Challenge of the SuperFriends

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Channel:

ABC

Aired:

9/9/1978 to 12/23/1978

Episodes:

32

Production

Writer(s):

Jeffrey Scott
Carmine Infantino
Bob Kane

Director(s):

Ray Patterson
Carl Urbano
Bill Getty (sound director)
Don Jurwich (recording director)
Richard Olson (sound director)

Creative Director:

Iwao Takamoto

Produced by:

Hanna-Barbera

Executive Producers:

Joseph Barbera
William Hanna

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Seasons

Season 1 • Season 2 • Season 3 • Season 4
Season 5 • Season 6 • Season 7
Season 8 • Season 9

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Chronology

Previous Series:

The All-New Super Friends Hour (1977)

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Next Series:

The World’s Greatest Super Friends (1979)

Series Summary

Episode Length of the new SUPER FRIENDS: 30 minutes

Episode Length of THE CHALLENGE OF THE SUPER FRIENDS: 30 minutes

The year 1978 was a great year for the Super Friends if not the best year. SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE was a smash hit at the box office and the live action WONDER WOMAN TV show with Lynda Carter was airing its third and final season on CBS Friday nights. And there were toys and merchandise galore of not only Superman and Wonder Woman, but also Batman, Robin, Aquaman and Shazam. That year, Hanna-Barbera animated what is considered among fans to be the all time best version of the SuperFriends ever.

The complete series was produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions for Warner Bros. Television and is based on the Justice League and associated comic book characters published by DC Comics.

It was the third series of Super Friends cartoons, following the original Super Friends in 1973 and The All-New Super Friends Hour in 1977.

In January 1979, Hanna-Barbera briefly ran a live-action series entitled Legends of the Superheroes which was loosely based on this incarnation of the Super Friends.

Notes

• It would run on the ABC Network from September 9, 1978, to December 23, 1978.

• Most of the SuperFriends voice over cast returned for this hour with the exception of Norman Alden. Norman was interviewed on the Aquaman Shrine blogspot and stated that he was let go and succeeded by Bill Callaway as the new voice of Aquaman. Callaway would stay with the series and the voice over role of Aquaman throughout all future incarnations of the SuperFriends.

• Other than its initial airing in 1978, the epiosode: The Incredible Space Circus has never been syndicated in America. It is now available on DVD through Amazon.

• The other networks served up some SuperHero competition (this hour still ruled the airwaves):
  • NBC offered up the Godzilla Power Hour and Jana of the Jungle and Marvel Comics first family was back on with the New Fantastic Four by DePatie Freleng.
  • Over at CBS, Filmation served up Tarzan and the Super 7, a 2 hour variety show consisting of 6 cartoons and one live show. One of the features was the 1977 Batman cartoons still in reruns for all the Batman fans.

This time around viewers were treated to two separate incarnations / segments of the Super Friends the new SuperFriends (which include the Wonder Twins) and the Challenge of the Super Friends:

• 9:00 am – new SuperFriends
• 9:30 am – Challenge of the Super Friends

new SuperFriends

1st Incarnation / Segment

In addition to making the 16 episode Challenge of the Super Friends series, Hanna-Barbera also animated 16 episodes featuring the established core group of the Super Friends to run alongside the Challenge episodes. The core group of this new SuperFriends series were the original five heroes who made up the team and their Exxorian trainees, Zan and Jayna and their monkey Gleek. These episodes actually aired first before the Challenge episodes to serve as a warm up to the headliner. This new SuperFriends series is unlike the episodes from the previous series in 1977. It is less interested in delivering a moral message like the 2 previous series. It is more cosmic and sci-fi minded, journeying into space to battle villains on other worlds as well as on Earth. Plus, there are plenty of mutations and mind control for our heroes to endure and deal with in this season. It would appear that some of these episodes may have taken cues from Star Wars and SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE.

In Syndication, these episodes were shown using the opening credits of The All-New Super Friends Hour along with the close from the Challenge series. Therefore, it is often mistakenly believed that it was not part of this season.

Challenge of the Super Friends

2nd Incarnation / Segment

Challenge of the Super Friends was a 16 episode series that came the closest to the comic books. Not only did Challenge have the Justice League of America, it was the first official Super Friends series to feature DC Super Villains from the comics. And this series had 13 of them together as an alliance called the Legion of Doom. Superman foes like Lex Luthor, Brainiac, Toyman, and Bizarro, and Batman foes like the Riddler and Scarecrow. The Legion of Doom dwelled in a murky swamp and launched their attacks for global conquest from a sinister looking, swamp-based, mechanical, flying headquarters, called the Hall of Doom (which resembled Darth Vader’s helmet) as a suitable contrast with the Super Friends' gleaming Hall of Justice. Every week, the Legion schemed to either get rid of or destroy the Super Friends so they can conquer the world. The Super Friends themselves consisted of 11 Justice League heroes. No teen tagalongs or pet comic reliefs in this show (as did the previous versions of the Super Friends and this shows running-companion, the new SuperFriends).

This hour became so popular, that an extra 30 minutes of reruns from The All-New Super Friends Hour was added in 1979 extending the show to 90 minutes.

Intro and Cast

thumb|300px|right|Intro to the 'Challenge of the Superfriends'

• Narrator (uncredited) – voiced by William Woodson (1977-1978)

Super Friends Cast

• Superman – voiced by Danny Dark (1978)
• Batman – voiced by Olan Soule (1978)
• Robin – voiced by Casey Kasem (1978)
• Aquaman – voiced by Bill Calloway (1978)
• Wonder Woman – voiced by Shannon Farnon (1978)
• Hawkman – voiced by Jack Angel (1978)
• Green Lantern – voiced by Michael Rye (1978)
• Black Vulcan – voiced by Buster Jones (1978)
• Samurai - voiced by Jack Angel (1978)
• Apache Chief - voiced by Michael Rye (1978)

Legion of Doom Cast

• Lex Luthor – voiced by Stan Jones (1978)
• Brainiac - voiced by Ted Cassidy (1978)
• Black Manta – voiced by Ted Cassidy (1978)
• Sinestro – voiced by Vic Perrin (1978)
• Cheetah – voiced by Marlene Aragon (1978)
• Gorilla Grodd – voiced by Stanley Ralph Ross (1978)
• Captain Cold – voiced by Dick Ryal (1978)
• Scarecrow – voiced by Don Messick (1978)
• Toyman – voiced by Frank Welker (1978)
• Solomon Grundy – voiced by Jimmy Weldon (1978)
• The Riddler – voiced by Michael Bell (1978)
• Giganta – voiced by Ruth Forman (1978)
• Bizarro - voiced by Bill Calloway (1978)

Episode List:

The first segment during this season, the story focus was not on the Legion of Doom, it was on the main five members of the SuperFriends and the Wonder Twins.

The second segment focused on the SuperFriends and 13 DC Super Villains from the comics.

Ep #	The New SuperFriends Episodes	The Challenge Episodes	Air Date
1	Rokan: Enemy from Space	Wanted: The Superfriends	September 9, 1978
2	The Demons of Exxor	Invasion of the Fearians	September 16, 1978
3	Battle at the Earth's Core	The World's Deadliest Game	September 23, 1978
4	Sinbad and the Space Pirates	The Time Trap	September 30, 1978
5	The Pied Piper from Space	Trial of the Superfriends	October 7, 1978
6	Attack of the Vampire	Monolith of Evil	October 14, 1978
7	The Beasts are Coming	The Giants of Doom	October 21, 1978
8	Terror from the Phantom Zone	Secret Origins of the Superfriends	October 28, 1978
9	The Anti-Matter Monster	Revenge on Gorilla City	November 4, 1978
10	World Beneath the Ice	Swamp of the Living Dead	November 11, 1978
11	Invasion of the Brain Creatures	Conquerors of the Future	November 18, 1978
12	The Incredible Space Circus	The Final Challenge	November 25, 1978
13	Batman: Dead or Alive	Fairy Tale of Doom	December 2 , 1978
14	Battle of the Gods	Doomsday	December 9, 1978
15	Journey Through Inner Space	Superfriends: Rest in Peace	December 16, 1978
16	The Rise and Fall of the Superfriends	History of Doom	December 23, 1978

See Also

• Season 3, Series Credits

DVD / Media info

Warner Home Video released this season of Super Friends on two DVD box sets, the first one being Challenge of the Super Friends: The First Season, which featured the "Challenge" segments, and the second being Super Friends: Volume Two, which featured the Super Friends segments.

Title	Type	Ep #	Release Date
Challenge of the Super Friends	The First Season	16	July 6, 2004
Super Friends	Volume 2	16	May 24, 2005

This DVD series is available through Amazon –Challenge of the Super Friends, Volumes 1-2 (DVD - 2005).

• Volume One are episodes from The Challenge of the SuperFriends
• Volume Two are episodes from the new Superfriends'

Spoofs

Cartoon Network produced a couple of commercials spoofing Challenge of the Super Friends.

• One dealt with the idiosyncratic nature of the Legion of Doom and Brainiac’s odd manner of dress (Brainiac: “Look, I just want some pants...a decent pair of pants!” Solomon Grundy: “Solomon Grundy want pants, too!”).

• The second, co-starring The Powerpuff Girls, dealt with Aquaman’s powers (Aquaman: “My ability to talk to fish is of no use to us, Wonder Woman!”) as well as the level of violence compared to today’s cartoons, as Wonder Woman and Aquaman look away while the Powerpuff Girls beat up the Legion of Doom, going so far as to set the Scarecrow on fire. Most notably was Bubbles' double-entendre reply to Wonder Woman's compliment on how they were developing as superheroes. "Someday we'll be as developed as you." Lex Luthor, as a villain with a dirty mind, began laughing. His underlings understood the joke and laughed as well. When a piece of the Hall of Doom's ceiling fell on Luthor's head, everyone laughed.

In 2003, Cartoon Network Latin America aired the spoof series The Aquaman & Friends Action Hour that starred Aquaman as a children's television show host and the Legion of Doom as his bankrupt villains.

External Links

• Challenge of the Super Friends at the Big Cartoon DataBase
• Cartoon Network: DOC - Challenge of The Superfriends - cached copy from Internet Archives
• Challenge of the Super Friends entry at the Internet Movie Database (IMDB)
• Challenge of the Super Friends entry at TV.com (episode titles)
• Challenge of the Super Friends @ Legions of Gotham

References

Season 1 (1973)   Season 2 (1977)   Season 3 (1978)   Season 4 (1979)   Season 5, 1980 Shorts Season 6, 1981 Shorts   Season 7, 1983 Shorts   Season 8 (1984)   Season 9 (1985)
Previous Series: The All-New Super Friends Hour (1977)	Next Series: The World’s Greatest Super Friends (1979)