How many of you remember this version of The Fantastic Four? Long before superhero movies became huge Hollywood events, Hanna-Barbera was bringing Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Johnny Storm and Ben Grimm into our homes on Saturday mornings
The series premiered on ABC on September 9, 1967 — amazingly, the very same day ABC’s original Spider-Man cartoon debuted. Only 20 Fantastic Four episodes were made, but Hanna-Barbera made a real effort to keep the show connected to the Stan Lee and Jack Kirby comics. Alex Toth redesigned the characters for animation, and director Lew Marshall went so far as to clip panels directly from Fantastic Four comic books and hand them to his layout and background artists as reference.
There was also some terrific voice talent behind these characters. Radio veteran Gerald Mohr was Reed Richards, Jo Ann Pflug voiced Sue Storm, Paul Frees handled The Thing and several other characters, and Addams Family fans might recognize another familiar connection — Ted Cassidy provided the booming voice of Galactus. Vic Perrin voiced the Silver Surfer
And that opening certainly helped make it memorable. Ted Nichols wrote the theme and background music, giving the show a slightly jazzy, almost grown-up sound compared with many Saturday-morning cartoons of the period.
There were some interesting compromises too. Hanna-Barbera couldn’t use Namor the Sub-Mariner in one adaptation because the character was already tied to The Marvel Super Heroes, so they created Prince Triton instead. Then when Fantastic Four returned to television in 1978, the Human Torch was unavailable because his rights were tied up elsewhere, resulting in the creation of the little robot H.E.R.B.I.E.
What I find especially interesting is that this little 1967 Saturday-morning cartoon still has an influence today. More than half a century later, The Fantastic Four: First Steps included a cartoon within the movie designed to evoke this Hanna-Barbera version
Did you watch the 1967 Fantastic Four when it originally aired, or did you discover it later in reruns?