Super Friends: The Complete Collection [Blu-Ray]

Cast: Danny Dark, Olan Soule, Casey Kasem (VOICES)

Release Date:September 10, 2024

A Review By: Kevin Lovell

Disc Rating: 8/10

Synopsis:

The greatest DC Super Heroes unite to uphold justice, supported by their young protégés. Produced by Hanna-Barbera and featuring the Justice League of America, the animated TV series Super Friends ran from 1973 to 1985 as part of a Saturday morning cartoon lineup.

Gather up the whole family and prepare to travel back to the delightful days of Saturday morning cartoons as the Super Friends unite and take on villainy in all of its forms in ‘Super Friends: The Complete Collection’ which features every version of the series from 1973-1985 which was a long running staple of Saturday morning cartoons. Join Superman, Batman, Robin, Wonder Woman, Aquaman and various other DC super heroes, along with such notable young heroes as the infamous Wonder Twins as they fight evil, save those in danger and even offer some life advice and lessons for the younger viewers along the way.

‘Super Friends’ is a truly iconic cartoon that introduced many young viewers to DC’s Justice League of America and first debuted in 1973 then continued under various titles and incarnations through 1985, featuring a different formula over the years and often adapting its style and tone in order to accommodate the era in which it aired, with the series first starting off on a notably one dimensional and light note and soon thereafter, even including helpful tips, magic tricks and other fun tidbits to try and get the young viewers involved, only to shift up on the team members (while usually always retaining the main five) and building to a somewhat darker tone in its later years, yet always keeping things family friendly and very much geared towards kids.

Initially beginning with ‘Super Friends’ which debuted in 1973 and ran for a total of 16 episodes which saw the initial core team of Superman, Batman, Robin, Wonder Woman and Aquaman joined by young sidekicks Wendy, Marvin and Wonder Dog and featured hour long singular story episodes. It then returned with ‘The All-New Super Friends Hour’ in 1977 which once again ran for 16 hour-long episodes (although this time broken up into shorter segments) and introduced the Wonder Twins, often going out of its way to keep things easygoing, even utilizing the Wonder Twins to teach lessons and make points in their weekly adventures, while also offering a glimpse at some new DC super heroes (or at least new to the cartoon world, not the comics themselves) in guest appearances. The 1977 run was followed up a mere year later in 1978 by ‘Challenge of the Super Friends’ which included 32 segments over 16 episodes and introduced the signature Legion of Doom villain team; it is worth noting that while this was another hour long series with two segments, the series is separated on this set with half of the episodes listed as Super Friends 1978 and the other half as ‘Challenge of the Super Friends’.

The series was rebooted once again as ‘The World’s Greatest Super Friends’ in 1979 which consisted of 8 episodes before officially returning to the original ‘Super Friends’ title yet with 30 minute episodes featuring multiple stories in 1980 with 8 episodes, in 1981 with 6 episodes and again in 1983 with 8 additional episodes (the 1981 and 83 editions were intended to be released together but were affected by the writers’ strike). The final two installments of the series adapted to the times yet again and took things in a slightly darker direction and featured Darkseid as the key villain; these two versions were ‘Super Friends: The Legendary Super Powers Show’ in 1984 and ‘The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians’ in 1985, each of which consisted of 8 thirty minute episodes.

Every episode of every version of the ‘Super Friends’ animated series arrives home on Blu-ray for the first time ever courtesy of Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment. The 16-disc Blu-ray release of ‘Super Friends: The Complete Collection’ brings home all 93 episodes from every version of the cartoon series featuring very nice High Definition video presentations for every episode in every installment which are only further complemented by solid DTS-HD MA soundtracks for each, along with a handful of Featurettes and other extras on select discs/series. The release does follow the recent trend of all 16 discs arriving in a DVD sized Epik-Pak set that fits inside an amaray case which may not thrill some fans. Fortunately the altogether impressive high definition video and audio presentations and every episode of every version of ‘Super Friends’ available for the first time on Blu-ray in one convenient collection still makes this set worth looking into. For anyone that’s a fan of the iconic series and already considering a purchase, the release should not disappoint (especially not in the quality department for an older toon such as this) and is recommended.

VIDEO:

The Blu-ray release of ‘Super Friends: The Complete Collection’ features a full 1080p High Definition presentation on every episode of the series (and every incarnation from 1973-1985) with the show’s original 1.33:1 Full Frame Aspect Ratio in which the series was originally broadcast. The video presentations look pretty great, especially when taking into account the age of the series itself and they deliver clean, sharp and nicely detailed presentations from start to finish on each episode that are rich with color. Detail looks quite good on everything from character specifics to backgrounds and everything else appearing onscreen along the way. There are some noticeable minor imperfections such as wear and dirt on occasion, but if anything it only benefits the appearance of this older cartoon and helps to represent its roots; there seems to possibly be some minor noise and grain reduction but nowhere near the level of many other shows and films and all in all the presentations look better than many will expect and easily better than this animated series has ever appeared before. Overall, these are very nice high definition presentations that hold up nicely and should excite fans.

AUDIO:

The Blu-ray release includes a 2.0 channel DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on all 93 episodes of the series/franchise. These lossless two channel soundtracks do their job well and sound quite good as a whole, delivering clean, crisp and well balanced soundtracks for every episode of every version of the series. They do a capable job of balancing the various audio elements within and everything including dialogue, music, action effects and all the rest sound very good and no dialogue or other simultaneously occurring audio elements ever contradict or negatively affect one another, with each element and specific tidbit sounding sharp and clean. Overall, these are solid 2.0 DTS-HD MA soundtracks that never falter or disappoint and bring the series home sounding better than ever.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

The Blu-ray release of ‘Super Friends: The Complete Collection’ features a few extras on a handful of the discs. The extras are not noted anywhere on the packaging, but I’ve broken them down by disc below for easy navigation.

‘The All-New Super Friends Hour’ Disc 3 includes the Featurettes ‘One Dimensional Goodness: The Super Friends and the Good Old Days’ (running approximately 14 minutes in length), ‘Origins of the Guest Stars’ (running approximately 8 minutes) and ‘The Wonder Twins Phenomenon’ (approximately 12 minutes).

‘Super Friends’ (1978) Disc 2 includes ‘The Ballad of Zan and Jayna (Wonder Twin Powers Activate)’ Music Video (approximately 4 minutes) and ‘Pajama-Rama: Super Friends Retrospective’ (12 minutes).

‘Super Friends: The Legendary Super Powers Show’ (1984) includes ‘Audio Commentary’ on 5 segments: ‘The Wrath of Brainiac’, ‘No Honor Among Thieves’, ‘The Mask of Mystery’, ‘The Case of the Dreadful Dolls’ and ‘The Royal Ruse’, in addition to a couple Featurettes including ‘Evolution: New Heroes, Viler Villains, and Ethnic Additions’ (18 minutes) and ‘The Super Powers Collection: The Effect of the Toy Industry on The Super Friends’ (7 minutes).

‘The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians’ (1985) includes the Featurette ‘Super Friends Redux: Galactic Guardians’ (11 minutes).

*Please note that the above images are taken from the Blu-Ray and resized. They will additionally suffer quality loss as a result of .jpg compression. Larger versions of each image can be viewed by clicking on the image. All images and content included on this Blu-Ray release are the property of their respective owners.

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Disc Rating: 8/10

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‘Super Friends: The Complete Collection’ is Now Available to Own on Blu-ray & DVD from DC, Hanna-Barbera & Warner Bros Discovery Home Entertainment

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You can Purchase ‘Super Friends: The Complete Collection’ on Blu-ray at Amazon HERE!

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