One of the iconic Saturday Morning cartoons of the 1970s and 1980s was the SUPER FRIENDS! series. It brought the Justice League to a new audience of kids who may have heard about Superman and Batman but had not yet discovered the comics for themselves, and maybe hit another level of excitement when they did.
There’s a wave of nostalgia hearing that theme song and intro again, and many of the older episodes play a lot cheesier than a tween would have been cognizant of back in the day, but there’s still a lot of enjoyable plotonium in those adventures and capers.
I just wanna know why this spaceship attacking Planet Exxor looks like the Battlestar Galactica. How did they get away with that back then. And yes, I was one of those geeky kids who actually uttered “Wonder Twin Powers, activate!” out loud in the real world once or twice.
The picture is better than I recall during the broadcasts, but that’s to be expected. The colors seem to be muted on the older episodes, and are richer and brighter on the newer episodes (after 1981, mostly). The audio on my system is excellent, both voices and special effects sound clear, and better than on old 1970s TV consoles.
The DVD set is a total of 21 discs broken down by years and color-coded:
Audio: English
Feature: “The Wonder Twins Phenomenon”
Audio: English
Subtitles: French
It’s odd that the episodes on the “All-New Super Friends Hour” discs do not use the Super Friends Hour title card. I’ve seen images of it on other nostalgia websites, and it looks familiar from back when, but it’s not on any of the episodes on these 4 discs, nor any of the other 3 discs. These use the same title card as the other 1977-1978 episodes, and I’m curious why…
Feature: “The Ballad of Zan and Jayna” music video
Feature: “Pajama-rama: A Super Friends Retrospective”
Audio: English
Subtitles: French
Audio: English
Subtitles: French
1979: The World’s Greatest Super Friends (1 disc)
Audio: English, Spanish and Portuguese
Subtitles: Portuguese
Audio: English, Spanish, Portuguese and Thai
Subtitles: French, Portuguese and Thai
Audio: English, Spanish and Portuguese
Subtitles: French and Portuguese
Audio: English and Portuguese
Subtitles: French and Portuguese
Audio commentaries on “The Wrath of Brainiac”, “No Honor Among Thieves”, “The Mask of Mystery”, “The Case of the Dreadful Dolls”, “The Royal Ruse”
Features: “Evolution: New Heroes, Viler Villains, and Ethnic Additions”, “The Super Powers Collection: The Effect of the Toy Industry on the Super Friends”
Feature: “Super Friends Redux: Galactic Guardians”
Unless otherwise stated, the only spoken language is English, with English subtitles. I received a few questions about whether there were Spanish language audio or subtitles, and Spanish audio was only available for 1979, 1980 and 1981, but no Spanish subtitles on any season. I would never have guessed they’d add Thai audio and subtitles in 1980, but there they are.
(The Blu-ray edition may be broken down in similar fashion, as it contains just 16 discs)
The two bonus feature mini-documentaries, “The Wonder Twins Phenomenon” and “Pajama-rama: A Super Friends Retrospective”, are a lot of fun and pay homage to the childhood memories folks of a certain age have of spending early Saturday mornings with this show in its various incarnations. I honestly don’t remember the 1984 and 1985 editions, but I do appreciate the inclusion of the Lost Episodes from 1983. Also, given the mergers and acquisitions history of Hanna-Barbera, Filmation and Warner Bros/Turner Broadcasting, I would think a documentary just on the production of the Super Friends cartoons could be very interesting.
For more detail on the packaging, take a quick peek at the unboxing video:
I am not sure how long this packaging style will hold up after years of use, but I’m not sure this one would get as much of a workout as other animated series that are broken down by seasons in separate packaging. Once the discs are properly seated, they do seem to stay in place… just be very careful opening it after it’s been shipped to you!
4 out of 5 stars
The greatest of the DC superheroes work together to uphold the good with the help of some young proteges. Produced by Hanna-Barbera, Super Friends is an animated TV series, featuring the Justice League of America, that ran from 1973 to 1985 on ABC as part the Saturday morning cartoon lineup.
The collection features 93 episodes of the animated television series and is remastered on Blu-ray disc for the first time!
Super Friends!: The Complete Collection (DVD)
Release date : September 10, 2024
MPAA rating : NR (Not Rated)
Product Dimensions : 2 x 7.5 x 5.48 inches; 1.08 Pounds
Media Format : NTSC, DVD
Number of discs : 21
Run time : 31 hours
ASIN : B0D869XWZZ
Super Friends!: The Complete Collection (Blu-ray)
Release date : September 10, 2024
MPAA rating : NR (Not Rated)
Product Dimensions : 1.37 x 7.34 x 5.25 inches; 14.46 ounces
Media Format : Blu-ray
Number of discs : 16
Run time : 3142 minutes
ASIN : B0D9W6247Z
DVD Review: "Super Friends!" The Complete Collection
Summary
There’s a wave of nostalgia hearing that theme song and intro again, and many of the older episodes play a lot cheesier than a tween would have been cognizant of back in the day, but there’s still a lot of enjoyable plotonium in those adventures and capers.
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