Call Me Stormy

Finding righteous currents in turbulent times

Archive for the tag “Aquaman”

02 Oct 2021

Bigfoot, Ice Demon And Makeup

Hey kids (of all ages), it’s Saturday Morning Cartoon time again!

After getting Filmation Studios off the ground with TV cartoons in the ’60s, the DC superheroes (mostly) transitioned to Hanna-Barbera for the Super Friends dynasty of the ’70s and ’80s. We’ve covered SUPER FRIENDS, The ALL-NEW SUPER FRIENDS HOUR, CHALLENGE OF THE SUPER FRIENDS, and The WORLD’S GREATEST SUPERFRIENDS. Now we start a new decade with simply SUPERFRIENDS.

The format was three new short cartoons per show, coupled with material recycled from previous incarnations of the franchise to fill-out an hour.

The competence level of our long-john clad protagonists is pretty embarrassing in this era. Worst of all the teenage Wonder Twins. Seriously? Attacked by a giant Ice Creature and you “Shape Of” a tiny woodpecker and “Form Of” a monkey-sized jackhammer to mildly annoy the murderous monster?! Why not a fire-breathing dragon and a cloud of superheated steam to end that sucker?!?! From September 1980. More from the OldHorseman.

 

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21 Aug 2021

The Power Pirate

Hey kids (of all ages), it’s Saturday Morning Cartoon time again!

Filmation studios got its start making TV cartoons featuring DC comic book superheroes, as covered here last week. But it was the ’60s, and the damned hippies were winning the Culture War, so the face-punching, hero vs villain cartoons were being pushed off TV. Filmation would continue to thrive with ARCHIE, SABRINA, FAT ALBERT, STAR TREK and other licensed characters. (Previously featured on this channel.) But it was Hanna-Barbera who would pick-up the JUSTICE LEAGUE license and run with it.

Their secret? Cut the superhero element to roughly half-strength by pouring in a big dose of SCOOBY-DOO, including Meddling Kids and semi-anthropomorphic dog.

Many call Shaggy, Velma, and Scoo… er… I mean Marvin, Wendy, and Wonder Dog “useless”, since they lack superpowers, tech, or special skills. But they’re the ones who tended to solve the cases, while the spandex grownups were running around reacting to events. Often, they stop the (not particularly villainous) antagonists by explaining the error of their ways.

A common complaint about superhero teams is that top heroes have to be “nerfed”… When you have a godlike being like Superman, who routinely saves the world in solo adventures, why would he need a team? They hadn’t quite figured out how to nerf the characters effectively in this first episode, though. We’re repeatedly reminded that the Batmobile is about the slowest means of transport on the show. And with ersatz Mystery Inc. solving the cases, Bats comes off even more useless than Aquaman… Who, for his part, gets caught by giant sea anemone as soon as he tries to swim in the ocean. (Dammit, Arthur! You had one job!!!)

From September 1973. The first episode of the first iteration of SUPER FRIENDS. More from the OldHorseman.

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03 Jul 2021

Peril In The Surface World

Hey kids (of all ages), it’s Saturday Morning Cartoon time again!

Three of the five characters starring in the MARVEL SUPER-HEROES wheel show were shiny, new, Silver-Age adventurers who’d just debuted in print a few years before. Saturday before last, we covered one of the Golden Age players in the rotation with CAPTAIN AMERICA. Today we’ll look at an even older superguy. NAMOR THE SUB-MARINER, who dates back to 1939, around the same time as BATMAN.

Namor, predates rival DC Comics’ AQUAMAN by over a year, but each character seems to have influenced the other over the decades of publication. Namor, however, has been more consistently depicted as a borderline antihero, while Aquaman has been everything from that through a generic good-guy nerfed for ’70s network kid shows.

Apologies for the eccentricities of this ‘print’. It was surprisingly difficult to dig-up a copy of this particular segment. But I didn’t want to stop short of finishing the set. From 1966. More from the OldHorseman.

 

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