Customer Reviews

Super Friends!: Season One, Vol. One

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is it! Superman! Wonder Woman! Aquaman! Batman & Robin! The very first Super Friends incarnation, with Wendy, Marvin & Wonderdog is finally coming to DVD!

Fans have been waiting years for this and now it's here! The show was comprised of 16 hour long episodes (about 45 minutes without commercials) and included some rare guest appearances such as Green Arrow & Plastic Man among others.

Warner Brothers is releasing the 1973 Season in Two 8 episode Volumes, which are both 2 discs each.

Episodes included with Volume 1:

Disc 1:
01) The Power Pirate
02) The Baffles Puzzle
03) Professor Goodfellow's G.E.E.C.
04) The Weather Maker

Disc 2:
05) Dr. Pelagian's War
06) The Shamon 'U'
07) Too Hot To Handle
08) The Androids

There will be a Super Friends interactive Trivia Challenge Quiz game included as bonus material.

Depending on how well it sells will have an affect on when Volume 2 is released.

This is great news for Super Friends fans every where! :-)

for those of you completists out there, all that remains UNreleased now is

1973-1974 Super Friends: Season One, Vol. TWO (8x 1 hour)
1979-1980 WORLD'S GREATEST SUPERFRIENDS (8x 1 hour)
1980-1981 SUPERFRIENDS HOUR SHORTS (18x 7 minutes)
1981-1982 SUPERFRIENDS HOUR SHORTS (24x 7 minutes)

i would expect to see the shorts in one release,
since they are basically the same as 7x 1 hour

all together thats roughly 17 hours without commercials

I love this old series. It was the original, first season of the show to air, and I seriously doubt they had any idea what a phenomenon the show would become. These episodes had a very different quality from the later more action-oriented episodes. There was a little more character development (the shows were broadcast for a 1-hr timeslot), and there were often morals to the story. Many of the "villains" were people with good intentions but the wrong way of addressing problems. The young "junior" Super Friends were Wendy & Marvin, who pre-dated the WonderTwins Zan & Jayna. Wendy & Marvin had no super powers, but they had lots of personality and a sense of adventure. Wonderdog was a highlight for many young viewers. All of the high profile DC superstars were present for this: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Robin, and Aquaman. Interestingly, one of these episodes has the only appearance by Green Arrow from the entire Super Friends run in all of its incarnations (if I recall correctly). This first season is very enjoyable, and younger viewers especially should find it charming. I love it!

The original season of Super Friends was great for kids because it didn't overwelm. The simple stories of misguided scientists who wanted to help mankind but did it the wrong way was a positive presentation, along with the moral at the end. I remember learning about science and the environment from these episodes. I also remember how exciting it was when the "Troublert" warning would go off and the Justice League would soar to the rescue. With Ted Knight's masterful narration describing the heroics, you knew they would save the day! Superman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman and Batman were shown in very powerful and iconic graphic form, and to this day are some of the best remembered images of those heroes. Thank you Alex Toth, for your great character designs.
The longer time slot meant they didn't have to rush to tell the stories, and Wendy, Marvin and Wonderdog were like long-lost cousins to the Scooby gang! Throw in the only Super Friends appearance of Green Arrow, and you can understand why it's a must have for your collection! And who could forget those opening credits and music; I still get chills when I hear that "bump, bump, bump,...bump, bump, bump, bump!" You gotta get this one!

These are the 45 minute episodes with Wendy, Marvin and Wonderdog! These episodes are BEFORE the Wondertwins and the League of Doom. Not a whole lot of action...but a lot of good lessons about the environment, pollution, overpopulation...and Ted Knight is an awesome narrator. You only get 8 episodes on 2 dvds. My understanding is that if this dvd is successful, they'll release the second volume.

One more thing, the manufacturers have completely misrepresented which series this is by not putting the Jr. Superfriends (Wendy etc) on the dvd cover. I have been searching for these episodes for years..if I hadn't read the reviews here at Amazon (and had just relied on the dvd cover), I would have never realized that these were the episodes I've been looking for!

I love going back in time and watching old cartoons and TV shows from my childhood and Super Friends was certainly in my Saturday Morning line up....along with a gigantic bowl of sugar packed cereal! This is the first cartoon featuring DC superheroes Super Friends and although simple, the show is very engaging. The episodes run 45 minutes, giving plenty of time to develop good, if simple stories.

The cartoons look and sound really good with minimal dirt and artifacts. Of course there are those pesky sidekicks Wendy, Marvin and Wonder Dog in this series , but that was the formula back in those days, trying to emulate Scooby Doo and Shaggy or Space Ghost's Jan, Jace and Blip. I don't mind them all that much now as I did when I was a kid, but since I bought this to relive a piece of my childhood, it just wouldn't be the same without them. I also like Ted Knights narration of the series.

The two disc set is only half the season and that is why I deducted one star. There is no reason to break this small series into two volumes other than greed, but I'm glad they have been released and it won't keep me from buying volume two to complete the series. The only extra worth mentioning is a Super Friends trivia game which is fun at least the first few times through.

If your a fan of DC superheroes cartoons or want to complete the series you will want to add this to your collection. There are only a few incarnations left of these shows to make it to DVD and hopefully this will sell well enough to warrant the studios to release the remaining sets.

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this DVD. My four-year-old is really into Super Heroes now, and I love this for him. The contemporary shows are too violent, too tough, too cool, too much. But the seventies superfriends are just right; they help people and solve problems and are superstrong, etc., but they are nice to eachother and even use correct grammar! Wonder Woman is my favorite, and she's still classy; pretty but not slutty like some of the more modern female characters.

I've been waiting so long for this one to come out on DVD. This was my absolute favorite cartoon as a child. I remember watching it every Saturday morning. I wish they had DVDs and VCRs when I was a child because I could have gotten out of the house more often! I love having these old Saturday morning cartoons on DVD. It's like getting a little piece of my childhood back.

I am happy that WB decided to release this volume of "Superfriends" but I can't help but think that it's taking a ridiculous amount of time to get all of the sets out on DVD. First off, it's nothing but corporate greed that we only have half a season here. So next year we will be asked to fork over another $25 for the second half of this season just to complete the series. Another confusing aspect is that it's very difficult to figure out exactly how many more releases are still coming out. Why weren't these DVDs released in airdate or season order? I'm not sure how many are still out there. What are the "lost" episodes from that were previously released? Have we already gotten episodes from "The Superman Aquaman Hour" or the "Superman Batman hour"? I can't really tell from the titles.
I know that nobody is holding a gun to my head to buy these sets but I am a completist and I do wish to have the entire collection of Superfriends to go with the Justice League episodes. But it certainly is taking a very long time to get the set and it's being released just a little at a time meaning the cost for the entire series is really adding up. That's the reason why I only give 4 stars.

First off, all considered its a very novel gesture to have this set on DVD. I appreciate it greatly. However I do feel a little weirded out not to see Wendy, Marvin and Wonder-Dog on the cover. I always imagined this DVD set being the iconic SuperFriends that everyone remembers with cast standing atop the title with rainbow colors behind. Artist Alex Ross did a great painting based on what I'm talking about early last decade. Second, I do appreciate that the show is being shown in its original hour-long format. Reminds me of Ugly Betty. I wasn't alive when this show was first-run so all I've seen are condensed after school re-runs that never made complete sense...until now. I suddenly feel ripped off by syndication. Haha! It must be the same thing for kids today who rarely get to see the full opening credits of Full House on ABC Family. Whomever feels that they'd be losing money not including that kinda crap ought not to even bother with moneymaking. For one, you're not taking any risks except discouraging the customers. Second its my understanding that if you give people a little bit of something extra? they'll fork over enough for you to rake in the dough hand over fist. Face it, that's worked for KISS for almost 40 years now! Until the Disney buyout, that sold Marvel for over the last half-century. Up your game, WB! I'm one of your best paying customers. :P