Tooned In: Superfriends – The Killer Machines, Garden of Doom, Revenge of Bizarro (1980)
By No One Can Beat Megabucks on 12 February 2025
One of these things is not like the other, one of these things actually can fly…
Kind of a last minute deal, but there was stuff I felt fit right into my commentaries. I was planning on doing an episode from this version eventually anyway.
As for “this version”…Superfriends has now entered the 1980s. Unlike others which borrowed the idea of one long episode with the Main Five and the Wonder Twins, from here until Legendary Super Powers Show, we’re going to get the other half of the All-New Super Friends Hour season format, with each half-hour being made of three shorts. However, each short can now feature anybody used on the show from 1977 and up, without much of a pattern this time other than the Wonder Twins always being the stars of the middle short. This era seems to be the “forgotten” one of the series, and indeed, one of the seasons therein was literally “lost” to American audiences for years, since they just didn’t air in the 1983 season.
The introduction is a modified version of the All-New intro, and recycles some animations from that as well as the World’s Greatest Superfriends one. Samurai, Black Vulcan, and Apache Chief have been promoted to being named in the roll call of heroes. We see Atom, Hawkman, and Hawkgirl but they are not named.
Today’s first story:
THE KILLER MACHINES
Not to be confused with when the WWF went to Dallas in 1986 and put Tim Brooks under a mask to team up with Super and Big. We begin at the IBN computer institute in Gotham City, which employs an African-American technician named…Doctor Brown. Anyway, Brown (really..???) and Dr. Olin just created, as the narrator describes it, “the most advanced computer the world has ever known.” This is “Romac,” who looks like a robot from the Robo Force toy line. Of course, Romac gains sentience and decides that machines should, you guessed it, take over the world (OF COURSE!) He also has the power to control any electronic device telepathically. At the Hall of Justice, Batman, Robin, and Black Vulcan receive a Trouble Alert about Romac’s antics, but the robot chases Olin off and proceeds to turn the Justice League Computer on the Superfriends, including a cameo by the Supermobile going rogue on the Dynamic Duo. Romac eventually traps everyone in a detention cell and threatens to use their disintegrator ray. And brother, when it disintegrates, it disintegrates! Actually, the Superfriends having a weapon that could literally break up someone into non-existence is pretty cold. You sure we’re not back in the Hall of Evil from last review? No, because we’d probably have Devil Batman, Snidely Whiplash mustached Robin, and I don’t know, White Klingon? And a Devilman replacing Batman? Well, it worked for Sega. Sorry, tangent. Luckily, Batman somehow also has an invulnerable cape like Superman, and they deflect the rays to the ground so they can escape. Black Vulcan declares, “We have to stop that insane computer before it does more damage! (…in my pants)” Batman agrees to meet him at IBN in the Batmobile, and you know where this is going. And yep, Romac has taken over the Batmobile too…
Gentlemen, start your screaming…
Sending Batman and Robin on a ride to death so intense, it reverses all the bat emblems’ colors…
…things seem hopeless, but Black Vulcan makes the save. Only for this to happen…
Between this and “Dr. Brown,” this set of Superfriends writers are pretty suss. So, the heroes have to fend off the rogue cop car and a bulldozer…closest we’ll get to DC vs. Transformers. What to do? It’s “Quick, Robin!” time, as Batman commands to “use the Bat Bazooka!” (Black Vulcan: “…in his pants.”) Of course Romac turns that against them, and they retreat into the sewers in hopes of sneak attacking at IBN. There, Romac is giving the “Computers will take over the world” speech that is supposed to be harsher in hindsight now. The surprise attack appears to be futile: Robin is trapped by a telephone, Black Vulcan’s energy reserves are frozen (it’s like the power going out only…you know the rest), and Romac turns the utility belt on Batman, trapping him in his own Bat-Ropes. Really, Romac? All the things Bats has there, and he settles for tying him up? Surely he could have malfunctioned the Bat Mouse Compartment and possibly release rabid rodents who’d bite Batman and kill him. Or open up his emergency Bat Milk and Cookies and get a crazed Shaggy and Scooby-Doo on his side. While I ponder this flaw in Romac’s “infallible” programming, Batman finds another when the robot brags that the Superfriends will be nothing but memories on his computer tape. Firing a Bat Magnet erases said tapes and renders Romac helpless. First threatening to shove Kryptonite down a monster’s throat, then finding out the Hall of Justice has disintegrator rays, now lobotomizing their enemies? I hope next story is more light-hearted!
GARDEN OF DOOM
(…no relation.)
The Wonder Twins are taking art courses at Metropolis College (in their costumes, no less!), but instantly drop out when Gleek outpaints both of them. It turns out to be good timing, because over in the botanical department of the school, an invention meant to irradiate vegetables to make them grow bigger works too well, and we get, how shall I describe this? They’re tomatoes, but somehow have been turned into killers who might attack someone at a moment’s notice.
Hearing the call for help, Zan and Jayna get over their educational failures and activate their powers: Giant Rabbit and Ice Shears…
Shape of…WWF weapons from the ’80s and early ’90s!
Holding the monstrous plant at bay, Professor Grimes tries to use a shrink ray to restore the tomatoes back to normal. but makes the biggest mistake someone named “Grimes” did since telling New Jack, “You know, let’s do that fall from the balcony!” The Wonder Twins are shrunk alongside the plant and are faced with the “strange vegetable world” where they ward off ants and killer asparagus. Now here’s where the Wonder Twin shorts are different in these ’80s episodes. Before, they just helped other teenagers in typical teen issues gone wrong, and it usually only took the Twins to save the day. While many of these era’s shorts still have the teen troubles, you see that Zan and Jayna also get involved in bigger dangers now. Not only that, but at the halfway mark, they get in trouble of their own, and it’s time to call in one of the other Superfriends to guest star. This time, it’s Wonder Woman, who just…shows up at the college. We don’t get to see her get a Trouble Alert about the plant monster nor the Wonder Twins disappearing. She just shows up and the doctors tell her the exposition. Also, Wonder Woman? If the Twins are faced with a dangerous miniaturized world, wouldn’t The Atom be better? But…that won’t be the first time the writers decided to mismatch heroes and villains in the series; as I noted before, it’s especially blatant in some Super Powers episodes, such as the Mirror Master NOT taking on The Flash, or Penguin with no Batman in sight.
Well, Wonder Woman agrees to shrink herself to rescue the Wonder Twins, who are being held captive by ants. Here, we learn that they can activate their powers if they’re touching someone or something between them; in this case, one of the ants. Turning into a parakeet and a thundercloud, they fight off the insects, and geez, why doesn’t Zan turn into THAT more often? I get it, threatening to strike their enemies with lightning is too much for SatAM, but yeah! The Queen Ant flies and intercepts the escapees, but Wonder Woman arrives in time and commandeers the bug, flying them all to where they can all be restored to full size. With everything turning out all right, Wonder Woman jokes about going out for a vegetarian meal. Not to be outdone, Gleek gets his sight gag in when he makes a giant banana that turns into a monster.
(Sidenote: Speaking of Wonder Woman, the episode prior had a pretty cool short where rogue Atlantean women rise the undersea city…yet they don’t recognize Aquaman nor does Aquaman recognize them, or the city itself even! The cool part is when Wonder Woman’s last resort is to telepathically call Thymiscira, er, Paradise Island, and gets Hippolyta and the other Amazons to make the save. In another short earlier, Wonder Woman and Atom are tricked into traveling back in time by…a DR. WELLS. My god, the timeline tampering in The Flash was no joke…)
REVENGE OF BIZARRO
(oops, according to the title card, that’s “Bizzaro”)
Nope still not going to go THERE. But…was the left sign written by Gene Okerlund? “Time for more exciting f—ing actieen!”
And Bizarro returns from his stint with the Legion of Doom in this solo outing against the Superfriends. At this point, they are trying to lean more into the ridiculousness and comedic aspects of the comics Bizarro World (“Road too clean, put more dirt!”)…but they’re not quite there yet, and Bizarro is still depicted as a full-fledged villain out to destroy the heroes. His plan is to use his Bizarro Ray to turn the Superfriends into other Bizarros. He starts by pretending to be a robber to lure in Batman and Robin, who moan that “he’s as strong as Superman!” Even though this wasn’t a problem before when they literally stopped him with a PLASTIC BAG. Here, they aren’t so lucky and get zapped. Bizarro then stages a plane accident that Wonder Woman must stop, and for the first time she becomes Bizarro Wonder Woman.
At the Hall of Justice, Superman, Hawkman and Hawkgirl are attacked by the Bizarro Superfriends. “Bat Bizarro Concrete” is not enough to hold Superman, and Bizarro Robin’s net is cut open by the beak of Hawkman’s mask? I stand corrected, Superfriends Hawkman can only fly AND peck things! To be fair, though, he and Hawkgirl do get to use weapons to chase off the Bizarros too. The actual Bizarro ambushes, though, and turns the Hawks. Superman destroys the Bizarro Ray, but his imperfect duplicate has one more trick up his sleeve: Red Kryptonite. Not the last time a Bizarro story will involve such, and this time’s unpredictable effect is Superman gaining two extra arms and legs. If only he had that nice Parker kid on the Trouble Alert speed dial, he handled something like this before. As it was, the solution is pretty easy for the Man of Steel, who flies to his Fortress of Solitude for a secret weapon in his vault, which he busts open since his extra hands are too clumsy for turning the combination. He finds an Anti-Bizarro Ray, which restores his friends. Then happens about some Blue Kryptonite, which he triumphantly declares “Only Affects Bizarro!” But what would have happened if he used the Anti-Bizarro Ray on Bizarro #1 himself? Anyone? It might save Supes some trouble in the future. But he takes his win as it is, and until the Red K wears off, he figures he’ll use his extra arms to clean up his now wrecked vault. Everyone laughs…until Superman turns into a Man Octopus and needs to fight off vampires who want everyone’s plasma. Or I’m just thinking of another cartoon.
So they’re getting closer, but the Bizarro episode in the Super Powers season obviously did this a lot better. Otherwise, typical Superfriends fare with lots to roast.
The end credits still mention Norman Alden, so maybe they aired these with older episodes? The other possibility is, they returned the PSA segments to this season, with a combination of the 1977 ones and new ones usually starring the Multicultural Pals and the Wonder Twins. Since these can’t be found in reruns nor DVDs, enjoy a few:
Black Vulcan teaches skateboard safety