. The villains were described as being mis-guided, rather than intentionally harmful.

The methods in which the villainous doctor's carry out their hopes and dreams in the episodes, of course, cross the line into illegal activity and by episode's end they're told how wonderful their wishes and dreams are but breaking the law to achieve their wishes and dreams was still a big no-no. There were rarely any villains, with a few exceptions, that were deliberately evil.

Having said that, one of the villains that was intentionally cruel was Lion-X. He was the leader of the race of lion's that appear in the episode "Lionmen". In this episode, Lion-X uses a special ray device and while taking control of the space station, he beams the ray at Earth. They want to pull the Earth apart and look to be a success pretty much throughout the episode...with Lion-X knowing Superman's weakness: kryptonite. Wonder Woman uses a special voice changer and pretends to be Lion-X...ordering the followers to switch off the ray...the plan almost works until Gleek innocently walks across a monitor and his tail clicks on the camera switch...exposing Wonder Woman's trick.

Rima, Green Lantern, and Apache Chief also make guest appearances. Atom, the small guy with the atomic energy, guest stars in the episode "Cable Car Rescue" with Wonder Woman. The two of them have to rescue a cable car dangling in the sky. The only DVD extra is about the Wonder Twins. Five stars...the DVD is of an acquired taste. Those raised on the super-hero cartoons of today with all of that over-the-top realism will perhaps not find these cartoons entertaining because the stories are fantastical and fiction, using just a shred of reality for the plot-line and going from there...since cartoons were geared at children who weren't expected to grow up too fast back then.

The principal voice-cast include the following:

Danny Dark as Superman
Olan Soule as Batman
Casey Kasem as Robin
Shannon Farnon as Wonder Woman
Norman Alden as Aquaman
Michael Bell as Zan and Gleek
Liberty Williams as Jayna
William Woodson as the Narrator

In the Wonder Twins segments, Michael Bell and Liberty Williams voice multiple characters in addition to Zan, Jayna, and Gleek as you'll be able to tell right away. Olan Soule often played villainous henchmen in addition to voicing Batman...Casey Kasem not only voiced Robin but in later episodes he voiced the computer. Casey can be heard as various villainous characters and incidental characters in this collection. William Woodson was often heard as villains, too.

All-New Superfriends Hour, Volume Two...and Beyond...

This DVD collection was released a few months ago, back in January 2009. I have just now gotten around to buying it...and the reason for the hold-up in purchasing the collection is because I was certain that it would become available at the local Wal*Mart store as quite a few DVD collections have...including the previous Superfriends collections...but after several weeks of checking and still no Season One, Volume Two I gave in and ordered it on-line and it arrived the other day. I watched DVD #1 and will watch the second DVD at a later date and once I do that I'll have a review written...and that brings me to my personal pointers of reviewing...

I tend to write my reviews in an enthusiastic manner...and I avoid using a lot of language that would suggest mockery toward what I review. I have genuine interest in everything I have a blog about.

First of all I feel that if you review something you have to understand it and second of all you must have some sort of respect for the audience of the material in which you're reviewing/critiquing because if you don't you won't be taken seriously. I know some people may not agree with that statement but that's how I feel. The first thing I look for when I read someone else's review is audience respect...the first hint of mockery renders a review useless to me. So, for me, I write my commentary for those who are fans of whatever I happen to spotlight...and being a fan of Superfriends I write from a fan's point of view. The fans of this series, and I am speaking of the 1970's/1980's versions, know how the animation is and they know the way the characters were depicted and the less-than-complex stories, so it is useless to point those things out over and over and so I don't. I also do not ridicule and make fun of anything I happen to like and so you'll only have serious commentary and opinion within my reviews.

I see a lot of commentary about this series all over the internet...some good, but mostly not so good. The old-school animation and storytelling techniques are looked down on today for the most part by a society that is compelled to compare everything with a modern-day mentality. This sort of thing severely cripples a lot of animated cartoons...not just the Superfriends but programs similar to it...cartoons made prior to the "oh so hip" 1990's.

There is a phrase called "Saturday morning TV" that critics like to talk negatively about. The imagery of kids in their pajamas eating their cereal for breakfast watching cartoons...oh, I should say sugary coated cereal with that yum-yum goodness which is how most people generalize cereal commercials from that era. There is a touch of sarcasm in that last sentence or two.

Anyway, those sort of images of children watching cartoons on Saturday morning...and chomping down on the various delicious flavors of Lucky Charms or Frosted Flakes cause most modern-day mom's and dad's to throw a fit and harp on sugary cereal, etc. etc. Anyone remember when Cap'n Crunch and other animated cereal mascot's became popular? A lot of the fun in watching Saturday morning cartoons was seeing the recurring commercials with the mascots. There was the previously mentioned Cap'n Crunch...plus Lucky from "Lucky Charms", and then there was the CooCoo Bird on the "Cocoa Puffs" commercials and of course there was the Trix Rabbit...and Tony the Tiger...and on and on. There are still cereal commercials on the air but nothing like that era.

But anyway, I will have a review up when I finish watching and taking notes of the Season One, Volume Two DVD collection. Judging by DVD #1, the second DVD will be just as good. I often type my reviews here and then copy and paste them on Amazon's web-site, or, I by-pass the blog and write my review at Amazon.

I have all of the DVD collections that have been released on the Superfriends but you could have guessed that without me saying so...I have another blog entry about this series for those wanting further information on the series itself.

The Superfriends

The Superfriends as many fans of 1970's cartoons will know consisted of animated adventures of DC comics super-heroes. The series had a shaky start at first and some say was ahead of it's time. The original version of the series featured a slightly different line-up than what you see in the above picture. The original version did not have The Wonder Twins and Gleek. Instead, the original version had two kids named Marvin and Wendy and their dog, known as Wonder Dog. The stories were almost always ecological or environmental depicting mad scientists wanting to hurt the environment. A moral/lesson was often at the core of each story, too.

The Superfriends headquarters was referred to as The Hall of Justice League in the first version and Hall of Justice thereafter. Ted Knight was the program's narrator.

That version consisted of 16 hour long episodes and ran just one season, 1973-1974, and would continue to re-run until ABC-TV decided to re-try the show with a different twist.

The All-New Superfriends Hour came along in 1977 and this version is the one that caught on. Marvin, Wendy, and the Wonder Dog were gone and in their place were Zan, Jayna, and Gleek a trio of aliens from the planet, Exxor. The two teenagers it's been said were patterned after Donny and Marie Osmond. The Wonder Twins displayed super powers...something Marvin and Wendy hadn't. Zan could transform into any form of water-based shape: water, ice, steam. Jayna could transform into any animal. The powers of the Wonder Twins were executed by the two of them hitting their fists together and shouting "Wonder Twin Powers...Activate!". Gleek couldn't transform into anything but he had a shape-shifting tail that could also stretch, which often came in handy. The core line-up of Superfriends were Superman, Batman, Robin, Wonder Woman, and Aquaman. The stories in this 1977 version were far less ecologically charged but they still carried a moral lesson. William Woodson was the narrator of the revival series and he'd continue with the show throughout it's run. Half of the 1977 season was issued on DVD earlier this year with Volume Two hitting stores in January 2009. There were 15 episodes of the 1977 series produced.

This 1977 series was split up into a formula. The first adventure paired two of the Superfriends together in a 6-7 minute adventure. The second segment, also running close to 7 minutes, featured The Wonder Twins and Gleek dealing with teenage issues in adventures of their own. The third segment, known as the main story, featured a 30 minute adventure with all of the Superfriends. The fourth and final segment focused on one of the Superfriends teaming up with a guest super-hero. In between all of this were extra's. The De-Coder segment featured a word association game broken into two parts. The first part of the game gave a viewer a clue and they were to remember it because part-two of the de-coder would reveal the second part of the word association clue. A viewer was to guess what the word was in relation to the main Superfriends adventure. Another extra was the Magic segment where one of the Superfriends would demonstrate some form of magic trick and then in a follow-up reveal how the trick was did. Another was the health segment where exercise was promoted. These bumper segments ran barely a minute.

After the ratings success of the 1977 version, ABC-TV debuted Challenge of the Superfriends which also ran an hour in length, in 1978. This version of the series introduced the super-villain group known as The Legion of Doom. The first half of the show featured an adventure with the core line-up of Superfriends along with the Wonder Twins and Gleek. The second half of the show didn't feature the Wonder Twins and Gleek but instead increased the number of Superfriends from five to eleven and focused on 13 villains who operated from the Hall of Doom: Lex Luthor, Brainiac, Sinestro, Bizarro, The Riddler, Scarecrow, Black Manta, Grodd, Solomon Grundy, Cheetah, Giganta, Captain Cold, and Toyman. The new additions to the Superfriends that season were: Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman, Samauri, Apache Chief, and Black Vulcan. The last two super-heroes were created in 1977 for the All-New Superfriends Hour and hadn't actually appeared in DC comic books. Samauri was another creation for the Superfriends cartoon that never appeared in the comic books. There were 16 hour long episodes made for the 1978 season. The show ran 1 hour and consisted of two 30 minute episodes and technically that means 32 half-hour episodes were a part of this series. The series was released on DVD as "Challenge of the Superfriends" and "Superfriends: Volume Two", breaking up the two segments of the hour program.

In the 1978 series we saw Aquaman turn into a pre-historic beast as a result of radiation exposure. Superman and Wonder Woman shrink themselves to micro-size and travel through the Aquaman beast's veins. Gleek, while the beast is strapped down under chains, accidentally turns on the shrink ray, which shrinks the chains and allows the beast to easily break his confinement. All the while, Aquaman beast has gotten loose and goes on a destructive rampage of Metropolis. The episode is appropriately titled "Journey Through Inner Space". The Phantom Zone, a place where Kryptonian's sent their criminals, is the focus in the episode "Terror From the Phantom Zone" when three villains escape and seek revenge on Superman. Red and Blue Kryptonite are both featured in this episode. The villains expose Superman to the red kryptonite, which ages him. Later, he has to travel to the remains of Krypton to seek out blue kryptonite, which may reverse his aging. Aquaman's base of operations, Atlantis, is featured briefly in the episode "The World Beneath the Ice".

In another episode, "Battle of the Gods", we see Wonder Woman and the other Superfriends in a challenge set forth by Zeus. The episode starts out with the Superfriends in a galactic fight with space aliens. Shortly afterward, Wonder Woman is telepathically contacted by Aphrodite. This brings Wonder Woman to a planet, home of the immortal Gods. There, she saves Aphrodite's temple from collapsing but we soon learn that Hera is jealous of Wonder Woman and Aphrodite. The rest of the Superfriends arrive on the planet, setting in motion Hera's antics. She and Aphrodite begin bickering, she accuses Aphrodite of giving lavish praise to "mortals" like the Superfriends. Zeus appears and halts the argument and challenges the Superfriends to face hardships "that only the greatest could survive".

In the Challenge segment, a lot of the episodes revolved around the Legion of Doom's conquest of universal control. Each story featured several members of the Legion hatching a plan to rid the world of the Superfriends. All of their attempts failed but the Legion was never caught...at the end of each story, Luthor would almost always have an escape plan, causing the Legion to get away just in time. In "Trial of the Superfriends", the Legion put the Superfriends on trial. Well, some of the Superfriends: Batman, Robin, Green Lantern, and Wonder Woman. Luthor is the judge. Sinestro acts as prosecutor while Grodd acts as the leader of the "jury". The episode centers around a destructive element known as liquid light. While several of the Superfriends are on trial and later set free without their power devices, running from Brainiac's android duplicates, several other Superfriends are on the pursuit of other members of the Legion who are planning on releasing the liquid light in a heavily populated area. In the episode "The World's Deadliest Game", Brainac creates a device that makes the Earth appear to vanish. Meanwhile, Wonder Woman, Hawkman, and Black Vulcan are at the moon helping NASA. As the three head for home, they notice the Earth is gone. Hawkman contacts Superman...but the transmission cuts out. Toyman, watching the events unfold on a monitor at the Hall of Doom, mimics Superman's voice on a radio and tells the three that the Earth is light years away and they need help. This causes the three to make their way to the signal picked up on Hawkman's radio but nothing's there...it's then that they fall into a black hole and land on Toyman's artificial planet of toy traps. "Swamp of the Living Dead" shows the Legion of Doom joining forces with a "sinister being" conjured up by a swamp witch. The evil spirit captures the Superfriends, who are placed inside clear cases in the bottom of the swamp. The evil spirit gives the Legion of the power to command the dead. When the Legion double-crosses the evil spirit, he sets a group of zombies after them...causing the Legion to set the Superfriends free, hoping the zombies will go after them instead.

"Doomsday" features Sinestro, Cheetah, and Black Manta plotting revenge against the rest of the Legion. This happened at the start of the episode when the Legion deserted the scene of the crime, leaving three of their members helpless. Superman and the others capture Sinestro, Cheetah, and Black Manta and hold them at the Hall of Justice. In the meantime, Sinestro creates three anti-matter duplicates to take their place as the real villains escape into the universe of Qward. When Superman taps Sinestro on the shoulder, he vanishes into the Qward universe. Superman finds his way back to the Hall of Justice but in the meantime Sinestro, Cheetah, and Black Manta build a separate Hall of Doom and set out to destroy Luthor and the others. In the end, the Superfriends put an end to the plot, and the three villains re-join the Legion of Doom. There is an episode entitled "Superfriends: Rest In Peace" where Luthor discovers a deadly element that can wipe out all of the Superfriends. The plan works up until a clever plot twist causes the Legion's latest scheme to fail. This episode features a brief appearance by Batman supporting character, Commissioner Gordon; as well as Superman associates Lois Lane and Perry White.

The 1979 season saw the debut of World's Greatest Superfriends and this series focused on the core line-up of five Superfriends, along with the Wonder Twins and Gleek. The series ran one hour and eight episodes were made. The bulk of the show's airings were repeats of previous seasons.

Throughout 1980-1982, the series aired an hour in length but the formula was changed. Each hour show now featured a half-hour repeat episode from the previous seasons in addition to three new 7 minute episodes. These short episodes were naturally easier to churn out and produce and so Hanna-Barbera continued producing 7 minute episodes for three seasons. A new super-hero was created for this series of episodes, El Dorado. ABC-TV canceled the series during 1983 and a syndicated series was launched as a result. Hanna-Barbera continued to produce 7 minute episodes of the series because it was still running over-sea's, specifically Australia, and the syndicated program meant that it could thrive without network interference. These episodes weren't shown in the United States in abundance. The bulk of the episodes aired in the United States for the first time 12 years later in 1995 on the USA cable network on a compilation series called The Superman-Batman Adventures. Naturally, with such a lapse in time, most viewers who caught these episodes weren't even aware they were seeing episodes new to the United States.

ABC-TV picked the Superfriends series up again in 1984. This version was radically different than any previous take on the series. There was no Aquaman in this series...although he appears in the show's opening. Superfriends: The Legendary Super Powers Show was a deliberate attempt to tie the series with the action-figures that used the 'Super Powers' logo. The show featured Firestorm as a new addition to the line-up and several of the stories were written around his eager enthusiasm approaching his job as a super hero, sometimes landing him and the other Superfriends into dangers. The series ran a half hour in length and featured two separate adventures, which means each adventure would run 11-12 minutes a piece. In addition to Firestorm, the series is noted for introducing Darkseid and his associates into animated form. Darkseid rules the planet Apokolips and on this series his henchmen were his son, Kalibak, and Dessad. The Wonder Twins and Gleek weren't a part of this show in the way they had been. They appeared in a few episodes, notably the episodes called "Uncle Mxyzptlk", "The Wrath of Brainiac", and "The Case of the Shrinking Superfriends". Brainiac appeared in skeletal form in this series in spite of the fact in the opening of the show he appears as he did in the 1970's. There were 8 episodes produced, each consisting of two segments, mathematically making 16 episodes and these were released on DVD. In this series, Wonder Woman's boyfriend, Steve Trevor, is name-dropped on the episode "Darseid's Golden Trap", which featured a rare Superman story dealing with Gold kryptonite. Red kryptonite was the focus on "Uncle Mxyzptlk".

A running theme in the 1984 series was Darkseid's attempts of getting Wonder Woman to fall in love with him. The very first episode, "The Bride of Darkseid", introduced this sub-plot.

The series did an about-face in 1985. This version, Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians, was was more serious and in a way kind of hinted at the overly dramatic portrayal of the super-heroes in the next decade. Cyborg was the latest super-hero added to the series. He and Firestorm had most of the action during this final version of the series. This version also featured a couple of firsts. Critics and fans have often claimed the series featured way more Superman villains and there's a reason for this. In my way of thinking, when someone says the show's name, Superfriends, which hero comes to mind? Superfriends...Superman...so that is my theory as to why Superman had the bulk of attention throughout the classic run of the Superfriends. Yet, in the 1985 version, two of Batman's famous villains made their only appearance on Superfriends: Joker and Penguin.

The Joker was featured with Darkseid in the episode "Wild Cards". Penguin was featured with Felix Faust in an episode called "The Case of the Stolen Super Powers" even though Batman, nor Robin, are featured in the story. Bizarro and Mr. Mxyzptlk were featured together on the strange episode "The Bizarro Super Powers Team". Batman's origin was shown for the first time in animation on the episode "The Fear" featuring a much more wicked Scarecrow than originally depicted on Challenge of the Superfriends. Also, Superman died in one of the episodes...after prolonged exposure to kryptonite...but Superman survived, of course...but the story-line nevertheless tackled a subject seldom attempted. Darkseid was still pursuing a relationship with Wonder Woman. This is featured on the episode "The Darkseid Deception" where he masquerades as Steve Trevor.

Galactic Guardians ran 8 episodes as well...two of those 8 episodes contained a second segment. So, what we have here are 6 half-hour adventures and 2 episodes featuring two 11 adventures a piece. The Superfriends series, in all of it's versions, came to and end in 1986 after ABC-TV canceled the show when the last version of the series ended it's last repeat cycle. There was no more episodes produced, either. Superheroes were fading from animation by the late 1980's with a rare exception being a 1988 animated version of Superman. Superheroes wouldn't come back onto TV in any real big way until 1992 when FOX-TV debuted Batman: The Animated Series and that program set in motion the overly dramatic, angst-ridden depiction of the super-hero's that persists to this day. Superman and Spiderman {a Marvel comic hero} would see new animation series as a result of Batman's success on FOX. Later, an entirely updated version of the Superfriends was debuted, called Justice League, featuring ultra-modern updates of the characters. I consider myself a fan of the classic-era Superfriends. I've watched the newer versions and to me they are just too serious and lack charm, if that's the proper way to put it? The cartoons sound more like mini-drama's instead of adventurous cartoons...and the voices carry a hint of movie-star diction instead of cartoon animation.

The first version of Superfriends from 1973 is not available on DVD and neither is the 1979 version or the 1980-1983 seven minute short episodes. The shows that are on DVD are The All-New Superfriends Hour, Volume One released earlier this year. Volume Two will appear in January 2009. The other versions on DVD are: 1978's Challenge of the Superfriends, which was split into two DVD releases, one 16 episode collection featuring the Legion of Doom episodes and another 16 episode collection featuring typical adventures from the first half of the 1978 series; 1984's Superfriends: The Legendary Super Powers Show, and Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians.