SUPERFRIENDS: THE COMPLETE SERIES (1973 - 1985)
Contains:
SUPER FRIENDS (1973-1974, 1980-1983)
THE ALL NEW SUPER FRIENDS HOUR (1977)
CHALLENGE OF THE SUPER FRIENDS (1978)
THE WORLS GREATEST SUPER FRIENDS (1979)
SUPER FRIENDS: THE LEGENDAY SUPER POWERS SHOW (1984)
THE SUPER POWERS TEAM: GALACTIC GUARDIANS (1985)
Label: Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment
Region Code: A
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 3142 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Dual-Mono with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Fullscreen (1.33:1)
Produced by Hanna-Barbera the Super Friends was an animated TV series, featuring the Justice League of America, that ran from 1973 to 1985 on ABC Television as part the Saturday morning cartoon lineup, and I loved all all seven of the series iteration that aired as a kid. It was definitely the one of the shows that introduced me to comic book superheroes, well before I ever saw Superman: The Movie (1978) on TV, and probably around the time I was watching the live-action Wonder Woman (1975). The Amazing Spider-Man TV (1977), The Incredible Hulk (1977) TV series, as well as the one-off Marvel TV movies of Captain America (1979) and Doctor Strange (1978). The late-70's were actually a pretty fertile era for comic book properties on TV, even if in hindsight they were watered-down version of the comic books, which in the 70's were coming into their own with more mature storylines and character arcs. But when I was five years old watching these I didn't know that, heck, these were thrilling superhero adventures that sparked my imagination.
I clearly remembering waking up early and running to the kitchen in my pajamas to pour a sugary bowl of cereal sitting cross-legged in front of the old tube TV to watch Super Friends dutifully each Saturday morning. I love that we now have this massive collection that pulls all versions of the show together, remastered in HD with uncompressed audio, just wow! It's not a cheap set at the moment, it's currently about $120, but this is basically a nostalgic time machine that transported me back to my carefree days as a daydreaming adolescent, so it was worth it, I say. If it's a bit too steep for just wait a bit, I am sure it will come down in price, and you can pick it up at a price you can live with.
The first iteration of the show was the Super Friends, which ran from 1973-1974, sixteen episodes than ran for one hour, the heroes features were Superman, Batman and Robin, Wonder Woman, and Aquaman, who were joined by their non super-powered pals Wendy, Marvin and their pooch Wonder Dog. We also got guest superheroes by way of The Flash, Plastic Man, and Green Arrow. Re-watching these I can honestly say I did not remember the animation of the first couple of series being so awful, but again, I was five at the time, I was just happy to see heroes on my TV screen.
The second iteration was the 15-episode The All-New Super Friends Hour in 1977, featuring the same main cast of JLA-ers, plus the addition of the shape-shifting teens The Wonder Twins, along with their purple space-monkey Gleek, replacing the Wendy, Marvin and Wonder Pooch, which was fair trade in my opinion. Guests this time around included Black Vulcan, Apache Chief. Hawkman, Hawkgirl
Rima the Jungle Girl, The Atom, Green Lantern, Samurai and The Flash. The villains were again mostly generic non-canon array of scientists, rampaging animals, ghosts, and monsters, though we do get an early appearance of Black Manta.
The third iteration was the 16-episoide Challenge of the Superfriends, which feature two segments per episode with the same main cast of characters including the Wonder Twins and Gleek. This season brought things closer tot he comic book storylines, with the second segment of each episode introducing and continuing an arc of stories about the villains, the Legion of Doom who operate out of their swamp lair which looked suspiciously liked Darth Vader's helmet! This season we got a bumper crop of comics accurate villains; including Lex Luthor, Solomon Grundy, Sinestro, Black Manta, The Cheetah, Giganta, The Scarecrow, The Toyman, The Riddler, Bizarro, Brainiac,
Captain Cold, and Gorilla Grodd. The first segment was more of the supes battling an assortment of lame pirates, aliens and mad geniuses, with the exception of a couple of solid episodes, one features them battling Kryptonian supervillains who have escaped from the Phantom Zone, plus a pair of episodes that as a kid I found actually scary; those being "The Pied Piper from Space" wherein a UFO arrives on Earth and enslaves the children of the planet with a mysterious tune, and the vampire entry "Attack of the Vampire", with the JLA facing off against Dracula and his minions who turn people into vamps not by sucking their blood but by shooting laser-rays out of their eyes! Even re-watching these now I love the kiddie-friendly spooky atmosphere of these episodes, and the vampirized supes are cool looking.
The longest running of the iteration of the show was Super Friends (1980-1983) which ran for three seasons. The episodes got shorter and they tacked on a repeat episode from earlier incarnations to flesh each episode out. The main cast was Aquaman, Batman, Robin, Superman and Wonder Woman, plus Wonder Twins Zan and Jayna, and Gleek. These episodes were a step back, and to for me did not have the appeal of Challenge of the Super Friends, the brief stories were pretty meh, and the guest stars were scaled back considerably, though we do get fleeting appearances from The Riddler, Gorilla Grodd, Giganta, Lex Luthor, Sinestro and Solomon Grundy. Other more generic baddies include space mummies, alien bounty hunters, a cosmic barbarian, a giant mechanical cobra, underground dwelling lava men, and pirates and witches.
Next up, Super Friends: The Legendary Super Powers Show, a half hour episode format that crammed two stories into each episode, the main hero characters are Superman
Batman, Robin, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Black Vulcan, Apache Chief, Samurai, and El Dorado, plus we more or less lose the Wonder Twin and Gleek in favor of Firestorm, which worked aces for me. This season was very closely tied with Kenner's Super Powers Collection toy line, which I remember being hugely popular when I was a kid, but was too poor myself to ever get any, boo-hoo. Villains comes by way of Brainiac, Mirror Master, Lex Luthor, Mister Mxyzptlk, and the Dollmaker, plus a big one for me, we finally get Jack Kirby fourth world creations Darkseid,
Kalibak, and DeSaad. This is a terrific season, the animation and character designs are at a high point, and the stories are pretty engaging and harken back tot he comic books.
The last iteration of the Super Friends was The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians (1985), which had even better character design and more dramatic comic book inspired storylines, they really went out on a high point here. Heroes included Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman,
Robin, Aquaman, Firestorm, Hawkman, Green Lantern, The Flash, Samurai, El Dorado and newbie Cyborg from the Teen Titans comics! The season is notable not only for the inclusion of the more dramatic storytelling, and Cyborg, but for having the first non-comics version of Batman's origins in the episode "The Fear", which is cool. Villains include not only returners Lex Luthor, The Royal Flush Gan, Scarecrow,
Brainiac, Mister Mxyzptlk and Bizarro and Bizarra!, but the return of Darkseid, Desaad and Kalibak, and the animated debuts of iconic comic book villains The Penguin and The Joker! The tone is much darker than previous iterations, the improved character designs looks terrific.
Audio/Video: All 93-episodes arrive on Blu-ray from WBDHE in 10880p HD framed in the original 1.33:1 broadcast aspect ratio. These are nebulously advertised as "remastered", so I am unsure what the sources for these are but they are clean and vibrant looking, easily the best they have ever looked on home video, though I will say that like many of WB catalog titles not handled by the Warner Archive, it's been scrubbed of film grain quite aggressively. Overall it looks pretty sharp, though there are spots where it looks like some of the cell animation lines have been affected by the uniform DNR scrubbing, removing the film grain textures that we all grew up watching the show with. It's not ruinous, but I am of the opinion if the cell animation was captured on film it should have film grain, but I know some others or more forgiving of the "clean" look. I prefer otherwise, but i will also say the show's never looked better. Audio comes by way of English DTS-HD MA 2.0 dual-mono with optional English subtitles. The tracks are clean and sound great, the range and fidelity of the tracks won't wow anyone but the uncompressed audio handles the canned sound effects and voice acting quite well.
The complete set of extras on this set are listed below, I do not own all the previous DVD editions so I cannot confirm exactly what might be missing, other than to say it does not carry-over the Character Bios and Audio Commentaries by Geoff Johns and Mark Waid on the episodes "Wanted: The Super Friends" and "History of Doom" from the Challenge of the Super Friends; The First Season 2-Disc DVD set that I own.
The complete 93-episodes arrives on a 16-disc Blu-ray set housed inside an clear, high-capacity Epik Pak keepcase with a single-sided sleeve of artwork. I would have appreciated a booklet or printing on the reverse side of the sleeve with an episode and special features listing, the disc themselves are labeled with only the series titles and disc numbers, but not the episodes or special features, which I found slightly annoying, it just feels lazy not to include an episode/extras guide for such a massive set.
Special Features:
Disc 6:
- One Dimensional Goodness: The Super Friends and the Good Old Days (14:33)
- Origins of the Guest Stars (8:29)
- The Wonder Twins Phenomenon (12:08)
DISC 8:
- The Ballad of Zan and Jayna (Wonder Twins Powers Activate) (4:08)
- Pajama-Rama: Super Friends Retrospective (11.55)
Disc 15:
- Audio Commentaries on the following Episodes: "The Wrath of Brainiac", "No Honor Among Thieves", "The Mask of Mystery", "The Case of the Dreadful Dolls", & "The Royal Ruse"
- Evolution: New Heroes, Viler Villains, and Ethnic Additions (17:44)
- The Super Powers Collection: The Effect of the Toy Industry on The Super Friends (7:37)
Disc: 16
- Super Friends Redux: Galactic Guardians (11:10)
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