The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure is an American Saturday morninganimated series fromFilmation that aired onCBS from 1967 to 1968. Premiering on September 9, 1967, this 60-minute program included a series of six-minute adventures featuring variousDC Comicssuperheroes.[1]
Many of the shorts were penned and script-edited byDC Comics employees.Bob Haney andGeorge Kashdan (the writing-editing team who were then producing the original version of theTeen Titans comic book) were prolific on the series, taking on nearly all the "guest star" segments.[4]Mort Weisinger, editor of allSuperman comic titles during the 1960s, served as script editor for the shorts featuring Kal-El. This use of comic writers on the television series tended to make them a faithful adaption to the comic book mythos.[5] Even so, there were some elements which were unique to the series, such as secondary characters in theHawkman,Green Lantern andAtom shorts.
This series marked the animation debut of nearly all of its featured characters and teams. The exceptions were Superman and his supporting cast, who had been previously appeared in the1940s Superman shorts and inThe New Adventures of Superman, and the Superboy characters, seen in the previous season ofThe Adventures of Superboy.
Subsequently, in 1968, the series becameThe Batman/Superman Hour, with new Superman/Superboy and Batman segments.[6] Previously-aired Aquaman shorts were repackaged into the 30-minuteAquaman, which also included the existing guest star segments fromThe Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure. These ran on Sunday mornings.
The series would be parodied in theTeen Titans Go! episode "Classic Titans".
The show continued to evolve a narrative format that had been started with the original Superman radio show, featuring a narrator who served to both compress and dramatize the storytelling. Whereas the first season ofThe New Adventures of Superman had featured longtime radio narrator,Jackson Beck,The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure was the first to feature actorTed Knight, who had made his Filmation debut as the narrator of theAdventures of Superboy segments late in the previous season ofThe New Adventures of Superman. Knight would become the main voice used in the narration of DC cartoons for over a decade, and remained the unofficial "voice of DC" even during the first year the cartoons were produced byHanna-Barbera under theSuper Friends banner.
"Menace of the Black Manta" – Aquaman and Aqualad must stopBlack Manta's attempt to sink a mid-ocean luxury liner.
"The Rampaging Reptile-Men" – A hydropower relay station forAtlantis is attacked by maniacal reptile beings.
"The Return of Nepto" – A Viking, frozen and sunk to the sea bottom, is accidentally revived, and attempts to conquer Atlantis.
"The Fiery Invaders" – Sun beings attack Earth to dry out its oceans.
"Sea Raiders" – Alien big game hunters land in the ocean.
"War of the Water Worlds" – Mera is captured by a brutal plant being in a watery world beneath the sea.
"The Volcanic Monster" – A lava giant tears open a volcano and battles Aquaman.
"The Crimson Monster from the Pink Pool" – A monster that spews deadly acid from its tentacles marches toward Atlantis.
"The Ice Dragon" – A dragon who can freeze anything battles Aquaman.
"The Deadly Drillers" – Mole men use drilling submarines to attack Atlantis.
"Vassa, Queen of the Mermen" – An evil sea queen attacks Atlantis withsperm whale-shaped submarines.
"The Microscopic Monsters" – Aquaman has invented an enlarging ray, but the device is stolen by Black Manta.
"The Onslaught of the Octomen" – An advanced race of eight-armed beings captures Aquaman.
"Treacherous is the Torpedo Man" – The Torpedo Man, an armored being that can swim at super speed, lures the Aqua team to an unstable pirate wreck.
"The Satanic Saturnians" – Alien fish beings from Saturn attack the Earth.
"The Brain, The Brave and the Bold" – The Brain, a mutant scientist, uses his intelligence to combat Aquaman.
"Where Lurks the Fisherman!" – A sea pirate calledthe Fisherman rigs a trap at the Aquacave.
"Mephisto's Marine Marauders" – A Satanic marauder and his men attack an oxygen exchange plant before attacking Atlantis.
"Trio of Terror" – While spying, Aqualad learns Black Manta and the Brain have allied with Queen Vassa in an attempt to overthrow Aquaman and Mera as the leaders of Atlantis.
"The Torp, The Magneto and the Claw" – The Torpedo Man teams up with two other armored beings named Magneto and the Claw in a plot to destroy Aquaman.
"Goliaths of the Deep-Sea Gorge" – A mermaid society is attacked by a mastodon-like sea giant.
"The Sinister Sea Scamp" – A raider with a powerful animator beam turns a boulder of poisonous phosphorus into a sea giant.
"The Devil Fish" – Aquaman helps the Navy test an undersea fightercraft, a ship that is captured by Black Manta.
"The Sea Scavengers" – A gang of pirates wield a giant submarine robot.
"In Captain Cuda's Clutches" – A pirate with a giant starfish raids a bed of crystals.
"The Mirror-Man From Planet Imago" – The Brain receives a being molded into a perfect double of Aquaman from Reflecto of the planet Imago in a plot to take over Atlantis. Features a voice cameo byVic Perrin.
"The Sea Sorcerer" – Aquaman must deal with an evil warlock.
"The Sea-Snares of Captain Sly" – A sky pirate battles the Aqua team.
"The Undersea Trojan Horse" – Mera unwittingly opens an artificial seahorse that launches an attack on Atlantis.
"The Vicious Villainy Of Vassa" – Vassa commands a fleet of laser-drill ships for another attack on Atlantis.
"Programmed For Destruction" – The Brain uses a powerful computer that calculates the formula for a ray that will make sea beings float helplessly to the ocean surface, until Aquaman recruits the help of a cyclopian fish to stop him.
"The War of the Quatix and the Bimphars" – Aquaman and Aqualad are called to the surface, where they are commissioned by NASA to explore an all-ocean planet called Q-344. While there, they discover that two races, the fish-like Quatix and the amphibious Bimphars (who live on a small island that is the only land on the planet), are at war.
"The Stickmen of Stygia" – A prank by Mera and Aqualad that goes wrong winds up helping them defeat an attack by cyclopian beings.
"Three Wishes to Trouble" – A mischievous sea genie grants three wishes to Aqualad that cause havoc.
"The Silver Sphere" – A large metallic ball that opens the ocean floor and creates lavish plant growth becomes the source of conflict between two sea-dwelling races, the Tortoids and the Lizard People.
"To Catch a Fisherman" – The Fisherman sets a trap for Aquaman that backfires.
TheTeen Titans inThe Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure.
The Atom
"Invasion of the Beetle-Men" – Alien insects land outside a nuclear plant to destroy the station.
"The Plant Master" – A criminal scientist gives life to plants for malevolent purposes.
"The House of Doom" – A scientist teams with an alien warlord.
The Flash (and Kid Flash)
"The Chemo-Creature" – A radiation experiment gone wrong creates a powerful creature out of an ordinary ant.
"Take a Giant Step" – A criminal scientist unleashes a powerful robot to battle The Flash and Kid Flash.
"To Catch a Blue Bolt" – Blue Bolt, an alien being with the same superspeed as The Flash, attacks the Earth.
Green Lantern
"Evil Is as Evil Does" – The Guardians of the Universe summon Green Lantern to battleEvil Star, a criminal with superpowers identical to Green Lantern's.
"The Vanishing World" – A space fugitive captures Kairo to divert Green Lantern from a breakout of prisoners on a penal planet.
"Sirena, Empress of Evil" – An alien queen attacks the planet Oa.
Hawkman
"Peril from Pluto" – Hawkman must fly toPluto to defeat an interplanetary brigand whose laser ray is decimating Earth.
"A Visit to Venus" – Octo-armed aliens capture a crewed space probe and use it to lure Hawkman to a trap.
"The Twenty Third Dimension" – Malevolent pranksters from Jupiter use teleportation rays on Hawkman and their jailers.
Justice League of America
"Between Two Armies" – The warring factions of the Rock People and the Crystal People fromMercury use Earth as a base for their conflict. The Justice League must bring peace to the warring factions before Earth ends up in the crossfire.
"Target Earth" – A criminal warlord named Rom-Nex uses a gravity device to attack Earth. The Justice League are warned in time by a rebel named Val-Kar.
"Bad Day on Black Mountain" – A malevolent warlord named Mastermind lures the Justice League to a trap on a mammoth desert mesa so that they will not interfere in his plans to take over Earth.
Teen Titans
"The Monster Machine" – An uncrewed spaceship unleashes multi-armed robots to attack Earth.
"The Space Beast Round-Up" – Alien hunters must jettison vicious creatures else their damaged craft will crash, and the Titans must find the now-rampaging beasts.
"Operation: Rescue" – A scientist and his son must be rescued from an alien tribe high in the mountains.
Jackson Beck as Narrator (Superman segments),Perry White (Superman segments),Lex Luthor (Superman segments), Beany Martin (Superman segments)
Ted Knight as Narrator (Superboy, Aquaman, Atom, Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman, Justice League and Teen Titans segments), Imp (Aquaman segments), Tusky (Aquaman segments),Black Manta (Aquaman segments), Torpedo Man (Aquaman segments), Blue Bolt (Flash segments)
In 1985,Warner Home Video released eight selected Aquaman episodes of the series onVHS in the "Super Powers" video collection, along withBatman,Superboy andSuperman. These videos were re-released in 1996. In October 2007, Warner Home Video (via DC Comics and WBFE) releasedThe Adventures of Aquaman: The Complete Collection onDVD inRegion 1; the 2-disc set features all 36 Aquaman segments from the series, as well as special features.[8]
Warner Home Video (via DC Comics Entertainment andWarner Bros. Family Entertainment) also releasedDC Super Heroes: The Filmation Adventures on August 12, 2008. The double DVD set features 18 cartoons starringHawkman,Green Lantern, theFlash, theAtom, the original 1960sTeen Titans and theJustice League of America.[9] The collection was released inRegion 2 on October 13, 2008. In February 2014, Warner Home Video re-released the Filmation cartoons across two budget DVDs, one containing the Atom, Flash, and Green Lantern segments, and the other containing the Hawkman, Justice League, and Teen Titans segments.[10][11]
^Erickson, Hal (2005).Television Cartoon Shows: An Illustrated Encyclopedia, 1949 Through 2003 (2nd ed.). McFarland & Co. pp. 812–813.ISBN978-1476665993.
