Super Friends: Complete Series Blu Ray Review (Warner Bros.)

Super Friends (aKa Challenge of the Superfriends, Superfriends, Super Friends: The Legendary Super Powers Show, The World’s Greatest Super Friends, The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians, and The All-New Super Friends Hour) is a 1973 animated superhero television series created by Gardner Fox (The Flash, Vixen, Young Justice, and Justice League) that ended in 1985. It was directed by Ray Patterson (A Pup Named Scooby-Doo, Godzilla, The Addams Family, The Smurfs, and The Flintstones franchise), Charles Nichols (Superman, Police Academy: The Animated Series, Chuck Norris: Karate Kommandos, and Rambo), Carl Urbano (The Smurfs, The Jetsons, Pac-Man, and Casper franchise), Oscar Dufau (Paddington Bear, Sky Commanders, The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, Snorks, and The Dukes), George Gordon (Space Stars, Ritchie Rich, The Biskitts, Trollkins, and The Gary Coleman Show), Rudy Zamora (The Bullwinkle Show, The New Adventures of Jonny Quest, Challenge of the GoBots, The New Scooby-Doo Mysteries, and Yogi Bear franchise), and many others. It takes place in Earth-50 for the DC Comics universe. It’s produced by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera (Scooby-Doo franchise, Tom and Jerry franchise, The Flintstones franchise, The Jetsons franchise, The Smurfs franchise, Godzilla, and Yogi the Bear franchise). Plastic Man, Cyborg, Green Arrow, and many more made their animated debuts here for this comic book cartoon.The world’s greatest superheroes which includes Batman (played by: Olan Soule from The Towering Inferno and Adam West from Batman: TV Series), Superman (played by: Danny Dark from Plastic Man), Robin (played by: Casey Kasem from the Scooby-Doo franchise), Wonder Woman (played by: Shannon Farnon from Quincy M.E. and B.J. Ward from the Scooby-Doo franchise), Aquaman (played by: Norman Alden from Back to the Future and William Callaway from The Smurfs), The Flash (played by: Jack Angel from Toy Story and Ted Knight from Caddyshack), Green Lantern (played by: Michael Rye from Spider-Man), Cyborg (played by: Ernie Hudson from the Ghostbusters franchise), and others defend it from pure evil. The powerful team wants to uphold their strong justice to protect the public from those ambitious supervillains which includes The Joker (played by: Frank Welker from the Transformers franchise), The Penguin (played by: Frank Welker from the Scooby-Doo franchise), The Riddler (played by: Michael Bell from G.I. Joe), Lex Luthor (played by: Stan Jones from Little Shop of Horrors), Brainiac (played by: Stanley Ralph Ross from Superman and Ted Cassidy from The Addams Family), Sinestro (played by: Vic Perrin from Mission: Impossible), Scarecrow (played by: Don Messick from the Yogi Bear franchise), Darkseid (played by: Frank Welker from Curious George), and many more that want to burn the entire universe down after it’s destroyed from their corruption of society. It’s a fierce battle that continues when going against the Legion Of Doom plus mad scientists and destructive aliens. The devastating wars of the gifted will change everything when it’s finally over. Who will survive this????Super Friends was a great collaboration from DC Comics and Hanna Barbera back in the day. It dominated Saturday mornings on ABC with it’s legendary lineup. More than a few iconic comic book characters made their animation debuts during Super Friends over the years. It’s one of the best cartoons from the 70’s. It even kept going strong with a comeback in the 80’s which is included on here with every episode from the complete series. Super Friends focuses on the lighter side of crime fighting for the most part. It’s a cartoon aimed for children and families. The classic animated TV show was directed by some of the most experienced film makers when it comes to animated television so everything was top notch for this production for the time it was made. It featured some of biggest and more popular stories from the original comics. 1973’s Super Friends had 16 episodes. This is where it all started, they had confidence by doing 45 minute cartoons when it was more common to have a shorter presentation. It introduces characters like Wonder Dog, Wendy, and Marvin that don’t last long when it comes to it’s full run. It’s not the best adaptation from it all but they were still experimenting with what they wanted to do here. 1977’s The All-New Super Friends Hour had 15 episodes that always had 4 segments each. This is the first reboot after the original was cancelled. It’s still on the lighter side but it has additional characters, stories, and interactions. It’s definitely an improvement and it’s much more entertaining with it’s 4 segment per episode concept. It moves at a faster pace with this set up. 1978’s Super Friends had 16 episodes.This third go around adds a few obscure and lesser known superheroes which is one of my favorite things about this version. It has a connection to the next incarnation that follows this Super Friends. 1978’s Challenge of the Superfriends had 16 episodes. This is a continuation and finally a true follow up to a previous series. Challenge isn’t another remake or redo for the DC Comics superheroes. 1979’s The World’s Greatest Super Friends only had 8 episodes. This adaptation featured shorter cartoons at 22 minutes. This one is a little silly and it has more comedy compared to the rest of them. This is probably my least favorite variation of Super Friends to be honest. 1980’s Super Friends had 8 episodes with 3 segments each. They were only 22 minutes and that’s not too much time for a cartoon covering 3 different stories. It moved lightning quick but since each portion felt a little rushed since they were the shortest from the franchise. It’s still an upgrade compared to the previous one. 1981’s Super Friends had 6 episodes with the familiar 3 segment structure. They tried something new with this later animation which I really enjoyed because it kept it fresh. 1983’s Super Friends is considered the lost episodes. This is the first time seeing these. I know this one is more rare and unknown when stacked up against the rest of them. It had 6 cartoons with the 3 segment format. 1984’s Super Friends: The Legendary Super Powers Show had 8 episodes with 2 segments. It finally changed things up when it comes to it’s tone. It went away from the silly family stuff to something darker. The Legendary Super Powers Show is my personal favorite from the entire television show.Darkseid makes an impact here as the villain. The iconic Adam West returns as Batman for this one after being away from the role for 7 years. 1985’s The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians is the finale of the Super Friends. It had 8 episodes which included a few 2 part cartoons so it’s basically 10 total if you want to count those as separates. Like all the later shows, it featured 22 minute shows. It got rid of the various and it goes for it’s original single story structure. It goes for a more dramatic approach plus it even adds some science fiction elements to it. It’s most likely the version most people remember at this point for Super Friends. It’s loaded with so many voice talents which includes Adam West, Casey Kasem, Frank Welker, Ernie Hudson, Don Messick, B.J. Ward, Ted Knight, Danny Dark, Olan Soule, Stan Jones, Shannon Farnon, Michael Rye, Stanley Ralph Ross, Ted Cassidy, Jack Angel, Vic Perrin, Michael Bell, William Callaway, Norman Alden, Louise Williams (Gus), William Woodson (Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends), Buster Jones (Transformers franchise), Peter Cullen (Transformers franchise), Rene Auberjonois (Star Trek franchise), and James Avery (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles). Super Friends tried to teach children about morals and problems with the environment. Like I said before, it was a fun silly cartoon for the most part until the later years when it became more realistic. Super Friends has a little of everything for everyone with it’s variety during it’s impressive life in the animated world. Some of my personal favorite episodes were The Seeds of Doom, The Fear, The Death of Superman, Darkseid’s Golden Trap, Return of the Phantoms/Bully for You/SuperClones, Lex Luthor Strikes Back, Universe of Evil, The Super Friends Meet Frankenstein, Secret Origins of the SuperFriends/Terror from the Phantom Zone, and World Beneath the Ice/Swamp of the Living Dead. It shows you super fun adventures with DC Comics icons and it’s always entertaining with it’s consistent changes. It was a blast to revisit these cartoons after all this time. RECOMMENDED!!!!Let’s discuss this high definition presentation and list the special features from Warner Bros Pictures! These 1080p (1.33:1) transfers are the best this superhero animated television series is ever going to look on home video. Honestly, I was shocked it got an HD upgrade when it was originally announced. I always thought this was going to be stuck in DVD hell but it’s nice that it’s been given this proper treatment. These newer restorations on each episode are massive improvements over the previous DVD and original television versions. These English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 tracks are much better than expected on all 16 discs for this set. All of the dialogue is very clean, the action is elevated, and the music has a nice boost to it. It has English SDH subtitles. The All-New Super Friends Hour has the little over 14 minute “One Dimensional Goodness: The Super Friends and the Good Old Days”. It has the little over 8 minute “Origins of the Guest Stars”. It has the little over 12 minute “The Wonder Twins Phenomenon”. 1978’s Super Friends has the little over 4 minute “The Ballad of Zan and Jayna: Wonder Twin Powers Activate”. It has the almost 12 minute “Pajama-Rama: Super Friends Retrospective”. Super Friends: The Legendary Super Powers Show has 5 different “Audio Commentaries”. It has the almost 18 minute “Evolution: New Heroes, Viler Villains, and Ethnic Additions”. It has the almost 8 minute “The Super Powers Collection: The Effect of the Toy Industry on the Super Friends”. The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians has the little over 11 minute “Super Friends Redux: Galactic Guardians”. This complete series Super Friends set carried over the older bonus material from the DVD releases. There’s nothing new or exclusive added here, just all kinds of archive extras. It has that oversized DVD packaging for this blu ray collection. This is a must own for any diehard DC Comics or Hanna Barbera fan. It’s available everywhere right now including MovieZyng.com, CHECK IT OUT!!!!