Challenge of the Superfriends (1978) – SMCB 232

I’m happy to hear you guys enjoyed this. You echoed my sentiments by saying that despite being cheesy and stupid at times, it reflects what comics were like at that time and did so in a fun way.

You didn’t cover it, but this show could actually get surprisingly dark at times, particularly with the last two episodes.

The second to last episode actually opens up with the Super Friends grieving over the graves of Batman and Robin. The Legion of Doom unearth a crystal that will emulate all the Super Friend’s weaknesses and kill them if they’re exposed to it for too long. The rest of the episode is the Legion drawing out each and every member of the Super Friends and killing them all with it. Of course, by the end of the episode it’s revealed that after escaping the first time, the Super Friends replaced themselves with androids to die in their place and trick the Legion and ambush them. Still they did a decent job of selling it to make you believe that they’re actually died, like showing a shot of Superman’s coffin being wheeled out with his cape draped over it (a image that haunted me as a kid when I first saw that episode).

Then the last episode is about these mystical aliens coming to a dead and desolate Earth and watch old recordings from the Hall of Justice and the Hall of Doom to discover that the Legion of Doom killed the Super Friends but also ended up killing all life on the planet too, including themselves. Although the episode does end with the aliens going back in time and secretly sabotaging the Luthor’s plan that destroyed the Earth. That episode also gives you the origin of Apache Chief.

As for Samurai, Black Vulcan, and Apache Chief, DC has never done anything with them because they legally can’t. Hanna-Barbera created those characters, as well as the Wonder Twins, for this show specifically so that means they own them instead of DC. They’ve shown up in later Super Friends series but never in DC comics. That’s also why both Black Vulcan and Apache Chief has been in Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law.

Speaking of Harvey Birdman, that show is the one where Apache Chief spilled coffee on his lap and couldn’t grow large anymore, not Robot Chicken. That said, Apache Chief did actually appear in a Robot Chicken sketch (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gn8Lc2pNIBw).

Also in the description for this podcast episode, you list the first episode as “I Spy With My Hairy Eye”. Looks like someone still has Donkey Kong on the brain.

Heh, when you guys mentioned how Wonder Woman thought they should just remain in jail in that first episode it reminded me of a moment in Justice League Unlimited. Lex Luthor hacks the watchtower and fires their laser on a town on earth, framing the League for it. So to regain the world’s trust, the founding members of the League decide to turn themselves in to the U.S. authorities, except for Batman who calls it “The single dumbest plan I’ve ever heard.”

DC brought those characters (Samurai, El Dorado, Apache Chief, etc.) to comics as legally distinct, but similar characters to the comics. They were the Ultimen in Justice League Unlimited (the corporate-created young superheroes that were dying) and the Runaways in Young Justice (the teen runaways plus Static filling in for Black Vulcan).