Super Friends: The Lost Episodes - Region 1 DVD

The animation is simple but the designs pop in a pleasing way, with plenty of color and some classic comic-book imagery. The action and cornball messages are skewed toward young viewers of Saturday-morning cartoons, and at times the dialogue is painfully "clever" ("If you don't like this hotel, you're gonna have to deal with the Complaint Department--Superman!"). Biggest stumbling block is the emphasis given to the Wonder Twins, the brother-sister team whose "Shape of..." and "Form of..." shtick gets old fast. Unless you're ten years old. Of course their mischievous monkey Gleek is around too, and in "Two Gleeks Are Deadlier Than One," he's replicated as an "android duplicate of Gleek," which is definitely overkill. Even if you don't like those three, there's a great deal of childhood fun in these lightweight adventures. And in the final episode there's a trip to "Bizarro World," trapping Superman and Wonder Woman in an Atari-style video game. Bizarro indeed. --Robert Horton