DVD Review: The New Adventures of Superman

Do you miss Saturday morning cartoons? Depending on how old you are, the answer is likely to be yes. I remember, growing up, sitting in front of the television on Saturday morning and whatever channel I turned to I would find some animated cartoony goodness. This animated bliss would last for hours. These days, you have to really search for Saturday morning cartoons, it seems like the major networks have all but abandoned this practice, leaving them to the Cartoon Network for the Saturday morning fix. What does that have to do with The New Adventures of Superman? Well, a lot. This was one of the first cartoons geared for television viewing, and its quality and popularity helped to pioneer the Saturday morning experience.

The New Adventures of Superman was the first animated superhero to arrive specially designed for the small screen, and the first since the Fleisher shorts of the 1940s. This series first appeared in 1966, it aired in half hour blocks paired up with shorts featuring Superboy, and later with other DC heroes like Green Lantern, Hawkman, Flash, Teen Titans, and others. It is also notable as being the first major work from the Filmation animation studio.

Each episode runs approximately 6 minutes each and feature Superman facing off with a variety of villains, including aliens, mermen, Merlin, pteradactyls, as well as the first animated appearances of comic book baddies like Lex Luthor and Brainiac. There was even a specially created recurring villain in Warlock.

The episodes all followed a formula that a villain would reveal their dastardly plan, mild mannered reporter for the Daily Planet, Clark Kent, would be made aware of what was going on, finally Superman would leap into action and put a stop to the evil-doing. For what they were, the formula worked. Superman was, and is, one of the best superheroes to ever don the spandex, and he was presented here in all his heroic glory. It may be corny at times, but it was Superman, and it was larger than life.

Warner Brothers has released all 36 shorts from the first 18 episode season. Each half hour would include two Superman shorts with a Superboy short in between. What are not included are the Superboy shorts, or any of the second season episodes. The Superboy episodes are held up in legal matters between Warner and Jerry Siegel's estate. Hopefully, at some point we will get to see those other shorts at some point.

Audio/Video. The episodes are presented in their original aspect ratio and a remixed 5.1 Dolby Digital soundtrack. It is not perfect, but they look very good considering the age of the shows. The colors are crisp, and they sound good. No room to complain here!

Extras. The lone extra is a 15 minute featurette called "Superman in '66." It features interviews with Mark Waid (a writer of DC), Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker), and others on how the show was adapted and the impact it had.

Bottomline. This is a nice set. Not one that I feel I will watch very often, but it is definitely a treasure of animation history, and the shows are still a lot of fun. They are definitely an outgrowth of the the old radio show, but did a nice job bringing Big Blue to the small screen and helped bring us those Saturday morning cartoons of our youth.

Recommended.