Category: Saturday Morning Ridiculousness

Super Friends Season 2, Episode 6, Storyline D – “Flood of Diamonds”

Original Airdate – October 1977

Short Synopsis: Flood of diamonds? That sounds like a problem we’d all like to have, am I right? Am I right?

Anyway, “[something something], South Africa, home of the world’s richest diamond mines…” – Narrator

We see miners mining:

There’s a cave in, and then for some reason, the cave starts to flood.

Meanwhile, at Justice League Headquarters
“Green Lantern and I will take care of it!” Aquaman volunteers Green Lantern, forcing Green Lantern to have to hang out with Aquaman.

Aquaman and Green Lantern to the rescue.
When they get there, they find they have to swim underwater to the miners. Green Lantern’s ring forms an air bubble for him to swim around in.

Then, they strut and strategize, or “strutagize” as I like to call it because I’m all about efficiency.

Because a straight forward rescue is never enough.
We find out two of the workers (one played by Willem Dafoe somehow) are planning on stealing some of the diamonds for their troubles.

They become worried because they think Aquaman and Green Lantern will save them all before they hide the diamonds. First of all, why would they think Aquaman and Green Lantern would save them quickly? That’s not how the Super Friends roll. And secondly, how long does it take to shove some diamonds up your butt?

So, they decide to make themselves harder to rescue by letting loose some kind of giant drill. Then, when it does what it’s supposed to – knocks a support beam down and makes it harder to rescue them – suddenly they’re all upset about it. I feel a lesson coming on!

The Stupedist Plan Ever
Aquaman and Green Lantern think this new snag means there won’t be time to save them. This is the first thing that comes to Aquaman’s mind and they go with it. This is an actual quote:

Green Lantern replies, “Let’s give it a try!” So, Green Lantern is as dumb as the rest of them. Good to know.

“Later, off the coast of South Africa.” – Narrator
Oh yeah, I can definitely see how this is the quickest and best way to save everyone.

Step 1: Summon whale with your aquatic telepathic powers.
Step 2: Create whale transport vehicle out of your magic green lantern ring

Step 3: Fly giant whale to flooded cave.
Step 4: “guide the whale through the mine.”

Step 5: Have the whale ram through the cave-in.
Step 6: Risk killing the whale because of the shallow waters caused by breaking through the cave-in.

THEY DIDN’T SHOW THE WHALE BEING RETURNED TO THE OCEAN. I can only assume there’s now a giant whale carcass stuck in a mine in South Africa now. What a depressing ending.

Health
Ok, I’m not sure where to even start with this. Usually, the Health segment is all of 30 seconds long and is like: “Bananas, yo, eat ‘em.” But this week’s Health is the most bizarre thing I think I’ve ever seen on Super Friends and you know that’s saying a lot.

Superman is flying over the forest and sees this:

Just your standard young child being chased by a bear. This of course had no affect on me as the children of the Super Friends universe are rarely not being menaced by wild animals.

The kid, casually glancing behind him, sees the bear catching up and says, “Uh oh! I better get movin’!” As if he’s late for soccer practice. Again, not too terribly strange considering the source.

This is where the mushrooms must have really kicked in during the writer’s meeting. Superman swoops down and rescues the boy.

And, just because it’s too good not to share all of it, here’s the dialog:

Boy: Gee, thanks, Superman! I can usually run a lot faster than that!
Superman: Here’s the reason you’re not at your best this morning – you skipped breakfast!
Boy: Gee, how’d ya know!?
Superman: When you skip meals, you don’t give your body fuel to run on.
Boy: I didn’t know that. From now on there won’t be any fuel shortage for my body.

THE END.

That’s it. THAT’S IT. Boys and girls, the only reason you wouldn’t be able to OUTRUN A FUCKING BEAR is because you didn’t eat your breakfast.

And I thought setting kids up for stitches was bad.

 

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.

Season 2, Episode 6 – Extra Segments

Original Airdate: October 15, 1977

Last week’s time travel story was so juicy and chock-full of Super Friendsness that I couldn’t squeeze in the code word. So, here are the segments from the rest of this episode:

De-coder I
Robin and Batman are scaffolding down a mountain. Robin asks if they have to do that as it is tiring (and probably doesn’t want to spend any more time with Batman). Batman informs him, “Yes, Robin, and it’s also a good workout!” Batman, ever the fitness nut.

They find a cave, which, if based on their dialog, they completely didn’t intend to find. Robin wants to go explore the cave, and Batman says before they do that (I don’t want to know what they do while they explore deep dark caves), they should reveal the first clue. “The name of this place is the first part of the codeword!” hints Batman. You mean, the damn cave, the thing y’all have been talking about by name? Super heroes are the absolute worst fucking clue givers ever.

De-coder II
While in the cave, this poor woman runs across Batman and Robin:

She asks what they’re doing and since this is a kid’s show they tell her that they are “setting the stage” for the de-coder clues. They repeat the first clue and then tell us the second clue is “the opposite of woman.”

She asks to guess the code word and Batman is all, “no, stupid, that gets a whole other segment” (paraphrased). And then Robin says the best thing ever, “maybe we’ll run into to one of our clues,” because obviously there isn’t an opposite of woman among the three of them.

De-Coder Solution
A nice point and the reveal of the entirely-not-in-any-way secret codeword.

Magic Parts I and II
Wonder Woman’s gonna teach us a card trick! Here’s the steps:

1. Shuffle the deck.
2. “Fill an ordinary drinking glass with water” (you can actually fill a fancy drinking glass with Sunkist if you want – I don’t see any reason she’s being so specific)
3. Pick a card from the deck and balance the glass on the card.

4. “Abracadabra abracadall, stay on the card without a fall!”
5. Feel embarrassed for Wonder Woman

How did she do it? She prepared a card by taping a half of another card to the back, so that you can make a little stand for the glass (you’re supposed to keep this card at the bottom of the deck as you shuffle):

So go on, ruin a deck of cards, kids! I’m sure none of you will get in trouble with your drunk dad when he and his buddies try and play poker later.

“With a little practice, you can be a Super Friends magician!” – Wonder Woman

Personally I think you could do it with no practice.

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.

Season 2, Episode 5, Storyline C – “Planet of the Neanderthals”

Original Airdate: October 15, 1977

Where should I start? This episode had everything – time travel, cavemen, highly ridiculous dialog, dinosaurs, and animation mishaps. It was stupid, but in that perfectly wonderful way. Does it make any sense? Of course not! We’re talking about THE SUPER FRIENDS doing a TIME TRAVEL episode. Sit back and enjoy the ride.

Short Synopsis: “Another sunny day welcomes the busy city of Metropolis, one of the world’s most modern cities. But, unknown to the citizens of Metropolis, a mysterious force has changed evolution so that today’s cities are primitive” – Narrator

In case you don’t know what the Narrator means, which, hello, it couldn’t be clearer, here’s what happened (the buildings were changed first):

BUT, in addition to the changed people, there are also Neanderthal cavemen that came from some other place, who show up and boss all the new primitive people around. They also happen to speak perfect English. STOP QUESTIONING, it makes complete sense.

“What is this incredible transformation that is changing the Earth into a prehistoric caaave society and can the Super Friends do anything about it?” – Narrator, who is really chatty during this episode.

The Littlest Astronauts
Batman and Robin help out the space station, which conveniently has scientists aboard – remember that as it will be important to the “plot.”

“Later, in the primitive cave that used to be the super-sophisticated Hall of Justice.” – Narrator
They determine that the mastermind behind this whole debacle is a guy named Barko? Barkle? Varko? I dunno, one of those. I’ll go with Barko.

The Super Friends decide to split up and look for Barko. The narrator then says that the Super Friends “streak into action.” Poor choice of words, Narrator.

Just jump in the water, Aquaman, this isn’t the Olympics.

Why, Barko? WHYYYY?
Batman, Robin, Zan, and Jayna are all captured and taken to Barko to face charges of crimes against civilization. This gives us the opportunity to hear about how the hell Barko managed all this:

“Modern man has had his chance and made a mess of the world. I tricked the top scientists of the world into building me an enormous time tunnel, and an electronic device that would physically alter the evolution of man. Once completed, I took the huge device back in time where it sent out beams of energy, changing the evolutionary process of man, allowing primitive man to control modern man.”

So, Barko told the top scientists that he’s got their nose and they built those things as ransom? That’s what it sounds like to me.

Barko then tells them, in no uncertain terms, they are to mess with his time tunnel, which he then conveniently informs them is hidden under the building they’re in, because we all know there’s no way the Super Friends could have figured that out themselves.

Batman and Robin end up in an underground cell (what luck!) and Zan an Jayna are sent to the quarry to join the other slaves.

Zan and Jayna bring the episode into uncomfortable territory.
Long story short, Zan and Jayna become and elephant and water, and Jayna is swimming around in the water. Doesn’t that mean that it’s like she’s inside her brother?

Then, she tells him, “Thanks for saving me you wonderful wonder brother, for that you get a kiss.”

You know what, let’s just move on.

“Our only course of action is to build another time machine, return in time, and change the past back to the way it was.” – Wonder Woman
But HOW, how can they build another time machine without any modern equipment since all scientists are now primitives or whatever? Yep, the tiny scientists on Skylab.

I don’t want to get too technical and bog you own with all this scientific jargon that is completely made up bullshit, so I’ll just say that Superman transmits x-ray images to the Skylab, where they make “blueprints” for a new time machine, and it requires him to dress like this:

Blah blah blah, they get their own time machine.

“The three of us will go back in time one million years!” – Superman
Superman, Aquaman, and Wonder Woman go back in time. Then, they look for that other device, the one that sent out beams of energy and changed the evolutionary process of man.

This trip to the past if full of interesting information, such as, did you know that back in the dinosaur days, little volcanoes would spontaneously form and erupt? It’s true!

You could ride around by lassoing a pterodactyl:

What an amazing time that never happened.

They find the device, which has become the water cooler for tyrannosaurus rexes.

Superman deals with the dinosaurs, and the device goes back to modern time and then everything is fixed again. Hooray!

It was a crisis of wardrobe malfunctions.
This week the Super Friends really couldn’t quite get their uniforms right.

First, Jayna forgot the “J” on her chest.

Then, Superman put his costume on inside out.

And lastly, Wonder Woman’s white stars seem to be soiled by urine stains.

Get it together, Super Friends!

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.

Due to a combinations of general laziness and Olympics fever, I couldn’t bring my self to sit through the C storyline this week. So, because they’ve never been seen all together and because all together and out of context, they perfectly demonstrate the insanity of Super Friends, here’s a collection of the best GIFs I’ve made so far.

 

Season 2, Episode 5, Storyline D – “Shark”

Original Airdate: October 15, 1977

Safety Segment
Superman, flying overhead, notices two boys on a bike. One is sitting on the handlebars so the one pedaling can’t see what he’s doing. They almost fall into a deep crevice in the sidewalk, but Superman rescues them just in time.

Superman chides them for “riding double” and then they discuss general bicycle safety. Do you see that hole in the ground? How in the hell did that happen and why aren’t there any warning signs? There should have been more talk about the un-blocked-off big-ass crack in the earth.

Short Synopsis: “A warm, sunny day at State Beach, where two teenagers will soon take a boat ride they will never forget.” – Narrator

Our cast of Wonder Twin Cautionary Tale Teenagers (notice we have yet another pair of deserted island cutoffs):

I had to name two of them myself.

The one dressed like an idiot (Mike) brags that he, “just broke the beach record – dove down to 60ft!” I don’t know anything about scuba diving. Is this impressive? I like to know how accurate the cartoon brags I’m watching are.

Mike declares he can dive anywhere, and to “just name it!” So, it is named by Wallpaper: Rocky Point Cave.

There’s then some exposition about all the sharks that hang out around there and that nobody tries to dive there because of it.

It’s a Shark of a Tale
There’s a shark at Rocky Point Cave. I sure didn’t see that coming.

Mike panics and turns over the boat, bringing Wallpaper into the water with him.

Karen and Left Blinker, who watched this happen from the beach, say they’re going to get help, but they aren’t shown seeking out a payphone so I’m not sure I believe them.

Mike and Wallpaper decide to swim back down to the rocks for protection (they share Mike’s oxygen).

Yay. The Wonder Twins.
Now it’s time for The Wonder Twins to show up and ruin everything.

Zan, Jayna, and Gleek arrive on the scene just in time and in their usual eagle-carrying-a-monkey-carrying-a-bucket-of-water configuration. Zan turns into an “ice boat” because he’s completely lame and worthless and Jayna turns into an octopus, in mid-air, which was really weird looking.

Can’t you just imagine Mid-Air Octopus flying around dispensing wisdom and general tips? No? I’ve just finally lost it because of all the Super Friends viewing? Fair enough.

Anyway, blah, blah, blah, Jayna stops the shark:

Lesson Learned
Once they’re all out of harm’s way, Mike let’s everyone know: “No more braggin’ for me. From now on I’ll stick to diving where I know it’s safe.”

Or, in other words:

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.