THE PLOT THUS FAR
In the eyes of most Superman fans, this series consisted of four seasons. Season 1 (1966-1967) was a 30 minute show featuring two Superman segments sandwiched around one Superboy story. Season two made up the first half of The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure (1967) and season 3 filled the last half of The Batman/Superman Hour (1968). Both seasons 2 and 3 featured the same format of two Superman and one Superboy segments, and consisted of both new material and reruns from previous seasons. Season 4 (1969-1970) saw the series return once more to a stand-alone, 30-minute show; and consisted of only previously aired episodes.
WHAT WE THOUGHT
“The New Adventures of Superman” returns with the second and third seasons of the Filmation series. The animation is very typical, plus you get a handful of Silver Age villains. That being said, this series is very similar to every other comic book cartoon released at the time. There were a ton of Superboy shorts that keep going on over and over again. The next season would be mostly reruns, so this is the last big hurrah for the show.
Superman is such a difficult character to get right. I’m not saying that Filmation didn’t get it right, but their portrayal represented a moment in time. What kills me is that a lot of these episodes seemed to have blasted pretty quick throughout a year. Kids in the 1960s had to deal with a lot of reruns, but I guess that’s OK. They were probably busy with freedom rides and helping out on the farm. I know nothing of the past.
The DVD comes with no special features. The A/V Quality is typical for a release like this. The transfer shows off a decent amount of standard definition fuzz. The Dolby audio track is still pretty upfront. In the end, I’d recommend a purchase to classic cartoon fans.
RELEASE DATE: 06/03/2014