Season 2, Episode 5, Storyline D – “Energy Mass”
Original Airdate: October 8, 1977
It’s Craft Time!
Superman comes across a treasure chest on the beach that doesn’t belong to him and starts rifling through it like that’s totally ok.
He finds a telescope, says “it would look good in anybody’s room,” but then brags that because of his x-ray vision, he doesn’t need it. That’s great; you know why? BECAUSE IT’S NOT YOURS, SUPERMAN.
There’s other stuff in there, too – glue, old spools (which Super Friends seems to think every household has piles and piles of), paint – all the things you’ll need to make a model telescope. What a crappy treasure to find. It’s almost as if there’s some lesson to be learned about not going through other people’s stuff.
Here’s how you make your model telescope that Superman doesn’t need because of his awesome x-ray vision and don’t you forget it:
1. From your giant pile of empty wooden thread spools, pick out four different sizes because obviously you would have four different sizes.
2. Put them on a soda straw, which I don’t know what that is, I think they may be using 1950s speak again, or, he just means “a straw” and is being a jerk about it. Then, you glue each spool together and remove the soda straw – why the hell did we need a soda straw in the first place? Forget the soda straw, I’m sorry I ever mentioned it.
3. Using your telekinetic powers or your ability to stop time (most people can do one or the other), hover your glued spools in mid-air and paint everything brown, like so:
4. Then, add yellow to the raised parts to look like brass. Now you have a model telescope made from stolen materials – congratulations!
Energy Mass – Short Synopsis: “The island of Japan, home of the Takado (my guess), the 125 mph super train.” – Narrator
These guys are standing around a bunch of orange and yellow stuff in a giant jar and then danger lights start flashing and they say the energy mass is growing too rapidly. “Our experimental perpetual energy could be disastrous if it got out of hand,” says the one in the lab coat. Guess what happens.
“Stand back! No one can survive it’s touch,” exclaims the one in the proper brown 1970’s suit. So, now there’s a high speed train with a giant orange and yellow thing that kills whatever it touches aboard. It’s heading downhill, so if someone can’t get past the energy blob, I mean, mass, and apply the brakes, all is lost.
The Super Friends are alerted, and it turns out that Batman and Robin just so happen to be “right near Japan,” and they have special guest star, Atom, with them.
Atom, the littlest Super Friend.
Who’s this Atom? I looked him up in Wikipedia, which had this to say about him:
“The Atom/Ray Palmer possesses the power to alter his size down to the subatomic level while retaining his natural strength level. This is accomplished by using the remnants of a white-dwarf star made into a belt buckle worn with his costume.”
Belt-buckle-based super powers? Ok by me. I wonder how much fawning from regular-sized ladies he gets when he’s li’l. He probably hears a lot of, “oh, I could just put him in my pocket and take him home,” or “isn’t he the sweetest li’l thing?” I bet when that happens, he makes an expression that looks like this:
They gloss over the ending, so I can, too!
Batman, Atom, and Robin show up. They all focus on stopping the train, which they succeed at with teamwork and the script. The scientists create some kind of counter-balance blob of yellow and orange, and everything turns out fine.
Then, Atom says he’s all tuckered out, and pretends to take a nap on Batman’s shoulder. It was awkward and I felt weird watching it.
Health Segment
There’s a fire in a neighborhood, and fire trucks roar down the street. Wonder Woman swoops in from out of nowhere, as she is wont to do, to talk to the kid who called 911 (and not help out with the fire). The kid says he had some trouble calling the fire department. Wonder Woman has the answer! She tells him he needs an emergency contact list. This is the example she shows him:
So, kids, when you get home, take a permanent marker and scrawl a bunch of contact information directly on the wall – Wonder Woman says to!
P.S. I’m posting Super Friends outtakes on the Cannibalistic Nerd Facebook page. So, if you need a mid-week Super Friends pick-me-up, that’s the place to get it.
If you would like to see these shenanigans for yourself, Season 2 is available on DVD.
Well, that was a fascinating ep, I was riveted.
I hope Superman has since got rid of that stupid kiss-curl in the middle of his forehead. It annoys the hell out of me. He is a grown-ass Super Hero, not a kewpie doll.
Maybe it’s like when they try to put needles in him and they break – he tries to take a brush to get that curl out and it’s like hitting steel.
So really, the scientists saved the day, am I right? Superfriends just got in the way? Again?
The scientists did the most important thing, the Super Friends stopped the train. They didn’t get in the way, but they didn’t solve the entire problem. Basically, there were there so the writers didn’t have to focus on the actual science.
I be fair to the Supermun, my grandparents and aunts and uncles had a lot of spools in their houses in the 70s when I was a kid. Country folk still made their own clothes, quilts, and table cloths then. That being said, Superdoosh should have tracked down a Lost and Found or Goodwill.
what was this story about? I always liked The Atom. I was the smallest kid in my class until the 11th grade.
great, now I’m depressed.
I actually have a bunch of wooden spools – from my grandma. But, they still have thread on them and I don’t think there’s four different sizes.
The story wasn’t much of a story. The plot was about as big as Atom himself.
Request: a t-shirt with the orange/yellow blob saying, “I’m out of hand, bitches.” It’s all I want for my birthday.
I so wish I could do that.
I’m confused. Was the radioactive orange and yellow stuff used to power the train or did the scientists just happen to have their lab – where they work on highly volatile material – aboard a high speed train? So many follow up questions to either answer.
They had their lab on an unrelated high speed train. And that I didn’t point that out makes me worried that my logic is being corrupted by watching so many of these episodes.