So why the title "Superfriends Universe"? Well, the show was obviously based on the Justice League of America and the DC Universe, but certainly didn't adapt the comics verbatim. Being a Hanna-Barbara property, it was like DC Comics were infused with that cheesy 1970's classic cartoon DNA. As a result, we have something wholly unique from the comics with its own continuity and unique characters. Think of it in terms of the pre-Crisis/post-New Crisis/yadda yadda yadda version of the DCU, where separate but similar Earths exist. The Superfriends Wiki uses the demarcation of Earth 1-A...not sure if that's what this blog will use as well, but you get the idea.
But, we are still only referring to the Superfriends series, all 208 episodes of it. Obviously these all exist comfortably in this continuity. But what else? Could other cartoons be considered a part of this continuity? Well, I certainly think that, with a little imagination and good ol' American grit and determination, there are.
In 1972, one year prior to the first season of Super Friends, Batman and Robin co-starred in 2 "New Scooby-Doo Movies" where they teamed up with Mystery, Inc to foil the schemes of Joker and Penguin. As a result, Scooby-Doo and the gang are part of this shared universe, which dedicated folks elsewhere on the Interwebs have covered in detail, such as ScoobyAddicts.com, so that saves me a lot of work. If we can make this jump to include those meddlesome teenagers, then it's to be assumed that other superheroes they've teamed up with would also be in-continuity. I am, of course, referring to 1976's Blue Falcon and Dynomutt! Sure, they never officially crossed-over into the Superfriends series itself, but are connected via Mystery, Inc. The show DID feature a supervillain team of Blue Falcon baddies that called itself "The Injustice League of America"...now where do you think those bad guys got the idea to call themselves that? Perhaps they exist in the same world as The Justice League of America? I think so.
So that gives us The Super Friends, at least the 2 Scooby-Doo movies with Batman and Robin, and Blue Falcon and Dynomutt. What else? I think another easy inclusion would be the "Plastic Man" series by Ruby-Spears from 1979-1980 (airing right after the Superfriends on ABC). After all, we know Plastic Man exists in the Superfriends Universe due to his one cameo appearance in season one's "Professor Goodfellow's G.E.E.C.", never to be seen again. In his series, Plas was working with the government to solve cases and then got married and had a kid. I like to think that his career and family were his priorities at this point, keeping him from assisting the Justice League in anymore adventures.
One of the things Superfriends did on a few occasions was display the date the episode was taking place in. Two Examples: In "Time Rescue", the time machine states that it was December 17, 1977. In "The Ghost", Gentleman Jim's grave informs us he was alive again briefly in 1971-1972, and then that episode's adventure took place in 1977-1977. Why am I bringing this nonsense up? Well, we can assume there is some history at play here...that the memebers of the Justice League as well as the Justice League team itself has been active for quite some time, at the very least, the 1960's. And guess how lucky we are? There were several cartoons produced in the 1960's by Filmation featuring DC properties: Superman, Superboy, Aquaman, Batman & Robin, Teen Titans, Green Lantern, The Flash, The Atom, Hawkman, and, oh yes, The Justice League of America. I look at these excellent cartoons as the "early years" of the Superfriends characters, with a few examples of some overlap, which I will cover in future posts of this blog.
Still with me? Tired of making these jumps of continuity logic? We are almost done! If we can bring the Filmation 60's DC stuff into this Universe, then we can bring the 1977 Filmation "New Adventures of Batman" into the mix. This series was absolutely a sequel series to the 1960's Batman cartoon, using the same character models and Batmobile design. So if we take the 60's Batman, we gotta take the 70's Batman. Finally, Filmation had 1 more DC property that I'd like to make part of this Universe. 1981's "Shazam!" cartoon series only lasted 12 episodes, but was pretty damn faithful to the comics and doesn't deserve to be lost in cartoon limbo forever. Let's bring 'em in! (Not to mention, "Challenge of the Superfriends" was originally going to feature Captain Marvel and some of his Rogues Gallery, so that's something).
There we go! That's what I consider to be all the shows that make-up what I refer to as The Superfriends Universe! Like I said, a slight bit of imagination is needed , and perhaps a few Ibuprofins, but I think this works out quite well.Think of it as a 60s/70's/80's version of Bruce Timm's DC Animated Universe. Future posts will start to make sense of this expanded and much more inclusive timeline, as well as featuring Charcter Spotlights and Episode Reviews from these other shows. We've got a lot of ground to cover, so stay tuned!
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