The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure

Filmation's 1966-8 foray into DC Superheroes animation produced what remain among the best television cartoons ever. While the overall animation itself will never win any awards, the character designs and backgrounds are superb (due in part to the employment of ex-Jonny Quest animator Anatole Kirsanoff), the voice cast is superior to all, and the music tracks by John Marion and Gordon Zahler are among the finest in filmdom.

Aquaman features some of Marion and Zahler's strongest music scores, while Superman features one of the Man Of Steel's signature theme cues. Bud Collyer, Jackson Beck, Jack Grimes, Marvin Miller, and company flesh out the characters with voice performances that remain among the strongest ever.

I was in fourth grade, the thick of my comic-reading years, when this show came out. I couldn't believe my luck that my favorite DC heroes were now on TV.

The stories may seem corny now, but they were played straight, unlike the campy or downright comical Super Friends.

But some things really annoyed me. Most basically: What was so hard about getting the costumes right? Almost every character had such changes to his costume that even I at age 9 could notice (and still remember at age 44!).

1. The show gave Aquaman black boots. In the comic, he wore no boots, just the green tights.

2. The show gave Flash yellow gauntlets and a regular yellow belt. In the comic, he wears a yellow lighting belt and lightning bands around his forearms with red gloves.

3. The show reversed Kid Flash's color schemes.

4. The show gave Hawkman some kind of claw/glove on his right hand. It could emit beams of some kind. The comic Hawkman fought bare-handed, though sometimes with a mace. And he didn't have a pet hawk in the comics.

5. The Atom wore a plain blue shirt and trunks, broken by a black belt, instead of the comic's red and blue shirt, blue belt, and no trunks on red tights.

6. Green Lantern's costume came out unscathed. But he has this alien buddy Kiro instead of the Inuit buddy Pieface. Never figured that one.

7. We get Wonder Girl and Speedy in the Teen Titans, but we don't get Wonder Woman or Green Arrow in the Justice League of America. Go figure.

This show left me wondering for years whether Filmation got the rights to the characters, but not to all of the costumes. At least when Super Friends came out, they got the costumes right. And they gave us Wonder Woman, too!

THIS SERIES CAME during the second year of the 2nd Invasion of the entertainment world of the 1960's. The first was, of course, the Great British Invasion of the Pop Music scene of 1964-???? It was spearheaded by that "Fab 4" from Liverpool. Once the Beatles appeared on THE ED SULLIVAN SHOW, the place was insured for Dave Clark 5, The Rolling Stones, The Zombies, Freddy & the Dreamers, en ad infinium.

THIS SECOND WAVE invasion had little too with the first; but, in its own way, was just about as influential in the future of kiddie kartoon time on the networks; as well as the perception of just what constituted the makes of a good action series*. This was the era of the Comic Book Super Hero; who had come of age.

ALTHOUGH THE GROUND had been broken the year before with THE NEW ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN (Filmation, 1966), this series superseded it and in the process doubled the air time for DC Comics' Super Hero stable. The SUPERMAN episodes remained the same along with those portraying SUPERBOY "the Adventures of SUPERMAN when he was a boy!"

IT IS OBVIOUS from the title that the series brought AQUAMAN to the small screen; but this may well have been a surprise to any astute followers of the comic book stories. Aquaman had bee a sort of second string hero during most of his long career. His feature was slated as a back-up in MORE FIUN COMICS and ADVENTURE COMICS; that is for about by the first 20 years of his run.

THEN SELECTIVE SERVICE System intervened. He was "drafted" to serve as one of the original "charter" members of the JUSTICE LEAGUE OF America".** It seems that there was a rather light roster of "Long Underwear" characters available; which even compelled an editorial adjustment in choosing J'ONN J'ONZZ-MANHUNTER FROM MARS to the League's ranks.***

PEHAPS THE GREATEST achievement of this series was to bring film/video counterparts of the comics' pages of THE FLASH, HAWKMAN, THE ATOM and GREEN LANTERN.

IT ALSO BFROUGHT the first moving images to the screen of THE JUSTICE LEAGUE; albeit in a sort of contracted version; being that there was no inclusion of GREEN ARROW, MARTIAN MANHUNTER, BATMAN or WONDER WOMAN. All of these characters were "members in good standing" and active at this time. We theorize that BATMAN and WONDER WOMAN were then under exclusive film rights to William Dozier's Production Company and to 20th Century-Fox Television. (Schultz says he agrees!)

AS FURTHER PROOF to our theory, the series underwent another name change following the ending of the BATMAN TV Series. It became known then as THE BATMAN/SUPERMAN HOUR OF ADVENTURE.

WELL WE KNOW that all of this doesn't add up to very much; but it is a part of the history of comic characters as well as that of television. itself.

NOTE * We've long held that series such as THE A TEAM were basically comic book fare that was transferred to the medium of the screen. The A TEAM could have very well been a creation of the team of Stan Lee & Jack Kirby and there is a definite influence there.

NOTE ** The depleted ranks of the superhero features, which had largely fallen from grace, forced the editorial board of National Comics/DC to sort of promote AQUAMAN. After the JLA bowed for the first time on December 29, 1959, in the "try-out" comic, THE BRAVE & THE BOLD (#'s 28, 29 & 30) it was decided to give him his own publication; which he did get following his "try-out" in the pages of SHOWCASE (DC's other introductory magazine).

NOTE *** Prior to this time, the presence of Martian J'ONN J'ONZZ was unknown to anyone on Earth; even though he had a secret identity and fought crime as a Police Detective. That all changed prior to the publication of JLA; allowing THE MARTIAN MANHUNTER to enlist as a charter member.

Why "The Cartoon Network" does not rerun these cartoons is a big mystery? Maybe in the past they did? But I scanned (recently) in the TV guide, and they don't anymore. This show was Super Duper Cool. They use to show it on television on some Bay Area (or maybe it wasn't because my reception always looked like TV snow) TV station back in the mid 80's. The coolest aspect was that it wasn't as cheezy as "The Super Friends" and it gave "Green Lantern" his own mini-show. The fact that they were made in 1967, was great because all the comic book characters looked like they were suppose look... "silver age" style! And to find out Ted Knight did narration, only makes it groovier. Please, some one out there needs to release them on video, or play them on the "Cartoon Network"! Even if it's just to show the Awesome "Green Lantern" on TV! If I saw it again, I'm sure I'd give it a 10!

Being a child of the 70's, I wish I had been around in the late 1960's when Saturday morning programming consisted 80% of animated Super Hero cartoons. I would have loved to have seen the original format of the DC Super Heroes by Filmation. I'd already seen Superman and Superboy on the Bozo Show when I was around the ages of 11 or 12.

As for Aquaman, I didn't see those cartoons until I was a high school senior and we had finally gotten a VCR, so I went to Blockbuster video and rented the Super Powers Aquaman cartoons. I was blown away. Loved the music and the voice overs. I enjoyed Aquaman and Aqualad and could handle Mera and the sea horses. It was Tusky the Walrus I could have done without. I think he and Space Ghost's monkey Blip were the beginning of useless cartoon characters who had no business hanging out with Super Heroes. Aquaman's foes were enjoyable. The only one who I wasn't too hot about was Black Manta. The design and Ted Knight's voice for him just didn't do him justice. After seeing Black Manta on Challenge of the SuperFriends voiced over by Ted Cassidy, no one seems to hold a candle. I loved watching Aquaman create hard water balls even though that is actually Mera's power. It seems to me that the Aquaman cartoons were trying to cash in on the camp style of the Batman TV show. The Aqua duo had an Aquacave and Aquacomputers that work underwater. And Aqualad has catchphrases like Holy Haddocks! or Sufferin Sailfish!! And what was up with Aquaman's boots? I'm used to the legs with fins. But these flaws are minor and shouldn't stop you from checking out the Aquaman animated series of 1967. I love the music, especially the theme music. Lots of Almanacs and sites pertaining to Aquaman tend to get one thing wrong. It wasn't Ted Knight who did Aquaman's voice, though he narrated and voiced over all male villains and background characters. It was actually Marvin Miller and he did a pretty good job.

As for the DC Heroes, I didn't see them until the badly edited Superman/Batman Adventures package that aired in 1996 on USA Network. Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman, The Atom, and the Teen Titans each had something odd or wrong about their outfits, but that doesn't stop the shows from being exciting with lots of action packed action. I only wish Batman, Wonder Woman, and Green Arrow could have been on Justice League and Robin could have been leading the Teen Titans. But in the cases of Batman and Robin, it's understandable since their rights were tied up with the Live TV show at the time.

Though I've never seen this hour long show in its original format, I did one time see what a sample of half the format looked like. It had 2 Aquaman episodes with one rotating DC cartoon in the middle. The first of those I saw was the Justice League of America. Awesome!! Like I said before, these cartoons are well worth checking out.