Super Friends (1980 TV series) facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Super Friends |
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| Genre | Action Adventure Science fiction |
| Based on | Justice League by Gardner Fox |
| Written by | Haskell Barkin Dick Conway Willie Gilbert Donald F. Glut Mark Jones Elana Lesser Dick Robbins Cliff Ruby |
| Directed by | Oscar Dufau George Gordon Charles A. Nichols Ray Patterson Carl Urbano |
| Voices of | Jack Angel Michael Bell Wally Burr William Callaway Danny Dark Shannon Farnon Buster Jones Stan Jones Casey Kasem Michael Rye Olan Soule Frank Welker Louise Williams |
| Narrated by | William Woodson |
| Theme music composer | Hoyt Curtin |
| Composer(s) | Hoyt Curtin |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 3 |
| No. of episodes | 22 (list of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | Joseph Barbera William Hanna |
| Producer(s) | Gerard Baldwin |
| Editor(s) | Jeffrey Scott |
| Running time | 60 minutes (including commercials) |
| Production company(s) | Hanna-Barbera Productions DC Comics |
| Distributor | Lexington Broadcast Services Company (1983-1984) Warner Bros. Television Distribution |
| Release | |
| Original network | ABC |
| Picture format | Color |
| Audio format | Mono |
| Original release | September 13, 1980 – 1982 |
| Chronology | |
| Preceded by | The World's Greatest Super Friends |
| Followed by | Super Friends: The Legendary Super Powers Show |
Super Friends was an American animated TV show about a team of superheroes. It aired from 1980 to 1982 on ABC. The show was made by Hanna-Barbera Productions and was based on the Justice League and other comic book characters from DC Comics. It was the fifth version of the Super Friends series.
Contents
How the Show Was Made
The Super Friends series changed how its episodes were made. Instead of half-hour shows, they started making shorter, seven-minute stories. Each hour-long episode of Super Friends would show three new short stories. It also included a half-hour rerun from earlier Super Friends seasons.
The second season, from 1981 to 1982, was shorter than planned. This was because of a writers' strike, which meant fewer new stories could be written.
Meet the Super Friends!
The new adventures in this series featured the main group of five classic Super Friends. These heroes were Aquaman, Batman, Robin, Superman, and Wonder Woman. They were often joined by the Wonder Twins, Zan and Jayna, and their alien monkey, Gleek.
In one episode from 1981, "Evil From Krypton", Superman's Fortress of Solitude looked different. It had a crystal-like outside and no giant key, similar to how it appeared in the Superman movies.
The show also had guest appearances from heroes who had been in Challenge of the Super Friends. A new hero named El Dorado joined in the second season. He was added to make the Super Friends team more diverse. In his first episode, "Alien Mummy," it was shown that El Dorado was of Mexican descent. The story took place in 'ancient Aztec ruins in the Mexican wilderness'. El Dorado even said, "these are the mysterious ruins of my people." Another hero, Black Vulcan, was shown to be able to fix tiny electronics in the episode "Dive to Disaster."
Villains and Special Guests
Many well-known villains and special guests appeared in Super Friends. The Riddler had his only solo appearance in a short episode called "Around The World In 80 Riddles." He was voiced by Michael Bell.
Queen Hippolyta and Paradise Island appeared in the 1980 episode "Return of Atlantis." Queen Hippolyta's look changed a bit during her appearances.
Gorilla Grodd was in the short episodes "Two Gleeks Are Deadlier Than One" and "Revenge of Doom." In "Two Gleeks are Deadlier Than One," he and Giganta captured Gleek. They replaced him with a robot copy to trick the Super Friends. In "Revenge of Doom," Gorilla Grodd was seen with the Legion of Doom. They got their headquarters back and fixed it up. While all 13 members of the Legion of Doom appeared, only Lex Luthor, Sinestro, and Solomon Grundy spoke in that episode.
The three Phantom Zone villains, who first appeared in 1978, returned in a "lost season" episode from 1983 called "Return of the Phantoms." In this story, they used an alien time machine to go back to Smallville. Their goal was to attack Superboy to stop him from becoming Superman. Luckily, the alien pilot warned the Super Friends, and Superman and Green Lantern traveled back in time to help Superboy. The show described the Phantom Zone as a "5th dimension of space and time" that holds the galaxy's worst criminals. Inside the Phantom Zone, people look white and black, and the powers of Batman's devices and the Wonder Twins' Exxor Powers do not work.
Episodes
Reruns and Later Airings
For the 1982–1983 TV season, ABC continued to show reruns. These were called The Best of the Super Friends. However, none of the new seven-minute shorts were shown again.
By 1983, Hanna-Barbera had a way to share older Super Friends episodes with many TV stations. These episodes were shown on different stations across the US, usually on weekday afternoons. Because of this, ABC stopped showing Super Friends on Saturday mornings in 1983. This was the second time the series was canceled.
However, even after being canceled by ABC, Hanna-Barbera kept making new Super Friends episodes. In total, 8 new episodes (which included 24 cartoons) were made but not shown in the US that season. These episodes did air without interruption in Australia. One of these "lost episodes" was finally shown when Super Friends returned to ABC Saturday mornings the next year. The rest of these episodes were finally aired in 1995 as part of Superman/Batman Adventures on USA Network. The series has also been shown on Cartoon Network and Boomerang.
