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The All-New Super Friends Round Up S2 Ep3C – “City in a Bottle”

Season 2, Episode 3, Storyline C – “City in a Bottle”

Original Airdate: September 24, 1977

Short Synopsis: “Mid City, U.S.A, peaceful, with none of its millions of citizens unaware of the terrible fate being prepared for their grrrreat metropolis.” – Narrator

Ragor and Margor (whose name is later changed to Mangor) have found the “perfect city on the perfect planet” for their experiment. Their experiment?  To shrink a whole city and put it in a bottle, take it to their planet, and then do stuff to it. The transformation becomes permanent after 24 hours (Super Friends love arbitrary deadlines). The Wonder Twins and Gleek happened to be visiting the city that got shrunk.

“Jupiters! I hope it’s not the ‘no deposit no return’ kind!” – Zan, who I hate.

The NASA Space Tracking Station
When the Super Friends find out about the disappearance of the city, they rush to the NASA Space Tracking Station to figure out the trajectory of the UFO. As you can see, they have the most advanced space tracking technology available at the time – a swirly thing on a screen:

They track the UFO to planet X-3, which is made entirely of ice, and is 7 billion miles away, Aquaman and Wonder Woman somehow know off the top of their heads.

I don’t know how else to put this.
The Super Friends go to Cape Canaveral to get a rocket to go to X-3, and the following exchange takes place:

Person who knows about rockets: Well, we’d like to help, Superman, but a rocket powerful enough to get to planet X-3 would take years to build.
Superman: Then we’ll just have to make do with that one!
Rocketman: NO, SUPERMAN, WAIT!
Superman: We can’t wait! All aboard!

And then The Super Friends all climb aboard and hijack a rocket.

This is why I make fun of you on a weekly basis, Super Friends.
Superman is then frozen by Margor and Ragor while he was trying to “reverse the UFO’s gyro-rockets to halt descent.” Frozen into a solid block of ice, the ever astute Superman exclaims:

“It’s some alien form of ice! I….can’t….function!”

The Super Friends look really concerned, watching this happen in their groovy hijacked rocket:

Wonder Woman decides to free ice-chunk Superman by using her lasso to wrap around him and use “the ol’ fire by friction bit.”

Hush little baby, don’t say a word, Mama’s gonna use the ol’ fire by friction bit.

It works, and Superman is lassoed in safely.

Now give it here, you never should have promised to me, give it here.

Meanwhile, in the bottle.
Zan and Jayna find their way down to the very bottom of the bottle. Zan turns into an “ice spear” and Jan turns into a Gorilla. Jan then starts stabbing away at the bottom of the bottle.

They must not have realized that there were probably things like jackhammers available to them since, you know, the whole city was taken.

They then continue to suck and not help from outside the bottle.

De-Coder Part II
SHOCKING NEWS: something went wrong with one of the free hot air balloon baloon rides.

The clue is “what was beside you in the tree, not the bird itself, but what it likes to do.” My guess is “shit white poop.”

Nope, it was “sing.” So the de-coder word was “freezing.”

Let’s Wrap This Up in Pictures
In the span of about four minutes the following happens:

Batman and Robin are menaced by a dragon lobster.

Then, are saved by Wonder Woman and Aquaman, and they all have to share a single homemade wind sled thing.

Zan sends a message to the Super Friends after he climbs up the giant radio (because I never tire of miniature Super Friends).

Zan, Gleek, and Jayna are caught and thrown back in the bottle like they deserve.

Then, it’s revealed that below the ice surface is corrosive acid.

Then, the Super Friends fall for Mangor’s trap and end up stuck inside a cavern.

Then, because Mangor didn’t check for any exits, they make it out of the cavern.

Then, the word “impregnable” is used A LOT.

Then, they get trapped again.

I can’t take it anymore. I didn’t include the Mid City population analysis experiment, the shrunken army Mangor brought back to Earth, the frozen robot soldiers the Super Friends had to fight, Zan and Jayna going into the frozen soldier machine to muck up the mechanism, Superman flying back to earth with Mid City, Superman stealing borrowing a reflector from Metropolis observatory, Superman deflecting the Margor warriors to a distant asteroid, and Superman getting Mid City back into place. I just feel the need to remind everyone that this was about four minutes of story.

What did we learn from all of this? X-3 is a place you neither want to live or visit. And that the third storyline in the All-New Super Friends Hour episodes are painful to summarize. So, so painful.
If you would like to see these shenanigans for yourself, Season 2 is available on DVD.

Why didn’t you say something!?

Our house went off the market two weeks ago, and ever since then, the interest in buying  it has skyrocketed. Realtors have been calling Tom constantly wanting to “clarify some info” (nice try, but people who hate making phone calls as much as we do don’t fall for that crap). And, we got two letters in the mail from people who are interested in buying our house!

The first one was from a realtor who KNOWS SOMEONE WHO WANTS TO BUY OUR HOUSE, OMG! They get points for: 1. typing the letter (very professional) and 2. the bright blue envelope, really catches the eye. Plus, she wishes us all the best, she really has our best interest at heart.

The second one was from sweet Tara, who, along with her husband, loved our house, but must have ran out of time before it was taken off the market, their future snatched away in the blink of an eye. This one gets points for: 1. hand written in red ink (adds a personal touch) 2. the dollar signs around the word “buy.” You don’t know if someone is serious unless they really spell it out for you, and the dollar signs showed they meant business.

I really don’t want to upset these people and tell them that we found renters for the house.  This means two people who would have probably handed us a suitcase filled with cash (more than asking price, obviously) are out of luck. Hopefully they’ll be able to get over the disappointment.

The All-New Super Friends Round Up S2 Ep3B – “Hitchhike”

Season 2, Episode 3, Storyline B – “Hitchhike”

Original Airdate: September 24, 1977

Safety Segment
This week it’s about approaching dogs properly.

Wonder Woman swings down from her lasso and tells two 1970s children to always let a dog sniff your hand first before you pet him. Of course, if that dog’s owner was anywhere to be found, perhaps Wonder Woman wouldn’t have to spend her time lying in wait in a tree for children and a dog to meet up in the exact right spot.

Short Synopsis: The name of this segment is “Hitchhike,” and it stars the Wonder Twins. But, we all already know they aren’t going to end up in pieces scattered down Route 66, so I’m already disappointed.

“A busy intersection of Central City, where an unsuspecting young girl is about to take a very unpleasant ride.” – Narrator

Jody and Beth are waiting for the bus to take them to the beach (the same way Aquaman gets to the beach). Jody says they should skip the bus, hitchhike and “save the fare for the jukebox.”

Beth, the big square who doesn’t want to be sold as a sex slave, opts for the bus. Jody decides to hitchhike, and what could go wrong? She assures Beth that she “never accepts rides from creeps.” She tells Beth she’ll meet her at “the beach entrance.” What beach are they going to that has a single entrance and a jukebox in the sand?

Jody, you don’t know what “I don’t accept rides from creeps” means, do you?
Within 2 seconds of sticking out her thumb, this guy, who totally doesn’t look in any way like a creep, pulls up and asks her where she’s headed.

She gets in his car without any hesitation. That Jody thought she had a good head on her shoulders, until it ended up in a bowling bag in that guy’s trunk. I’m just kidding, he didn’t decapitate her, this is a Saturday morning children’s show.

“Later, at the beach.” – Narrator
Jody’s ride does take her all the way to the beach, right up to the entrance, where Beth responsibly awaits.

Beth notices Jody in the car of the non-creep, who has told Jody that she won’t be going to the beach today. Beth uses the nearby pay phone to call for help. So, Beth would have had more money for the jukebox, but Jody screwed her over.

WTF Screenshots
Y’all, I hate the Wonder Twins. I can’t stand their stupid purple uniforms and Jayna’s dumb soft serve hairdo and Zan’s crappy water transformations. I hate:

Their stupid Teen Trouble alert wrist watches.

Their dumb travel arrangement.

Their wacky tennis matches.

The problem I have with the Wonder Twins is that, unlike The Justice League characters, they don’t have a rich history of heroism to ruin so I can laugh at it. No, they sprung forth fully formed and sucking, so that takes a lot of the fun out of it for me.

But once Jody’s on that beach, “Undercover Angel” blasting from the Jukebox, it’ll all be worth it.
The perfect gentleman slows down due to a winding road, and Jody takes advantage, tossing herself out of the moving vehicle.

Perfect Gentleman chases her down.

Zan and Jayna to the rescue.
Blah blah blah, the guy, who turned out to be a total creep (surprise!) ends up in Zan’s “ice jail.”

Then, Jody assures everyone she’s learned her lesson about hitchhiking, and Gleek is chased by a seagull.

De-Coder Part 1

Superman shows up at a place giving away free hot air balloon baloon rides. Wait a second, didn’t we JUST learn that free rides only lead to being chased down by a dirty creep? Now I’m completely confused. And, I would think that you should never, ever accept a free balloon ride if the person offering it can’t spell “balloon” correctly.

The clue is “the price of the hot air baloon rides.” Oh, wow. Ok. Let me think.Oh, geez. I’m just glad I have a whole week to think about it.

If you would like to see these shenanigans for yourself, Season 2 is available on DVD.

Oh, because of April showers. I get it.

Now it’s time again to talk about my wall calendar.

It only took me until April 26th to figure out that the reason my classic movie poster calendar chose Singin’ in the Rain for the month of April because of April showers (what do you mean calendars don’t choose their own monthly representative pictures?). When I told Tom about my brilliant realization, he said, “But March was Stormy Weather.” Nothing makes you feel quite as stupid as when you falsely think you’re being smart.

I don’t believe in having one favorite movie. Sometimes I try and come up with a top ten but that’s still very hard to do. However, Singin’ in the Rain is always on that list. My grandma owned a few movies on VHS. I narrowed those down to two movies that I would alternate between: Singin’ in the Rain and How to Marry a Millionaire. Interestingly (only to me), both of these movies have bizarre fashion show segments where the models come out and then pose like a mannequin.

Singin’ in the Rain is a movie from the past set in an even further past, which is something I really enjoy for some reason (NOT way way in the past, only a few decades difference, what am I, a giant weirdo? Please). The movie was released in 1952 and is set in the late 1920s. It’s a musical (for the one person who maybe doesn’t know), and deals with the troubles facing silent film actors during the transition to talkies.

Donald O’Connor’s musical number, “Make ‘Em Laugh,” is very famous, as it should be. The sequence for “Singin’ in the Rain’ (the song) is also iconic. I have a special place in my heart for “Moses Supposes” because it’s pretty much about procrastination and not doing your homework. A glorious song and dance tribute to screwing around.

This movie also has one of my favorite comedic performances of all time: Jean Hagen as Lina Lamont. Lina Lamont is akin to Billie Dawn from Born Yesterday, and Wikipedia just told me that Jean Hagan was Judy Holliday’s understudy for that role on Broadway. So, that makes sense.

I love every single moment she’s on screen, and I often quote her when I hear the word “people.” “People!? I ain’t ‘people’! I’m a… ‘a shimmering, glowing star in the cinema firmament.'” Except, I usually get it wrong because I’m lame like that and can’t remember something I’ve seen probably a dozen times at least.

I’m very picky about musicals. I’m not crazy about sentimental musicals – people genuinely expressing love while singing and dancing makes me uncomfortable, and Singin’ in the Rain does have one of those numbers, but that’s when I use the bathroom and get a snack or something.

Do you have a favorite musical?