Justice League Review (or is it?)

Super Friends TV Series Review

There’s been a lot of buzz about the first cinematic adaptation of DC comics’ superhero team Justice League coming out this weekend—everything from the casting choices to the director swap to the course correction of making things lighter than the previous Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. 

I straight up do not care about Justice League. Based on the trailers and ads I’ve seen (and I’ve seen MANY), I think it looks like a sloppy, generic superhero flick that’s just trying to do what Marvel has already successfully done. So, instead of seeing it and reviewing it this weekend, I’m going to review my personal favourite interpretation of the characters: the Super Friends! 

It’s unfortunate that a lot of today’s kids and teens and young adults are more familiar with the film versions of the main characters from DC comics—meaning both live-action films and animated films, like Justice League: War (2014) or Justice League vs. Teen Titans (2016). Super Friends showcases all of the best DC superheroes, and includes many supporting characters pulled straight from the comic books, as well as originals created specifically for the show.  

The Super Friends cartoon series began in 1973, as part of the Saturday morning lineup on ABC. It featured Superman, Batman & Robin, Wonder Woman, and Aquaman as the core team members, but the lineup changed many times over the course of the series. It was produced by Hanna-Barbera; though the characters are represented quite accurately to the comic source material, the show has that undeniable Hanna-Barbera look and feel to it—sound effects from other H-B shows like The Flintstones and Scooby Doo might be recognizable to keen viewers/listeners. 

The first season was simply called Super Friends, and in addition to the classic heroes, there were new characters created specifically for the show: the trio of Wendy Harris, Marvin White and Wonderdog, who were specifically meant to target young viewers and be relatable, as they had no super powers and relied more on sleuthing than defeating villains with super strength. I haven’t seen any episodes of the first season, but it doesn’t matter, because the show was cancelled after just 16 episodes and later revamped to become something even greater: The All-New Super Friends Hour! 

This second season (or series, or whatever you want to call it) premiered in 1977 and featured the return of the core team (Superman, Batman & Robin, Wonder Woman, Aquaman), but the characters of Wendy Harris, Marvin White, and Wonderdog were replaced with a new trio: the legendary Wonder Twins. Zan and Jayna were super powered alien teens with a space monkey sidekick named Gleek (I’ll discuss them in more depth soon, don’t worry), and proved much more popular than the former trio, eventually becoming included in future DC comics. 

The All-New Super Friends Hour was divided into four distinct segments, and again, only ran for one season, but Super Friends returned the following year in another new format, with two half-hour segments instead, and retained the same lineup of heroes. The show continued for some years after that, officially ending in 1986, but the era of The All-New Super Friends Hour is, arguably, the pinnacle of the series, and has the most episodes that I enjoy. 

There are so many things to love about this show, I’m not sure I can highlight all of them in-depth. Let me clear up a few things first. I did not grow up watching this show. It was on TV many years before I was born, and I didn’t see re-runs until I was in my early teens on the now-defunct channel Teletoon Retro. The appeal of the show is comparable to the appeal of a movie like The Room. I wouldn’t say it’s so bad that it’s funny, but the cheesiness, campiness, and datedness are all part of what makes it great. 

First off, there’s the show’s intro. The music is hype, and the narrator is legendary, having been parodied in other animated shows like Family Guy and Futurama. He announces all of the heroes, and declares they are “dedicated to truth, justice, and peace, for all mankind!” It’s amazing.

The heroes are colourful and light-hearted (doesn’t sound anything like a modern DC movie, does it?), and all of them are funny in their own way. You have Superman, who you expect to save the day more than anyone else, but it seems he can’t go five minutes without running into someone with kryptonite and turning into a powerless wuss. Batman and Robin are reliably comedic. Batman tries to be the smart one (emphasis on tries), and Robin always has the same response to everything that happens. Example: they are in space fighting aliens. Robin: “Holy space battles, Batman!” They make use of hilariously random devices (always called “the bat *insert generic item here*”, of course) but somehow keep up with the rest of the much-more-powerful team. 

Then there’s Wonder Woman, who also has a favourite saying (“Great Hera!” or sometimes “Great Zeus” as an alternate) but isn’t usually as funny as the other heroes. She has dead blue eyes, and, like Superman, usually doesn’t make the best use of her abilities. Aquaman is one of the funniest characters. I think much of his bad reputation originates back to this show. His ability to talk to sea creatures is frequently useless, he looks silly in his scaly orange tights, and often, whenever there is a close-up of his face when he’s talking, his head moves up and down and he blinks a lot, making it look like he has problems. 

But the best heroes of all are the Wonder Twins. These two are the most inept, hysterical superheroes I’ve ever seen. In The All-New Super Friends Hour, the second segment of the show is devoted to just the twins and Gleek saving kids or teens who get into trouble, often with a moral lesson involved. For instance, a couple teens decide to have a street race. The Wonder Twins get a message on the “Teen Trouble Alert” and leap into action. By fist-bumping their rings together and declaring “Wonder Twin powers, activate!” they are able to shapeshift. Zan can turn into forms of water, and Jayna can turn into any animal. For quick travel, Jayna becomes an eagle, Zan becomes water, and Gleek carries Zan in a bucket, while Jayna carries Gleek in her claws. It’s absurd and hilarious. When they arrive at the scene, the car is about to go over a cliff. Jayna becomes an elephant and holds the car until Zan turns into an ice bridge and they safely climb out. 

Why are they so inept, you ask? In the scenario I highlighted, that was one of their more successful efforts. Sometimes the morphing choices are extremely random. Once, Jayna forgot what kind of snake was big and powerful, and turned into a garter snake by accident, which allowed the enemy to escape. Great job, Jayna. And Gleek, the little idiotic blue space monkey with a super long and stretchy tail, is always monkeying around and screwing things up. As for Zan, if he has the ability to turn into any kind of liquid state, of any size, why doesn’t he become the Pacific Ocean and just drown the villain, or become an ice fist and pound them into the ground? Another example: they are pursuing a bad guy on a beach, so what do they do? Jayna turns into a camel. She flips the bad guy onto her back, then runs him into Gleek’s tail, stretched between two trees, which launches the guy into Zan, who becomes an ice jail—yes, a jail cell, made of ice—and traps him, uttering the amazing one-liner: “That’s what I call going directly to jail!” That actually happened. 

I know it sounds like I’m making fun, but the Wonder Twins were supposed to add levity to the series, and almost every episode involving them ends with a gag from Gleek. It’s like, “hey, we just fought an evil mastermind who wanted to destroy the entire planet and kill everyone, but look, Gleek fell in a basket of bananas! Don’t worry kids, the world is a safe and fun place, ha-ha! Thanks for watching, tune in next time when a giant monster tries to murder a bunch of people in a skyscraper!” I’m sort of exaggerating. Most of the time, the villains aren’t really trying to kill anyone, and they are always brought to justice in the least violent ways possible by the episode’s end. 

The All-New Super Friends Hour’s first segment usually involves the pairing of two core members of the team. They fight villains from other planets, villains trying to take over the world, villains created by mad scientists—every sort of villain you could imagine was probably done at some point in Super Friends. Tar monsters, plant monsters, a Frankenstein monster, the Titanic resurrected as a living underwater monster, and so many more hilarious and outlandish things I can’t begin to name them all. 

The second segment features the Wonder Twins, as I said before, and the third segment (which is always the longest) has everyone band together to stop a more formidable villain than those featured in the other segments. The fourth segment has a core team member joined by a guest hero. These always vary, with popular heroes like Green Lantern, The Flash, Atom, and Green Arrow appearing, but also more obscure heroes like Apache Chief, Samurai, and Rima the Jungle Girl. 

Inserted between and within the segments are brief moments of fun between the heroes and viewers, like Wonder Woman showing how to do a simple magic trick, or Aquaman giving a decoder word puzzle to solve by the episode’s end. There are also warnings against doing drugs, getting into cars with strangers, and approaching unfamiliar dogs, just to name a few lessons the heroes teach. These are often particularly comical, but actually quite relevant and important for little kids. I wish cartoons still did something like that today. 

Pardon the pun, but it’s difficult to do this cartoon justice. It’s definitely a product of its time, but that’s what makes it so great. The animation is sometimes cheap, there are many recycled visuals and musical queues, and the show is mainly targeting very young viewers. For me, the best parts are the silly actions of the heroes and the outrageous villains. Often they’ll just be up against generic monsters or bad guys with names like Dr. Fright or Bulgor the Behemoth, but then you get some like Captain Nimoy, who wants to use nuclear missiles to sink the continents below sea level so he can rule them, and Mr. Mxyzptlk, a being from the fifth dimension who can only be defeated when he says his own name backwards. 

Super Friends is just a fun show, plain and simple. So instead of wasting money on another theatrically-released DC product this weekend, kick back at home and watch some episodes. You’ll get laughs, cheesy action, hilarious animation, and even useful life lessons. It’s readily available on DVD, but can likely be easily found online as well. Here is a quick list of just a few of my favourite episodes:  

-Season 2 Episode 7: "The Invisible Menace / Initiation / Coming of the Arthropods / River of Doom"

Superman and Aquaman engage in an underwater battle involving submarines and monsters, the Wonder Twins save some teens from an initiation stunt, evil space bugs try to take over earth, and Wonder Woman and Rima save some explorers in a jungle. Everything to love about the show all in one episode. 

-Season 2 Episode 9: "The Collector / Handicap / The Mind Maidens / Alaska Peril"

A villain called the Collector goes around with a magic camera taking pictures of landmarks, which turns said landmarks into photographs. Two teens get in a car crash, and the Wonder Twins save them by becoming a gorilla and an ice crowbar. The maniacal Medula tries to remove all men from earth so women can rule the world. Batman & Robin team up with Apache Chief to save an Alaskan expedition from a giant Yeti, which Apache takes on in his giant form. All amazing stuff.  

-Season 4 Episode 8: “The Planet of Oz” 

A tornado transports the Super Friends to the Land of Oz—yes, the Oz, as in The Wizard of Oz—where they encounter Mr. Mxyzptlk, and a witch turns Aquaman into the Scarecrow, Superman into the Tin Man, and Wonder Woman into the Lion. Seriously. Wonder Woman as the cowardly lion is particularly horrific and riotous to look at. 

-Season 5 Episode 5: "Voodoo Vampire / Invasion of the Gleeks / Mxyzptlk Strikes Again"

The first segment isn’t particularly memorable, but the second certainly is, with an army of Gleeks coming to earth and trying to control Gleek so they can take over the planet. The third segment features the return of Mxyzptlk, who tries to make the Super Friends destroy each other. 

-Season 7 Episode 4: "Revenge of Doom / A Pint of Life / Day of the Dinosaurs"

This is from the “lost” season, called that because, according to the back of the DVD, the episodes were “produced after the Super Friends show ended its run” and weren’t available for a number of years. You get the Legion of Doom trying to take over the Hall of Justice, the Wonder Twins and Aquaman trying to save a doctor in the Amazon, and Wonder Woman and Samurai fighting dinosaurs in a subterranean world. How could you not love that?