It’s Saturday morning. I like to have a coffee (and pie, if it’s available) and watch a few cartoons before starting my day. Sadly, there’s not much on the old tube these days that holds my interest. Thank goodness for this collection of episodes from the first season of The Super Friends!
I’ll be the first to admit that the content here is pretty cheesy. But often so much so, that it’s actually quite funny! The first episode opens with Superman play-wrestling with junior team member, Marvin, a character who could just as easily be hanging out with Scooby Doo as a bunch of super heroes! In fact, the team has their very own Scooby, in the form of Wonder Dog (no relation to Wonder Woman.) Like I said, totally silly stuff.
Silly, yes. But also very, very long. Each one of these episodes clocks in at around 45 minutes! Unreal! As much as I enjoy these shows, the silly stories and lack of characterization tends to lose its charm after the 15-20 minute mark. It’s hard for me to believe that children could sit through episodes of this length way back in 1973, when the series debuted.
Illustrator and character designer Alex Toth’s Batman model sheets
But there’s a lot to love here. Chiefly, the brilliant minimalist character designs of master illustrator, Alex Toth. This stuff is fantastic! The animation team barely manages to stay on model but when they nail the designs, they look great. I really wish Warner had included a featurette about Toth and his work for animation studio Hanna Barbera on the DVD. In fact, any sort of featurette detailing the early years of this groundbreaking series would have been appreciated. Ah well. Maybe the Blu-ray edition that will hopefully be issued in the coming years will be a little more comprehensive. One can only hope!
I wonder what resolution these old cartoons were animated in? I’d be surprised if it was anything close to HD, but I could be wrong.
It’s a pretty safe bet that these episodes are on film, which would allow for a really nice HD transfer, much like the episode of the Star Trek animated series that recently appeared on the Original Series: Season Two boxed set.
http://www.theblurayblog.com/2009/09/star-trek-the-original-series-season-two-blu-ray-disc-review/