I've talked a lot about how silly this cartoon was, and it really was. In previous articles I picked on the more goofy episodes, details that the show got wrong from DC lore, and how the stupid rules for children’s programming back then watered down the violence to silly levels. True I loved it as a kid, it was my introduction to the DC universe, but as an adult I can see the goofiness more, right down to the name. And it doesn’t hold a candle to the stuff in the 90’s like JLA, Batman:The Animated Series, and X-Men.
But that being said, didn’t this cartoon give us anything cool? At all? Well actually I think it did. For example all the characters were portrayed seriously and treated with respect. The stories may have been silly but the characters were always done correctly. The characters made just for the show like Black Vulcan and Apachi Chief were really good additions, you’d almost swear that they were in the comics as well. And the music was pretty damn decent right down to that awesome theme music.
Here are five other things that were just awesome either in the cartoon or spawning from it. They are things that are part of popular culture or just things that I think are just really awesome.
Comic Books
The cartoon series naturally inspired a comic run, and to be honest the comic books have many things they did better than the animated show. It was able to show more violence since it didn’t have the restrictions for children’s programming to worry about. It allowed the characters of Wendy and Marvin and Zan and Jayna to be be expanded on a bit (with a secret origin for the wonder twins for example) and it tied into DC’s ongoing Justice League title which meant that many issues would bring in other members of the JLA not to mention some notable villains. Even more impressive, the comic books gave us new characters that would become canon and last with DC for quite awhile. They were known as the Global Guardians and it would take way to long to get into that story. Yeah the comics were still light fare aimed at a younger audience, but unlike today’s kids oriented comics which are lame they didn’t get ridiculously silly and were pretty good for what they were.
Legion of Doom
In the comics the team the villains formed was The Secret Society of Super Villains. Which was a lame name in my opinion. There was also The Injustice League for awhile (wow, creative). But the one created on Superfriends is the one everyone remembers. In fact, the producers of Legends of Tomorrow announced that this year’s villains will be a version of the Legion of Doom. While I could nitpick some of the team members (Toyman? really?) the concept is great, made even better by that awesome as hell headquarters the Legion had their meetings in in (which has a eerie resemblance to Darth Vader helmet). This headquarters could rise up from the swamp, fly, turn invisible, had lasers, could travel through time…it was nuts. But so cool!! The villains were almost all the direct adversaries of the Superfriends which was awesome. So many episodes of the series had the heroes facing against normal people or aliens or whatever. The Challenge of the Superfriends included Lex Luthor, Sinestro, Cheetah, Black Manta, and even Captain Cold and was the closest to really feeling like the comics that they were spawned from. I said that the show introduced me to the DC heroes, well this series introduced me to the villains.
Hall of Justice
While not as cool as The Legion of Doom's HQ, this was a really impressive base of operations. And yes I did in fact have the toy and I loved playing with it. Remember how I said the comic books added things the cartoon neglected? Well one of those things was explaining that the Hall of Justice was not the JLA headquarters. That was the satellite they had in the Justice League comics. Instead it's a training hall where the Superfriends trained Wendy and Marvin and later Zan and Jayna. The cartoon didn't really follow this, as it was basically the headquarters including the cool trouble alert which always enabled the Superfriends to speak with whoever was calling via video screen. How did that work? There was a super computer that could analyze anything and the roof raised so that Superman could fly off. Not to mention Batman in his Bat jet or whatever he used. Anyway it was awesome, so awesome that it eventually did make it into the canon at DC for a short time anyway as the headquarters for the Justice League.
Wonder Twins
Granted these characters are more a punch line of jokes than anything, but at the same time who hasn’t heard of them? Or they’re expression “Wonder Twin powers…activate!” they used as they activated their powers? The first season gave us Wendy and Marvin but they were two kids…and that was about it. Zan and Jayne were sill inexperienced and got into trouble, but they had powers and were able to at least help. Oh, if you don’t know Zan could turn into anything water related and Jayna could become any animal. They disappeared from the series and then reappeared…before disappearing again. They weren’t forgotten however and would return to comics in 1995. A version of them appeared in Justice League Unlimited and we got live action versions in the Smallville series. That episode was really good and did a great job of modernizing them while honoring their cartoon origins (especially the Gleek homage). Oh, and yes they had a pet monkey named Gleek….and that’s all I need to say about that. More recently they have reappeared in Teen Titans Go! Let’s be honest these characters could have gone the way of Captain Caveman and just be forgotten, but instead they keep popping up over and over.
Danny Dark as Superman
Ok, I gotta talk about this one. I know I am in the minority on this one, but this will always be the voice of Superman for me. When most people think the best Superman animated voice it’s usually Tim Daly or George Newborn. But not for me. To this day when I hear the voice of Superman in my head, it’s Danny Dark’s. He will always be the one and only Superman. Yes I know there are have been many voices for Superman by now, but this is the one I will always associate with the character. He just had the perfect baritone for the role and made Superman seem so damn cool! Danny Dark was a huge talent, his voice is a favorite of mine not just because he was Superman through EVERY version of Superfriends. And not just because did about a million ads in the old days for everything from Starkist to Budweiser to Atari. But because he was also the voice of NBC for years, doing all of their promo’s. He had a great way of making his voice light for the sitcoms and very somber for the dramatic stuff. His voice still bring a nostalgic tear to my eye.
By the way I also loved the actor who did Batman but I’m not about to suggest he was better then Kevin Conroy. Conroy simply OWNED that role. And I should mention that Casey Kasem did the voice of Robin too through the entire run. As I mentioned before, one of the coolest things ever was when Batman and Robin met Scooby Doo and the gang, with Kasem doing his Robin and Shaggy in the same cartoon. Most of the voices used in Superfriends are still the voices for the characters when I read comics, that includes the villains too.
And finally, one last little thing that Superfriends will always be known for:
Superfriends was a really good show for it’s time and while I admit it doesn’t really hold up, I will maintain that it paved the way for the later, cooler shows not to mention getting fans more interested into the comic books that spawned these characters. Like it did for me.
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