The All New Super Friends Hour

After a lackluster start in 1973, the familiar SuperFriends team of Superman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Batman and Robin returned 4 years later in this series which featured four episodes in under one-hour airings following this format: The first was a 7-minute short that featured at least two of the core superheroes teamed to combat various villains seeking to carry out diabolical plots. The second was a 4 1/2-minute short that featured the Wonder Twins from planet Exxor, alien teenage superheroes Zan and Jayna who utilize special changing powers by touching their fists to activate and spring into action to help kids and teenagers in danger. Helping them out is the blue space monkey Gleek , who has a long tail that comes in handy every now and then. The threesome were an effective replacement of original Junior SuperFriends Wendy, Marvin, and WonderDog. The third episode was the main, full-length episode of the hour as the SuperFriends and the Wonder Twins teamed up against various villains and dangers that usually were a threat to the world. These were at least 22 minutes long. The fourth episode was a rescue mission that teamed at least one of the regular superheroes with another DC Comics superhero. This guest cast included Hawkman and Hawkgirl, Green Lantern, Rima the jungle woman, the Atom and the Flash . Other heroes (not from DC Comics) created for this and subsequent SuperFriends series are Black Vulcan, Samurai , and Apache Chief for more ethnic variety. These shorts were 6 minutes long. In between episodes, there were a number of fun segments for kids. There were magic tricks, decoder games, arts and crafts to make objects out of household items, as well as the more serious health and safety tips. The All-New SuperFriends Hour premiered on September 10, 1977 on ABC and ran one season before being replaced by Challenge of the SuperFriends which aired with another SF series that featured the main cast and the Wonder Twins in a half-hour series similar to the third episodes of this series. Subsequent SuperFriends series aired after these until the final series The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians in 1985