"SUPER FRIENDS: THE LOST EPIOSDES"
DVD Review
by Kevin Carr
| MOVIE: *** (out of 5 stars)
DVD EXPERIENCE: ** (out of 5 stars) STARRING Danny Dark as SUPERMAN Shannon Farnon as WONDER WOMAN Olan Soule as BATMAN Casey Kasem as ROBIN Michael Bell as ZAN Louise Williams as JAYNA William Callaway as AQUAMAN Not Rated Available on DVD August 11 KidsWB.com Studio: Warner Bros. Back to DVD Review Home |  |
WHAT IT’S ABOUT
Back in the 1980s, the Saturday morning cartoon “Super Friends” stopped broadcasting before it aired all of the shows that were produced. Although these episodes have appeared on cable reruns, these 24 installments are considered lost to the original broadcast. These episodes include the core cast members of the Justice League, including Green Lantern and the Wonder Twins Zan and Jayna. They also include the more multicultural cast of heroes, including Black Vulcan, Apache Chief, Samurai and El Dorado.
Following in the footsteps of the previously aired episodes from the early 1980s, these “Lost Episodes” feature the Super Friends as they face large-scale threats, like invading aliens and other interstellar bad guys.
WHAT I LIKED
While I never saw these episodes on Saturday mornings, I did enjoy watching all versions of “The Super Friends” as I grew up. In fact, by the time these episodes would have aired, I was more inclined to watch them after school on our local independent station. Not too long ago, Warner Bros. released the second volume of the original “The All New Super Friends Hour,” which was a blast from the past for me, and I enjoyed watching it with my sons.
While the standard Superman and Batman comics from this era were targeting an older audience, DC still published a special “Super Friends” line, which fit in tone and style with this series. I read those comics, and I still have quite a few in my old collection. Yes, it’s corny. Yes, Gleek has his own storyline. And yes, none of the plots make any real sense. But this show is still wicked-cool.
It was great to revisit not just the heroes, but some of the classic cartoon villains, like Gorilla Grodd and Brainiac. I’ll be the first to admit that these villains are as cheesy as they come, but for the Saturday morning cartoon line made for pre-teens and grade schoolers, they were pretty cool. There’s a certain amount of good, clean fun you can get from this series.
WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE
There are only two main complaints I have about this set of episodes, and one is really more of a whimsical observation than a problem. That observation is that in the process of trying to be more politically correct and ethnically diverse, these shows actually reek of racial stereotypes. Samurai is more of a caricature of Japanese people than Mr. Miyagi in “The Karate Kid,” and the characters of Apache Chief and El Dorado are almost offensive by today’s standards. (After all, El Dorado seems to be only called in to save Spanish-speaking victims or people in the Southwest.)
The only ethnically diverse hero that isn’t a roaring stereotype is Black Vulcan (if you don’t count his name). His powers have nothing to do with his skin tone, and it’s a pretty cool power at that, the power over lightning. Still, these racial gaffs of the 1980s are more silly by today’s standards than offensive.
My only other complaint of this series is that the shows only contained specific stories, rather than all the interstitials from the other “Super Friends” shows. I did miss the nostalgia of magic tricks, crafts, decoders and public service information that were sprinkled through the other episodes.
DVD FEATURES
In addition to the 24 episodes, which span 172 minutes, the DVD can download two digital “Super Friends” comic books from the DC vault. It’s not pulp paper, but it’ll do in a pinch.
WHO’S GOING TO LIKE THIS MOVIE
Adult fans of the Super Friends... and their kids.
