Tag: DC Comics

Faster Than Saturday Morning Television

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Before Super Friends and decades before the live-action television series, Filmation brought the Flash racing onto Saturday-morning television. Beginning in 1967, Flash and Kid Flash appeared in short adventures during The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure, battling giant creatures, robots and even another super-speedster. Only three solo cartoons were produced, but the Flash also appeared alongside the Justice League.

The animation was simple, with repeated running scenes, bright streaks and dramatic narration, but somehow that made the Flash seem even faster. Years later, Sheldon Cooper regularly wore Flash shirts and dressed as the character on The Big Bang Theory, helping make that familiar lightning-bolt symbol cool again. Sheldon probably would have watched these cartoons frame by frame, then complained that Barry Allen’s speed was scientifically inconsistent.

Super Friends

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Super Friends was one of those Saturday morning cartoons that made DC superheroes feel like they all lived in the same neighborhood. It first aired on ABC in 1973 and was produced by Hanna-Barbera, bringing together Superman, Batman and Robin, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and later other heroes from the Justice League world.

The show was definitely made for kids, so the action was toned way down compared to the comic books. Instead of darker superhero stories, you got teamwork, moral lessons, danger, science-fiction plots, and everybody meeting at the famous Hall of Justice. Early on, the show even had kid sidekicks Wendy, Marvin, and Wonder Dog, before later seasons brought in the much better-remembered Wonder Twins, Zan and Jayna, with their monkey Gleek.

For a lot of us, the best-remembered version is probably Challenge of the Superfriends from 1978. That’s the one that gave us the Legion of Doom, led by Lex Luthor, with villains like Cheetah, Riddler, Bizarro, Scarecrow, Captain Cold, Black Manta, and Solomon Grundy. Their creepy swamp headquarters, the Hall of Doom, was almost as memorable as the heroes themselves.

Looking back, Super Friends could be corny, stiff, and sometimes unintentionally funny, but that was also part of its charm. For a whole generation, this was the first time we saw Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and the rest of the gang teaming up every Saturday morning. Before the big movies, before the modern animated Justice League shows, this was our superhero universe.

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