Season 1 – Episode 10: “The Ultra Beam”
Airdate was November 17, 1973.
Short Synopsis: Two guys (Hank and Ben) decide to “ruin all the gold in the country” and do so by flying around in a blue jet and making it worthless with a blue laser, somehow. They want to do this so people stop “wasting their time and energy acquiring gold.” They can turn gold into any other metal, somehow. And, this is all, of course, very misguided and not very thought out, leading to problems that the Super Friends somehow, miraculously, solve.
Unfortunately, this episode did not have nearly as much screwing around and too much excruciating detailed exposition by the narrator.
Super Friends is Highly Technical
“Weird blue beam of light.” – The scientific description for how Hank and Ben extract gold.
And how do you stop a weird blue beam of light? With a “heat barrier” squirted out from Wonder Woman’s plane. Duh.
Seismographic Bureau
If you learn anything from Super Friends, you’ll learn about the more obscure non-existent government agencies. The Seismographic Bureau’s headquarters look pretty much like you’d imagine it.
WTF Screenshots (Mostly brought to you by the animators this week)
The villain’s sidekick gets around on bouncy moon-boots – because he’s short, according to him.
Marvin, you have something on your face.
Breaker one, this is Fatman, got your ears on, good buddy?
Robin was originally slated to star in Back to the Future
Here’s Batman, who has either had one of his arms amputated, or is picking a wedgie, which, considering the outfit he wears, is entirely possible.
Superman goes to some other imaginary institute and borrows a giant mirror from some sort of 1970s troll.
There’s gold in them there underwater caverns and they’re already in convenient bar shape.
Did you know there is a vast reservoir of gold bars under water? Well, there is. They’re there for safe keeping so Aquaman has something to do. Kind of like when you give a toddler a video game controller with no batteries in it.
Shut up, Batman.
“Hello, blue jet projecting blue beams, come in, please, this is Batman.” – Batman on his CB radio.
If you would like to see these shenanigans for yourself, the first season is available on DVD.