Showing posts with label Super Friends.. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Super Friends.. Show all posts

Pop Focus: Super Friends of the 1970s!

Seven-year-old me couldn't wait to see the debut of "The Super Friends" on Sept. 8, 1973. ABC aired a sneak preview of it, along with the rest of its new Saturday morning lineup the night before.

I don't know if I slept a wink. But I still managed to awake in time to catch the show. Thank goodness since, in the days before VCRs, if you missed it, you missed it.

I was a huge Batman fan. I liked Superman. At this point, I was starting to pick up comics here and there, but didn't yet know a thing about Wonder Woman or Aquaman. I really dug Aquaman, as I was really into swimming at time. I used to plunge underwater and swim as far as I could before surfacing.

By statute in the 1970s, all Hanna-Barbera cartoons were obligated to feature a goofy dog, which the Super Friends did, along with "kids-we-could-identify-with" Wendy and Marvin. Even at 7, I wanted less of these goofballs and more superheroes.

Later, of course. Wendy and Marvin were replaced by the super-powered Wonder Twins. Which was just as lame. Making them super-powered didn't make them superheroes. Get out of the way so I can see more Batman.

Below are some pics, videos and memorabilia of the early Super Friends. Over the course of the 70s, the series changed its lineup and name and I grew up. I don't know a damn thing about "Challenge of the Super Friends" and the "Legendary Super Powers Show" or any of that. For me it all started i 1973 and ended a few years later.







 In the early 1970s, Mego had the rights to make DC Comics-based action figures. And this was a very good thing. However, it little in the way of Super Friends-branded toys. There was a lunchbox, though.




The great comics artist Alex Toth did the character designs for the Super Friends. His career in animation also saw him work on Space Ghost, Johnny Quest and many other Saturday Morning favorites of the 1960s and 70s.






I also have fond memories of -- and still own--  this DC tabloid edition featuring Justice League reprints and a feature written and illustrated by Toth about the animation process.




I have a few issues of the DC's Super Friends comics series, but quickly opted for the real deal in the Justice League, instead. The Super Friends comics were recently reprinted in one of DC's giant Showcase Presents volumes.