Overview: The greatest DC Super Heroes unite to uphold justice, supported by their young protégés. Produced by Hanna-Barbera and featuring the Justice League of America, the animated TV series Super Friends ran from 1973 to 1985 as part of a Saturday morning cartoon lineup.

DVD Verdict: Just Imagine! The greatest heroes of our time, banded together to stamp out the forces of evil wherever and whenever they might appear! Based on DC Comics’ long-running Justice League Of America series, the show featured the Justice League (Superman, Batman & Robin, Aquaman, and Wonder Woman together with apprentice super-heroes Marvin, Wendy, and Wonder Dog! Other DC luminaries such as the Flash and the Atom made periodic cameos and, boy, what an incredible run it had from 1973 to 1985.

Oh, and before I deep dive into the show, it should also be known that Superman (Danny Dark) and Robin (Casey Kasem) were the only two characters voiced by the same performer in every Super Friends series! Until I did my research here today, I actually did not know that, but now it makes things fun to look back at some of the episodes knowing this.

And, believe it or not, Adam West - who performed as Batman in Batman (1966) - lent his voice to animated depictions of the title character in Super Friends (1973) and Super Friends: Galactic Guardians (1985). He performed that same role in Legends of the Superheroes (1979).

OK, sure, as cheesy, goofy and as predictable as every Super Friends episode was, it has a special feel to it throughout. The classic sound effects and animation along with a basic fun story to it is what makes this show great. Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman are mostly the focus of the shows and the rest are sidekicks (indeed, a lot of the sidekick heroes I had not heard of at that time).

The show featured a lot of villains from the DC Universe and so it was cool seeing Batman face of against Lex Luther and Superman face off against The Riddler. The Legion of Doom are the Super Friends enemies and so it was always a little exciting seeing them face off against each other.

My own personal favorite episode was the one where Wendy, Marvin, and Wonderdog were exposed to massive amounts of radiation from a cosmic gamma ray burst and were transformed into the Wonder Twins and Gleek. Sure, they were still of little practical use to the real superheroes at the Justice League, who grew accustomed to the nonstop Troubalerts telling them that the Wonder Twins had somehow screwed up in some inconceivable way and needed to be rescued yet again!

But, and back to Batman, he was especially known for responding to these alerts with a bemused sigh, then muttering some expletives followed by What have they done this time? which always made me smile. Sure, one might think that the best response to Lex Luthor’s threat of global thermonuclear annihilation would be a giant rat with a bucket of water, but only if you’ve been seriously tripping!

Not everybody appears in every episode. They are usually team-ups between two and four characters. Most of the episodes are standalone but there is a minor subplot in several episodes involving Darkseid, where he is clearly obsessed with taking over Earth and making Wonder Woman his wife!

All this said, it should be noted that at the start of the 1975-1976 season, Wendy, Marvin and Wonderdog were completely eliminated and were replaced by The Wonder Twins - which consisted of the aforementioned Jayna, Zan, and their space monkey Gleep (which was a recycled version of Hanna-Barbera’s Space Ghost, which itself consisted of Space Ghost’s two sidekicks Jan and Jayce and space monkey Blip).

Unlike Wendy and Marvin, they actually had superpowers. Hailing from an alien planet, they were able, whenever they touched hands, to take on the form of an animal and the shape of some kind of water. At least the Twins were not helpless idiots like Wendy and Marvin! Most importantly, the new format had more to offer too - more superheroic adventure and some reasonably interesting plots and the occasional addition of new members of the Justice League; including Hawkman and Green Lantern and others that featured insulting ethnic characters too like Apache Chief, Black Vulcan,and Samurai.

Zan and Jayna were given their own format adventures as well featuring them helping hopeless teens in tight situations. By the end of the 1977-1978 season Zan and Jayna were eliminated from the group. By the start of the 1978-1979 season, the Superfriends FINALLY get the fight their villains which was the next incarnation of the show which in my opinion was one of the coolest and innovative shows ever the grace Saturday Mornings in the late 1970’s.

The Challenge Of The Superfriends premiered during the 1978-1979 season and it featured the Justice League battling the Legion Of Doom (which consisted of Superman’s arch nemesis Lex Luthor) and other diabolical villains not to mention once again saving the world from doom and total destruction.

You also get time travel, inter-dimensional travel, background stories of both the good and bad guys, peril and destruction and doom in every episode. The lack of cuteness in the form of juvenile superhero wannabees is replaced as the years went on by a sense of urgency to hurry up and save the world and you won’t miss it. And the hand-drawn animation style has a kind of warmth and humanity to it that is annoyingly absent from more modern day equivalents.

In closing, it felt so magical and epic watching the goodhearted superheroes save people’s lives, defeat the bad guys and visit strange worlds. Sometimes the episodes were a bit scary as well, with giant monsters and weird villains, but the episodes always had a happy ending. The episodes I remember the best are the ones from The World’s Greatest Superfriends, like The Lord of Middle Earth and Superfriends Meet Frankenstein.

In truth, I miss good, clean shows like Superfriends where the heroes behaved like heroes and inspired kids to do good. They didn’t torture or kill the villains. The villains didn’t have to skin people alive for us to know that they were evil. Shows like Superfriends and He-Man had positive messages and moral characters. What do the most popular shows these days have? Yelling and screaming, weirdness for the sake of weirdness, crude jokes, disturbing images and so much more!

Special Features:
Super Friends (1973, 1978, 1980-1983)
The All New Super Friends Hour
Challenge Of The Super Friends
The World’s Greatest Super Friends
Super Friends: The Legendary Super Friends Show
The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians