World's Greatest Super Friends

It's no secret that my favorite cartoon growing up was the Super Friends. Back in the seventies, we didn't have a DVR, TIVO, or even a VHS, so a kid had to make sure that he caught all the episodes. And I had a deep-rooted fear of missing any episode.

These days I have the entire series of Super Friends, nine season spanning twelve years, available digitally and fed to the screen through my Apple TV. Any childhood memory can be summoned in an instant.

Except for one season. One miserable season. One season containing only eight episodes from 1979. It's been killing me.

The thing is, this show is currently being broadcast on various cable channels devoted to nostalgic TV or cartoons. So it's not like that season has been lost to the winds of time. But I've been monitoring iTunes and the DVD news watching for this season to be released for awhile now.

Finally! Finally. On April 23rd this season went on sale as a Target exclusive, and now I have it.


There is not one single original thing happening in these eight cartoons. Nothing mind-blowing at all. Each story is heavily lifted from other source material. It's the most derivative season of the show. (Yes Bill, I did look up 'derivative' to make sure I was using it correctly.)

BUT... but... it's also the most memorable of the Super Friends offerings. Except for perhaps the Challenge of the Super Friends, no other season sticks out in my mind so much. This could be because there were only eight episodes, therefore each episode was rerun several times through the year. Or it could be the derivative nature of the material that makes it so memorable.


The Super Friends end up fighting the genie from Aladdin's lamp.


The Super Friends get changed into hobbits and go on a Lord of the Rings style quest.


I always loved this one for several reasons. It showcases Luthor as the main villain. It was rare that the show would use actual DC villains outside of the Challenge of the Super Friends season. And Luthor ends up winning, but has to release the Super Friends in order to save his own butt. With the touch of a button, the Super Friends are freed, much butt is kicked, and the Earth is saved once again.


The Super Friends fight Captain Nemo. This one is interesting because it uses characters from the bottle city of Kandor.


Easily one of my favorites, despite Aquaman not being present. The Super Friends start fighting Frankenstein's monster. But by the end of the episode Dr. Frankenstein has sapped all their powers into a new monster. And it's up to a powered-up Robin to save the day.

Dr. Sims: "You don't understand! If you use this machine, it could kill you!"

Superman: "I'm afraid it's you who doesn't understand, Doctor Sims. We're GOING to use it."


This one has Batman fighting a space knight with a light saber in a castle on another planet. Glorious. How could one forget an episode with Superman as the Black Knight?


Perhaps the best remembered episode of Super Friends. Superman switches places with an evil counterpart from another dimension. We get to see the evil Super Friends. Including Pirate Aquaman before Peter David made it a reality in the 1990's.


I think this picture speaks for itself.

So yeah... my collection is complete. It's time to hit the couch with the kids and boggle my mind at light saber Batman, hobbit Wonder Woman, super-Robin, evil Superman, and scarecrow Aquaman. And get transported to 1979 all over again.

Thanks,
DCD

Teen Titans through the Decades

One of the things my main hobby, collecting and reading comics, offers is the ability to traipse through the decades and enjoy the same title in completely different eras. I can't think of another genre that pulls this off quite like comics. Maybe animation, but comic books offer an unbroken publication history. When doing a re-read of a particular title from it's inception to today, you can see the changes in era and culture happening slowly. If you were to pick one issue from each decade and read that, you would see the changes as being drastically different.


I think the title that most closely marries itself to the culture of the time period it's published in is the Teen Titans. Created in the 1960's, the Titans were all the younger sidekicks of the main heroes banding together. But larger than that one trick concept, the Titans were about teenage heroes getting together and having adventures.

In the 1960's, the Titans were a quant little joke. Their dialogue, culture, and youth-hipness were in the hands of middle age white men in business suits. As such, they reflect a culture that never really quite was. It wasn't until 1969 that the Titans fell into different writing hands of a much younger generation of comic book creators.


The seventies didn't see much activity for the Teen Titans. But the 1980's saw a huge boom of popularity with the "New" Teen Titans. New characters and a new approach which can be summed up with two words: "Teenage Drama".

Being thirteen in 1982 when the New Teen Titans hit their popular high point, I thought it was the greatest thing ever. Re-reading those same issues thirty years later in 2012 I'm struck at how ridiculously teen-drama-ish and melodramatic everything is. It seems to me... very eighties.


In 2003, the Teen Titans got there very own cartoon on Cartoon Network. I felt the cartoon was nothing short of genius for several reasons. It looked and felt very different from other super hero cartoons of the time. It had a Japanese Anime influence with quick action, sharp art, and heavy doses of humor, drama and action.


The cartoon was definitely set up to appeal to younger kids. At the time, my son was four and my daughter was two. They loved the show. It had snappy music, colorful heroes, action, and laughter. The characters would even change into smaller, cuter, weirder versions of themselves when something silly or embarrassing would happen. The creators of the show were NOT catering to the older comic fan crowd, but definitely went for the current day audience.


However, they included the popular characters from the eighties as the main cast of the show.


And they had villains with roots in the 1960's and the silliness of the Titans title of that decade. Even some guest stars from the original Titans line-up.

The main villain was Slade, who first appeared in the eighties as "Deathstroke the Terminator" and ended up encapsulating the look and feel of comic books in the nineties with over the top violence, a silly name that sounds cool to video game players, and a costume covered in weaponry.


The producers of the show did not limit themselves by the history of the Titans. Yet they took that history and crafted it into something they could use to make nods to the Teen Titans forty year history and still have major appeal to current day audiences.

AND... in appealing to current day audiences they attempted to do what the Teen Titans have always tried to do... be modern.

It was genius.

Thanks,
DCD

The Hunt for Aquaman

I wanted to take a minute to tell you why I feel this is the golden age for enjoying entertainment of the past. More specifically, I wanted to give you a personal example of it.


It was 1985 when I learned that Aquaman had his own cartoon in 1967. I remember feeling a wave of shock in my stomach. The feeling a collector gets when he misses out on a rare piece. I felt overwhelmingly irresponsible. I had no idea that my favorite character used to have his own cartoon. I had never seen it, never heard of it, had no knowledge of it's existence.

I found out because of this advertisement in a comic book:


As I said before, it was 1985. And all I knew at this point was that the cartoon existed, and that I would soon spend $24.95 of my lawn mowing money to own it. But what questions could I answer beyond that?

When did the cartoon air?
Was it in the same style as Super Friends?
How many episodes were there?
Were they being aired on local stations now?
Was the cartoon any good?

No. Idea.

This was 1985. What were my options? Let's run THAT down...

Ask my peers at school? (No.)
Ask my local library for more information? (No.)
Try to find fan magazines with more information? (Not likely)
Ask my Dad? (No!)

My first step was to call Errol's, a precursor to Blockbuster, and pre-order my Beta copy of the video. That's right... Beta. So I would run into a problem just three years later that I didn't foresee at the time.



Secondly, I had to find out if the cartoon was aired locally. I did this by getting out the local TV guide from the newspaper and going through every day, every hour, looking for all possible interpretations of the show. And at this point, I didn't even know the official title of the show was the Superman/Aquaman Adventure Hour.



Third, I saved up my money, waited, waited, waited, and waited for the release date, biked to Errols with my wallet and backpack, and finally bought the thing.



I loved the cartoon, of course. There are aspects of cartoons from the late sixties that are vastly preferable to cartoons from the early seventies. You can thank parents groups for that. But I'm not here to do a review of the cartoon at the moment. Pertinent to the story... my new beta tape had "8 Aquatic Adventures".

Just eight. And still I had no more solid information. I knew what the cartoon was like. I loved it. I could guess that the cartoon pre-dated the Super Friends. But I had no way of knowing if there were any more episodes.

Three years later, in 1988, I had to find a friend that had both a beta machine and a VHS and who could transfer the cartoons to the VHS format. As beta had died. But at least I had my cartoons in a tape that would play on my Grandmother's VCR.

It was about five years after that, 1993, when I found a guy at a comic book convention who knew anything about anything. I was shocked to learn that not only were there 36 episodes of the Aquaman show, but that the show also had a few 'guest shot' episodes of Justice League, Teen Titans, Green Lantern, Flash, Hawkman and the Atom. This all pre-dated the Super Friends.





This type of dealer isn't selling video that's been officially released by the companies that own the properties. This dealer is selling VHS copies of cartoon episodes that he had gotten from local TV stations and transferred the film to VHS. I paid the guy whatever he was asking and left with many of his cartoons on VHS tape.

Which would prove yet another problem several years later.

Having the 36 episodes was completely worth it. I love every single goofy moment of every single one.





In 2007, Warner Bros finally released the full series on DVD. Much more than "8 Aquatic Adventures". I now knew far more about the cartoon than I did in 1985, but more from learning bits and pieces along the way then being able to pull up information on the all-knowing internet. I bought the DVD without hesitation.

A couple of years later, the cartoon is available on iTunes for digital download. i bought that too.


So yeah, I have the cartoons, have seen them, and have had all my questions answered. It only took about fifteen years.

My buddy Steve just texted me with the name of a TV show he thought I would find interesting. Five minutes later, I knew all about the show without asking Steve a single question. I didn't need the TV guide, the library, a comic book convention, an illegal VHS dealer, four different formats, and fifteen years to find out.

Golden age.

Thanks,
DCD

Super Friends in Jars

I have a lot of action figures. I mean a lot of action figures. Primarily DC figures, as those are the figures that I've never sold off or traded away. I don't really collect action figures any more. The occasional action figure here and there, but nothing where I would consider it actively collecting. My wife used to be boggled by the character selection. "How many different versions of the same character do you need?"

I've never really explored where the genesis of this sub-passion to my main hobby came from. But it occurred to me as I sat down to write about what I wanted to write about today.

The Super Friends trapped in jars.


When the Super Friends cartoon first started out, it wasn't the polished show that it came to be. In fact the first sixteen episodes are vastly different from what most people remember the show to be. It was a full hour long, much more simplistic, environmentally conscious, absolutely devoid of violence, and totally awesome.





The episode I remember most from the first run is called Gulliver's Gigantic Goof. In that episode, a mad scientist (natch) has devised a shrink ray. He's not evil, oh no. The bad guys were rarely evil in the first season of the show. This dude wanted to solve the worlds hunger problem by shrinking the population. Therefore, there would be more for everyone.





The Super Friends stopped him, but not before being shrunken, trapped in jars, and put on the shelf for display. Also, guest star Green Arrow showed up to help. His only appearance in all 109 episodes.





This particular episode aired in December of 1973. I was four. It was re-run for years before the show was green-lit for new episodes. I believe in my heart that I caught EVERY airing.


Is this where my love of action figures comes from? On some level, do I really just want to stick the Super Friends in jars?

Yes.

Yes I think that's exactly what it is.


Thanks,
DCD

Nightmare Before Christmas

Here it is October and my iPod has gotten very depressing. According to my spreadsheets, there are very specific things I must listen to during the month of October. First and foremost is Wojciech Kilar’s soundtrack to Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Spooky and haunting. Another one is the soundtrack to Sweeney Todd, wonderfully dark and hateful. There’s the soundtrack to the Addams Family movie. The soundtracks to Aliens and Predator and the Wolfman and Sherlock Holmes. And there’s the Nightmare Before Christmas.



Nightmare Before Christmas has always proven a difficult problem for me. An annual problem. The root question here is, how do you classify the movie? Is it a Halloween movie or a Christmas one? The question has been driving me crazy ever since I saw it in the theater in 1993.

Halloween entertainment isn’t necessarily as distinct as Christmas entertainment. Any horror movie can be considered Halloween entertainment just as it can be up for movie-watching fun at any time of the year. The elements that make a good Halloween movie are atmosphere and character. Does it have a creepy, gothic atmosphere? Does it have outrageous characters that you can model a costume on? Okay… you’re good!



Christmas movies are very specific. They must take place at Christmas. The enjoyment of the holiday must be in jeopardy in some manner. And Christmas must be either ‘saved’ or ‘understood’ at the climax of the movie. There are many, many, MANY movie that fall under these tight guidelines.



My favorite Christmas movie is Die Hard. It takes place at Christmas. And it’s Die Hard, which is awesome.

Nightmare Before Christmas is… sigh. Nightmare Before Christmas has both.



It’s gothic. Most of the action happens at Halloween Town, which answers the need for a spooky setting. The main character is Jack Skellington, the King of Halloween, and almost everyone he interacts with is a spooky horror character that would make a great Halloween costume. So…. Right? Halloween. Right?


But the movie STARTS at the very end of Halloween. And ends on Christmas Even with a save-the-Christmas moment! The movie even has a Christmas message. Santa Claus is in the movie! Santa Claus gets kidnapped in the movie!! It has elves! Ugh. It’s a Christmas movie. Impossible.


I think this method of breaking all the rules by adhering to all the rules is why the movie has burned itself into my brain as a timeless classic.

Ultimately, the movie makes me love Halloween and I can’t think of a single time I’ve watched it at Christmas time. So it’s a Halloween movie.

…right?



This movie caught me off guard this year with a facet of our family development I wasn’t entirely aware of: Holiday traditions. As kids, holiday traditions are extremely fun and important. As adult daddies and mommies, they’re a pain in the butt. Unless you’re my ridiculous sister. (http://www.3peasinbrooklyn.com/) What caught me off guard is the traditions I’m creating for the kids without even realizing it.

My youngest son, Alex, is six. And when it came to his attention that it was even slightly close to October, he wanted to watch Nightmare Before Christmas. I laughed at the request, and asked him why. He said, very plainly, “it’s tradition”.



I have a love/hate thing with traditions. For me, they’re a tool to invoke nostalgia. But logically speaking, if you do the same thing every year there’s nothing to mark that year in your memory as unique. So do traditions actually hurt the lasting memories of the holidays? My oldest kid is thirteen, and we’ve already built a lot of traditions surrounding Christmas. My mother, however, has so many traditions surrounding Christmas that they start on November first and fill a calendar with red and green ink.



And the fact that this is not in my control is a little upsetting. The kids are forming traditions of their own based on whatever we ended up doing last year. Ugh. I have to be extremely careful about every activity I plan in the December time frame. It’s why I’ve avoided devoting a blog to anyone’s birthday or anniversary. I don’t want it to get caught up in an expected, traditional cliché.

Some things seem to grow to be entirely not within my control. Like the holiday traditions we follow in the minds of my family. Or whether or not the Nightmare Before Christmas is a clearly-classifiable movie. For the most part, that seems to really bother me. But every once in awhile I relax, put things in perspective, and I’m comforted by the fact that such issues just really don’t matter.

Thanks,
DCD

…

…

… it’s a Christmas movie.

Why I Love Scooby Doo

It feels so odd to me that I love Scooby Doo so much. It seems... wrong. Out of place. My obsessions with comics and love of Star Trek, combined with a brain that needs to organize everything into nice clear cells on a spreadsheet, seems to have no room for a silly kids cartoon with a mystery-solving dog. But I take pride in my love of Scooby Doo. As if my interest in the character makes me a diversified individual with a range of interests.

Yeah... right.

Scooby Doo is one of those characters in "American Mythology" that seems to have transcended it's original medium. In 1969, Hanna Barbera put out the show as part of it's never ending machine of cartoon shows to fill Saturday morning programming. At the time, there was nothing about the show that would mark it as a decade-enduring favorite. But it grew to be their most popular property.



Scooby is also yet another example of a character changing with the decades to stay popular. Just as Superman and Batman have done, the Scooby Doo show and movies have changed in ways to keep them relevant to the current decade. Changing, evolving, and keeping hints of the elements of the show that made it original during it's debut. Fans of the show can decry things like the addition of Scrappy, or the introduction of romantic sub-plots, or even the use of cell phones and computers. But the mystery solving goofy hijinks of the show have proved to be timeless.



Some of my earliest memories are of Scooby Doo. I vaguely remember a poorly-informed older babysitter putting me in a high chair in front of the show when I was way too big for a high chair. But it mattered not because Scooby was on the TV and doing one of his silly chases through doors that made no logical sense. I remember a coloring book with cut out paper dolls on the back cover. I was excited about that, because I thought that was the closest we would ever get to actual action figures. I remember being at an amusement park with my parents, really wanting a Scooby Doo stuffed toy they had in a gift shop, but knowing I was too old to even ask for such a baby thing.

Nowadays, Scooby toys, plush animals, coloring books, and other merchandise are plentiful. They weren't so much in 1976. My favorite tea glass is Scooby Doo. I never got into Scooby comic books, though.


I think, personally, it's the atmosphere of the show I love the best. Not quite horror, but gothic mystery in characters and setting. The show being too silly to be scary, but I would sure love to find myself trapped in a haunted house with Daphne, exploring spooky corridors and having reality-bending adventures.


Daphne. Daphne... sigh. Another very early memory. First crush.


Now, as an adult, you can find every season of the show available on my Apple TV. It's one of the few shows that all three of my kids can agree on to watch. And it's definitely one of my guilty pleasures. I have no problem sitting and working on the budget with Scooby playing in the background.



Thanks,
DCD