Thursday, April 09, 2009

SuperFriends -- what a dumb bunch of cartoons!

I'm watching some old episodes of the SuperFriends on DVD. What a stupid, stupid show! Or more accurately, what a stupid show this was in its various incarnations. The dialog was stilted, the plots were usually paper-thin, the villians were cartoonish, and the way that these heroes used their powers was usually laughable.

I especially hated the way Robin was frequently portrayed as a victim, and how the Bat-duo would invariably have some sort of outlandish gadgets in their boots or utility belts. Ugh.

The very first series was much better, mind you. In the original SuperFriends series, the heroes used their abilities wisely. They were portrayed as having brains (especially Wonder Woman and Aquaman). What's more, Batman and Robin didn't have to rely on an excess of Bat-paraphernalia. (I remember one episode in which they had to slide down some ski lift cables. Did they pull out some Bat-puller or Bat-cable car? No, they just used their batarangs. Sadly, such simplicity was abandoned in favor of increasingly ridiculous gadgetry.)