DC Super Heroes: The Filmation Adventures

If you bought The New Adventures of Superman - (DC Comics Classic Collection)or The Adventures of Aquaman - The Complete Collection (DC Comics Classic Collection), you have seen most of the episodes of 1966's the Superman/Aquaman Hour. These superhero cartoons were bookend between a superman or an aquaman episode. If you love classic animation of the 1960 DC heroes, this DVD is what you need to get.

1966, I remember parking my butt on the couch in front of the tv set and watching these shows. Similar to what kids do today with shows like Ben 10, TMNT and Johnny Test. These cartoon are over 40 years old and the quality is still there

Here's what you will be getting on this collection:
Justice League--
Between Two Armies
Target Earth
Bad Day of Black Moutain

Teen Titans
The Monster Machine
Monster Roundup
Operation Rescue

The Flash
The Chemo Creature
Take A Giant Step
To Catch a Blue Bolt

Green Lantern
Evil is as Evil Does
The Vanishing World
Sirena, The Empress of Evil

Hawkman
Peril from Pluto
A Visit to Venus
the 23th Dimension

The Atom
Invasion of the Beetle People
The Planet Master
House of Doom

You must rememember these are the 1960's incarnation of these DC heroes. They are well done Saturday Morning animation. It is not as slick as today's animation. I have seen all of these cartoon at Science Fiction conventions. These mini 6-8 adventures are well crafted, just not as special effected as today's toons are.

This DVD collection is good stuff for DC Cartoon fans, completests of Filmation animation (It is a shame that the Filmation Tarzan is not available) or people who just like a short cartoon adventure with her or her favorite hero

So Get these and relive your childhood

Bennet Pomerantz AUDIOWORLD

The previous reviews give an accurate account of which cartoons to expect in this series.
Here's a lot of superfluous waffle, for all those who actually want the fine details of how these cartoons were originally aired.
They first screened as part of the 1967 Superman Aquaman Hour of Adventure, which also included (per episode) 2 Superman stories (not yet on DVD. See below), 2 Aquaman stories, and a Superboy story (release problems detailed below).
So normally, following an Aquaman story, you'd have seen (on tv) a collection of Justice Leaguers and Teen Titans moving around the screen to a 30 second Ted Knight narration "Stay tuned for another exciting adventure, featuring a guest star from this world of Super Super Heroes."
Then you'd see a commercial break.
Then you'd get the customized beginning theme for a Justice League/ Atom / Hawkman / Flash/ Green Lantern / Teen Titans story.(If you saw these guest star stories on the Superman Batman Adventures on Cartoon Network in the early 2000s, you'd have noticed that these two "Stay tuned" and "Character Begin" themes were missing, and the stories were often ruthlessly cut too. (One of the worst examples was in the Justice League America story "Bad Day on Black Mountain." The team divides up their tasks. Flash says "Atom and I go for the rocket base." (The actual sequence of Atom and Flash doing their mission was completely edited out.
So I'm very pleased to see that Warner are releasing this lot in full, and can only hope it will include the customized character begin themes and the "Stay tuned..." theme (even if only as extras).
In Australia, of course, we saw the shows separately. The Superman (and Superboy) cartoons (from the two latter shows) were just packaged with the previous Superman series.
The Aquaman and guest star stories were aired as "Aquaman, King of the Seven Seas" show.
The Batman stories were aired as "The Adventures of Batman". (Here's hoping we'll see them eventually too. Last year gave us the 1977 New Adventures of Batman, which was great).

However, lest we forget to remind Warner Bros, an above review's comments about the Superman cartoons aren't quite right. The 36 cartoons from last year's Superman release are only the Superman cartoons from the 1966 Superman Show.
There were another batch of 16 cartoons created for the 1967 Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure (WHICH WEREN'T INCLUDED IN THE SET RELEASED IN 2007).
There were a third batch: this time of 8 x 2-part stories created for the 1968 Batman Superman Hour, to match the 2-part format of the Batman stories. (THESE ALSO WEREN'T INCLUDED IN THE 2007 RELEASE OF NEW ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN).
So at some point, I would hope we can still convince Warner Bros to put out a second volume of "New Adventures of Superman" to include all the episodes from the 1967-68 serieses detailed above. An above reviewer made an honest mistake, but don't think you've seen them all yet.
As well as that, all 3 shows had Superboy stories in the middle, which we won't see, unless a resolution of the Superboy rights issues has occurred/will occur.

ALL THAT SAID, I'M JUST BEING IMPATIENT FOR WHAT WE HAVEN'T HAD YET. GRAB THIS RELEASE AND REVEL IN IT. YOU CAN PULL OUT ALL YOUR JUSTICE LEAGUE, GREEN LANTERN, HAWKMAN, ATOM, FLASH, TEEN TITANS COMICS AND READ THEM AGAIN, ONCE THESE SHOWS HAVE PUT YOU IN THE MOOD.
IT'S A GREAT PACKAGE, AND THE COVER ART LOOKS GOOD TOO.

Four stars for this one, with the proviso that much of my rating is based on biased perspective. Man, I grew up on Filmation shows! More objectivity would probably garner this dvd set a three star rating from me. But, fellas, nostalgia's a powerful thing...

Way back in the stone age (that would be 1967), the Filmation group produced the Superman/Aquaman Hour, a CBS Saturday morning cartoon show and one of my tried-and-true favorites when I was a kid. But with so many menaces constantly itching to take over the Earth or just act all nefarious, it takes more than Superman or Aquaman to get the job done. Guest star stints in the form of 7-minute shorts were integrated into the hourly series, as Hawkman, Flash, Atom, and Green Lantern engaged in their own solo exploits. As the Justice League, these guys (with Superman) banded together to fend off cheesy alien attacks. And with assists from the Teen Titans and Superboy, the world got saved but plenty.

The way it worked with the Superman/Aquaman Hour, the first half hour belonged to the Man of Steel, with Aquaman dishing out his own two segments in the second half hour. Sandwiched in between would be the "guest" superhero cartoons, which were on rotation with the Superboy shorts. Anyway, with Aquaman's animated adventures already compiled in his own box set (The Adventures of Aquaman - The Complete Collection (DC Comics Classic Collection)), it didn't take long before a collection of the guest spots was released. DC SUPER HEROES: THE FILMATION ADVENTURES offers all 18 shorts starring these guest super-heroes, along with "Animation Maverick: The Lou Scheimer Story," the outstanding and surprisingly emotional 40-minute documentary spotlighting Filmation founder Lou Scheimer and the formation and fall of the Filmation group. This is honestly a must-see bonus feature.

Now, if they'd only release the Superboy cartoons...

The brevity of these cartoons doesn't allow for much depth or development, in the plot or in the characters. The episodes are briskly paced and action-packed, but the stories are simplistic and campy, and certainly galaxies away from the polish and intricacy marked in today's animated shows. Also, back then, these cartoons were strictly targeted towards the younger kids, so nary a dark or controversial tone was found.

A lot of strange and silly foes here, from alien beetles to giant ants to dinosaur-like creatures. And plenty of mangy space aliens. So, yeah, the quality of villains is downright laughable. I did enjoy the Flash matching his speed against the otherworldly Blue Bolt (the Flash in blurry motion looks pretty cool), while the tiny Atom gets a thumbs up for being more hands-on with pummeling the heavies. Green Lantern's intergalactic adventures are okay. Wanna see a bird knock Green Lantern unconscious? That's in "Sirena, Empress of Evil." Sorry, but the Hawkman segments are as boring as I remember. Meanwhile, the main reason I got this dvd set was for the Justice League and especially the Teen Titans shorts. I'm a sucker for team-ups and, lest folks forget, this Justice League debuted on the small screen before the Super Friends. As far as the Titans are concerned, well, I've always been a fan of them. Besides, the pony-tailed Wonder Girl is smoking hot. Be aware, though, that Robin is absent from the Teen Titans and Aquaman, from the League, never mind that he's featured in the Justice League intro.

Naturally, the stiff animation suffers in comparison to today's sleeker, more dynamic standards. And the incessant use of stock footage doesn't help any. So why get this dvd set? Well, like I've said about these Filmation shows, the major draws are the nostalgia (for old fogies like me) and whatever curiosity or sense of history is felt by the younger generation(s). In a very real way, these animated shorts paved the way for Bruce Timm and the like.

What's that now? The Guardians of the Universe aren't really Caucasian? Green Lantern's ring is supposed to be ineffective against the color yellow? Hawkman's civilian identity Carter Hall is a museum curator, not a scientist? The colors of Kid Flash's outfit are reversed? Yes, there's a bunch of goofs that made its way into these cartoons. But what do you expect on a shoestring budget? The way I see it, all these goofs just add to the charm and quaintness. But, then again, nostalgia is a powerful thing.

Speaking of goofs, how cool would it be if Birdman really were a JLA member? I mean, seeing as he's already hogging a spot on the DVD title page and all.

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