Super Friends Season 2, Episode 11, Storyline C – “Exploration Earth”
Original Airdate – November 12, 1977
Short Synopsis: Some big orb in some little town lands and everyone is wondering what it is. All of a sudden, vacuum arms emerge and start sucking up citizens and vehicles.
But before we get into the plot I will discuss Gleek’s bath in depth.
We cut to the Hall of Justice – Gleek is running away from Zan and Jayna. Zan catches him and says it’s time for his weekly bath. He shoves Gleek into a tub:
Jayna then mockingly tells Gleek to “take it like a monkey,” and then…this is hard for me to talk about…then, Zan turns into water and enters the bathtub and Jayna turns into a horse to wash Gleek with her tail.
Why would this happen? Why would they do this? Why would Zan want to bathe a monkey with himself? How clean can you possibly get that close to a horse’s ass? I would question why Gleek is still dressed but that would have only made the whole thing worse.
“Looks like Gleek is squeaky clean,” exclaims Aquaman, observing the exact opposite of what has happened.
Now that we all know what happened maybe we can pool our money and go to group therapy together.
Mercifully, the Super Friends are alerted to the people-stealing orb and the plot moves on from this nightmare.
The Bore of the Worlds
As you can see, the invading spacecraft look a lot like the ones from The War of the Worlds, and they scoop people up in similar fashion.
Batman and Robin and Superman try to stop the spacecraft and they all suck at it. Superman discovers that it is partially made from Kryptonite so he can’t even go near it (this is a lie, as you’ll see). Point is, these things are indestructible. Here’s some images of the Super Friends not stopping them:
How embarrassing:
Superman laments that he can’t help because he can’t get near the ship (another lie), so Wonder Woman saves him like it ain’t no thang.
The Crying Game
Ok folks – time to guess, based on the two forms Zan and Jayna take, what the emergency is and how they solve it. Answer at the bottom:
Hint: it involves a kid on a bike.
She’s not bad she was drawn that way.
BAD ANIMATORS! NO!
This is just one example of very poor face animation. Superman looked like a different person in every scene he was in.
Close Encounters of the Turd Kind
Superman concludes that he must visit the planet the spaceships came from in order to convince them to stop harvesting people. This is a good idea even though their ships have kryptonite in them and they could then render him completely more useless.
There’s all this talk about how big the aliens must be. “They must be 50ft tall!” assumes Aquaman.
Superman arrives at the planet and is greeted via video phone by one of the aliens, who look a lot like Shrek. See the giant doors!? They must be HUGE!
Dulliver’s Travels
Yeah, them things were little.
They secured him with “kryptonite cables,” which means they held him long enough for me to get that screen shot. He then uses his heat vision to cut a beam from the ceiling, which falls, snapping the cables. I’m getting the sense it wasn’t so much the kryptonite as it was Superman likes being tied down, as you would think the kryptonite would keep him from using his heat vision and such.
He then takes a “duplicate lander” back to Earth to stop the first lander. EXCUSE ME? What was all that talk about not being able to get close to the lander because it was made from kryptonite? I’m getting the sense that it wasn’t so much the kryptonite as it was Superman being lazy and not wanting to help Batman.
Stop getting all up in my planet.
Superman arrives with the second lander and then starts a cat fight with the other one.
Superman eventually wins and the aliens are humbled and learn a lesson. zzzzzzzzzz
Wonder Twins “Brainteaser?”
There was a kid on a bike headed straight for the lander. Zan became a glacier to do this:
And then Jayna became the condor to catch him:
I know I’m no superhero, but I suspect that a simple, “hey kid, bike the other way!” may have been just as effective.
If you would like to see these shenanigans for yourself, Season 2 is available on DVD.
Once I saw the pic of Zan putting Gleek into the empty bathtub I thought “Oh dear God, he’s not going to have Gleek bathe in himself is he!?!?” And then my fears became a reality of horror.
P.S. I almost got the answer 100%! I guessed there would be a kid whose bike’s breaks went out and so Zan would form an ice ramp and Jayna would fly up and catch him. It frightens me that I got it right.
That qualifies you to write for Super Friends – to a time machine!
At least Jayna didn’t bath Gleek in the form of a Pea-cock.
Yeah, I’m immature, like twelve years old, mentally.
Wonder Woman looks like Janice Dickinson. That’s just wrong.
She does look like Janice Dickinson! She’s SUPPOSED to look like Mariel Hemingway.
I don’t know why you had to go and show us that bath scene. Now all day I’m going to wear a puckered look on my face.
I don’t like the burden of knowing these things alone, that is why I share.
There are so many things here to love/be disturbed by I don’t even know where to begin. This was a very good (so, therefore, terrible) episode.
I am not surprised Aquaman observed the exact opposite of what happened. Aquaman doesn’t seem like the sharpest harpoon in the ocean to me.
No, he’s not. I’m sure a dolphin could swim mental circles around him.
I have made like ten people read about the bath. I think it might be the funniest thing you’ve written.
Thanks, Cindy! Funniest/most disturbing, potato/potahto.
Those Wonder Twins are seriously screwed up. Poor Gleek.
I wonder what the writers were smoking/ingesting/snorting for this one?
My guess would be everything. They were smoking/ingesting/snorting everything.
Ummmmm, what? That bath scene really seems like it should be in an adults only cartoon.
Also, I’ve decided I’m going to tell my husband to take it like a monkey every time he complains about something today.
Brilliant! I shall do the same.
Bath, multi-state bestiality orgy, it’s all the same, really.
In the sad, scary world of superheroes, this is true.