Saturday Morning 1967- Aquaman

"And the award for most short-changed superhero goes to..."

I have always disliked how Ted Knight (Mary Tyler Moore's "Ted Baxter" and the dad on Too Close for Comfort as well as Filmation voice artist and narrator) said "Aquaman". I mean, this is English and aqua is a Latin word, and Latin is a dead language, but the way he says it just can't be right.

Ted always (without fail) pronounced it ACK-wuh-man. I have always felt that AH-KWUH-man was more correct. And Ted says "Aquaman" a LOT.

1967's Aquaman cartoons from Filmation are really pretty impressive. Filmation gives Aquaman a cool laboratory HQ and a large supporting cast-Mera, Aqualad, Storm the seahorse and even a goofy pet for Aqualad, Tusky the walrus. (I still wince every time Aquaman and Aqualad climb into that rocketship filled with water for an interplanetary voyage and they take Tusky! He's a mammal! It makes me feel a little pannicky, frankly.)


Kinda the Lone Ranger and Tonto of the seas.

Filmation even included a pretty large number of real Aquaman villains, making good use of Black Manta and even The Fisherman.

There were also the mandatory Filmation alien invasion stories , and a LOT of invasions by hostile undersea races. Frankly, I'd never realized the wild diversity of sentient ocean-dwellers.

Aquaman himself has a fairly on-model appearance, although Filmation felt he needed some big,black boots instead of his calf- fins. And his hair sure stays still for a guy who lives underwater:

I bet he uses AQUA-NET!!
Still, these cartoons are wonderful fun and they do a pretty good job of capturing the spirit of 1960's Aquaman comics.

Saturday Morning 1967- Green Lantern

In 1967, Filmation released the new "Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure" which, as you might guess, featured the previous year's Superman cartoons along with a new batch of cartoons featuring Aquaman. It also featured appearances by Hawkman, The Flash, The Atom, The Justice League of America, the Teen Titans and (obviously) Green Lantern.

These Filmation DC Heroes cartoons are all pretty much the same. The heroes fight one or two of their villains and a whole lot of made-up, Filmation aliens. There are two reasons why the Green Lantern segments are significant: One, they're the first animated appearance of Green Lantern and two, they feature a sidekick.

Green Lantern is almost unique amongst Silver Age DC heroes in that he doesn't actually have a sidekick-no Lantern Boy or Lantern Lad or Greenie, the Wonder Flame. The good folks at Filmation saw this obvious deficiency and stepped up to the plate. They gave us a cute, blue kid from Venus named Kairo.

Funny thing is, Green Lantern didn't have a costumed sidekick in the comics, but he did have a helper. A close friend and confidant who knew his secret, leant a hand, dry-cleaned his tights...

His name was Thomas Kalamaku. But, as far as GL was concerned, his name was "Pieface".

This may need some explaining. Tom is a Native Alaskan, or an Eskimo as we (Honkies) used to call them. And, if you've never left the "lower 49", you may not realize this, but "pieface" is an ethnic slur.

So, Filmation felt they needed to do DC one better and not go around having a superhero calling his sidekick by a name that was, frankly, offensive.

So, here's to you, Kairo. You may have been a lame, last-minute replacement, but at least you never let the Man keep you down!

Saturday Morning 1966- Space Ghost.

Don't let that talk show fool you, there was a time when Space Ghost was a bad-ass played straight super hero.

Out of all the Hanna-Barbera created super heroes to hit Saturday Morning in the 1960's, Space Ghost is, in my opinion, the cream of the crop. Oh, sure, Bird Man is cool (although he loses his solar-driven superpowers every time he steps indoors or a cloud goes by) and the Galaxy Trio rock in a ripping off the Fantastic Four kinda way. And Mightor and the Herculoids are pretty smashing in a vaguely homo-erotic, caveman, Frazetta- barbarian sort of way. But Space Ghost has it all.

Space Ghost has a cool costume (he was designed by the inimitable Alex Toth),
not one, but two, count 'em two kid sidekicks,

a boss space ship,

his own planet as a secret base and-and this is the coolest part- a freakin' monkey!


His super powers include invisibility (I'm assuming that's where the "ghost" part comes in) and a ray for every occasion, fired from his wrist-mounted power bands. Heck, Space Ghost has been know to take out whole species and entire planets just to wrap up an episode.

He also has an impressive cast of recurring villains, Zorak, Moltar, Brak, Creature King, Web Woman (sometimes Spider Woman), Metallus, Lurker... There's even a storyline where all his villains team up and form the "Council of Doom" to get even with him.

You can still get the entire series on Amazon.com pretty cheap, so treat yourself.

You just can't beat a hero so cool that his emblem is a picture of himself.

PS: Avoid the 1981 cartoon series. It was stinky.