The Fantastic Four

This Saturday-morning adaptation of the Marvel Comics title was done at a time when parental fears of violence on TV were at their worst. As such, the Human Torch does not appear in it. Parents were afraid their kids would like the Human Torch so much, they might try to light themselves on fire. Or something. Of course, without the Human Torch, they would only be the "Fantastic Three," so the writers had to invent a new character to fill in for him. And whom did they invent to replace the Human Torch? Why none other than H.E.R.B.I.E. the Robot, a robot so annoyingly cute that you want to throw your bowl of Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs cereal at the TV every time he appears. The animation was on par with that of the animated Star Trek TV series -- in other words, it stank. And worst of all, I can't recall a single episode in which Doctor Doom made an appearance. What good are the Fantastic Four without Doctor Doom? That's like having an entire Silver Surfer TV series without Galactus, or a John Travolta movie without Scientology.

I loved this show a lot! The plot in each episode was really good and the characters, oh how I adore these characters! Also, one of my favorite animation styles!

The crew of a rocket ship is bombarded by mysterious cosmic rays from deep space. Their leader Reed Richards is turned into the stretchy Mr. Fantastic. His wife Sue Richards is turned into Invisible Girl. Ben Grimm is turned into the Thing. Along with Herbie the robot (Humanoid Electronic Robot B-Style), they are the Fantastic Four. Their headquarters is atop the Baxter Building in New York City.

The comedy is a little cheesy and the story telling is a bit stiff. The animation and story style is from an older generation. There is some fun in seeing these characters in their older versions. The disappointment is a general lack of good action and tension. It does have the fun stretching sounds.

This is the second animated iteration of the classic comic heroes, The Fantastic Four. The most noticeable difference is the missing Human Torch. There was a problem with rights during that time. Herbie is not going down as one of the great robots of all times. It is a rather poor substitution for the Human Torch. It is a much more static character compared to the dynamic Torch. This is a bit before my time and probably did not get much reruns. It's hard to remember if I ever saw this before now. It is certainly dated when viewed today.

Herbie is better than Human Torch and I'll tell you why.

1) Anybody with a jet-pack and flamethrower can do what Human Torch does.

2) Having the physicality of the Human Torch added to Thing and Sue Storms force shields relegates Mr. Fantastic to a more cerebral role, but with Herbie doing computations it frees up Mr. Fantastic for more stretchy combat action.

3) Arguments and put downs between Ben Grimm and a robot are somehow more amusing by the nature of their absurdity, than arguments between Ben and Johnny, and Herbie and Ben have a great rapport that is not the same with Johnny.

4) Human Torch asks for a bridge too far in all the "fantastic" suspensions of disbelief. Why would being combustible magically enable him to fly-- and though we can grant that Reed could invent flexy clothes to fit his plastic powers, how don't Human Torch's clothes burn up? Herbie is more interesting to me than Human Torch and the way Ben is better than in the comics, where he is always complaining and has no gratitude for miraculously surviving a cosmic accident and crash landing without permanent injury or pain, just burdened with super strength and a monstrous, but not entirely unpleasant appearance. This Ben is more fun, and Herbie is more fun than Human Torch, too.

It has to be said this Fantastic Four cartoon was quite poor in most respects, and i dont even mean because Herbie the Robot was in it in the place of The Torch.

As a kid in the UK i was weaned on AMERICAN, Fantastic Four comics, not the British black and white reprints like some kids, and the 1967 Hannah Barbera Fantastic Four cartoon, wich i think is a classic. I was around the age of 15 when we got the 1978 on Television in the UK, and still a big comic book fan, and along with the Spider-Man live action TV Series, found this series a big disapointment. It was one thing replacing the Torch in the team. It had happened in the comics on numerous occasions (with Medussa and Lazerfirst for example), but the route the 1978 Animated series producers took to introduce Herbie the Robot, was uninspired depressing and plain embarassing if you were caught watching the series as a 15 year old. Why not introduce an already established Marvel character into the team, such as Iceman or Ant Man or just about any other character. Just thinking about the cute little Herbie is sending my blood pressure up. As well as that the storylines for this series was weak and the dialogue given to the characters was feeble. The characterisation of the F4, or is it F3 Themselves was completely out of tune with the comics and previous animated series. Sue was represented as an old hagg, moaning all the time, Reed a completely boring leader with none of the humour ascociated with his character apparent, and Ben, well actually Ben didn't come off to badly, his character getting the best lines and most of the action. It is fair to say that the animation itself was appalingly lame right down to the way the characters appeared. Ben for instance looked exactly like Homer Simpson making this monster in fact cuter than Herbie. There was also moments of crass recycling and stock animation apparent.

About the only thing that rescues this series is the classic theme tune. Still, avoid this one, hunt down episodes of the 1967 series instead.