In 1973 Hanna-Barbera joined forces with DC Comics to bring their popular superheroes to life. This wouldn’t be a first for DC. Superman appeared on his own in shorts by Fleischer (later renamed Famous) Studios and a Justice League Of America TV series has been created by Filmation after their own successful series with the Man Of Steel. According to the Superfriends fan wiki (because of course there’s one) there was concern by HB that Justice League Of America, the title of the team book of DC’s biggest heroes at the time created by Gardner Fox, was too (and this is the wiki’s term) “jingoistic” after the Vietnam War. Don’t ask me, I wasn’t even a year old at the time…and I probably still would have thought that was dumb. ABC, the network that would be adding the show to their Saturday Morning line-up, still had to deal with parent groups (how many were actually parents or even had kids is up for debate with these groups) and thus the violence had to be toned down. So the series would get the name it’s been known by for better or worse–Super Friends, later changed to the one-word Superfriends.
This week, as I deal with more medical “fun” I decided to do something I could hopefully set up before I go off the grid again, so since I’ve already looked at intros for the animated Batman and Superman over the years (apparently I did Superman more than once and forgot while the Batman link is part one of two) but didn’t review the team-up shows I’m devoting this week to looking at the show that helped me become a DC Comics fan and how it did so. If I can get to it before the week’s over I’ll also look at the other team-up series. It thus makes sense to start at the beginning with the first three shows in this series.
