Super Friends: The Lost Episodes

Review By: Dan Deevy
DanDeevy@TheCinemaSource.com

Season Grade: B
DVD Features Grade: N/A
Overall Grade: B

Holy nostalgia Batman! DC and Warner Bros have unearthed 24 episodes of the classic 1983 cartoon series Super Friends and put them all together in this special DVD Collection. Unfortunately there isn’t much in the way of special features, but I think just the fact that these little gems have survived as long as they have makes it special enough.

The Super Friends convene at the Hall of Justice ready to deal with any problems that may arise any where on the planet or in the galaxy for that matter! Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman & Robin, Aquaman, the Wonder Twins, Flash and a few other less recognizable names show up in these short 10 – 12 minutes mini episodes (not usually all at once) and despite overwhelming odds always manage to bring justice to everyone!

These are the cartoons I grew up with and I always said that we had something back then that cartoons are lacking today and I was right; a simple clear cut message. These shows aren’t for older kids who look for more complicated storylines with a multitude of shades of grey… these are for much younger kids. I was 5 years old when these came out and I thought they were pretty much the best thing ever. Everyone knows by now that I’m a big proponent for programming that teaches kids the difference between right and wrong, ethical and unethical behavior and these short little 12 minutes episodes do exactly that. There’s not much more to their stories than a bit of fun and the moral but that’s OK.

The animation was the standard of the day which means lots of shots were used over and over again and there was very little in the way of complex motion. Typically I’d guess each character had about 4 or 5 standard poses that made up their entire spectrum of movement. Voice actors were apparently in short supply back then as well resulting in only a handful of actors voicing all of the characters. As a kid I didn’t care but I guess re watching as an adult I wonder exactly how much of that I really picked up on and just dismissed because it wasn’t important.

In any event I’m not saying that kids today will enjoy these shows. The fact is they are now almost 30 years old and although the overall message of friendship, truth, justice and fair play still resonant just as strongly today I’m afraid kids would be way too easily turned off by the non-computer generated animation.

For those of us looking to re-experience a taste of our youth however, why not take a trip down memory lane and see how many of these you still vividly remember!

I hate giving grades to DVD’s like this because the scale is so skewed so I’m just going to stick with a B- because it seems to fit. ...