The All-New Super Friends Hour

Series Summary
Episode Lengths: 7 minute shorts, 30 minute adventures, 4 minute morality plays & 6 minute adventures

The fall 1976 – spring 1977 reruns of the Super Friends in a half-hour format proved successful enough to cause The All-New Super Friends Hour in the 8:00 AM timeslot. It ran from September 10, 1977 to December 16, 1977 the ABC Network. This was the big revival series that would help make the Super Friends a must watch series on Saturday mornings for the next few years. The fact that SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE was being filmed for release the following year, The NEW ADVENTURES OF WONDER WOMAN TV show with Lynda Carter airing Friday nights on the CBS Network, and THE NEW ADVENTURES OF BATMAN, a new Filmation cartoon with the voices of Adam West and Burt Ward airing on CBS Saturday mornings, were probably some contributing factors to the Super Friends making their big comeback.

The hour differed from the previous show, in that it had a different format:


 * First up were seven-minute adventures featuring two members of the main Super Friends’ team.


 * Next were four-minute morality plays starring the Wonder Twins (who replaced the first series’ Wendy Harris, Marvin White, and Wonder Dog). These youthful trainees were aliens from Exxor: Zan (male) and Jayna (female) with their pet monkey Gleek. The twins also wore Teen Trouble Alerts allowing troubled teens to signal them.


 * Next was a one half-hour adventure with all of the Super Friends.


 * Last but not least were six-minute adventures teaming a Super Friend main team member with a guest Super Friend as they dealt with threats of nature or disasters such as volcanoes or storms. Several of the guest stars were three new network-created ethnic superheroes: Black Vulcan, Apache Chief, and Samurai.


 * Along with these stories were several 30-second pro-social tips for the home viewing audience: safety tips, craft-building and magic trick tips, and decoders which gave kids the opportunity to guess a mystery work pertaining to that day’s half-hour adventure.

Two somewhat minor DC villains did appear in this series. Aquaman’s arch enemy, Black Manta, was watered down and simply called Manta in this series, and Hawkman’s arch enemy, the Gentleman Ghost turned up at the end of the season to battle the SuperFriends. In addition, Filmation’s the THE NEW ADVENTURES OF BATMAN, marked the first time any cartoon characters (namely Batman and Robin) ever appeared on 2 different networks on 2 different shows by 2 different companies, voiced over by 2 different pairs of actors at the same time. The SuperFriends also got a new narrator in the voice work of William (Bob) Woodson, who would narrate most of the SuperFriends series all the way to SuperFriends: The Legendary Super Powers Show of 1984. If you watch any episode of the SuperFriends between 1977 and 1984, you will definitely recognize that dramatic sounding narration.

More young children and teenagers than before tuned in, making The All-New Super Friends Hour a huge ratings success. The success prompted the ABC television network to plan a new and even more innovative series for the fall of 1978.

Opening Credits
thumb|375px|right|All-New Super Friends Hour, Intro (1977)

Cast

 * Superman – voiced by Danny Dark (1977)
 * Batman – voiced by Olan Soule (1977)
 * Robin – voiced by Casey Casem (1977)
 * Aquaman – voiced by Norman Alden (1977)
 * Wonder Woman – voiced by Shannon Farnon (1977)
 * Hawkman - voiced by Jack Angel (2 episodes, 1977)

Junior SuperFriends:
 * Wonder Twin, Jayna – voiced by Louise Williams (1977)
 * Wonder Twin, Zan – voiced by Michael Bell (1977)
 * Wonder Twin, Gleek – voiced by Michael Bell (1977)

Also starring

 * Narrator – voiced by William Woodson (1977-1978)
 * Kathy Carver, unknown episodes

DVD / Media info
A two-part DVD set of all the series is available through Amazon. They are re-mastered, uncut and complete with their PSA and decoder segments, which were mostly edited out of syndication.
 * Part 1: The All-New Superfriends Hour: Season One, Vol. 1 (DVD - 2008)
 * Part 2: The All-New Superfriends Hour: Season One, Vol. 2 (DVD - 2009)

Primary Episodes:
1. Invasion of the Earthors

2. The Mysterious Time Creatures

3. City in a Bottle

4. Day of the Plant Creatures

5. Super Friends vs. Super Friends

6. Plantet of the Neanderthals

7. Coming of the Arthropods

8. The Water Beast

9. The Mind Maidens

10. Exploration Earth

11. The Lion Men

12. Tiny World of Terror

13. The Mummy of Nazxa

14. Will the World Collide?

15. The Ghost

The 7 minute Shorts:
1. The Brain Machine

2. Joy Ride

3. Whirlpool

4. The Secret Four

5. Tiger on the Loose

6. The Antidote

7. Invasion of the Hyydronoids

8. Hitchhike

9. Space Emergency

10. Doctor Fright

11. Drag Race

12. Fire

13. The Monster of Dr. Droid

14. Vandals

15. The Energy Mass

16. The Enforcer

17. Shark

18. Flood of Diamonds

19. The Invisible Menace

20. Initiation

21. River of Doom

22. Attack of the Giant Squid

23. A Game of Chicken

24. Volcano

25. The Collector

26. Handicap

27. Alaska Peril

28. The Fifty Foot Woman

29. Cheating

30. Attack of the Killer Bees

31. Pressure Point

32. Day of the Rats

33. Man Beasts of XRA

34. Prejudice

35. Tibetan Raiders

36. Frozen Peril

37. Dangerous Prank

38. Cable Car Rescue

39. The Marsh Monster

40. Runways

41. Time Rescue

42. The Protector

43. Stowaways

44. Rampage