One of the best parts of growing up in the 1970/1980s was Saturday morning cartoons. For over a decade, the great mainstay of your Saturday morning line-up was Super Friends (in one form or another)
One of the best parts of growing up in the 1970/1980s was Saturday morning cartoons. For over a decade, the great mainstay of your Saturday morning line-up was Super Friends (in one form or another) and Scooby Doo.
Just The Facts
Super Friends was akin to the Family Guy of its day. Originally cancelled in 1974, Super Friends came back three years later.
The 'extra characters' for Super Friends have been often discussed. These characters included bizarre made for TV villains, kids with no powers, and ethnically diverse Super heroes.
The voice actor history of the Super Friends is an unexpected delight. The voice actors who worked on the show include Ted Knight, Ted Cassidy (Lurch), and 'Mayor' Adam West
Meanwhile. at the Hall of Justice.
The late Ted Knight served as the distinctive all knowing Narrator. Kind of like Fight Club, except with a more booming voice and less of a split personality. maybe.
After the success of 1970's live action shows like Wonder Woman and the Six Million Dollar Man. Hanna Barbera decided that it might be just as easy to draw heroes and make a profit again. In 1977, the serie was revitalized with The All New Super Friends Hour. In addition to an expanded universe of characters and heroes (including Atom, Flash, Hawkman, and Hawkgirl), the series decided that little magical Vulcan teenagers with emotions and super powers might add a good air of. whimsy. Extra terrestial alien teenagers Zan and Jayna formed The Wonder Twins. This is not to be confused in any way with series The Wonder Years or what some girl in high school promised to show you as part of the 'best night of your life.' When the Wonder Twins touched knuckles, the could magically transform into some other matter. Jayna could usually transform in to something in the mammall range like a tiger or a Yeti. We bet you always wanted a Yeti. Zan was more adept at liquid based concotions. These would include ice and a bucket of water. You could tell that the bucket of water was still Zan because the water still bore Zan's face. To help out Zan and Jayna, there was a purple space alien monkey named Gleek. Years later, it would be revealed that Gleek in their native alien tongue means Gozer the Gozerian.
THE LEGION OF DOOM.
Fun Fact: Ted Cassidy played Lurch on the original Addams Family show. Mostly he just grrred and bellowed "You rang. " However, in the Challenge of the SuperFriends - Cassidy was actually the voice ofr both Brainiac and Black Manta. It is a good education if you ever actually wondered what Cassidy's real voice sounded like.
Later Incartnations
Superfriends continued through the first half of the 1980s. The name of the show went back to simply being Super Friends and (in additioned to continued 'ethnic diversity') they brought in a new Super Friend at the beginning of each of the later seasons. These tywo new characters were Firestorm ( a bordeline schitzophrenic / god who can manipulate all matter and has a college professor stored in his head) and Cyborg. Cyborg is black but we are no longer in the 1970s so we don't have to call him Black Cyborg (even if we and Jean Claude Van Damme one day will really want too. )
The final revamping of the whole series was into Super Powers. The first season was Super Friends: The Legendary Super Powers Show which was nice enough to pay respect to Jack Kirby as well as the New Gods of Apokolips. Kirby was even brought in to design the memorable Super Powers toy line and for the first time in years received royalties off of his work. Fun Fact: Kirby actually designed evil baddie Darkseid with legendary actor Jack Palance in mind. Palance was much more bad ass as no one ever remembered Darkseid ever doing one armed push ups before accepting an Oscar for World Wide Destruction. The Apokolips villains featured heavily with Darkseid, Desaad (voiced by Benson and Deep Space Nine actor Rene Auberjoinois), Kalibak, and the Parademons. Super Friends: The Legendary Super Powers show also marked the return of Adam West to voice the role of Batman. DJ Casey Kasem continued to lend his iconic voice to Robin.
Technically Galactic Gaurdians: The Super Powers Team was the last incarnation of the original Super Friends line. You will notice that no where in the title of the show are the words Super Friends. So, you will have to look that one up somewhere else whilst I think back to how I became the Fresh Prince of Bel Air.