Writers: Jeffrey Scott, Robert Kanigher
Director: Charles A. Nichols
Cast: William Woodson, Norman Alden, Michael Bell, Danny Dark Shannon Farnon, Casey Kasem, Olan Soule, Louise Williams
Rating: Not Rated
Studio: Turner Home Entertainment
Release Date: January 8, 2008

Superhero cartoons are supposed to be lighthearted, enjoyable and entertaining, yet I found The All-New SuperFriends Hour, a cartoon about a group of DC’s “supposedly” best comic book heroes, to be trite. Don’t get me wrong. I’m a fan of most of the DC comic book characters individually. I even enjoy some of the shows where superheroes get together, such as Justice League, and fight crime as a collective group. I’m not sure if it’s the fact that this cartoon was shoddily thrown together and the plot tried to reflect the nature of a pot-smoking, drug-using era, but as a sober, 27 year old male, I detested this entire box set.

Release Information:
The All-New SuperFriends Hour combined the best of the DC Comic book superheroes, who protect the Earth together. The show premiered on September 10, 1977 and aired for a single season of sixteen episodes. The All-New SuperFriends Hour – Season 1, Vol. 1 is a two disc box set released by Turner Home Entertainment through the Warner Bros. label. This series idea has been done in many variations starting with the 1973 series and ending with short episodes that aired in the early 80s. Of the sixteen episodes, there are seven in the set and a few extras included, as well.

The All-New SuperFriends Hour – Season 1, Vol. 1 was released on January 8, 2008. You can purchase it at Amazon for $19.99.

The All-New SuperFriends Hour – Season 1, Vol. 1 Plot
It’s easy to see why only one season of episodes were ever commissioned for The All-New SuperFriends Hour. The show is abhorrent. There isn’t one redeemable quality about it. From the annoying Wonder Twins you just want to stab with a spork until they shut up, to the sad portrayal of fan favorites like Superman and Wonder Woman, The All-New SuperFriends Hour does not reflect the quality of the DC comics off which this series was based.

It’s nothing new to have a show that combines superheroes. In 1973, the original Super Friends show aired. This show, though I’ve not seen it, was said to have been better than The All-New SuperFriends Hour. As if this show wasn’t bad enough, the animators continued to make SuperFriends shows. In 1979, there was The World’s Greatest SuperFriends and in 1980, there was SuperFriends Hour.

All this practice led to improvement in the series because, as a child I remember watching two other SuperFriends shows and actually liking them. These shows were the 1984 show SuperFriends: The Legendary Super Powers Show and the 1986 show, The Super Powers: Galactic Guardians. These shows have inspired a slew of other superheroes shows such as the Justice League and Teen Titans.

I can’t even comment on what’s included in The All-New SuperFriends Hour – Season 1, Vol. 1 two-disc set. It took me repeated attempts at watching this set to be able to get through all seven episodes. I could barely get through the first episode, before I was ready to turn the DVD off. I usually can stomach something enough to sit through it, but this show…was dreadful. The plots were weak, the characters lacked depth. Nothing was dynamic. The characters barely even resembled their comic book counterparts. As for the newer characters, like the Wonder Twins, they were so annoying I wish they had never included them. DC had plenty of heroes to offer on their own without adding them into the mix.

Speaking of newbies, I should probably tell you about the “Wonder Twins” (can you tell I hate them?!), Zan and Jayna. Along with their ugly monkey, Gleek, they were able to transform themselves into something that was supposedly wonderful. By placing their fists together, Zan turned into liquid and Jayna turned into something else you’d assume would be useful. For example, during one episode, Zan turned into a big lake and Jayna into a bird so she could guide a plane that was about to crash into the lake. All planes can float, right?

The Wonder Twins weren’t so wonderful. They were downright pathetic and there was absolutely no point in having them in a cartoon about DC Comic Book Superheroes, when they didn’t even make their comic debut until right before the first episode of The All-New SuperFriends Hour aired. Oh, and with the Wonder Twins in every episode, you can imagine how frustrating it was to watch this show.

The other thing that really bugged me was the moral lesson each episode presented. It wasn’t subtle like in most cartoons. Oh no! It was blatantly shoved down the throats of the audience. I guess the writers of The All-New SuperFriends Hour thought kids were either more ignorant than they were or that the subtle messages of other episodes weren’t good enough. The overly dramatic and cheesy dialogue were used to spell out the message.

Then there were scenes at the end where the characters reaffirmed the message, just in case the audience didn’t get it the first time. As you might have guessed, these affirmations were just plain stupid. This entire series was so pointless. There was no purpose for this to air on television let alone be made into a box set.

DVD #1
1.1: “The Brain Machine” – “Joy Ride” – “Invasion of the Earthors” – “The Whirlpool”
1.2: “Invasion of the Hydronoids” – “Hitchhike” – “City in a Bottle” – “Space Emergency”
1.3: “The Marsh Monster” – “Runaways” – “Will the World Collide?” – “Time Rescue”
1.4: “Doctor Fright” – “Drag Race” – “Day of the Plant Creatures” – “Fire”
1.5: “The Monster of Dr. Droid” – “Vandals” – “Super Friends vs. Super Friends” – “Energy Mass”
1.6: “The Secret Four” – “Tiger on the Loose” – “The Mysterious Time Creatures” – “The Antidote”
1.7: “The Enforcer” – “Shark” – “Planet of the Neanderthals” – “Flood of Diamonds”

I can’t comment any further on the story of these episodes other than to say they are rubbish. Don’t watch them!

Storyline/Plot:
Replayability:
Acting:
Directing:

Audio/Visual:
The visual quality for The All-New SuperFriends Hour – Season 1, Vol. 1 was nearly as bad as the episodes on this disc. It is obvious this project was thrown together, last minute. The transfer was appalling. The colors are bland and dull. It doesn’t look like a thing was done from the actual animation of the 1970s. There are soft spots, grain, and other visual errors that are present, and annoying. As you would imagine, the transfer was done with a 1.33:1 aspect ratio and the episodes are presented in full frames.

The audio was equally as unimpressive as the video. I had to adjust my volume more than once because the audio was either too loud or too soft. That’s what you can expect from a poorly transferred, Dolby Digital Mono mix. All around, the audio was very disappointing, not that I necessarily wanted to hear what was going on most of the time.

Visual:
Audio:

Bonus Features:
Like all DVDs that stink, The All-New SuperFriends Hour – Season 1, Vol. 1 just happens to have extras so the creators of this show can torture you some more. Included on disc two of this set are featurettes including “One-Dimensional Goodness: The Super Friends and the Good Old Days”, which explains the boring and long history of the SuperFriends and also offers an apology for how sucky these episodes are, and “Origins of the Guest Stars”, which talked about guest stars that were DC comics prior to appearing on SuperFriends (i.e. Green Lantern). Finally, there are previews for other releases by Warner Bros. most of which look much better than The All-New SuperFriends Hour – Season 1, Vol. 1.

Bonus Features:

Bottom Line:
The All-New SuperFriends Hour – Season 1, Vol. 1 was not fun. It wasn’t exciting. The morals were so blatantly obvious I wouldn’t even recommend a four year old watch this because they’d be bored to tears and too advanced to enjoy the plot. This DVD is a huge miss. While it’s obviously kid-friendly, the only reason to purchase this DVD is to torture your children when they misbehave. I recommend one of the other, series like The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians instead.

Overall Rating:

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