The All New Super Friends Hour – Season One, Volume
One (28 Episodes)
Picture:
C+ Sound: C+ Extras: C+ Episodes: C+
Of the
many incarnations that are the Super
Friends (derived from The Justice
League), the All New Super Friends
Hour was one of this reviewer’s least favorite DC ventures. Premiering in 1977 as the about the third
incarnation of the Superhero team up idea, it was a huge success that prompted
the network and Hanna-Barbera to
create a new/revamped Super Friends
series for 1978. The same old Super
Friends appear such as Batman, Robin, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and Superman; but
this time they added in the ambiguously moronic Wonder Twins Zan and Jayna who
can shape shift. Oh, but I almost
forgot…they also have a space monkey named Gleek; exiting…I think not.
The
series had a very broken-up organizational system, in which different heroes
would team up at different segments to allow for an array of story arches. The fourth segment always put all the heroes
back together to fight a crime of sorts.
The
technical features on this 2 disc set are nice but simple at best. This
reviewer is not certain if the episodes are in their original airing order, but
thinks they are, judging from the segmental breakdown of each episode. The picture is presented in an adequate but
not crystal clear 1.33 X 1 Full Screen that can be seen as disappointing, but
it seems that this release has gotten the same restorative attention as the
rest of the Hanna-Barbera DC titles (which is little). The sound is
presented in its original Dolby Digital 1.0 Mono that has depth issues and
often times sounds soft, but once again a problem with older super hero
cartoons. The extras are sparse and interesting to view once; the extras
include two simple featurettes that moderately entertained this reviewer. The featurettes include a retrospective look
at the Super Friends and a Spotlight Look at the guest stars of the series such
as Green Lantern and Hawkgirl. Overall,
the release is adequate but far from exciting.
The Super Friends never impressed this
reviewer to new levels to begin with, but this release just reminds this
reviewer how hokey and base level these animated series were. For their time they may have been impressive
and exciting, but compared to the darker and deep world that DC has become
there is no comparison.
- Michael P Dougherty II
