Review: ‘Super Friends: The Lost Episodes’ on DVD
In 1973, as most super-hero series faded from Saturday morning memory, ABC introduced the Justice League of America under the more kid friendly name [[[Super Friends]]]. Until 1986 the series evolved but continued to be a network fixture with one series break, absent the 1984-1984 season. It was at that point production company Hanna-Barbera had enough episodes stockpiled that they could offer them as a syndicated package that could be stripped, that is, run five days a week. ABC dropped the series that fateful season as opposed to being in theoretical competition with itself. H-B, though, continued to produce 24 more shorts, or eight half-hours worth of programming which aired on schedule in Australia and was later sprinkled in the [[[Superman/Batman Adventures]]], which ran on USA starting in 1995.
Now, for the first time, Warner Home Video has collected these “lost” episodes on a two-disc set, coming this Tuesday.
They could have saved themselves the trouble. At its geekiest, Super Friends put DC’s greatest heroes on display for a wider audience and kids could thrill to seeing their favorites in action. With every passing year, the format was altered so heroes and villains came and went, the concept varied and the sidekicks changed. Wendy and Marvin gave way to Zan and Jayna, aliens with their own powers. In both cases, they were added on for audience identification purposes and moronic comic relief.
By 1983, though, children’s animated fare had been bowdlerized by nervous networks and advertisers, afraid children would be incited to commit hazardous acts of violence if the adventures grew too action-packed. As a result, the heroes and villains couldn’t make much contact with one another, limiting much of the storytelling options. Apparently, internal logic, the laws of physics and characterization were also verboten.
The 24 shorts presented here display shoddy animation, poor voice casting, and horrific writing. It should be pointed out that in 1981 we got [[[Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends]]], which did a far better job in the writing department; raising the bar H-B seemed disinterested in reaching.
The wonderful Alex Toth designs for the heroes never extended to the villains or the aliens du jour so they looked silly and largely unmenacing. The H-B created ethnic heroes had powers that didn’t match their names or personalities and were a poor fit (and really, was Black Vulcan that much better a hero than Black Lightning?). At their best, these stories mixed and matched the heroes allowing no more than a few to work together in any one story. At their worst, we had Flash racing through space with nothing for his feet to touch or a spacesuit to provide him with oxygen (his protective aura works only so far). Superman seemed to find kryptonite to weaken him wherever he went and in one instance he traveled back in time and rescued his Superboy self without once explaining how that could work. Perhaps the dumbest move was when the entire JLA had a meeting and entrusted the Hall of Justice’s security to the teens.
The Legion of Doom make token appearances here and are thoroughly inept, standing around, practically begging to be captured. One adventured used Mr. Myxzptlk which was diverting but no other enemies from the comics were used, which was a real shame since many could have been substituted for the poorly conceived threats. A number of stories involved youngsters and teens showing just how stupid they could be and acting anything but like youngsters and teens.
Perhaps the best thing about the discs are the two downloadable issues of the far superior Super Friends comics. You get the first issue, from E. Nelson Bridwell and Ramona Fradon plus the 7-page story by ENB and the late, great Toth.
When the opportunity presented itself, I could not help but wait to screen the DVD of 
until my niece Corinne, 11, arrived for a visit. After all, family-friendly films should be seen by all aspects of its target audience. The film, going on sale Tuesday, is based on Alexander H. Key’s 1968 novel [[[Escape to Witch]]] Mountain and is an updated remake with little connecting it to the 1975 Disney film or the 1995 sequel.
There was a great deal of hew and cry that the BBC renewed 
for just a five episode third season. Then, word began leaking out that [[[Children of Earth]]] would be a five-part event, airing on consecutive nights. Turns out, it was following an increasingly popular television event format for the budget-conscious British networks so we were being asked to trust them.
The care and attention to detail given the direct-to-DVD animated films based on DC Comics’ properties is evident. As a result, watching 
is a visual treat. Following the others in this line, it is entirely on its own and disconnected from any other video so casual watchers will not be burdened with tremendous amounts of continuity.
There are only so many hours one can devote to television watching so a show has to garner some excellent buzz in order to get sampled in my household. I was initially tempted by TNT’s 
last winter but something or other kept us from trying it but as it aired, people started chiming in about how cool it was. Thanks to Paramount Home Video, the first season was released last week and my wife and I blitzed through the 13 episodes to see what the buzz was all about.
There are television creators who are placed under the microscope every time they produce something new, hoping it will generate the same pop buzz and ratings success of their previous series. While a Jerry Bruckheimer can churn out cookie cutter series, the ones with more unique and distinctive voices tend to be more hit or miss. In Joss Whedon’s case, he followed [[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]] and[[[ Angel]]] with [[[Firefly]]]. While a cult favorite, the series and its feature film incarnation failed to win the wide audience required to remain viable. As a result, all eyes were on him to see what his next trick would be and most were cautious given that the new series [[[Dollhouse]]] would appear on Fox, where a previous regime sabotaged Firefly through ineptness.
No one can fault Warner Bros. for not giving their best marketing effort to get people to come find out for themselves why the fans and the mass media have been falling over themselves to hail Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons’ 
as the greatest graphic novel of all time. Last summer they hooked the geekerati at Comic-Con International and spent the fall and winter making certain the rest of the world knew the film adaptation was coming. When the press reviews began hitting, the mixed commentary all talked about the difficulty of translating the dense, layered narrative into a film regardless of length. Some found it faithful and well-done while others couldn’t follow the story and thought it was too somber for its own good.
When 
debuted in the fall of 2007, I wrote
I’ll be honest and tell you that I am in the minority who felt that [[[Peanuts]]] stopped being funny after 1972 and should have been retired long before Charles M. Schulz’s death. All its charm and whimsy had been drained out of it as witnessed by the 1970s material that has been reprinted since his passing. The world had changed and their innocent worldview ceased to feel at all relevant. But once Schulz found his characters and voice, the strip was brilliant for quite some time.
