Superfriends Season 2 is NOT Season 2 of Superfriends!

Small Screen Specials, Series and Direct-To-Video
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GeorgeC

Superfriends Season 2 is NOT Season 2 of Superfriends!

Post by GeorgeC » February 23rd, 2005, 10:17 pm

>Sigh<

In another case of a corporate blundering changing how history's written,

the upcoming Superfriends: S2 DVD set is NOT the actual second season or second series of Superfriends!!!

Let me explain --

In 1973 thereabouts, a new action/adventure series featuring several of the most popular National Publications (later DC Comics) characters premiered on ABC.

Now why it wasn't called Justice League (of America) at first and instead Superfriends I don't know, but it premiered as Superfriends and was called that through various incarnations until 1984.

The original line-up of Superfriends consisted of Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, Robin (who was NEVER a member of the Justice League), and Aquaman. 2 teenagers named Wendy and Marvin (unrelated) and their pet dog, Wonderdog, completed the original cast.

The original Superfriends stories were lame... even by later Superfriends standards. They were mainly politically correct and ecologically concerned episodes about pollution and technology gone wild. Along the way, there were at least 3 super guest-stars: The Flash, Plastic Man (for all of about ten seconds in an episode), and Green Arrow.

I really don't know how many episodes composed the original Superfriends series, but if we're all lucky this show never had more than 13 episodes made of it! Seriously, Wendy and Marvin make Jan and Zayna look palatable!

The NEXT Superfriends show is the one most people remember... the one that was the FIRST ACTUAL Justice League (of America) series. It pitted the majority of the classic JLA (Flash/Barry Allen, Green Lantern/Hal Jordan, Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman and Robin, Aquaman, Hawkman, Black Lightning stand-in Black Vulcan, made for TV Samurai, made for TV Apache Chief) against the Legion of Doom (Lex Luthor, Black Manta, Cheetah, Giganta, Toyman, Solomon Grundy, Bizarro, Scarecrow). This is the series previously released as a stand-alone DVD (Superfriends: Challenge of the Superfriends) and as a DVD set with all episodes of Superfriends: Challenge of the Superfriends. I think around 13 episodes were made of this "second" season of Superfriends. And yeah, they thankfully ditched Wendy, Marvin, and Wonderdog for this series!

The next Superfriends series to follow this one introduced the Wonder Twins (Jan and Zayna) and their dumb monkey, Gleek. A few years after that, Firestorm was introduced as a number.

The last Superfriends show to air on ABC was NOT called Superfriends. It aired 1984-1985, or 1985-1986, and was called Galactic Guardians: The Legendary Superpowers Team and introduced Cyborg to the team. It ran about 13 episodes and I think could be considered the best "Justice League" series prior to the second season of the current Justice League series.

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