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Description
Today is the 50th anniversary of the DC superhero show: "The Super Friends". This Saturday Morning cartoon show produced by Hanna-Barbera first aired on this day back in on ABC back in 1973. It's based on the Justice League comic books. The show featured 4 DC superheroes: Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman and Robin, and Aquaman. Also on the show were a trio of sidekicks known as the Junior Super Friends: Wendy, Marvin, and Wonder Dog, none of them have special abilities expect Wonder Dog has unexplained intelligence and ability to speak. Wendy and Marvin were detectives and/or superheroes in training.

The team's main headquarters is the Hall of Justice and each epsiode began with the team responding to an emergency detected by the massive TroubAlert computer. A U.S. Army offcial: Colonel Wilcox was a recurring character who would work as a government Liasion to the Super Friends during emergencies.

There were also guest heroes from the broader Justice League: Plastic Man, The Flash, and Green Arrow.

Plastic Man made his animated debut in a cameo appearance in the episode: "Professor Goodfellow's G.E.E.C." when Superman called him in to extract a mouse from the G.E.E.C. computer system.

The Flash appeared in the episode: "Too Hot to Handle".

Green Arrow appeared in the episode: "Gulliver's Gigantic Goof" where he was referred to as a "Staunch member of the Justice League of America".

Ted Knight was the narrator of the series, he also voiced the Flash in "Too Hot to Handle". Norman Alden voiced Plastic Man and Green Arrow in their separate episodes. Plastic Man didn't make another Super Friends appearance after "Professor Goodfellow's G.E.E.C.", however he did get his own animated series in 1979 called: "The Plastic Man Comedy/Adventure Show". Green Arrow didn't made another animated appearance until "Justice League Unlimited".

This was the second Hanna-Barbera cartoon to have hour long episodes (the first was: "The New Scooby-Doo Movies"). Before the Super Friends, Superman, Batman and Robin, and Aquaman each previously had their own animated produced by Filmation. Superman (with Lois Lane) and Wonder Woman each also guest starred in 2 episodes from the first season of: "The Brady Kids" (the Saturday Morning cartoon version of "The Brady Bunch"). Batman and Robin guest starred on 2 episodes of "The New Scooby-Doo Movies".

The show was on ABC's Saturday Morning schedule from 1973-75 with the 1974-75 run being repeats. The show later returned in reruns in the spring of 1976 and again in the spring of 1977, however the 1977 broadcasts had the episode be divided into 2 parts.

In the fall of 1977, the popularity of the Wonder Woman TV series and The Six Million Dollar Man, ABC revived the Super Friends as "The All-New Super Friends Hour where more young children and teenagers than before tuned in and made it a huge ratings success. Our 5 DC heroes return to fight for justice and also there were 3 new heroes to the show, shape-shifting super-teens: The Wonder Twins: Zan and Jayna with their space-monkey: Gleek.

The format contained 4 segments and 15 regular episodes, there was a total of 5 dozen (60) segments. The first segment of each show featured 2 of the core Super Friends (where Batman and Robin were considered as 1 superhero) teaming up in a mini story. The second segment featured the Wonder Twins and Gleek where the typical plot was that teenagers engage in a specific discouraged activity that the Twins are summoned to deal with like vadalism or hitchhiking and the misbehaving teens find themselves in danger as a consequence of their misbehavior, but the Twins rescue them.

The 3rd segment featured all the core Superfriends and the Wonder Twins in a 22 minute adventure. And the 4th and final segment featured 1 of the core Super Friends and a guest hero where a problem would be solved by the guest hero using his/her unique abilities. Also there were additional short spots between segments with members of the Super Friends giving some basic health and safety lessons with first aid advice, magic tricks, craft projects, and a 2-part riddle that featured the week's plot line from the team's 22 minute adventure. Wendy, Marvin, and Wonder Dog were becoming unpopular, so they were dropped for the Twins and William Woodson replaced Ted Knight as the narrator. DC villian: Black Manta appeared in the episodes: "The Whirlpool" and "The Water Beast" where he was referred to as Manta and his suit was now olive brown. Gentlemen Ghost appeared in the episode: "Ghost" where he was referred to as Gentleman Jim Craddock. A man casts a spell to bring the gentleman to the living to take revenge on Superman and Wonder Woman for imprisoning his spirit.

In 1978, the 3rd series was the "Challenge of the Super Friends" where it featured 2 segments. The first segment featured an adventure with the core Super Friends and the Wonder Twins, similar to the adventures on "The All-New Super Friends Hour". The second segment was the "Challenge of the Superfriends". This series came closest to the comic books. It featured the Justice League of America and the first time DC supervillains were featured on the Super Friends (apart from Gentleman Jim Craddock and Black Manta, each featured in 1 episode) with 13 of them as a group called the Legion of Doom. The group included Superman's foes: Lex Luthor, Brainiac, the Toyman, and Bizarro, and Batman's foes: the Riddler and the Scarecrow. They dwelt in a murky swamp and launched attacks for global conquest from a sinister-looking, swamp-based, mechanical, flying headquarters called the Hall of Doom (which resembled the helment of Star Wars villain: Darth Vader) as a suitable contrast with the Hall of Justice. Each week, the Legion schemed to get rid of or destroy the Superfriends so they can rule the world. There were also the addition of 6 of the 9 guest heroes from the 4th segment of the "All-New Super Friends Hour" (Black Vulcan, the Flash, Green Lantern, Apache Chief, Samurai, and Hawkman) making the group be 11 heroes. Black Vulcan, Apache Chief, and Samurai were created for the show; however, Black Vulcan was based on the DC Comics character: Black Lightning. It is often believed that the first and second segments were 2 separate shows due to the first segment alone with the opening to the Challenge of the Superfriends and confusing references to the show. The show was originally titled: "Battle of the Super Friends" and it featured the introduction of Captain Marvel. The villain group was originally called: "League of Evil" that was led by Captain Marvel's nemesis: Doctor Sivana. But, Filmation produced Shazam! and The New Adventures of Batman and it prevented Hanna-Barbera from using characters such as Mister Atom, King Kull, Beautia Sivana, The Joker, The Penguin, Mr. Freeze, and Catwoman. Early conceptual art included Heat Wave, Poison Ivy, and Abra Kadabra were drawn by Alex Toth.

In 1979, the 4th series was "The World's Greatest Superfriends" where it relied heavily on plots of folklore and classic fairy tales. 1 episode, "The Lord of Middle Earth" was inspired by the novel: "The Lord of the Rings" where the team journeys to Middle-earth to save the inhabitants from and evil wizard. This series also borrowed from contemporary politics at the time as the main villain: Kareem Azar in "Rub Three Times for Disaster" is almost a carbon copy of lat Iranian religious leader: Ruhollah Khomeini. This season was refer to as the "Absentee Super Friends season" to some fans, as a number of the episode have members who only appear in cameos, or not at all.

In 1980, the 5th and 6th series were just simply titled: "Super Friends" with the format changing from half-hour episodes to 7 minute shorts. During this series original broadcasts, a half-hour rerun from 1 of the previous series would follow after each episode. The new adventures feature the core members of the Super Friends along with the Wonder Twins and Gleek. There were also guest appearances with members previously depicted in "Challenge of the Superfriends". The second season of this version from 1981-82 lasted only 6 regular episodes because of the Writers Guild of America strike of 1981, however, a new original hero was added to the show to make the Super Friends more culturally diverse: El Dorado, a hero of a Mexican descent making his debut in "Alien Mummy". The narrator sets the scene by describing the location as 'ancient Aztec ruins in the Mexican wilderness'. 1 of his lines is "these are the mysterious ruins of my people".

During the 1982-3 season, ABC continued to air half-hour reruns called "The Best of the Super Friends", however none of the 7 minute shorts were reran.

In 1983, Hanna-Barbera made a syndication package of the earlier Super Friends episodes. These episodes were picked up by various TV stations in the USA and were broadcast typically on weekday afternoons. ABC wished not to compete with the syndicated broadcast, so the network dropped the series from the 1983-4 Saturday morning line-up making it the second time Super Friends was cancelled. But during that time, Hanna-Barbera continued to produce new episodes. HB made 8 regular episodes (2 dozen cartoons) and they were dubbed the "lost episodes", but they didn't air on US television that season. But the series did air in Australia uninterrupted. 1 of these episodes air when Super Friends returned to ABC Saturday morning in 1984 and the remaining episodes finally aired on US television in 1995 as part of the Superman/Batman Adventures on the USA Cartoon Express. The series also aired on Cartoon Network and Boomerang. All the members of the Legion of Doom reunite in 1 episode and the Wonder Twins finally got to work with other members of the Justice League.

In 1984, Super Friends returned to ABC Saturday morning as "Super Friends: The Legendary Super Powers Show" and was the first series to have a new format since "The World's Greatest Super Friends in 1979. It continued the previous 3 years' policy of short stories with two 11-minute stories per regular episodes. This series also included the animated debut of Firestorm, a well-established teenage superhero in the DC Universe and the Wonder Twins were largely supplanted as audience identification figures by Firestrom. But, continuing the trend from the "lost season" episodes, the Wonder Twins did pair-up with other members of the Justice League as opposed to always teaming up with Batman and Robin or Wonder Woman. The twins teamed up with Firestorm and Robin in "Case of The Shrinking Super Friends", they worked with Firestorm and Samurai in "Uncle Mxyzptlk", and they worked with Wonder Woman and Apache Chief in "Village of The Lost Souls". Also, this series was produced to tie in with the Super Powers Collection toyline from Kenner (also known for their Star Wars toyline). The general story was detailed in the mini-comics that went with the figures, and was that the major heroes of Earth had teamed up to fight Darkseid and his villains. Aquaman's sole appearance in this series comes via his appearance in the opening title, same for the Flash. It's also the first time Wonder Woman was animated with the W symbol on her costume instead of the eagle design; it was carried over to the final series the following year. Shannon Farnon, who was the voice of Wonder Woman for the previous series was unable to reprise her voice role because the new director cast his girlfriend Connie Cawfield in her place. Also in this series, Adam West replaced Olan Soule as the voice of Batman, 16 years after his live-action Batman TV series ended. When West took over as Batman, Soule voiced Professor Stein. Superman villains: Lex Luthor and Brainiac were completely revamped to resemble their comic book counterparts. A Flash villain: Mirror Master appeared in the episode: "Reflections in Crime", but the Flash doesn't appear in the episode.

In 1985, the final series was "The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians" to tie-in with Kenner's toyline. In this series, Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman looked more like their DC Comics counterparts. The Hall of Justice was redesigned also to appear more pentagon-like and larger. Other changes were the absence of the narrator in each episode. William Woodson the narrator since "The All-New Super Friends Hour" in 1977 remained the voice of the show until the final episode of "SuperFriends: The Legendary Super Powers Show". However there was a very brief voice-over by Woodson at the start of the episode: "The Bizarro Super Powers Team", talking about the Bizarro World to the audience. He wasn't heard for the remainder of the episode. Wonder Woman's voice was recast again in this series. B.J. Ward replaced Connie Cawlfield. Professor Stein was recast too. Ken Sansom replaced Olan Soule. Another change was that Hanna-Barbera scrapped all the original characters that were created for the Super Friends expect Samurai. This also marked the animated appearance of Cyborg (he and Firestorm replaced the Wonder Twins for the purposed of target audience identification figures). Unlike the previous series, each episode was a bit more dramatic and the only episodes to be in old-school style were: "The Bizarro Super Powers Team" and "The Case of the Stolen Powers". There were 10 episodes with 4 of them being shorts. The episode: "The Fear" told Batman's origin for the first time outside of the actual comics. Lex Luthor only briefly appeared at the beginning of the episode: "The Seeds of Doom". Batman villains: Joker and Penguin made their only Super Friends appearances in 2 separte episodes. The Joker appeared in "The Wild Cards" which also featured the animated debut of the Royal Flush Gang and the Penguin appeared in "The Case of the Stolen Powers" which also featured the animated debut of Felix Faust. Batman and Robin appeared in "The Wild Cards", but they weren't present in "The Case of the Stolen Powers". The Flash only appeared in "The Death of Superman" and he never used his powers. Even if he wasn't part of the official roster, El Dorado also made a cameo in "The Death of Superman" and he didn't use his powers even had any lines. The Fortress of Solitude looked closely resembles the pre-Crisis comic book version in that episode, which included a giant yellow key whose use required the combined efforts of Green Lantern, Wonder Woman and Cyborg. Wonder Woman's red boots were animated with white stripes for the first time since the cancellation of Lynda Carter's live action Wonder Woman TV series on CBS 6 years earlier (the Wonder Woman TV series transfered to CBS from ABC). The show lasted only 1 season and it marked the end of the Super Friends' 12-year run.

After "The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians" went off the air, weekday syndicated reruns of the "Super Friends" went off the air too and with that, the "Super Friends" were nothing but a memory. However in 1988, 2 years after the end of the Super Powers Team, a new Superman animated series produced by Hanna-Barbera's sister studio: Ruby-Spears Enterprises aired on CBS (coinciding with the hero's 50th anniversary, along with the live-action Superboy TV series that same year). The narrator of the Super Friends: Williams Woodson would narrate the opening intro of this series. In the episode: "Superman and Wonder Woman vs. The Sorceress of Time", Wonder Woman guest stars with B.J. Ward reprising the role. Various seasons of the Super Friends were later seen on television again in 1995 on "The Superman/Batman Adventures" on the USA Cartoon Express which also included episodes from the 1960s Filmation series: "The New Adventures of Superman", "The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure", and The Batman/Superman Hour".

I don't own the Super Friends. All copyright material belongs to Warner Bros. Discovery, DC Comics, Hanna-Barbera, Bill Hanna, Joe Barbera, E. Nelson Bridwell, Carmine Infantino, and Julius Schwartz. And the super heroes belong to their original creators.

Description
Today is the 50th anniversary of the DC superhero show: "The Super Friends". This Saturday Morning cartoon show produced by Hanna-Barbera first aired on this day back in on ABC back in 1973. It's based on the Justice League comic books. The show featured 4 DC superheroes: Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman and Robin, and Aquaman. Also on the show were a trio of sidekicks known as the Junior Super Friends: Wendy, Marvin, and Wonder Dog, none of them have special abilities expect Wonder Dog has unexplained intelligence and ability to speak. Wendy and Marvin were detectives and/or superheroes in training.

The team's main headquarters is the Hall of Justice and each epsiode began with the team responding to an emergency detected by the massive TroubAlert computer. A U.S. Army offcial: Colonel Wilcox was a recurring character who would work as a government Liasion to the Super Friends during emergencies.

There were also guest heroes from the broader Justice League: Plastic Man, The Flash, and Green Arrow.

Plastic Man made his animated debut in a cameo appearance in the episode: "Professor Goodfellow's G.E.E.C." when Superman called him in to extract a mouse from the G.E.E.C. computer system.

The Flash appeared in the episode: "Too Hot to Handle".

Green Arrow appeared in the episode: "Gulliver's Gigantic Goof" where he was referred to as a "Staunch member of the Justice League of America".

Ted Knight was the narrator of the series, he also voiced the Flash in "Too Hot to Handle". Norman Alden voiced Plastic Man and Green Arrow in their separate episodes. Plastic Man didn't make another Super Friends appearance after "Professor Goodfellow's G.E.E.C.", however he did get his own animated series in 1979 called: "The Plastic Man Comedy/Adventure Show". Green Arrow didn't made another animated appearance until "Justice League Unlimited".

This was the second Hanna-Barbera cartoon to have hour long episodes (the first was: "The New Scooby-Doo Movies"). Before the Super Friends, Superman, Batman and Robin, and Aquaman each previously had their own animated produced by Filmation. Superman (with Lois Lane) and Wonder Woman each also guest starred in 2 episodes from the first season of: "The Brady Kids" (the Saturday Morning cartoon version of "The Brady Bunch"). Batman and Robin guest starred on 2 episodes of "The New Scooby-Doo Movies".

The show was on ABC's Saturday Morning schedule from 1973-75 with the 1974-75 run being repeats. The show later returned in reruns in the spring of 1976 and again in the spring of 1977, however the 1977 broadcasts had the episode be divided into 2 parts.

In the fall of 1977, the popularity of the Wonder Woman TV series and The Six Million Dollar Man, ABC revived the Super Friends as "The All-New Super Friends Hour where more young children and teenagers than before tuned in and made it a huge ratings success. Our 5 DC heroes return to fight for justice and also there were 3 new heroes to the show, shape-shifting super-teens: The Wonder Twins: Zan and Jayna with their space-monkey: Gleek.

The format contained 4 segments and 15 regular episodes, there was a total of 5 dozen (60) segments. The first segment of each show featured 2 of the core Super Friends (where Batman and Robin were considered as 1 superhero) teaming up in a mini story. The second segment featured the Wonder Twins and Gleek where the typical plot was that teenagers engage in a specific discouraged activity that the Twins are summoned to deal with like vadalism or hitchhiking and the misbehaving teens find themselves in danger as a consequence of their misbehavior, but the Twins rescue them.

The 3rd segment featured all the core Superfriends and the Wonder Twins in a 22 minute adventure. And the 4th and final segment featured 1 of the core Super Friends and a guest hero where a problem would be solved by the guest hero using his/her unique abilities. Also there were additional short spots between segments with members of the Super Friends giving some basic health and safety lessons with first aid advice, magic tricks, craft projects, and a 2-part riddle that featured the week's plot line from the team's 22 minute adventure. Wendy, Marvin, and Wonder Dog were becoming unpopular, so they were dropped for the Twins and William Woodson replaced Ted Knight as the narrator. DC villian: Black Manta appeared in the episodes: "The Whirlpool" and "The Water Beast" where he was referred to as Manta and his suit was now olive brown. Gentlemen Ghost appeared in the episode: "Ghost" where he was referred to as Gentleman Jim Craddock. A man casts a spell to bring the gentleman to the living to take revenge on Superman and Wonder Woman for imprisoning his spirit.

In 1978, the 3rd series was the "Challenge of the Super Friends" where it featured 2 segments. The first segment featured an adventure with the core Super Friends and the Wonder Twins, similar to the adventures on "The All-New Super Friends Hour". The second segment was the "Challenge of the Superfriends". This series came closest to the comic books. It featured the Justice League of America and the first time DC supervillains were featured on the Super Friends (apart from Gentleman Jim Craddock and Black Manta, each featured in 1 episode) with 13 of them as a group called the Legion of Doom. The group included Superman's foes: Lex Luthor, Brainiac, the Toyman, and Bizarro, and Batman's foes: the Riddler and the Scarecrow. They dwelt in a murky swamp and launched attacks for global conquest from a sinister-looking, swamp-based, mechanical, flying headquarters called the Hall of Doom (which resembled the helment of Star Wars villain: Darth Vader) as a suitable contrast with the Hall of Justice. Each week, the Legion schemed to get rid of or destroy the Superfriends so they can rule the world. There were also the addition of 6 of the 9 guest heroes from the 4th segment of the "All-New Super Friends Hour" (Black Vulcan, the Flash, Green Lantern, Apache Chief, Samurai, and Hawkman) making the group be 11 heroes. Black Vulcan, Apache Chief, and Samurai were created for the show; however, Black Vulcan was based on the DC Comics character: Black Lightning. It is often believed that the first and second segments were 2 separate shows due to the first segment alone with the opening to the Challenge of the Superfriends and confusing references to the show. The show was originally titled: "Battle of the Super Friends" and it featured the introduction of Captain Marvel. The villain group was originally called: "League of Evil" that was led by Captain Marvel's nemesis: Doctor Sivana. But, Filmation produced Shazam! and The New Adventures of Batman and it prevented Hanna-Barbera from using characters such as Mister Atom, King Kull, Beautia Sivana, The Joker, The Penguin, Mr. Freeze, and Catwoman. Early conceptual art included Heat Wave, Poison Ivy, and Abra Kadabra were drawn by Alex Toth.

In 1979, the 4th series was "The World's Greatest Superfriends" where it relied heavily on plots of folklore and classic fairy tales. 1 episode, "The Lord of Middle Earth" was inspired by the novel: "The Lord of the Rings" where the team journeys to Middle-earth to save the inhabitants from and evil wizard. This series also borrowed from contemporary politics at the time as the main villain: Kareem Azar in "Rub Three Times for Disaster" is almost a carbon copy of lat Iranian religious leader: Ruhollah Khomeini. This season was refer to as the "Absentee Super Friends season" to some fans, as a number of the episode have members who only appear in cameos, or not at all.

In 1980, the 5th and 6th series were just simply titled: "Super Friends" with the format changing from half-hour episodes to 7 minute shorts. During this series original broadcasts, a half-hour rerun from 1 of the previous series would follow after each episode. The new adventures feature the core members of the Super Friends along with the Wonder Twins and Gleek. There were also guest appearances with members previously depicted in "Challenge of the Superfriends". The second season of this version from 1981-82 lasted only 6 regular episodes because of the Writers Guild of America strike of 1981, however, a new original hero was added to the show to make the Super Friends more culturally diverse: El Dorado, a hero of a Mexican descent making his debut in "Alien Mummy". The narrator sets the scene by describing the location as 'ancient Aztec ruins in the Mexican wilderness'. 1 of his lines is "these are the mysterious ruins of my people".

During the 1982-3 season, ABC continued to air half-hour reruns called "The Best of the Super Friends", however none of the 7 minute shorts were reran.

In 1983, Hanna-Barbera made a syndication package of the earlier Super Friends episodes. These episodes were picked up by various TV stations in the USA and were broadcast typically on weekday afternoons. ABC wished not to compete with the syndicated broadcast, so the network dropped the series from the 1983-4 Saturday morning line-up making it the second time Super Friends was cancelled. But during that time, Hanna-Barbera continued to produce new episodes. HB made 8 regular episodes (2 dozen cartoons) and they were dubbed the "lost episodes", but they didn't air on US television that season. But the series did air in Australia uninterrupted. 1 of these episodes air when Super Friends returned to ABC Saturday morning in 1984 and the remaining episodes finally aired on US television in 1995 as part of the Superman/Batman Adventures on the USA Cartoon Express. The series also aired on Cartoon Network and Boomerang. All the members of the Legion of Doom reunite in 1 episode and the Wonder Twins finally got to work with other members of the Justice League.

In 1984, Super Friends returned to ABC Saturday morning as "Super Friends: The Legendary Super Powers Show" and was the first series to have a new format since "The World's Greatest Super Friends in 1979. It continued the previous 3 years' policy of short stories with two 11-minute stories per regular episodes. This series also included the animated debut of Firestorm, a well-established teenage superhero in the DC Universe and the Wonder Twins were largely supplanted as audience identification figures by Firestrom. But, continuing the trend from the "lost season" episodes, the Wonder Twins did pair-up with other members of the Justice League as opposed to always teaming up with Batman and Robin or Wonder Woman. The twins teamed up with Firestorm and Robin in "Case of The Shrinking Super Friends", they worked with Firestorm and Samurai in "Uncle Mxyzptlk", and they worked with Wonder Woman and Apache Chief in "Village of The Lost Souls". Also, this series was produced to tie in with the Super Powers Collection toyline from Kenner (also known for their Star Wars toyline). The general story was detailed in the mini-comics that went with the figures, and was that the major heroes of Earth had teamed up to fight Darkseid and his villains. Aquaman's sole appearance in this series comes via his appearance in the opening title, same for the Flash. It's also the first time Wonder Woman was animated with the W symbol on her costume instead of the eagle design; it was carried over to the final series the following year. Shannon Farnon, who was the voice of Wonder Woman for the previous series was unable to reprise her voice role because the new director cast his girlfriend Connie Cawfield in her place. Also in this series, Adam West replaced Olan Soule as the voice of Batman, 16 years after his live-action Batman TV series ended. When West took over as Batman, Soule voiced Professor Stein. Superman villains: Lex Luthor and Brainiac were completely revamped to resemble their comic book counterparts. A Flash villain: Mirror Master appeared in the episode: "Reflections in Crime", but the Flash doesn't appear in the episode.

In 1985, the final series was "The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians" to tie-in with Kenner's toyline. In this series, Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman looked more like their DC Comics counterparts. The Hall of Justice was redesigned also to appear more pentagon-like and larger. Other changes were the absence of the narrator in each episode. William Woodson the narrator since "The All-New Super Friends Hour" in 1977 remained the voice of the show until the final episode of "SuperFriends: The Legendary Super Powers Show". However there was a very brief voice-over by Woodson at the start of the episode: "The Bizarro Super Powers Team", talking about the Bizarro World to the audience. He wasn't heard for the remainder of the episode. Wonder Woman's voice was recast again in this series. B.J. Ward replaced Connie Cawlfield. Professor Stein was recast too. Ken Sansom replaced Olan Soule. Another change was that Hanna-Barbera scrapped all the original characters that were created for the Super Friends expect Samurai. This also marked the animated appearance of Cyborg (he and Firestorm replaced the Wonder Twins for the purposed of target audience identification figures). Unlike the previous series, each episode was a bit more dramatic and the only episodes to be in old-school style were: "The Bizarro Super Powers Team" and "The Case of the Stolen Powers". There were 10 episodes with 4 of them being shorts. The episode: "The Fear" told Batman's origin for the first time outside of the actual comics. Lex Luthor only briefly appeared at the beginning of the episode: "The Seeds of Doom". Batman villains: Joker and Penguin made their only Super Friends appearances in 2 separte episodes. The Joker appeared in "The Wild Cards" which also featured the animated debut of the Royal Flush Gang and the Penguin appeared in "The Case of the Stolen Powers" which also featured the animated debut of Felix Faust. Batman and Robin appeared in "The Wild Cards", but they weren't present in "The Case of the Stolen Powers". The Flash only appeared in "The Death of Superman" and he never used his powers. Even if he wasn't part of the official roster, El Dorado also made a cameo in "The Death of Superman" and he didn't use his powers even had any lines. The Fortress of Solitude looked closely resembles the pre-Crisis comic book version in that episode, which included a giant yellow key whose use required the combined efforts of Green Lantern, Wonder Woman and Cyborg. Wonder Woman's red boots were animated with white stripes for the first time since the cancellation of Lynda Carter's live action Wonder Woman TV series on CBS 6 years earlier (the Wonder Woman TV series transfered to CBS from ABC). The show lasted only 1 season and it marked the end of the Super Friends' 12-year run.

After "The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians" went off the air, weekday syndicated reruns of the "Super Friends" went off the air too and with that, the "Super Friends" were nothing but a memory. However in 1988, 2 years after the end of the Super Powers Team, a new Superman animated series produced by Hanna-Barbera's sister studio: Ruby-Spears Enterprises aired on CBS (coinciding with the hero's 50th anniversary, along with the live-action Superboy TV series that same year). The narrator of the Super Friends: Williams Woodson would narrate the opening intro of this series. In the episode: "Superman and Wonder Woman vs. The Sorceress of Time", Wonder Woman guest stars with B.J. Ward reprising the role. Various seasons of the Super Friends were later seen on television again in 1995 on "The Superman/Batman Adventures" on the USA Cartoon Express which also included episodes from the 1960s Filmation series: "The New Adventures of Superman", "The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure", and The Batman/Superman Hour".

I don't own the Super Friends. All copyright material belongs to Warner Bros. Discovery, DC Comics, Hanna-Barbera, Bill Hanna, Joe Barbera, E. Nelson Bridwell, Carmine Infantino, and Julius Schwartz. And the super heroes belong to their original creators.