THE CAPTAIN'S JUSTICE LEAGUE HOMEPAGE

JLA ON TELEVISION

From 1968 to 1985 the Justice League appeared in a number of different cartoon formats starting off as part of the Superman/Aquaman Hour and graduating to a series of its own as part of the Superfriends.
1968 - Superman/Aquaman Adventure Hour

Justice League first appeared in cartoon format as part of the Superman-Aquaman Hour of Adventure. What ever compelled Filmation to create an Aquaman cartoon is unknown but the result was fairly entertaining in a simple way. I know! Its the only TV version of the League that I've seen on British television. Anyhow the format of the half hour show was two twelve minute Aquaman cartoons around a filler cartoon. The filler featured either the Teen Titans (wonder chick, bird boy, etc.), the Flash, the Atom, Green Lantern, Hawkman or the Justice League. The League appeared in three stories entitled "Between Two Armies", "Target Earth" and "Bad Day on a Black Mountain".
Superfriends

1973-75 - the Superfriends

The Superfriends had arrived. Long by today's standards the initial Superfriends was an hour long and was aired by ABC. It featured Superman (Danny Dark), Wonder Woman (Shannon Farnon), Batman (Olan Soule), Robin (Casey Kasem) and Aquaman (Norman Alden). We were also introduced to Wendy and Marvin plus their Wonder Dog as the hooks for younger views which all TV execs seem to think actually work. The Flash (Ted Knight), Green Arrow (Norman Alden) and Plastic Man all got their chance to guest star.
1977-78 - The All-New Superfriends Hour.

It returned for a third season as the All-New Superfriends Hour while the format saw several major changes. Gone was the single hour long story to be replaced by a half hour main story, a guest star story, a Wonder Twins story (more on them later) and one featuring a team-up between two of the Superfriends. The Wonder Twins Zan (Mike Bell) and Jayna (Liberty Williams) replaced Wendy and Marvin (sniff... and no Wonder Dog), they actually had superpowers and could have a more active part in the stories - they would later be brought into the comics that had generated the other characters as members of the Extreme Justice team. One element that was not transferred to EJ was Gleek, the Wonder Twins pet monkey. Gleek. Gleek.
This season of Superfriends also continued the tradition of guest starring other DC heroes in the form of Hawkman (Jack Angel) and Hawkgirl. However more interestingly it also saw the start of the "PC" heroes - multi-cultural heroes created specially (or based on a DC hero) to combat the appearance of an all-white main line up. These characters included Apache Chief (Mike Rye), Black Vulcan (seems to be Black Lightning voiced by Buster Jones) and Samurai (Jack Angel). In time some of these characters would appear in the Superfriends spin off comic. From that comic many of them would then make it into current continuity as the Global Guardians. As a sidenote a number of members of the Cadre as featured in the past issues of the Gerald Jones JLE/I book seemed to be based on Superfriends guest stars.
1978-79 - Challenge of the Superfriends.

The Challenge of the Superfriends reverted to just a single half-hour story featuring the Justice League of America in their nice Metropolis based Hall of Justice fighting the evil Legion of Doom based in their nasty swamp HQ. The Wonder Twins were gone and the five original heroes were joined by the Flash (Jack Angel replaced Ted Knight as the voice artist), Green Lantern (Mike Rye) and Hawkman as well as the guest stars from last season (Apache, etc.). Bill Calloway replaced Norman Alden as the voice of Aquaman.
The Legion of Doom were made up of the best super-villains the DC had to offer in the form Bizarro (Bill Callaway), Black Manta (Ted Cassidy), Brainiac (Ted Cassidy), Captain Cold (Dick Rugal), Cheetah (Marlene Aragon), Giganta (Ruth Forman), Gorilla Grodd (Stanley Ross), Lex Luthor (Stanley Jones), The Riddler (Mike Bell), Scarecrow (Don Messick), Sinestro (Vic Perrin), Solomon Grundy (Jimmy Weldon) and the Toyman (Frank Welker).
The Challenge of the Superfriends is seen by some to be the best of the Superfriends seasons featuring more "real" comic book heroes and villains as well as stronger storylines.
1979-80 - World's Greatest Superfriends.

For no real reason the Legion of Doom format was dropped and the series reverted to the classic Superfriends format with sidekicks Jayna and Zan back once more. While Luthor did appear one episode the main thrust of the stories were along mythological lines.
1984 - 85 - The Legendary Super Powers Show / Superpowers Team: The Galactic Guardians

After a break of four years the Superfriends returned. The show changed with the times and reflected the comics more with the introduction of Darkseid (Frank Welker) and his minions. After such a break the voice artist roster changed dramatically with only Superman and Robin retaining the same artists and B.J. Ward replacing Shannon Farnon as Wonder Woman. On a major note Adam West who had played Batman in the live action TV series took over the voice of Batman from Olan Soule for the rest of the series. On a guest star note Desaad the evil torturer to Darkseid was voiced by Rene Auberjonois who would later play Odo in Star Trek Deep Space Nine.
On a guest star note this series introduced us to Firestorm and Cyborg (of the New Titans). It is possible that one reason for the Super Powers reference in the title was as a tie in with the DC action figure toyline of the same name.
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