Triangulating the Super Friends

I learned about triangulation on September 10th, 1977, from the Super Friends. And I learned it incorrectly.

It was five days until my eighth birthday. My mother was VERY pregnant with what would turn out to be an attention getting red-haired baby sister. We had just moved from Texas to an Air Force base in upstate New York and were living in a cramped townhouse. My parents were fostering, socially. They ended up forging lifelong friendships with the other officers and families on base. Me? Not doing so well. Not a friend to speak of. But I did have one thing to look forward to… a brand new season Super Friends with all kinds of changes! The Wonder Twins! Guest stars galore in the form of other Justice League members! Actual villains! And an hour-long show in which to stretch some storytelling wings!




I barely slept the night before the first of these episodes was to air. I got up way too early and was downstairs first thing, refusing to budge from the TV set. I had negotiated show-picking rights with my sister in the usual two-fisted manner of justice, and everything was right.

The first episode had a segment titled “Invasion of the Earthors”, and that’s where I learned about triangulation. The Super Friends used it to find the secret base of the villains-of-the-week.

First, Superman finds an air vent and radios the location to Batman.









Then, Aquaman finds another air vent and radios the location to Batman.









"Using the time-tested method of triangulation, Batman draws the angle of the Earthor exhaust vent on the Batmobile computer map."




There were so many things wrong with this. And my little soon to be eight year old brain was listing them out like mad. Where were the angles? How did Batman know what angles to use for the lines? And doesn't the word 'triangulation' mean three? Where's the third element to make this work? And don't you need more accuracy than you can get while wearing gloves and using a pencil to hand-draw lines on the bat-computer screen while in a moving Batmobile with Robin narrating your every move in the background?




Conclusion? The Super Friends were infallible, awesome, God-like American myths. So therefore they must be right and my doubts were obviously a sign of weakness.

In the seventies, we kids were constantly learning things from cartoons. In fact, if it wasn’t showcased in an episode of Super Friends or Star Trek, I probably didn’t know about it. A good example of this is that I learned about triangulation when I was eight, but didn’t know what a sextant was until I was an adult working for the Coast Guard.

The 1973-1974 season of Super Friends downplayed conflict and violence and played up the more educational aspects of the show. As simplistic and childish as the first season was, it’s probably where I got the roots of my beliefs in racial tolerance and environmental preservation. Plus, it had that really cool episode where the Super Friends got shrunk down, trapped in jars, and had to be saved by a tiny Green Arrow. I cannot emphasize enough how cool that episode is. The turn away from super-heroes battling evil had a lot to do with some silly parents group that had targeted cartoons as a source of influence on children.

Poppycock. (<-- Yes, I know. I’m being hipster ironic.)

The 1977 re-emergence of the show attempted to blend action with this educational foundation. The Super Friends team members would show up between cartoons to teach kids about all manner of things, from swimming and bicycling safety, to first aid, to magic tricks and word play. I took notes and started a spreadsheet.




In fact, I learned so much from my entertainment as a kid that it makes me really wonder why I didn’t take to school all that much more. I seem to soak it in if I was hearing something from Aquaman or Captain Kirk or Steve Austin. Why couldn’t I focus better in school?




But more importantly, and I think about this a lot, what are kids learning today? Do the video games on Ashton’s iPad teach him about triangulation? There’s Dora the Explorer for younger kids, but what kinds of things are the older kids soaking in from Spongebob and iCarly?

Thanks,
DCD