Retro Weekend Rewind: Super Friends Cartoon, Super Powers Toys, '89 Batman Cereal

One of our favorite Saturday morning cartoons, growing up, was the Super Friends! What ‘80s kid didn’t love a show that featured all of their favorite DC Comics heroes fighting a team of villains each week? This month’s Retro Weekend Rewind we’ll be taking a quick look at the Super Friends cartoon and the Super Powers toyline along with a Bat-tastic part of a balanced breakfast.

Super Friends This cartoon featured Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and the rest of the Justice League of America fighting the Legion of Doom and various other threats each Saturday Morning. The cartoon was produced by Hanna-Barbera and ran from 1973 to 1986 with many different titles throughout the years. The versions I remember were Challenge of the Super Friends (1978-1979), The World’s Greatest Super Friends (1979-1980), Super Friends (1980-1983)The Legendary Super Powers Show (1984-1985), and The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians (1985-1986)

Throughout it's run this cartoon featured lots of our favorite DC Comics Characters like Aquaman, The Flash, Hawkman, and Green Lantern along with the Wonder Twins Zan & Jayna who were created for the show. Later, in the series, it also introduced us to newer characters like Cyborg and Firestorm! (Lets try to forget Wendy and Marvin.) In early seasons the Super Friends fought enemies like Lex Luther, the Joker, Black Manta, Bizarro, Cheetah, and others. In the later run of the show the team faced off against Darkseid and his minions!

Super Friends Intro (1973)

Challenge of the Super Friends Intro (1978)

Super Friends: The Legendary Super Powers Show intro (1984)

The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians Intro (1985)

Super Powers This amazing toy line made it's debut in 1984 by Kenner. The action figures from this line were awesome with their brightly colored costumes, an action feature with each hero & villain and a mini comic included with each figure.

There were three waves of toys from this collection throughout it's run that featured figures like the trinity of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman along with Martian Manhunter, The Flash, Red Tornado, Aquaman, and many more heroes. The villains featured Lex Luther, Brainiac, the Joker, Darkseid, Steppenwolf, among other threats to your toy box! The vehicles were amazing and included the Supermobile, Lex-Soar 7, Delta Probe 1, and others! The best of all the vehicles was, of course, the Batmobile. The Super Powers Collection even included a Hall of Justice play set. We'll definitely do a more in depth post on the Super Powers toy line in the future.

Super Powers Collection - Commercial featuring Superman, Batman, Hawkman, Brainiac, and mini comics!

Super Powers Collection - Commercial featuring Superman, The Flash, The Joker, Lex Luther, and mini comics.

Super Powers Collection Commercial featuring Hawkman, Firestorm, Dr Fate, Green Lantern, Superman, Darkseid, DeSaad, Mantis, and the Darkseid Destroyer vehicle!

Super Powers Collection - Batmobile Commercial

Batman Cereal There’s no question that the summer of 1989 belonged to Batman! After the release of Tim Burton’s Batman movie on June 23 of that year you couldn’t escape the Dark Knight if you tried; not even in the breakfast aisle! Batman Cereal was introduced in 1989 by Ralston and featured honey nut flavored bats. One of the best things about this bat-breakfast was the Batman Bank that came shrink wrapped to some of the boxes of cereal.

Batman Cereal Commercial (1989)

Hope you enjoyed this mont’s edition Retro Weekend Rewind! What are your memories of the Super Friends cartoon and toys? What about the ’89 Batman movie? We’d love to hear from you. Leave a comment below and follow us on Facebook and Twitter!

See you next month for another awesome Retro Weekend Rewind!