Re: Challenge Of The Superfriends Download Torrent
Gema Shisila
Challenge of the Superfriends is an American animated television series about a team of superheroes which ran from September 9 to December 23, 1978, on ABC.[1] The complete series (16 episodes) was produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions and is based on the Justice League and associated comic book characters published by DC Comics and created by Julius Schwartz, Gardner Fox and Mike Sekowsky. It was the third series of Super Friends cartoons, following the original Super Friends in 1973 and The All-New Super Friends Hour in 1977.[2]
As originally aired, this season featured adventures with Superman, Batman and Robin, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and the Wonder Twins, similar to those that had aired the previous season in The All-New Super Friends Hour. These episodes were later shown using the opening credits of the All-New Super Friends Hour in syndication.
The second segment of this season was Challenge of the Superfriends, a 16-episode series that came the closest to the comic books. Not only did Challenge have the Justice League of America, but it was also the first official Super Friends series to feature DC supervillains from the comics (apart from one episode with Gentleman Jim Craddock and another featuring Black Manta), and this series had 13 of them together as a group called the Legion of Doom. It included Superman foes like Lex Luthor, Brainiac, the Toyman, and Bizarro, and Batman foes like the Riddler and the Scarecrow. The Legion of Doom dwelt in a murky swamp and launched their attacks for global conquest from a sinister-looking, swamp-based, mechanical, flying headquarters called the Hall of Doom (which resembled Darth Vader's helmet) as a suitable contrast with the Superfriends' gleaming Hall of Justice. Every week, the Legion schemed to either get rid of or destroy the Superfriends so they could conquer the world. The Superfriends themselves consisted of 11 Justice League heroes.[3] Thanks to the second segment alone being used with the Challenge of the Superfriends opening and confusing references to the show,[4] it is often mistakenly believed[who?] that the first and second segments were two separate shows.
When the Challenge of the Superfriends season was originally conceived, it was named "Battle of the Super Friends" and featured the introduction of Captain Marvel. The group that challenged the heroes was called the "League of Evil", led by Captain Marvel's nemesis Doctor Sivana. However, Filmation produced Shazam! and The New Adventures of Batman, which prevented the use of characters such as Mister Atom, King Kull, Beautia Sivana, The Joker, The Penguin, Mr. Freeze, and Catwoman. Early conceptual art drawn by Alex Toth also included Heat Wave, Poison Ivy, and Abra Kadabra.[5]
Bill Woodson provides the uncredited voice of the narrator in Challenge of the Superfriends, and the opening narration was by Stanley Jones. The show's main theme and original music was composed and arranged by musical director Hoyt Curtin. The music supervisor was Paul DeKorte. Character designs for this particular Super Friends series were done by Andre LeBlanc.
Hanna-Barbera's writers experimented with team composition as well. Challenge of the Superfriends added The Flash (Barry Allen), Green Lantern (Hal Jordan), and Hawkman (Katar Hol) who were members of the Justice League of America, as well as several new characters: Black Vulcan (who was based on the DC Comics character Black Lightning), Apache Chief, and Samurai. These characters were created to add racial and cultural diversity to the show (this was also mentioned in some of the episode introduction extras on the first two Challenge of the Super Friends DVDs).
Despite the claim in the program's title sequence that the Legion's members hail from "remote galaxies", only Brainiac and Sinestro are extraterrestrials; the remaining members are all natives of Earth (even though Bizarro called the Bizarro World home, he was created by Lex Luthor via a duplicator ray on Earth, technically making him a 'native' of Earth). Solomon Grundy is a zombie, an animated dead person, as the episode Monolith of Evil makes clear. In "History of Doom", even Solomon Grundy supposedly dies from the solar flare.
Lex Luthor forms a criminal gang called the "Legion of Doom" and uses a dream-machine to make the Super Friends commit crimes. When the Super Friends are forced to turn themselves in to police headquarters, the guards reveal themselves to be Bizarro and the Cheetah, who send the Super Friends to the sun. The Legion of Doom then uses the Justice League satellite with Luthor's mutation device to turn women into Cheetah clones and men into Bizarro clones, long enough for them to commit profitable robberies. The Super Friends return to Earth to reverse the damage done and retake The Hall of Justice. They then disguise themselves as Bizarro and Cheetah clones to stop the Legion of Doom.
Three Kryptonian villains from the Phantom Zone escape and expose Superman to red kryptonite causing him to age rapidly. The rest of the Super Friends get trapped by the villains and only Superman can free them from the Phantom Zone. Meanwhile, the Justice League Computer tells Superman the only possible antidote for his rapid aging is blue kryptonite. Since blue kryptonite is harmful to Bizarro, it may have an opposite effect on Superman. Superman must take the Supermobile to go to the site where Krypton blew up and get the blue kryptonite in time to save the other Super Friends. Using the ray device the three villains stole from Superman, he sends the Kryptonian villains back to the Phantom Zone.
The Super Friends must stop the plans of a conqueror named Torhana who seeks vengeance on the people of the surface world by freezing everything in his path. Torhana and his crew travel by ship, freezing oceans and continents and people. Aquaman uses his telepathy to summon sword-fish to cut him out of the ice and take him to Atlantis. Torhana and his crew appear to have the upper hand, but by episode's end the Super Friends regroup and come up with a clever plan to melt all of the ice that's engulfed the planet.
A crooked space circus proprietor, Zarnum, uses a device to turn protected animals that have been illegally captured into beasts to boost attendance at his space circus. Sensing that the Super Friends are on to his scheme, he uses the device to change Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and the Wonder Twins into space creatures. It is up to Superman, Batman and Robin to track down the elusive space circus, rescue the captive Super Friends, and bring an end to the poaching that has been taking place.
In 2003, Cartoon Network Latin America aired the spoof series The Aquaman & Friends Action Hour that starred Aquaman as a children's television show host and the Legion of Doom as his bankrupt villains.
The two NBC televised live-action specials of Legends of the Superheroes produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions was based largely on Challenge of the Superfriends while featuring Adam West, Burt Ward, and Frank Gorshin of the 1966 Batman television series fame (West would go on to voice Batman in SuperFriends: The Legendary Super Powers Show and The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians). The Justice League starred Batman, Robin, Captain Marvel, the Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman, the Huntress, and the Black Canary against the Legion of Doom which featured Mordru leading Doctor Sivana, the Riddler, Giganta, Sinestro, the Weather Wizard, and Solomon Grundy (Superman, Wonder Woman, and their associate characters were absent due to the Superman film and Wonder Woman television series licensing the rights to them, respectively).
Despite using the main theme from The World's Greatest SuperFriends, the 2010 DC Super Friends "The Joker's Playhouse" shares several elements of its opening sequence with Challenge of the Superfriends, including introducing the Legion of Doom.[6]
The opening sequence of the Robot Chicken DC Comics Special parodies the opening of Challenge of the Superfriends with the Legion of Doom substituted for Robot Chicken original characters Chicken, Mad Scientist, Nerd, Humping Robot, Composite Santa, Gummy Bear, the Unicorn, and Bitch Puddin'. The Legion of Doom, Hall of Doom, and Hall of Justice also feature prominently in the episode.
Hey there! I randomly came across this post, and love it.
Question -- there are only 3 model sheets on this page, but the article seems to suggest that perhaps (when the post was originally posted), there was more than 3. Do you have more Superfriends model sheets? If so, I'd love to see them!
I really enjoyed your Godzilla cartoon article too.
@Prime11 - Thank you! Originally I think I had a download link to the whole set of model sheets. Of course it's not complete, as the number of model sheets for the show seem to be infinite. If there is interest I can track it down and repost it for a while (I'm short on download space these days)!
Wow, ya that would be amazing, even if you just repost them for a little while so I could check them out. I totally would have some interest!
Its a funny thing about model sheets. I find it to be the same thing ... there are always more out there. It never ends, it seems.
Thanks a bunch!
@Prime11 - I have re-uploaded them for a while, and added a link to the original post! Enjoy!
I do agree though about there always being more--I thought somebody might do a nice coffee table book of Superfriends art at some point, but it never materialized. Now dealers just sell copies on Ebay, and that of course isn't right either--which is why I originally put them up here!
Yes .... I've noticed these ebay guys also. I agree it's not right --they have no right to be profiting from these images. That said, I have to admit, I've bought a few from them just because they don't exist anywhere else.
I downloaded all the Superfriends from you, and they are amazing looking. Thanks for this -- you rock!
In case you're interested, I started a reddit sub devoted to model sheets, which you might enjoy... www.reddit.com/r/modelsheetarchive
Will probably post these superfriends models over there at some point. I'm trying to make them free so people don't have to buy them all.