Challenge of the Super Friends

Challenge of the Super Friends
Also known as	Super Friends III
Genre	Adventure / Animation / Fantasy / Sci-Fi
Written by	Jeffrey Scott Carmine Infantino Bob Kane
Directed by	Ray Patterson Carl Urbano
Creative director(s)	Iwao Takamoto
Voices of	Jack Angel Marlene Aragon Lewis Bailey Michael Bell Bill Callaway Ted Cassidy Melanie Chartoff Henry Corden Danny Dark Al Fann Shannon Farnon Ruth Forman Bob Hastings Bob Holt Buster Jones Stan Jones Casey Kasem Don Messick Vic Perrin Renny Roker Stanley Ross Dick Ryal Michael Rye Olan Soule Jimmy Weldon Frank Welker
Narrated by	William Woodson
Theme music composer	Hoyt Curtin
Composer(s)	Hoyt Curtin
Country of origin	United States
Language(s)	English
No. of seasons	2
No. of episodes	16 (List of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s)	Joseph Barbera and William Hanna
Producer(s)	Don Jurwich
Editor(s)	Larry C. Cowan (supervising editor)
Cinematography	George Epperson Tom Epperson Charles Flekal Ron Jackson Jerry Smith Larry Smith Terry Smith Brandy Whittington Jerry Whittington
Running time	60 minutes (including commercials)
Production company(s)	Hanna-Barbera Productions DC Comics
Distributor	Warner Bros. Television
Broadcast
Original channel	ABC
Original run	September 9, 1978 – December 23, 1978
Chronology
Preceded by	The All-New Super Friends Hour
Followed by	The World's Greatest Super Friends
External links
Website

Challenge of the Super Friends is an American animated television series about a team of superheroes which ran from September 9, 1978, to December 23, 1978, on ABC. The complete series (16 episodes) 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. It continues to air on Boomerang in the United States.

Format

First segment

The plots for this series were, at the time of its initial airing, arguably the best effort to portray comic book heroes in animated television shorts. As originally aired, this season consisted of two half-hour segments. The first of these was an adventure with Superman, Batman and Robin, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and the Wonder Twins, similar to those that had aired the previous season in The All-New Super Friends Hour.^[1] Thanks to these episodes being shown using the opening credits of the All-New Super Friends Hour in syndication^[2], the second segment along being used with the Challenge of Super Friends opening, and confused references to the show^[3] it is often mistakenly believed that the first and second segments were two separate shows.

Second segment

The second segment of this season featured the Legion of Doom, a team of thirteen recurring foes, the Super Friends' worst enemies. Every episode would feature battles between the thirteen supervillains of the Legion of Doom and the eleven superheroes of the Justice League of America. 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 also resembled Darth Vader's helmet) as a suitable contrast with the Super Friends' gleaming Hall of Justice.

Production background

Early development

When the Challenge of the Super Friends season was originally conceived, it was named “Battle of the Superheroes” and featured the introduction of Captain Marvel to the Super Friends. The group that challenged the heroes was called the "League of Evil", led by Marvel's nemesis Doctor Sivana. However, Filmation produced Shazam! and The New Adventures of Batman which prevented the use of characters such as Mister Atom, King Kull, Beautia Sivana, Joker, Penguin, Mr. Freeze, and Catwoman. Early conceptual art drawn by Alex Toth would also include Heat Wave, Poison Ivy, and Abra Kadabra.^[4]

Narration, music and character designs

Bill Woodson provides the uncredited voice of the narrator in Challenge of the Super Friends. The show's main theme and original music was composed and arranged by musical director Hoyt Curtin. The music supervisor was Paul DeKorte. Character designs for this particular Super Friends series were done by Andre LeBlanc.

Team composition experimentation

Hanna-Barbera's writers experimented with team composition as well. Challenge of the Super Friends added The Flash (Barry Allen), Green Lantern (Hal Jordan), and Hawkman (Katar Hol) who were members of the Justice League of America, as well as several new characters: Black Vulcan (who was based on the DC Comics character Black Lightning), Apache Chief, and Samurai. These characters were created to add racial and cultural diversity to the show (this was also mentioned in some of the episode introduction extras on the first two Challenge of the Super Friends DVDs).

Challenge of the Super Friends lineups

Super Friends/Justice League of America

Eleven heroes make up the Super Friends/Justice League of America. They are:

Superman Batman Robin Wonder Woman Aquaman The Flash

Green Lantern Hawkman Black Vulcan Apache Chief Samurai

Legion of Doom

Thirteen villains comprise the Legion of Doom during the Challenge of the Super Friends season. They are:

Lex Luthor Solomon Grundy Sinestro Black Manta Cheetah Giganta The Scarecrow

Toyman The Riddler Bizarro Brainiac Captain Cold Gorilla Grodd

Despite the claim in the program's title sequence that the Legion's members hail from "remote galaxies", only Brainiac and Sinestro are extraterrestrials; the remaining members are all natives of Earth (though Bizarro is an imperfect duplicate of the Kryptonian Superman, he was created on Earth).

A curious issue is why there are only 11 members of the Super Friends vs. 13 members for the Legion of Doom (this item is never explained by the introduction scenes produced for the first 8 episodes of Challenge of the Superfriends released on 2 separate DVD's).

Voices

• Jack Angel .... The Flash, Hawkman, Samurai
• Marlene Aragon .... The Cheetah
• Lewis Bailey ....
• Michael Bell .... Riddler, Fearian
• Bill Callaway .... Aquaman, Bizarro
• Ted Cassidy .... Brainiac, Black Manta
• Melanie Chartoff ....
• Henry Corden .... Dr Varga {"Invasion of the Brain Creatures"}, Torahna {in "The World Beneath the Ice"}
• Danny Dark .... Superman, Superboy
• Al Fann ....
• Shannon Farnon .... Wonder Woman
• Ruth Forman .... Giganta
• Bob Hastings ....
• Bob Holt ....
• Buster Jones .... Black Vulcan
• Stan Jones .... Lex Luthor, Swamp Demon
• Casey Kasem .... Robin, JLA Computer
• Don Messick .... Scarecrow; Sinestro; Vartoo {in the episode "The Final Challenge"}
• Vic Perrin .... Sinestro
• Renny Roker ....
• Stanley Ross .... Grodd the Gorilla; Nar-Tan {in "Doomsday"}
• Dick Ryal .... Captain Cold
• Michael Rye .... Green Lantern, Apache Chief
• Olan Soule .... Batman
• Jimmy Weldon .... Solomon Grundy
• Frank Welker .... Toyman; Mr. Mxyzptlk
• Louise Williams ....
• William Woodson .... Narrator, Captain Nemo, Admiral Hubbard

Episodes

See: List of Super Friends episodes

DVD release

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

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.

Legends of the Superheroes

The two NBC televised live-action specials of Legends of the Superheroes produced by Hanna-Barbera was based largely on Challenge of the Super Friends while featuring Adam West, Burt Ward, and Frank Gorshin of the 1966 Batman television series fame (West would go on to voice Batman in Super Friends: The Legendary Super Powers Show and The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians). The Justice League starred Batman, Robin, Captain Marvel, Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman, Huntress, and Black Canary against the Legion of Doom which featured Mordru leading Doctor Sivana, Riddler, Giganta, Sinestro, Weather Wizard, and Solomon Grundy (Superman, Wonder Woman, and their associate characters were absent due to the Superman film and Wonder Woman television series licensing the rights, respectively).

DC Super Friends

Despite using the main theme from the World's Greatest Super Friends, the 2010 DC Super Friends "The Joker's Playhouse" shares several elements of its opening sequence with Challenge of the Super Friends including introducing the Legion of Doom.^[5]

References

1. ^ Hanna-Barbera Superfriends Chronology (archive)
2. ^ LBS Communications
3. ^ McNeil, Alex (1997). Total Television Book and CD-ROM. Penguin (Non-Classics). ISBN 0140267379. 
4. ^ Nobleman, Marc Tyler (29 July 2011). "Super ‘70s and ‘80s: “Super Friends”—Darrell McNeil, animator". Noblemania. http://noblemania.blogspot.com/2011/07/super-70s-and-80s-super-friendsdarrell.html. Retrieved 25 October 2011. 
5. ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDSj5ZvlbuU

Featured link

• Challenge of the Super Friends at Big Cartoon DataBase
• Cartoon Network: DOC - Challenge of The Superfriends - cached copy from Internet Archives

External links

• Challenge of the Super Friends at the Internet Movie Database
• Challenge of the Super Friends at TV.com
• Challenge of the Super Friends @ Legions of Gotham