Product Description

Studio: Hanna Barbera Release Date: 08/11/2009 Run time: 168 minutes Rating: Nr

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #14332 in DVD
• Brand: Warner Brothers
• Released on: 2009-08-11
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Animated, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 168 minutes

Features

• Powerful super heroes Batman, Robin, Superman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Wonder Twins Zan and Jayna and their rascally blue space monkey Gleek battle evil, protect humanity and save the world from unthinkable dangers in these 24 action-packed adventures. These cool cartoon actionfests showcase a gallery of DC Comics heroes and fan-favorite villains like Brainiac and Mr. Mxyzptlk, plus the Hanna-Barbe

Amazon.com
The goofy run of Super Friends continued through this unusual detour: when the animated series was canceled in 1983, Hanna-Barbera continued to produce new episodes, which in most cases took years to show up after the series kept returning to TV in various forms. These Lost Episodes are gathered on this two-disc set, which, although it claims to be 24 "episodes," is more like eight half-hour programs (each consisting of three short adventures). The Super Friends are in the house, or more exactly the Hall of Justice: Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman and Robin, and Aquaman forming the key group of comic-book holdovers, with new superheroes Black Vulcan, Apache Chief, Samurai, and El Dorado gaining opening-credits status. In fact, other D.C. Comics heroes and villains thread through the series, The Flash, Green Lantern, and Brainiac among them. Some of the episodes are self-contained little adventures, but a few play around with original mythology; for instance, in one brief story Superman returns to Krypton, and for a moment prevents the destruction of his home planet. Another notable episode, "Bulgor the Behemoth," has a distinctly postmodern kick: a writer for an animated TV show is struck by lightning and morphs into a super-villain, and can't be stopped by Superman because he's a fictional character.

The animation is simple but the designs pop in a pleasing way, with plenty of color and some classic comic-book imagery. The action and cornball messages are skewed toward young viewers of Saturday-morning cartoons, and at times the dialogue is painfully "clever" ("If you don't like this hotel, you're gonna have to deal with the Complaint Department--Superman!"). Biggest stumbling block is the emphasis given to the Wonder Twins, the brother-sister team whose "Shape of..." and "Form of..." shtick gets old fast. Unless you're ten years old. Of course their mischievous monkey Gleek is around too, and in "Two Gleeks Are Deadlier Than One," he's replicated as an "android duplicate of Gleek," which is definitely overkill. Even if you don't like those three, there's a great deal of childhood fun in these lightweight adventures. And in the final episode there's a trip to "Bizarro World," trapping Superman and Wonder Woman in an Atari-style video game. Bizarro indeed. --Robert Horton

Customer Reviews

Superfriends "Lost Episodes" to Be Released Next on DVD!
It looks like the next Superfriends 2 DVD set to be released will be the "Lost Episodes." Here is a rundown of the episodes:

Disc One:
01) Mxyzptlk's Revenge
02) Roller Coaster
03) Once Upon A Poltergeist
04) The Krypton Syndrome
05) Invasion Of The Space Dolls
06) Terror On The Titanic
07) The Revenge Of Doom
08) A Pint Of Life
09) Day Of The Dinosaurs
10) Playground Of Doom
11) Space Racers
12) The Recruiter

Disc Two:
13) Warpland
14) Two Gleeks Are Deadlier Than One
15) Bulgor The Behemoth
16) Prisoners Of Sleep
17) An Unexpected Treasure
18) The Malusian Blob
19) Return Of The Phantoms
20) Bully For You
21) Superclones
22) Attack Of The Cats
23) One Small Step For Superman
24) Video Victims

Total Run time for both discs together is 168 minutes. All episodes are in original Fullframe (1.33:1) with English audio & English subtitles. Extras include two downloadable Superfriends comic books in PDF format, playable on DVD-ROM.

The above episodes appear to be all the Lost Shorts from 1983, which is a bit strange to have them released first, since there were two other Seasons of Shorts that came out earlier in 1980 & 1981 which are not yet on DVD. Here is a list of those episodes:

The 1980 Shorts:
01) Bigfoot
02) Ice Demon
03) Makeup Monster
04) Journey Into Blackness
05) Cycle Gang
06) Dive To Disaster
07) Yuna The Terrible
08) Rock And Roll Space Bandits
09) Elevator To Nowhere
10) One Small Step For Mars
11) Haunted House
12) The Incredible Crude Oil Monster
13) The Voodoo Vampire
14) Invasion Of The Gleeks
15) Mxyzptlk Strikes Again
16) The Man In The Moon
17) Circus Of Horrors
18) Around The World In 80 Riddles
19) Termites From Venus
20) Eruption
21) Return Of Atlantis
22) The Killer Machines
23) Garden Of Doom
24) Revenge Of Bizarro

The 1981 Shorts:
01) Outlaws Of Orion
02) Three Wishes
03) Scorpio
04) Mxyzptlk's Flick
05) Sink Hole
06) Alien Mummy
07) Evil From Krypton
08) The Creature From The Dump
09) Aircraft Terror
10) Lava Men
11) Bazarowurld
12) The Warlord's Amulet
13) The Iron Cyclops
14) Palette's Perils
15) Colossus
16) Stowaways From Space
17) The Staraghosta Sea
18) The Witch's Arcade

What worries me is that the 1983 Lost Episodes are being released before the 1979 "Worlds Greatest Superfriends" series, which only consisted of eight 30 minute episodes:

"Rub Three Times For Disaster" (9/22/79)
"Lex Luthor Strikes Back" (9/29/79)
"Space Knights of Camelon" (10/06/79)
"The Lord of Middle Earth" (10/13/79)
"Universe of Evil" (10/20/79)
"Terror At 20,000 Fathoms" (10/27/29)
"The Superfriends Meet Frankenstein" (11/03/79)
"The Planet of OZ" (11/10/79)

This may be an indication that there are copyright problems getting 'Worlds Greatest' released because it incorporates story ideas taken from famous books/novels like "Lord Of The Rings," "The Wizard Of OZ," etc. I hope I'm wrong, but then why skip it and focus on the "Lost Episodes" instead? And let's not forget the 1973 "Superfriends" series with Wendy, Marvin, & Wonderdog that lasted for sixteen episodes and is currently only available, legally, as digital downloads on i-tunes & Amazon's Video-On-Demand:

01) The Power Pirate
02) The Baffles Puzzle
03) Professor Goodfellow's G.E.E.C.
04) The Weather Maker
05) Dr. Pelagian's War
06) The Shamon 'U'
07) Too Hot To Handle
08) The Androids
09) The Balloon People
10) The Fantastic FRERPs
11) The Ultra Beam
12) The Menace of the White Dwarf
13) The Mysterious Moles
14) Gulliver's Gigantic Goof
15) The Planet-Splitter
16) The Watermen

Yes, this is the complete 1983-1984 "lost" season of Super Friends
First, to clarify the number of episodes. This DVD set consists of 8 half-hour shows of "Super Friends" from what would have been their 1983-1984 season on ABC Saturday mornings. Each half-hour show is composed of 3 episodic shorts running about 7 minutes each. A total of 24 shorts (8 X 3) are on this DVD set. These 8 half-hour shows are complete with both their original opening and closing credits.

Unfortunately, ABC never aired any of these half-hour shows during their network 1983-1984 Saturday morning season. They did, however, air the first half-hour's worth of shorts the following year during the 1984-1985 season of "Super Friends: The Legendary Super Powers Show". Since then, these 8 half-hour shows (or more specifically these 24 shorts) eventually all aired years later in syndication and have become known as "the Lost Episodes" of Super Friends.

Each half-hour usually (but NOT always) consists of:
1. a team-up between two or more primary Super Friends
2. a team-up between the Wonder Twins and one or more Super Friends
3. a team-up between one primary Super Friend and one secondary Super Friend

Because the original Superman movies with Christopher Reeve were still fresh in the public's mind, these shows are heavy on Superman and Superman lore.

Since the titles of each short are listed by other reviewers, I've decided to list the stars of each short for those of you who are looking for particular heroes in this set:

Disk 1:

1.1 Superman and Batman
1.2 Wonder Twins and the Atom
1.3 Batman/Robin and Apache Chief

2.1 Superman, Wonder Woman, and Robin
2.2 Wonder Twins and Batman/Robin
2.3 Aquaman and Black Vulcan

3.1 Superman, Batman/Robin, and Wonder Woman
3.2 Wonder Twins and Aquaman
3.3 Wonder Woman and Samurai

4.1 Superman and Batman/Robin
4.2 Wonder Twins, Wonder Woman, and the Flash
4.3 Superman and Wonder Woman

Disk 2:

5.1 Superman and Batman
5.2 Wonder Twins, Wonder Woman, and Green Lantern
5.3 Superman and Apache Chief

6.1 Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman
6.2 Wonder Twins and Hawkman/Hawkgirl
6.3 Batman/Robin and Black Vulcan

7.1 Superman and Green Lantern
7.2 Wonder Twins and Batman/Robin
7.3 Aquaman and El Dorado

8.1 Batman/Robin and El Dorado
8.2 Wonder Twins, Superman, and Batman
8.3 Superman, Wonder Woman, and Samurai

The animation and storylines on these shorts are pretty much standard fare for this time period of the late 1970's to early 1980's. So those of you who grew up on the 1990-2000's DC animated series will most likely groan while watching these.

However, there are some unexpected high-points for comic fans: (1.1) another appearance by Mr. Mxyzptlk, (2.1) Jor-El and Lara when Superman returns to Krypton before it explodes, (3.1) the return of the Legion of Doom with all 13 members, (5.2) Gorilla Grodd and Giganta, and possibly the only appearance of 13 members of the Super Friends together (sort of, and no, I'm not counting the Wonder Twins and Gleek), (7.1) the return of the Phantom Zone villains who travel back in time to Smallville and Superboy, (7.3) Brainiac, and (8.3) the return of Bizarro and Bizarro World.

The only special features are two Super Friends digital comic book reprints from the late 1970's that you can page through screen by screen, and the usual trailers for other DC animated DVD sets.

All in all, this DVD set is recommended for anyone who is a fan of the Super Friends and/or the Legion of Doom, and for anyone who is a fan of this era of Saturday morning television.

Superfriends: the lost episodes
I loved it! I grew up on this show and never knew about these episodes!