DC Super Heroes: The Filmation Adventures

This Warner Brothers' DVD release of two disks forms part of the DC Comics Classic Collection, and comes from the 1967/68 period when Filmation held the license rights to animate DC Comics superheroes on Saturday morning television. The short eighteen episodes included in this set (lasting roughly eight minutes or so each) once formed part of 'The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure', and were sandwiched in-between the second season of 'The New Adventures of Superman', the second season of 'The Adventures of Superboy' and episodes of 'The Adventures of Aquaman'.The interesting thing for me regarding this DVD set is that these episodes are the first time that somewhat minor DC characters have been used in their own show, or at least in segments of it. These adventures occur before Hanna-Barbera picked up the license to produce the iconic 'Super Friends' series, which ran for many years during the Silver Age of comic books. Granted, as with most other Filmation series at the time and over the years, the animation can seem pretty primitive and flat, plus there is a fairly high count of stock footage utilisation. However, I believe this adds to the overall charm of the series in an era when superhero resurgence was just gaining ground, and young boys especially could experience televised adventures of their favourite comic book characters for the first time on a Saturday morning.Each character and team receive three episodes each that focus on their adventures, with the official 'as-broadcast' end credits that ran at the end of each episode of the 'Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure' included as an extra, made available at the end of the Episode menu. The Atom (Ray Palmer), The Flash (Barry Allen), Green Lantern (Hal Jordan) and Hawkman (Carter Hall) each receive their own three episodes of solo adventures with, usually, either space alien invaders to contend with, or mad scientists and their robotic creations. It is worth remembering that this was a time of the Silver Age that the space race was in full motion and the idea of space flight and life on other planets permeated the media and comic books much more heavily than during past decades. The team episodes (again given three episodes each) consist of the usual alien invader villains from Pluto or Jupiter, for instance, and star both the Justice League of America (starring all the adult heroes partaking in the Filmation Adventures at the time) and the Teen Titans, consisting of Speedy (Roy Harper), Kid Flash (Wally West), Aqualad (Garth) and Wonder Girl (Donna Troy).These Filmation shorts, especially those concerning the Justice League and the Teen Titans, can definitely be considered an important part of animation history (especially regarding comic book animation), in that this was the first time these characters had been immortalised in animated form, offering viewers a sort of precursor to the upcoming Super Friends series and the later shows making up the DC Animated Universe of the 1990s. Although undeniably quite repetitive and predictable at times, this set is definitely worth some respect as part of the Filmation Adventures that started it all (following Max Fleischer's Superman animated movie shorts of the 1940s of course).Regarding the DVD features, there are colourful interactive menus on both discs (although Warner obviously made a mistake placing pictures of Hanna-Barbera's Birdman where Hawkman should have been shown - signs of a rushed release!), with additional subtitle and audio options for the English hard-of-hearing and for the Portugese speaking community. Regarding bonus content, there are trailers available to view of some latest releases from the Warner Brothers vault, including Charlie Brown, Popeye & Friends, the Smurfs and the Lego Batman video-game (there are additional trailers played upon loading the second disc into your DVD player of other Warner Brothers animated releases). However, the one hefty extra is a near-forty-minute documentary surrounding the life and work of Fimation's founder Lou Scheimer, titled 'Animation Maverick: The Lou Scheimer Story'. In this, there is interesting discussion of how Lou Scheimer founded and maintained his business empire of Filmation from friends, family, ex-colleagues and fellow admirers within the animation industry.I would most definitely recommend this DVD set to early animation enthusiasts, to comic book historians and fans of DC's Justice League, if only to explore the animated first outing of some of the comic book industry's most famous and loved characters. As an accompaniment to these shorts, I would highly recommend the first season of 'The New Adventures of Superman', available on DVD (hopefully later seasons will become available in the future) and the two-DVD set of 'The Adventures of Aquaman', which concluded each episode of the 'Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure' in 1967 and '68.

The previous reviews give an accurate account of which cartoons to expect in this series.Here's a lot of superfluous waffle, for all those who actually want the fine details of how these cartoons were originally aired.They first screened as part of the 1967 Superman Aquaman Hour of Adventure, which also included (per episode) 2 Superman stories (not yet on DVD. See below), 2 Aquaman stories, and a Superboy story (release problems detailed below).So normally, following an Aquaman story, you'd have seen (on tv) a collection of Justice Leaguers and Teen Titans moving around the screen to a 30 second Ted Knight narration "Stay tuned for another exciting adventure, featuring a guest star from this world of Super Super Heroes."Then you'd see a commercial break.Then you'd get the customized beginning theme for a Justice League/ Atom / Hawkman / Flash/ Green Lantern / Teen Titans story.(If you saw these guest star stories on the Superman Batman Adventures on Cartoon Network in the early 2000s, you'd have noticed that these two "Stay tuned" and "Character Begin" themes were missing, and the stories were often ruthlessly cut too. (One of the worst examples was in the Justice League America story "Bad Day on Black Mountain." The team divides up their tasks. Flash says "Atom and I go for the rocket base." (The actual sequence of Atom and Flash doing their mission was completely edited out.So I'm very pleased to see that Warner are releasing this lot in full, and can only hope it will include the customized character begin themes and the "Stay tuned..." theme (even if only as extras).In Australia, of course, we saw the shows separately. The Superman (and Superboy) cartoons (from the two latter shows) were just packaged with the previous Superman series.The Aquaman and guest star stories were aired as "Aquaman, King of the Seven Seas" show.The Batman stories were aired as "The Adventures of Batman". (Here's hoping we'll see them eventually too. Last year gave us the 1977 New Adventures of Batman, which was great).However, lest we forget to remind Warner Bros, an above review's comments about the Superman cartoons aren't quite right. The 36 cartoons from last year's Superman release are only the Superman cartoons from the 1966 Superman Show.There were another batch of 16 cartoons created for the 1967 Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure (WHICH WEREN'T INCLUDED IN THE SET RELEASED IN 2007).There were a third batch: this time of 8 x 2-part stories created for the 1968 Batman Superman Hour, to match the 2-part format of the Batman stories. (THESE ALSO WEREN'T INCLUDED IN THE 2007 RELEASE OF NEW ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN).So at some point, I would hope we can still convince Warner Bros to put out a second volume of "New Adventures of Superman" to include all the episodes from the 1967-68 serieses detailed above. An above reviewer made an honest mistake, but don't think you've seen them all yet.As well as that, all 3 shows had Superboy stories in the middle, which we won't see, unless a resolution of the Superboy rights issues has occurred/will occur.ALL THAT SAID, I'M JUST BEING IMPATIENT FOR WHAT WE HAVEN'T HAD YET. GRAB THIS RELEASE AND REVEL IN IT. YOU CAN PULL OUT ALL YOUR JUSTICE LEAGUE, GREEN LANTERN, HAWKMAN, ATOM, FLASH, TEEN TITANS COMICS AND READ THEM AGAIN, ONCE THESE SHOWS HAVE PUT YOU IN THE MOOD.IT'S A GREAT PACKAGE, AND THE COVER ART LOOKS GOOD TOO.

For those of us who are DC cartoon freaks, this release is wonderful. Before Hanna-Barbara's put forth the Justice League in the seventies Super-Friends, Filmation beat them to it (for the most part) with the Aquaman/Superman Power Hour.While Batman was tied up elsewhere (the Adam West series), Filmation was able to animate Superman, Aquaman, Atom, Green Lantern, Flash, Hawkman, and the Teen Titans (minus Robin).Probably one of the greatest strengths of the DVD, is Andy Mangels fifty minute documentary on the Filmation studios. Outside of Hanna/Barbara one of of the animation power houses of the sixties/seventies. That alone recommends this purchase.Compared to today's animated adventures, the stories may seem awfully tame. Basically, evil villain has plan to conquer America and/ or the world. Hero hears about plot and goes to stop it. After losing a preliminary battle or two, the hero eventually succeeds. That's the basic plot. These stories also lack today's angst or emotional dilemnas' for the hero.Maybe there's something to be said for that.I do have one minor quibble with this set. It is missing the original opening Aquaman Superman Power of Adventure Opening theme, which was a fun element all to itself. One can track it down on youtube.com if interested. According to various sources, the Batman 69 animated program might be next for digital release. If so, the DC cartoon classic will be one step further closer to [email protected]

The media could not be loaded.  Awesome show for its day. It sure did catches and maintained my attention as a person of a younger generation.

Theses are the vintage cartoons, not what I was expecting but the kids still liked them

Reissue of an existing collection in a different package.

Everything about this release is fun! The package and DVD menus are great and the episodes are fun! I love the fact that DC and Filmation produced these shorts! However, if you're looking for actual, engaging stories featuring DC heroes, check out Justice League Unlimited and Batman: Brave and the Bold.

Excellent experience, first rate seller, product as it was supposed to be, would recommend to others and buy from again, well done and thank you. !!!!