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 Aired: 1973 - 1986
Show Type: Animated
Country of Origin: US
Super Friends is an American animated television series about a team of superheroes which ran from 1973 to 1986. It was produced by Hanna-Barbera and is based on the Justice League and associated comic book characters published by DC Comics.
When animation company Hanna-Barbera licensed the animation rights to the DC Comics characters and adapted the Justice League of America comic book for television, it made several changes in the transition, not the least of which was the change of name to Super Friends. In part, it was feared that the name Justice League of America would have seemed too jingoistic during the post-Vietnam War Era. Nevertheless, team members sometimes referred to themselves as the Justice League on the show. The violence common in superhero comics was toned down for a younger audience, as well as to fit with the restrictive broadcast standards regarding violence in 1970s children's television.
The primary characters featured in the series were Superman, Batman and Robin, Wonder Woman, and Aquaman. Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman are generally considered DC's flagship characters. Aquaman had previously appeared in his own animated series produced by Filmation, as had both Superman and Batman. Shortly before the Super Friends series was developed, Superman and Wonder Woman guest-starred in two episodes of The Brady Kids, while Batman and Robin appeared in two episodes of The New Scooby-Doo Movies.
The team's first sidekicks were Wendy Harris (voiced by Sherri Alberoni) and Marvin White (voiced by Frank Welker) and their dog Wonderdog, none of whom had any special abilities (save the dog's unexplained ability to reason and "talk"). Marvin and Wonderdog did exhibit a levitation ability in one episode; however, it was only for comedic effect, and never shown or mentioned again. Starting with the second season (as shown in the two-disc DVD release The Super Friends: Season Two), they were replaced by pointy-eared shapeshifting extraterrestrials Zan and Jayna, the "Wonder Twins," and their "space monkey" Gleek. Earlier seasons occasionally introduced other superheroes as guest stars, including The Flash, Plastic Man, and Green Arrow.
Initially, during the Wendy and Marvin years, each episode was a single one-hour story, and the villains (mostly original creations not in the comics) were often misguided, rather than evil. Subsequent seasons were a mix of one-hour and half-hour episodes, the one-hour episodes sometimes featuring two or more short stories in each hour, and made use of established villains from the DC comics. The Challenge of the Superfriends season introduced the Legion of Doom, a team of 13 recurring foes comprised of the Super Friends' worst enemies. They used a swamp-based, mechanical, flying headquarters, the Hall of Doom (which suspiciously resembled the helmet of Darth Vader), as a suitable contrast with the Super Friends' gleaming Hall of Justice.
Hanna-Barbera's writers experimented with team composition as well. Challenge of the Superfriends kept the teen sidekicks, but they were not directly involved with the super-villain stories. It also added Hawkman, Green Lantern, and The Flash as well as three characters without previous comic-book antecedents: Black Vulcan (who appears to have been based on a minor DC character, Black Lightning; see Trivia below), Apache Chief and Samurai. These last three were intended to be international heroes and were created in order to encourage racial and cultural diversity. Critics felt that these attempts were, at best, awkward and, at worst, very stereotypical and somewhat offensive. Subsequent versions of the show resulted in a fourth "diversity" hero, El Dorado, and guest stars who had also appeared in DC comics, including Rima the Jungle Girl (a Tarzan-like character similar to Sheena, Queen of the Jungle and Marvel Comics' Shanna the She-Devil), Hawkgirl and the Atom. During Challenge of the Superfriends original run, sixteen more episodes were made. These episodes were shown during the original season of the show (and possibly again during the 1980s in syndicated re-runs) but were not shown when Cartoon Network aired the show. These episodes may have been the "craft segment shorts" remembered by some who watched the show during its original run (or in syndication). In one episode, Aquaman demonstrates how to make a kazoo out of wax paper and a comb.
The final two seasons, Super Friends: The Legendary Super Powers Show and Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians, (the "Super Powers" tag reflected a marketing tie-in with a toyline of the same name produced by Kenner[1]) made further refinements to the roster, adding teen members Firestorm and Cyborg, each with a comics history. The tone of these last two seasons, in particular the Galactic Guardians version, was notably more serious than Super Friends had been in the past (possibly due to the success NBC was having with their own Saturday morning cartoon series Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends). This was reflected with the introduction of Darkseid and his minions on Apokolips as recurring villains in these episodes. The series in these last two seasons ceased trying to be so much a "kid-friendly" version of the DC characters and mythos, and began targeting a slightly older audience with more of an emphasis on action as opposed to morality lessons in the guise of superhero stories. In particular, the Galactic Guardians series featured a notable first: in the episode "The Fear", Batman's origin is told for the first time outside of the actual comics.
The commanding voice of the Narrator was provided by actor Ted Knight during the early hour-long episodes. His signature line was, "Meanwhile, at the Hall of Justice!" William Woodson took over once they dropped the original format.
Wendy, Marvin, and Wonder Dog were inspired by the Scooby-Doo gang. The voice of both Marvin and Wonder Dog were both performed by Frank Welker who also did the voice of the Scooby Doo gang's Fred.
The Hall of Justice from the Super Friends can be seen in the Teen Titans animated series. It appears behind the Titans Tower in the opening sequence and uses of the same shot in the show.
In Lois and Clark, the term "Hall of Justice" was regularly used to refer to the city's police headquarters. The building appeared, as the focus of a criminal plot, in the fourth season episode, "Lethal Weapon". As the criminal, Mr. Gadget, attempted to level the building using a sonic weapon, the name "Hall of Justice" clearly appeared on its façade. It bore little resemblance to the Super Friends Hall of Justice, but rather was of the faux Greco-Roman design typical of many pre-World War II United States public buildings.
The opening credits of Challenge of the Super Friends names the Super Friends as the Justice League of America. In addition to the appearance of a JLA emblem on a communicator and a reference to a mission to repair the Justice League satellite, the Super Friends are often linked with the JLA.
In that mission, the Justice League satellite under repair is clearly the same design as the Justice League Satellite that appeared in the comics at the time, but was shown to be substantially smaller than its comic book counterpart, and thus uninhabitable.
The show was featured under several titles, though only about 60 episodes were produced altogether.
Super Friends (1973)[2]
The All-New Super Friends Hour (1977)[3]
Challenge of the Super Friends (1978)[4]
The World's Greatest Super Friends (1979)[5]
Super Friends (1980-1983; this show had 3 different short cartoons that starred at least 2 or 3 different superheroes dealing with different crises)[6]
Super Friends: The Legendary Super Powers Show (1984)[7]
The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians (1985)[8]
Plastic man guest stars in the episode "the gleek computer."
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