Superfriends: Second Season [DVD] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]

Apparently, someone thought listing the episodes on the _OUTSIDE_ of the box or on Amazon would seriously hurt sales. A very annoying practice. Would you buy an album without at least checking the songs on the label? I think not!

So here you are: A list of the episodes on the two DVDs:

1: Rokan: Enemy from Space

2: The Demons of Exxor

3. Battle at the Earth's Core

4: Sinbad and the Space Pirates

5: The Pied Piper from Space

6: Attack of the Vampire

7: The Beasts are coming

8: Terror from the Phantom Zone

Bonus: The ballad of Zan and Jayna

Disc 2:

9: The Anti-Matter Monster

10: World Beneath the Ice

11: Invasion of the Brain Creatures

12: The Incredible Space Circus

13: Batman: Dead or Alive

14: Battle of the Gods

15: Journey through inner space

16: The Rise and Fall of the Super Friends

Bonus: Pajama-Rama Super Friends Retrospective

The animation is from one of the the lowest points in Hanna-Barbera's career - poor by today's standards. The DVD features are very bare bones. Still, if you watched these cartoons in the 1970's & 1980's they are a must-have item - and they still keep the kids entertained today without some of the violence you see in today's cartoons.

Only the combined superpowers of Earth's greatest heroes can stop the unthinkable dangers that jeopardize humanity in these 16 episodes from the beloved animated TV series! Superman, Batman and Robin, Aquaman, Wonder Woman and Zan and Jayna battle villains from the darkest regions of outer space to the depths of the ocean in their fight for truth and justice. They face extraordinary perils at the core of the Earth and defy the laws of nature to shrink to microscopic size to defeat a radioactive monster. Even Dracula returns from the grave to challenge the Super Friends to a showdown! And with this exciting compilation that boasts cool extras, you can join the Super Friends for the ultimate victory celebration!

Warner Bros announced the release of SuperFriends - The 2nd Season for May 24. These are all 16 episodes from the 1978 run of the show featuring Zan & Jayna: The Wonder Twins! This 2 disc set (365 mins) The release will sport a full frame (1.33:1) transfer, and English mono audio, with English, French and Spanish subtitles. Two bonus features were announced:

-Pajama-Rama: Super Friends Retrospective - A group of pop culture enthusiasts and fun celebrities share their memories of the world's greatest team of '70's super-heroes, The Super Friends!

-The Ballad of Zan & Jayna - A wild and wacky music video celebrating the Wonder Twins, and of course, their pet primate Gleek!

SHOW HISTORY:

1973 saw the original Superfriends show, featuring the heros followed by non-powered kids Wendy & Marvin, and their pet Wonderdog. There are not too many cartoons in that series, and they were repeated quite a bit on and off until 1977's All-New Superfirends Hour came along. That is the show where the tag-along teens were first replaced by the Wonder Twins, Zan & Jayna, and their space-monkey Gleek. In 1978, the show continued, retitled as simply Superfriends. That season is the one which aired the episodes announced today for DVD release. At the same time, Challenge of the Superfriends was running adjacent to this, featuring the episodes of the Justice League of America vs. The Legion of Doom. All 16 of *those* episodes are already on DVD in Challenge of the Superfriends - The 1st Season. Since they call that "the first season" and the new title "the second season", we honestly can't tell if Warner means to ignore the 1973 Wendy/Marvin/Wonderdog installments totally.

Zan, Jayna, & Gleek continued in 1979's World's Greatest Superfriends, with a few new episodes mixed with repeats of the older ones. 1980 saw more than 60 new shorts (under 10 minutes each in length) made featuring just the heroes, with no teenage sidekicks, and those were combined with old episodes into a new Superfriends Hour show. But then that show was shortened to a half-hour for 1981-83 and the show went under various names, accompanied by maybe about two dozen more new shorts...some of which were never aired in the original rotation, but which aired later in syndication. Then, in 1984, ABC wanted to revitalize the series, and that's when they did Super Friends: The Legendary Super Powers Show, using the new DC Comics name from the action figure lineup that was being marketed at the time. The cartoons mainly featured the heroes from the toy line, so now Cyborg (from the "Teen Titans" comics) and Firestorm (from "Firestorm: The Nuclear Man") were on the team. There were only 15 episodes produced under that name, and then they finished up the SuperFriends' TV run with The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians. That 1985 show had more of the heroes who hadn't been seen the previous year, especially fan favorites who had mostly been missing since Challenge, like Flash, Green Lantern, and Hawkman. There were approximately 10 episodes of that show.

This set contains only 16 of 23 episodes. The 8 missing episodes are:

- Rub Three Times For Desaster (featuring a genie)

- Lex Luthor Strikes Back

- Space Knights of Camelon (featuring King Arthur)

- The Lord of Middle Earth (!)

- Universe of Evil

- Terror at 20,000 Fathoms (featuring Captain Nemoy ;))

- The Superfriends Meet Frankenstein

- The Planet of Oz (!)

Some of these episodes featured crossovers and might have tangled copyright issues (Tolkien, Land of Oz, Frankenstein, King Arthur) so I ask myself whether this is the reason they are missing in this release? It's a pity this set isn't complete.