Super Heroes: The Filmation Adventures – DVD Review

DVD Reviews, Reviews

Available at Amazon.com

Filmation Studios, the animation studio that brought us all the cheesy DC superhero cartoons of the ’60s and ’70s delivers yet another wonderful DVD release. This Super Heroes collection brings together all the shorts of all the miscellaneous Superheroes. The Atom, The Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman, Justice League Of America and Teen Titans, they’re all here, all 18 cartoons.

The Superman/Aquaman Hour Of Adventure was a cartoon series that ran from September to December 1967 and was comprised of six, seven-minute cartoons. Each episode would open with Superman and end with Aquaman and in-between various different DC heroes would be given a chance to shine.

The animation is stiff and very often reused. The dialogue is very stilted and is rarely more than plot driving. The action scenes are bogged down with extremely extraneous narration. The plots are wafer thin and extra cheesy, but these 18, seven-minute cartoons are a joy.

Each hero or team has three cartoons to offer. Also, each of the heroes, except The Atom, has a mostly useless and unnecessary sidekick. The Flash is aided by the most useful sidekick and Teen Titan member Kid Flash. Green Lantern is aided by the entirely useless and very racist Kyro who seems to be only good at getting kidnapped. And Hawkman is aided by the very uninspired hawk, Skreel who is best at dive-bombing evil henchmen.

The heroes are either fighting aliens, mad scientists, or alien mad scientists. With only six minutes to tell the story this leaves very little room for plot especially in the Justice League and Teen Titan cartoons which have to fit in big action sequences for each team member. This Justice League consists of Superman, The Atom, The Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman and Aquaman and the lack of Wonder Woman and Batman is very detrimental to these stories.

The most entertaining stories in the set have to be those of either The Atom or Green Lantern. While the least entertaining are those of the Teen Titans, who here are comprised of Kid Flash, Wonder Girl, Aqualad and Speedy (a teen version of Green Arrow). They spent most of their time talking at each other and coming up with clever nicknames for one another than fighting the bad guys.

These cartoons are by no means for everyone. Frankly, unless you grew up with them you might even wonder how any one could find entertainment value in them. But for some of use they represent a certain more innocent time and while they may not be the best DC cartoons, especially with what DC has been doing recently. These cartoons are important because without these the good cartoons we have today would not exist.

Episodes:

Disc 1:

The Atom In:

Invasion Of The Beetle-Men

Three alien bug-like size changing creatures come to Earth to destroy it and it’s up to The Atom to stop them.

The Plant Master

The Atom, along with a plane full of scientists, crashes on an island where a mad scientist has developed the ability to control plants.

The House Of Doom

The Atom and his fellow scientist wind up in a house of doom where a mad scientist has plans to destroy them all.

The Flash In:

The Chemo-Creature

A scientist accidentally turns a normal ant into a giant chemically alter monster and it’s up to The Flash to save the day.

Take A Giant Step

The Flash and Kid Flash must stop the evil Professor Crash and his giant robot.

To Catch A Blue Bolt

The evil alien known as Blue Bolt and it’s up to The Flash and Kid Flash to stop the evil speedster.

Green Lantern In:

Evil Is As Evil Does

The cosmic super villain, Evil Star, has escaped and is wrecking havoc on the planet Oa, home of the Guardians, Green Lanterns bosses. So it’s up to Green Lantern to stop him.

The Vanishing World

A group of space villains who’ve escaped from prison kidnap Kyro and put him on a world that will soon vanish into another dimension so it’s up to Green Lantern to rescue Kyro and return the villains to prison before the world vanishes.

Sirena, Empress of Evil

Green Lantern must once again save the day, this time by going head-to-head with Sirena and her army of winged warriors.

Disc 2:

Hawkman In:

Perils From Pluto

When a beam from space hits Earth and begins to destroy everthing in it’s path, Hawkman must fly to Pluto to put a stop to the evil Plutonians.

A Visit To Venus

When a group of scientists are kidnapped while traveling near Venus, it’s up to Hawkman to rescue them and stop the evil Venusians.

The Twenty-Third Dimension

When Hawkman attempts to stop to evil villains from Jupiter he is transported to the Twenty-Third Dimension where lighting monsters rule and two friendly aliens from Jupiter are also trapped. Hawkman must rescue the aliens and escape the dimension before it’s too late.

Justice League Of America In:

Between Two Armies

When two warring alien races bring their battle to Earth it’s up to the Justice League to stop them before Earth is destroyed.

Target Earth

An alien armada approaches Earth with plans of launching us into the sun but a rogue alien warns the Justice League who do their job and save the day.

Bad Day On Black Mountain

An evil villain named Mastermind hatches what he feels is the perfect devious plan to destroy the Justice League but he soon learns that he’s in way over his head.

Teen Titans In:

The Monster Machine

When a giant robot appears and begins attack, the Teen Titans show up to stop it and end up stopping a plot to destroy the Earth by evil alien robots.

The Space Beast Round-Up

When alien hunters accidentally unleash three horrible alien monsters on Earth, it’s up to the Teen Titans to recapture them and return them to their masters.

Operation: Rescue

While testing a new Titans Copter, Speedy and Aqualad see a young boy being chased by evil winged monsters. While attempting to rescue the boy they find themselves captives of a strange tribe of horned men. So it’s up to Wonder Girl and Kid Flash to free then so all the Teen Titans can save the day.

The cartoons are presented in fullscreen 1:33.1 and English Dolby Digital Mono. There is a lot of scratches and debris muddling up the picture but it’s not too distracting.

Animation Maverick: The Lou Scheimer Story: (40 min.) Lou Scheimer was the man who created Filmation Studios which was the only animation studio that did all of it’s animation in the United States. This is a great little documentary about how he got started in animation and the history of Filmation Studios from their first gig to when they closed their doors forever.

If you’re a fan of superheroes and cheese ’60s cartoons then this is for you. If not, what can I say? You should probably go buy something else. This is a great little DVD, but it most certainly for a very specific audience. You know who you are.

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Warner Bros. presents Super Heroes: The Filmation Adventures. Created by Lou Scheimer. Running time: 126 minutes. Not Rated. Released on DVD: August 12, 2008. Available at Amazon.com.

Mike Noyes received his Masters Degree in Film from the Academy of Art University, San Francisco. A few of his short films can be viewed here: http://www.youtube.com/user/mikebnoyes. He recently published his first novel which you can buy here: https://www.amazon.com/Seven-Days-Years-Mike-Noyes-ebook/dp/B07D48NT6B/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1528774538&sr=8-1&keywords=seven+days+seven+years