Tag: Cartoon Fun Shack

Smiling Stans Favorite Son

Folks, we’ve seen some pretty kickin’ rad/crazy-ass stuff in the first quarter of this series. We’ve seen redundant dinosaur armies, men made of bees and whatever kind of nonsense was going on in that Sunfire episode. But this one… hooooooboy.


Seven Little Superheroes
Written by Doug Booth

In which all at least one, perhaps, of your favorite superheroes battle the Chameleon, channeling both Dracula and Agatha Christie.

The episode opens with a shot of The Chameleons Haunted Castle in the Middle of a Lake during a thunderstorm (the best possible establishing shot) within which the Chameleon himself is speaking to nobody in particular about his nefarious plan to lure seven super heroes to his lair and kill them one-by-one in increasingly elaborate deathtraps. This is noteworthy because, for no reason at all, Chameleon speaks in rhyming couplets, and because while he is doing so he is executing little tiny statues of each of those super heroes with unrelated deathtraps. This ranges from shooting lightning at a little Namor doll, too opening a trap door beneath a Shanna the Jungle Queen so that it drops into a teeny tiny lava pit while cackling madly. Also, The Chameleon sounds like Mr. Slate from the Flintstones trying to sound like Dracula. He also changes his appearance to match the different heroes as he’s talking, just in case you weren’t quite able to guess what the Chameleons gimmick was from his name.

It is so beautifully nuts that this has become my new favorite Crazy-ass thing to happen in the first three minutes in the series.

Anyway, cutting away from the Haunted Castle and the Rhyming Dracula dressed like Cobra Commander to New York the Spider-Friends are… just running around pointlessly. Not even trying to justify it by saying they’re “on patrol” or talking about how web-swinging clears the ol’ head or anything. They’re just tearing ass through the city like a bunch of hyperactive toddlers.

The Chameleon apparently predicted this and left written invitations to his secret villain lair on WOLF ISLAND exactly where they happened to be wandering at the time. Spider-Mans invitation is upside down under an eave of a building where he stopped to catch his breath and everything.

Also, Iceman crashes into both Firestar and Spider-Man because he was reading the note while he was piloting his glacier through a crowded street instead of watching where he was going.

Dammit, Bobby.

Peter explains to Aunt May that they three of them have been invited to a Secret Get Together on WOLF ISLAND MANSION and she insists they take her dog, Ms. Lion, with them. Because Aunt May is old and kind of crazy.

Later, the Spider-Friends (and dog) arrive at Wolf Island Mansion and note that it looks exactly as you might expect a place called Wolf Island Mansion would. Iceman freezes the lake so they can all cross which causes Namor the Submariner to burst out of the water, call Iceman a damn fool and express his general displeasure that the mysterious summons to Wolf Island he received also included D-listers like the Spider-Friends, then he storms off to the mansion on his own.

Inside the mansion, the Spider-Friends meet the rest of the guests; Doctor Strange: Sorcerer Supreme, Captain America: The Living Legend and Shanna the She-Devil who… nobody in the show knows about either (according to Wikipedia, she watched her father accidentally kill her mother with a gun when he was trying to shoot her mothers pet leopard, so she decided to become a conservationist and went all jungle-y to fight Poachers.) Then the Chameleon breaks in over the loud speaker to tell the assembled heroes that he is going to kill them one-by-one and give the audience a brief synopsis of each characters powers. Except Captain America, who he just calls a “super-fool”.

Namor doesn’t really want to bother with fighting the Chameleon, and he CERTAINLY doesn’t want to hang out with Iceman, so he decides to just leave, wherin it is revealed that the Chameleon has put a forcefield over Wolf Island because That
Is How
The Chameleon
Rolls

Namor yells at the force field a bit and then the Chameleon chimes in again to give another little short poem about how he’s going to kill everybody.

Seven Little Superheroes, in quite a fix.
One will meet fire, and then there will be six.

Since everyone now realizes that they have to fight the Chameleon they opt to do the reasonable thing and immediately split up. That makes sense when fighting a master of disguise, right? Anyway, the Submariner explores WOLF CASTLE a bit and finds an Olympic sized swimming pool in one of the rooms, and immediately goes for a swim in it. For those not familiar with the comics, Namors powers are fueled by continued exposure to water. But the swimming pool was a trap! A CRAZY ASS trap!

It wasn’t full of water, it was actually full alcohol, which dried up the Sub Mariner, and then a secret LIGHTNING CANNON built into the ceiling shot electricity into the pool setting it on fire!

HOLY CRAP YOU GUYS! THAT JUST HAPPENED!

On the rooftop, Spider-Man is checking around to see if the Chameleon is… just standing around up there, I guess. He isn’t, but he stumbled into another of the Chameleons traps by falling into the mansions chimney. It’s not the flashiest trap, but it hinges entirely on the fact that Spider-Man is awful at his job and thus, it works flawlessly. The Chameleon copies Spideys appearance and leaves him there in the chimney.

Meanwhile in the… jungle (?) Captain America has teamed up with Iceman, presumably because Iceman needs constant supervision. This was a wise decision since Iceman immediately steps into a trap, like, two seconds after Captain America tells him to be careful of the traps they were about to walk into. Cap tries to save him but trips a different trap that causes wooden spikes to rain from the trees (??).

Luckily, just then Spider-Man shows up and tells Cap to leap into a nearby pond because he’ll be safe there. Cap does so and WOULDN’T YOU KNOW IT, it’s actually a pit of quicksand. Spider-Man makes a half-hearted attempt to save Cap with a webline, then runs away laughing when it fails. Somehow, during all of this, nobody thinks that Spider-Man might be the Chameleon in disguise, despite the fact that his eyes are glowing, and his voice has a spooky re verb and the fact that he just buried Captain America in Quicksand and laughed about it.

Though, to be fair, a lot of that can easily be chalked up to Spidey being bad at his job.

The Chameleons deception is revealed when Aunt Mays dog shows up right the hell out of nowhere and growls at him. Also, Firestar and Dr. Strange show up, realizing that the “Let’s Split Up” plan was awful. The Spider-Friends (and tagalongs) follow the dog back to the mansion where Spider-Man is just now climbing out of the chimney. Iceman freezes him solid on the spot thinking he’s the Chameleon again (who… just trapped himself, I guess? I don’t know, I don’t try to understand Icemans thought-processes) and then apologizing when he realizes he almost killed his friend. For the second time this afternoon.

Meanwhile, at the mountains (…how big is this island, seriously), Shanna is… wandering around when suddenly she falls into the next of the Chameleons traps when the entire mountain falls into a drain hole and I am not exactly sure at what I am looking at here. Anyway, Shannas dead. Whatever. Moving on.

The Spider-Friends run off to save Shanna after Dr. Strange gets a telepathic message that she’s in danger (just go with it) and they follow what appears to be Shanna but is actually Chameleon. The dog barks at him again and the Chameleon opens a tiny, dog-sized trapdoor underneath it before running into a cave network in the mountains that have not been flushed down the drain.

Firestar chases the Chameleon while everyone else busies themselves with the dog-rescue attempt. Seperateed from the group, Firestar is beaten when Chameleon opens all the caves secret Liquid Nitrogen vents which is pretty lame compared to every other trap he’s used so far, I have to admit, and dumps her into an empty room.

Chameleon, after changing into Firestar sends a giant robot cyclops after Dr. Strange. The remaining Spider-Friends realize that Firestar is Chameleon in disguise when she does not immediately start setting the robot on fire, but by then it’s too late and the cyclops eats Dr. Strange. Also, Shanna turns up alive after surviving “somehow”. They all chase the Chameleon but Shanna falls down a lava shaft in the middle of the pursuit. I’m not really sure why she even bothered to survive the first trap.

This alos means that Spider-Man and Iceman are the only superheroes left. Lordy. Lordy. Lordy.

Iceman immediately tries to break the forcefield, presumably so he can leave and go get some DECENT superheroes to pal around with, and gets shot by a Heatray for his troubles and tossed into a room adjacent to the one that Firestar was being held in.

Firestar wakes up from her gassing and does what she does best, which causes Iceman to think that the Chameleons plan was to boil HIM. So he cranks up his ice powers to cancel them out, which starts to freeze Firestar again.

Holding back the snark, that’s actually a pretty good plan for Chameleon. The back-and-forth goes on until the temperature changes burst the water-pipes over Firestars room, flooding her and tearing down the wall. Iceman sees his mistake and gets a floor-mounted blowtorch in the face.

Spider-Man starts wandering Wolf Castle trying to find ANY of his friends and falls into YET ANOTHER trap door landing in the web of a giant robot spider. Spidey destroys the robot with an exposed electrical cord and the explosion tears down the wall where the rest of the shows special guest stars are being held prisoner; Iceman in a cage of fire, Namor under a sunlamp, Firestar encased in ice and everyone else in a cage that I THINK was supposed to be electrified, but wasn’t because nobody bothered to animate that part.

Chameleon takes this time to start the islands Self Destruct and goes off to leave in his custom-built Helicopter that says “THE CHAMELEON” in bright red letters. Spidey frees his friends (and Iceman) and Dr. Strange teleports everyone to the roof. I have no idea why he didn’t think to do that earlier, would have saved everyone a lot of grief.

Iceman freezes the helicopter in midair, the rest of the superheroes board it, and Aunt Mays dog out runs a fireball and then everyone laughs because the episode is over. Presumably the Chameleon is hauled off to jail.

‘Tis the Season

I don’t think you’re merry enough. I’ll TEACH you to be Merry. I’ll teach your grandmother to suck eggs!

Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers presents

I’m Dreaming of a White Ranger

We open at Ernies Juice Bar and Gym, with a great many precocious children alternatively singing Christmas carols and Hanukkah songs, even School Bullies-turned-Civic Defenders, Bulk and Skull have shown up to play Santa for the wee chill’rens and it’s all as merry as HELL, except for the one sad little girl who has nothing to be happy about because her father is working on Christmas and nothing, not even topping the official Juice-Bar Christmas Tree can snap her out of her funk. It’s as tragic as the dickens, and a tragedy that Pink Ranger Kimberly can relate to, since her parents are also out of the country in Paris or some such.

But having the WORST TIME of all on this Christmas Eve is Lord Zedd, within his evil Moon Base. But unlike SAD CHILD and the Pink Ranger, Lord Zedd is planning on DOING something about his holiday blues; specifically, he is going to STEAL CHRISTMAS!

“This year, I am going to take over Santas workshop and force those good-for-nothing elves to make some REAL toys” he snarls, producing an evil hypnotic Dreidel.

Less then five minutes in and we have a Best Line of Dialogue.

Zedd sendsRitas Evil Skeleton Brother, Rito to the North Pole to begin Ruining Christmas.

“Next year, Santa, you won’t have to check your list even once, because all the worlds children will be naughty!” Zedd laughs, dramatically.

At the North Pole, some of the Elves are worried that they’re a little behind schedule when there is a tap-tap-tapping on the door and in walks an evil Skeleton with a Laser Sword whose introductions are interupted by Santa;

“I know who YOU are, Rito Revolto, you’ve been a very Naughty boy this year!”

The Elves and Santa are initially reluctant to build evil mind-control toys to distribute to children all over the world, but it turns out that when you’re an evil skeleton with a laser sword, it’s really easy to coerce people.

Zordon catches wind of a threat to Santas livliehood and summons the Power Rangers to the Command Center, which gives them a chance to ditch SAD LITTLE GIRL who is still whining about her dad working on Christmas. The Rangers teleport to the Command Center and Zodorn gives them the skinny in the most expediant way possible;

“Rito has taken over the North Pole, he’s captured Santa and is forcing the elves to Mass-Produce Lord Zedds Evil Christmas Toys”

Oh… my God… that is the best line of dialogue ever written. Or it would have been if it wasn’t followed up by this;

“Because of a combination of the North Poles unique polarity and a cross-current of Holiday Magic, you’re Morphing Powers will not work.”

Tommy is unwavering in his conviction to Save Christmas;

“That’s a chance we’ll have to take. Santa is way too important. We have to save him!”

The Rangers are then teleported to the North Pole where it’s… presumably less cold then you might expect, since nobody really takes the time to put on a coat or anything, and see the terrible state of Santas Workshop;

Ritos minions are all forcing the elves to build the Evil Toys while Santa is tied up in boughs of holly and being smacked with a Nerf Bat every time the Elves slow down production.

Upon seeing that the Rangers are involved now, Zedd sends down Goldar to help Ritos Evil Christmas Plan. Because Goldar is not a known dangerous adversary who has been pretty soundly beaten an average of once every episode up to this point, so he would certainly be an asset in a battle with a comic-relief villain.

The Rangers formulate a plan that if Christmas Magic is interfering with their powers, that, logically, it stop Rito from being able to do anything either; their plan works when, after goading Rito outside of Santas Workshop, he utterly fails to shoot any lasers at them.

The Rangers defeat Rito and Goldar by chucking a lot of snowballs at them while the Evles, free of their skeleton overseer take back the Toyshop with Home Alone style traps and tricks, freeing Santa, and destroying all of the Evil Toys. Elliciting a heartfelt “Bah! Humbug!” from Lord Zedd.

It’s… not really the most noble defeat they’ve ever had.

Back at the North Pole, the Rangers help to repair all the damage that Zedds minions, and refill Santas Sleigh with Good Toys;

“I never would have Saved Christmas without the help of the Power Rangers” Santa says, handing over a special sack full of toys for the Sad Children at Ernies Juice Bar.

Santa also makes a special delivery to the moon where he gives Zedd back all the Evil Toys, Rito and Goldar exchange gifts for their Secret Santa exchange, and Zedd grumbles that “Christmas gives me the willies”

Back at the Juice Bar, Sad Little Girls father showed up after all for some reason. Maybe he got fired or Santa Magic or something? I don’t know. He asked her to buy him some Hot chocolate, so probably the former. Also, Kimberlys parents showed up despite being in Paris so… that’s even more confusing?

Then Sad Little Girl (did she ever get named?) and the other Non-Specifically Sad Children all gather round to sing Silent Night.

And THATS how you save Christmas without a Megazord.

Banded Together From Distant Galaxies

The Time Trap

Buckle up kids, because things are about to get dumb.

Opening, as always, at Fort Vadershroom, this week it’s Bizarro doing the complaining. “Me sick of losing to Super Friends. Me going to back Bizarro World where everything backwards. There, Losing mean WINNING!”

Bizarro has the best dialogue in this show.

Anyway, it’s Grodds turn for expositing their evil plan this week, and he’s built a TIME MACHINE that looks like a key ring fob.

MEANWHILE, AT THE HALL OF JUSTICE

The Superfriends receive a call form Black Manta, who announces that he is presently robbing a boat. It’s obviously part of a Legion plan to lure them away, but I like to think that Manta just calls them up to announce his evil plans from time to time just so Aquaman feels more helpful.

Anyway, of course it’s a trap, and Aquaman and Apache Chief (no idea why he came along), along with Black Manta and Giganta are all sent to 70-Million BC by Grodds Car Starter/Time Machine.

Apache Chief figures that they travelled through a time vortex and is immediately proven right when a WATER DINOSAUR (it looks like a pleisiosaur, except with vampire fangs) shows up to eat them! Manta and Giganta (or Gimanta. Ooooh, that’s a shipping name!) leave them to their fate to dig up buried prehistoric treasure!

Anyhow the dinosaur ceases to be a problem the moment Aquaman remembers that controlling sea creatures is, like, the only thing he can do. He also figures that the best way to employ this is to control all the nearby fish, rather then the dinosaurs for reasons that are best left to the imagination of the viewer.

Meanwhile, Manta goes ahead and starts stealing diamonds from the site of future diamond mines while the Super Friends are distracted. I’m not really sure if that counts as a crime? I mean, sure, the whole Butterfly Effect thing comes into play, but certainly no more severely then it would have for the dinosaur fight a minute ago.

Anyway, when a supervillain is doing anything, so a superhero has to stop them. So Apache Chief and Giganta fight. Or at least she knocks down some rocks and then she and Manta travel back to the present, leaving Apache Chief and Aquaman in prehistory.

MEANWHILE, AT MOUNT RUSHMORE

Captain Cold is going to… erm… steal… it.

He is going to steal Mount Rushmore, one head at a time.

Anyway, this time Samurai and Green Lantern are on the case, and again, they wind up falling into a TIME DOOR, winding up in Camelot!

Which is also in North Dakota? I guess?

MEANWHILE, AT THE HALL OF JUSTICE

Batman and Robin get word (from the chief of police, because Gordon was on lunch or something, presumeably) that Gorilla Grodd and Solomon Grundy are breaking into the Gotham City Treasury.

Anyway, it is YET AGAIN, a trap to leave several Superfriends in the distant past, this time, Ancient Rome (Which was DEFINITELY not in Gotham City) where Batman and Robin are immediately pursued by Legionary Soldiers. At around this time, the rest of the Superfriends realize that they’re co-workers have all vanished off the face of the earth.

MEANWHILE, IN THE TIME OF KING ARTHUR

Captain Cold and Sinestro sneak into Camelot and rob King Arthur of all his gold coins. Green Lantern tries to stop them but, well, he’s awful at his job, so he does not. Moreover, the Knights of the Round Table arrest him for the theft.
MEANWHILE, IN ANCIENT ROME

Grodd just stole a statue. Which is much less impressive then Cold stealing an entire mountain, five minutes ago, but it’s still a crime so Batman tries to arrest him.

Which of course, fails due to Grodds time machine and Batman too is blamed for the theft.

“Grodd did a masterful job of framing us” Batman says. And, you know, he’s not wrong. Green Lantern, sure, I could see him being mistaken for the thief since the odds of there being two brightly colored magic ring-wielding people running around Feudal England are remote. But it’s very difficult to mistake Batman for a literal giant gorilla who can talk.

Anyway, Julius Ceaser decides to sentence them to being eaten alive by lions.

MEANWHILE, AT THE LEGION OF DOOM!

Grodd is pretty pleased with himself, since his plan has managed to get the legion a mountain full of diamonds, chests full of gold and a statue, AND he managed to get rid of half the Justice League. Not a bad days work by any measure. But Grodd doesn’t like just call it a day when he’s done a pretty good job at crime, so he sends the Legion back in time to the Gold Rush and steals all of Californias gold!

MEANWHILE, IN THE AGE OF DINOSAURS

Aquaman actually manages to save the day when he and Apache Chief find the future site of the Hall of Justice, and Aquaman buries his communicator (with its one-hundred-million-year battery) in the ground with an alarm set to go off in 70,001,978 years and 252 days.

The Internet tells me that he set the alarm to got off on September 9th, 1978

Anyway, it works, and when Superman finds a buried radio he immediately figures that the Superfriends have been kidnapped and left for dead in prehistory. And, knowing that, Superman just zips around the planet so fast he winds up in 70 Million BC and rescues Aquaman and Apache Chief.

Which means that Bizarro can as well, so it’s a bit of a mystery why Grodd needed to build a time machine at all.

Anyhow, now that they know what’s happened Superman uses a Geiger counter to find the batteries in the Superfriends’ radios (which were presumably buried with them, wherever they died in the past?) in order to track them down, go back in time to save them before they died.

And if Superman can travel back through time this easily to right wrongs, then, well… it kind of raises some questions about how he chooses to operate.

Anyway, with the Superfriends reunited, the Justice League computer announces that the Legion is probably going to rob the gold out of California, so the Superfriends use Green Lanterns ring to go back there and thwart them.

Anyway, there’s the usual no-stakes-raised fight scene, and AGAIN, the Legion gets away (the Superfriends just plum forgot that Grodd had a time machine…)

Green Lantern just watches them leave (because he’s awful) and vows to stop them… in the future.

‘Tis the Season

The Real Ghostbusters Presents…

X-Mas Marks the Spot

In which The war on Christmas is fought and won.

The Real Ghostbusters was one of those exceedingly rare cartoons based on a movie that often somehow managed to be at least as good as the film that spawned it. And since that movie was Ghostbusters, that’s saying more then a little, that is.

We open on a snowy mountain pass as the Busters are on their way back from a house-call. The boys a little bummed out, partly because they didn’t get paid for this assignment (Ray accidentally singed all the fur of the clients cat) and partly because they’re working on Christmas Eve. All except Peter though, who merely scoffs and says that it’s just another day. It turns out that Peter is down on the Holidays because, as a child, his father was never home to share them with him.

For those who aren’t familiar with minor characters in 25-year-old cartoons, Peters father was a traveling con-man who was constantly run out of town for trying to sell holistic ghost repellant and such.

I love this show and everything about it.

As they try to make their way back to New York in a driving blizzard, the Ecto-1 breaks down and they’re forced to proceed on foot to the nearest service station.

And this is where things get amazing.

As they wander through the Blizzard, the Ghostbusters manage to overlook a huge swirling wormhole right in the middle of the pass and wind up walking straight into what Egon (correctly) identifies as a a town in Victorian England. As they wander through the town looking for a phone to call a tow-truck, they pass a butcher selling a Christmas Turkey to Bob Cratchett, an employee of a greedy money lender named Ebeneezer Scrooge, and Tiny Tim, his invalid son.

You can probably guess where this is going, and it gets better.

As they continue to walk through the streets, Egons PKE Ghost-Detector starts going nuts, and they watch the ghost of Jacob Marley fly out of a window, and three unimaginably powerful spirits enter the building.

Seeing a chance for an easy job, the boys run into the mansion and see Scrooge being confronted by the Ghost of Christmas Past, Present and Future. The Ghostbusters do what they do best and capture the Ghosts, who don’t even put up a token resistance, other then saying

“This Christmas, and all Christmas’ to come will pay the price!”
to which Peter replies “Yeah, yeah, we’ve heard that before.”

I love the idea that Ghosts often threaten to ruin Christmas when being captured. That just feels so immensely right.

Scrooge is elated that four young men in jump suits just ran into his bedroom and blasted ghosts with lasers, right up until Peter gives him the bill for the extermination job. Miserable old sinner of a Miser or not, Scrooge raises a pretty solid point that charging people to save them from otherworldly terrors, and threatening to put them back if they don’t pay up is a might bit of a dick move.

Nevertheless, and true to form, Scrooge does pay for the job and hands over a nickel. But it’s in perfect condition and minted in the 1830s. They’re kind of satisfied with that figuring that the coin was probably worth a lot.

After learning that Scrooge hasn’t even heard of a telephone, let alone own one, they decide to walk back to their car and are surprised to find the blizzard gone and the Ecto-1 in perfect working order.

Egon muses that something about everything they just went through seems familiar, but can’t put his finger on it.

Egon is the smart one, you see.

Meanwhile (?), back in the 1830s, Scrooge has flown his windows open and shakes a vengeful fist at the sky;

“So, you’re not so powerful as I thought. Well, NOBODY interferes with Ebeneezer Scrooges sleep. From this day forth, it is WAR!”

You guys, Scrooge just literally declared War on Christmas after calling out Jesus.

My heart has grown three sizes larger having witnessed that.

Back in New York, Egon loads the Ghosts of Past, Present and Future into the Containment Unit while everyone else heads out to get a Christmas Tree, except, as they walk the city streets, they find something amiss; not only is everyone in the city surlier then usual, and automatically responding to every utterance of the word Christmas with “Bah! Humbug!”, but Fifth Avenue is also entirely undecorated.

They realize whats happened when they pass a bookstore with a display of what has become the best selling novel of the past 150 years; A Christmas Humbug; written by Ebeneezer Scrooge; in which Scrooge reveals that her personally defeated the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future, and also declared and won the War on the Christmas.

Ray immediately puts two and two together;

“Oh no… We just Killed Christmas”

Oh man you guys… this episodes only half over and we’ve already had about three or four Best Things Ever.

Back at the Firehouse, they arrive just in time to learn that Egon has already locked Past Present and Future into the containment unit, and there’s no way to get them out without also releasing every single ghost they’ve ever busted. Since that includes, among other things, the actual, literal, Cthulhu, they decide on a different, crazier plan;

Peter, Winston and Ray will go back through the time-portal to fill in for the missing ghosts to show Scrooge the error of his ways while Egon puts on a diving suit and uses Science! to temporarily turn into a ghost, enter the Containment unit with a life-line and haul the Trio to safety.

While Egon searches Ghost World for the three recent inmates, the machinery keeping him from un-ghosting himself starts to break down, and Slimer dedicates himself to extinguishing all the electrical fires while Janine helps navigate.

Meanwhile, the rest of the Busters have no problem heading back in time to Victorian England and begin their plan of Spectral Harassment on Scrooge; this leads to Peter putting on a tu-tu and being hoisted outside Scrooges window while saying “Boo”

While the rest of the Busters efforts at duplicating the Ghosts of Past, Present and Future are fairly lackluster compared to the real thing (such as making Scrooge wear a viewfinder and running him around on a swivel chair to relive his past), Egon successfully finds the real Ghosts and hauls them back to New York shortly before every single thing that has ever died chases him down and kills him.

Egon and the spirits return to 1830s England just before the time-portal closes and the ghosts take their rightful place as Scrooges moral compass. Scrooge seems annoyed at being forced to be harassed by the dead for the third time in one night, but whatever, he’s a jerk.

Present also mentions that this whole rigamarole with the time paradoxes and such forth was all to teach Peter a lesson to appreciate Christmas, even IF his father is a known con-man.

Back in the Present, everything is back to as it should be, with carolers outside the Firehouse, caroling and nobody yelling “BAH HUMBUG” whenever the word “Christmas” is uttered.

As the Busters lean back and bask in the warm feeling of a job well done, Winston makes the comment that he thought that everything in a Christmas Carol was a work of fiction, not something that literally happened, and he wonders what else must really be true.

And then Santa Claus flys by the window, telling his reindeer to giddyup.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you make the Best Christmas Special ever.

Smiling Stans Favorite Son

SWARM!
Written by Dennis Marks

In which the Spider-Friends do not battle the actual Spider-man villain named, Swarm, because an Evil Nazi Scientist made out of Evil Nazi Bees would be straining credibility, even by this shows standards.

The episode opens with Stan “The Man” Lee narrating about how cool outer space is! HELL YES! This is already my favorite episode! While The Smilin’ Man is going on and on about how Outer Space is both COOL AS HELL and full of Incomprehensible Evil, a meteor that the camera is tracking crashes into a farmyard. A farm, that borders the observatory where the Spider-Friends are on a College-approved Field Trip, no less, under the keen tutelage of some Sciencey-joe named Professor Wells.

The rest of Peteres classmates are pretty non-plussed since the meteor hasn’t landed to anywhere within miles of anything, but Firestar opts to change into her costume and save the day from the peril of her not setting anything on fire within the first three minutes of airtime.

She warns a plane away from the impact zone of the meteor by flying up to the pilots and waving them away (the pilots are pretty non-plussed by this, but considering how Firestar is saving a plane this way an average of once an episode, I guess it’s standard training procedure.) and she gets a face full of meteor for her trouble.

At the impact zone, the meteor has hatched into a blue gas that hypnotizes bees from miles around that all join together into a giant Man Made out Of Bees that starts yelling “SWARM!”. This is FAR less silly then the comics version of Swarm.

Upon seeing a ten-foot tall man-shaped Bee swarm rise out of a meteor containing an unearthly glow, the Farmer who owns the land throws his pitch fork at Swarm and yells “Get your Bees out of here, Mister!”. Which works every bit as well as you might expect. Swarm shoots eye-beams at the farmer who promptly turns into a giant bee-man, then shoots eyebeams at the bee-hive that originally spawned Swarm and made it grow huge.

Seeing Swarm appear, then turning a farmer into a Bee-Man, then turning a Bee-Hive into a building while laughing evilly was all the convincing that Firestar needed that she has a supervillain to fight, so, expectedly, she tries to set Swarm on fire. Unexpectedly this plan totally fails and Swarm overpowers her, and she returns to the Observatory knowing that she doesn’t have a chance against Swarm on her own, she’ll need help from Spider-Man and Iceman.

Which I believe qualifies as being this episodes single dumbest decision from any given Spider-Friend, but I digress.

Back at the Observatory, Peter is using his webshooters to screw with Flash Thompson, and, upon hearing that trouble is afoot, he immediately runs home. Iceman was napping.

Since Firestar put more emphasis on finding her useless, useless team mates then warning anybody, at all, about the whole alien bee-monster thing, the rest of their classmates immediately head to the Meteor where Swarm wastes no time in turning the entire class into more Bee-People.

Firestar shows up again to take another shot at fighting Swarm on her own and, again, her fire atttacks prove to be totally ineffective against the bugs. Thus proving Pokemon wrong. Despite the fact that it was winning handily, Swarm decides to call in reinforcements out of regular, common bees. He shoots eye-lasers at the bees which causes them all to grow Gigantic, and Swarm then sends all the Now Giant bees out to kidnap everyone in New York and turn them into YET MORE Bee-people.

Spidey and Iceman fight off a couple of bees before making theirt way to Swarm. Swarm asks that the Spider-Friends join his Hive and let it grow to consume the planet, and SPidey shoots back that Human Beings have individual minds, not like Insects, and Swarm and the Bee-people all start shooting eyelasers at him. Possibly because that was pretty racist from a Space-Bee standpoint.

Anyway, Firestar and Iceman both get hit right away and turn into Bee People (and also adding flight and Bee-centric Eye-lasers to their existing power sets) but Spider-Man does not, because he already has bug-based superpowers. Really, that’s the explanation given. Spider trumps bee.

Realizing that now the entire world is counting on him to save the day, Spider-Man immediately steals a car and runs away, rationalizing that Swarm must be radioactive, and that if he can shield the radioactivity away from him, then everyone will stop being Bees.

Spidey drives to the University Physics Lab to get some Lab but, because he did not bother to STOP driving his stolen car when he go to the building, instead opting to drive THROUGH the hall, he immediately loses control and drives out through the window, where the stolen car crashes into a flaming wreck in the middle of the football field.

Spider-Man is a hero, and he will save us all.

Spidey escapes the flaming wreck and tricks Firestar and Iceman into following him into a lead-lined room and, against all odds, his “I bet Lead cures Space-Bees!” plan works and they go back to being human. Well, Mutant. Whatever.

Back at the Hive, which has now grown to dwarf most of the surrounding area, the Spider-Friends concoct a plan of wearing contact lenses and fake antenna to disguise the fact that they are NOT bee-people any more so they can sneak into the impact site and steal the meteor that created Swarm. This plan works perfectly despite the fact that Spidey wasn’t wearing wings as part of his disguise and he wasn’t chanting Swarms name.

Firestar takes the Meteor back to the observatory while Spidey and Iceman fight Swarm. A fight which consists of them running away and leading Swarm and his… swarm directly to that same observatory. Not without Iceman knocking down a wall for no reason first.

Firestar has loaded the meteor into a rocket that the observatory has for some reason and, after starting a brushfire to distract Swarm, shoots it back into outer space.

With the meteor back in outer space, the energy holding Swarm together dissipates and he resumes just being regular bees, the Hive shrinks back down to being bee-hize sized and all the Bee-People go back to being regular people.

And so, everyone is happy. Except the guy whose car Spider-Man stole and wrecked. And whoever owned the observatory which was demolished by space-Bees and set on fire.

Join us next time as we see a veritable WHO’S WHO of Marvel super heroes.

‘Tis the Season!

As anyone who has had any conversation with me that’s lasted longer then two seconds can accurately surmise, I likes me some Christmas Specials but, like Eggnog, they are limited to only the last few weeks of the year, or else they go bad. And, I figured “What about all those poor shmucks who are merely stuck watching Stop-Motion Rudolph save Super Racist Santa on TV every year?”.

And so, because this is the season of giving, I have opted to watch some of the truly magnificent ones for you. You’re welcome.


G.I. Joe Presents…
Cobra Claws are Coming to Town

In which Mutt learns the true meaning of Christmas.

Let me start off by saying that the title of this episode is a huge disappointment. I was expecting Cobra to start manufacturing thieving toys to steal things from everybody on Christmas Morning, or that the Commander has Santa imprisoned on Cobra Island and is using his Sack of Toys to build weapons or something. None of that happens. What DOES happen is sufficiently more crazy though, so I am okay with it.

We open with Shipwreck, Covergirl and Dusty returning to the Joe Base with a wagon full of toys from the GI Joe Toy Drive. Just as soon as Shipwreck finishes yelling at his parrot for singing Jingle Bells, the Joes come under fire by Wild Weasel, Cobras ace fighter-pilot with a code-name that would be silly even if he was not a pilot.

The Joes are plainly out matched, since Wild Weasel has a fully armed jet dedicated to ruining a toy drive and they have a jeep and a singing parrot, and wisely choose to run away. After a few minutes, despite Wild Weasel having them pinned inside a box canyon and… you know… totally defenseless otherwise, he just ups and leaves. The Joes are confused, but don’t look a gift horse in the mouth and drive off back to Joe Base.

Turns out the whole Cobra assault was not as it appeared, however! Their goal was not to destroy the childrens toys, instead, Firefly snuck in from behind to add additionaltoys! Evil toys, with sinister eyes that intermittently glow green and beep.

Now, I should point out that Cobras plan here revolved entirely around the Joes choosing to flee into this one specific canyon when under attack and none of the Joes opting to turn around at any point to notice Firefly, a man wearing grey camouflage in a brown canyon rummaging in their trunk.

Back at the base, nobody mentions the weird Cobra attack, or pays any attention to the beeping, glowing toys, instead Duke decides to yammer out some exposition to Covergirl; all but, like, six Joes took Christmas off, and the base has an impenetrable shield so if Cobra attacked, they would be totally safe. It would kind of suck if Cobra attacked anybody else at all, mind, but Dukes okay, and that’s all that matters. And so, secure with the knowledge that these six particular are safe as long as their defenses are in place, they head in for Christmas Dinner.

Now stay with me here folks, because this episode is about to get a little convoluted and a lot crazy.

At dinner, Mutt mentions he doesn’t like Christmas and goes off to sulk on his own, with his dog trailing right behind him. Here, as he approaches the toys for Christmas delivery he reveals his tragic backstory; when he was a child, his parents decorated the house and wouldn’t give him a chance to help.

And… that… that’s it.

That’s the core of Mutts pathos.

Fortunately, just before the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future show up to show Mutt that… that’s a totally stupid reason to hold a grudge against a holiday, he notices the one thing that nobody else in the Joe Base realized; that rocking horses with evil glowing eyes that beep are atypical in many reasons. In this particular case, it is atypical because it’s a Trojan Rocking Horse full of Microscopic Cobra soldiers who have all been shrunk by Destros new Shrink Ray.

HOLY CRAP THAT JUST HAPPENED!

The Wee-Vipers, lead by Tiny Baroness and Travel-size Major Bludd disable the bases defenses and the rest of Cobra pours in through the doors, and, after being returned to normal size, pretty much immediately take over the Joe Base. Which isn’t terribly shocking since it was 6 people eating a turkey dinner against several hundred masked terrorists, robots and tanks.

With the Joes soundly beaten, Cobra Commander shows up to reveal the true extent of his sinister plan; he is going to steal all the Joes vehicles and use them to attack a nearby city, complete with a video of Duke (actually Zartan in disguise) declaring war on Christmas everyone. Then, he has all the Joes strung up on hooks in the meat cooler and leave them there to freeze to death while he… err.. ruins their reputation. Posthumously.

Unluckily for CC, he didn’t count on Shipwreck being so eager to leg-wrestle with a slab of beef;

And because he was stupid enough to leave the keys to the handcuffs in the room. With a little bow wrapped around them and a note that says “Happy Holidays”.

Cobra Commander is, in several ways, not very good at what he does.

The Joes run off to try to stop Cobra but find out that they’ve all already left to attack the city, except Destro, who they overpower pretty easily despite the fact that they’re all unarmed and he has a Shrink Ray. Destro is beaten up pretty severely and the shrink ray is demolished, but not before Shipwrecks parrot gets a Grow-Ray in the face which apparently doesn’t affect him.

The Joes reason that, since Cobra stole all THEIR vehicles to attack a city, it’s only fair that they steal all of Cobras vehicles to attack them. Which they do, and which works startlingly well; the Joes are considerably more skilled at using Cobras machinery then Cobra ever was and all except the Commander in Dukes Sky-Striker are swiftly defeated.

Secure with the knowledge that none of the Joes wouldn’t shoot down the Striker while he had Duke hostage inside it, he prepares to strafe the Joes, all is lost. And then a Christmas Miracle happens.

Remember when Shipwrecks parrot was shot by the defective Grow Ray and it didn’t do anything? Turns out it was doing a lot, and it just needed some time to get fired up; Polly has grown Kaiju-sized, burst through the Joe Base wall and forced the Sky-Striker to the ground after Cobra Commander sees the gigantic bird shrieking at him and he (understandably) freaks out.

And so, the day is saved. Except that everyone in America just witnessed Duke hijack every TV screen in order to declare war, and then saw GI Joes attack on a city thwarted by Cobra forces saving the day.

Oh but there’s more good news; the sight of a fifty-foot parrot singing Jingle Bells and scaring the crap out of Cobra Commander was all it took to teach Mutt the true meaning of Christmas and chase away all of the terrible memories of his tragic past.

HO! HO! HO!

Banded Together from Distant Galaxies!


The World’s Deadliest Game!

Look, I didn’t put that apostrophe there. If it bugs you, take it up with the Hanna Barbara of 1978.

As per usual, Fort Vadershroom emerges from The Dismal Swamp (with different stock footage!) and a new meeting of the Legion of Doom is called to order; and this time it’s Brainiacs turn to be the plan-guy; a plan that will kill the Super Friends and have everyone pay them to do it!

First, with Black Vulcan, Hawkman and Wonder Woman are building a space station for Nasa, in space, and Brainiac uses an Inviso-ray to make the entire Earth vanish and, while they’re distracted by that, The Toyman will lure them away to an ENTIRE PLANET HE BUILT! INSIDE A BLACK HOLE! FILLED WITH TOY-TRAPS!

I have no flippin’ damn idea how he managed to do any part of that!

And while THAT’S going on, The Riddler will lure all the rest out of the Superfirends on “a wild goose chase that ends OUTSIDE THE UNIVERSE!”

So the Legion is definitely thinking big this week.

So anyway, phase one works fine, the Earth completely disappears and the three Superfriends opt to just head off in the direction of Toymans fake distress call rather then double-check to see if the Earths still there. I mean, the moon is still there, nothing changed its orbit or anything. And they’re able to move faster then the speed of light anyway, so its not like it would take long just to look around…

But anyway, the Superfriends travel to the distress call and SURPRISE it’s a black hole, and it’s got a planet in it. And that planet is full of deadly traps. Because the blackhole wasn’t good enough for Toyman.

“If my instincts are right, this must be the work of The Toyman” muses Wonder Woman, wandering through a giant, murderous pinball machine on a remote-control planet built into the middle of a black hole.

MEANWHILE, AT THE HALL OF JUSTICE…

The rest of the superfriends are getting worried since Hawkman, Wonder Woman and Black Vulcan haven’t been seen in hours, and also the Earth turned invisible for a short while, when The Riddler hijacks their TV to taunt them with a fiendish puzzle!

Riddler wasn’t trying very hard this time, so Batman pretty much figures out immediately that “A Million years ago it was a trickle, hurry or your friends won’t be worth a nickel!” means that they have to hurry to the Grand Canyon, and the nickel mine buried within it.

And so they rush off not thinking for one second that maybe, JUST MAYBE, Riddler wasn’t just tattling on the Legion for no apparent reason, and that leading the entire Justice League to the bottom of a mineshaft could possibly be a trap.

So anyway, leading the entire Justice League to the bottom of a mine was a trap, and Captain Cold and Scarecrow (why Scarecrow?) bury them all alive and also dump a tidal wave on them for good measure.

The Legion also forgot that the Superfriends have at least three super-strong dudes on screen at any given time, and one guy for whom “Swims real good” is his entire deal. And apparently the Superfriends did as well, since Green Lantern is the one who saves the day here.

After they escape, the Riddler offers his next sinister clue; “You better tighten your belt!”.

Which of course, means that the Superfriends are to travel to space and explore Orions Belt.

MEANWHILE, IN THE MYSTERIOUS BLACK SPACE PLANET!

The captive Superfriends are still exploring Planet Murder Toy when they come across a giant dollhouse which is, of course, home to a gigantic mechanical baby. They flee the Giant Mecha Baby by running into the house where Toyman shows up in person (somehow?!?) to taunt them; The black hole is about to close, trapping them on Planet Murder Toy… FOREVER!

MEANWHILE, ON ORIONS BELT, IN A PLANET ORBITTING ITS HOTTEST STAR

The rest of the Superfriends are having difficulty finding their captive pals since, well, they aren’t there. And The Riddler would never lie, so it can’t be that, but then they get help from Empress Zana, ruler of Orions Belt. Deadly help! For Empress Zana sprays them all with pollen that will turn them to stone! Luckily, The Flash and his molecules are too fast to turn to stone, so he spins around everyone until their molecules also speed up and then everyone leaves, like nothing happened.

What is even going on in this episode?

As they leave the not-even-pretending-there’s-drama-with-a-commercial-break-perfil of Orions Belt when the rest of the Superfriends run smack dab into a satellite with the Riddlers face;

“Follow your noses and you’ll hit your mark, somewhere out in the dark!”

So now everyone knows to start searching in black holes because why the hell WOULDN’T Batman just immediately guess the answer to the Riddlers puzzles, regardless of how dumb they are.

MEANWHILE, AT THE LEGION OF DOOM!

Lex Luthor calls up… the entire human race, and announces that he’s taken the Super Friends hostage, and he’ll free them in exchange for All the Money in Every Bank!

“And it won’t be PLAY money” cackles the Toyman, and I’m glad he doesn’t show up more often. His voice is really annoying.

MEANWHILE, BACK IN SPACE!

Superman and the Green Lantern just pop into the middle of the black hole like it isn’t any big deal and, using GLs power ring, they fuse together into Super Greenman (this is a thing Green Lantern can do?) and NOW they have enough power to just mosey on back out of the black hole.

Finally reunited, the Superfriends return to Earth, and visit the International Airport, where the Legion is having all their ill-gotten gains sent. There’s the usual non-violent fight (Superman picks up and throws the entire airport at one point), but Brainiac uses his inviso-ray to turn the Legion invisible so they all get away again.

Justice Has Prevailed! But… for HOW LONG!

Smiling Stans Favorite Son!

SunFire
Written by Christy Marx

Featuring Sunfire, nobody’s favorite former X-Man, and a profound lack of knowledge on how fire works from any member of the shows writing staff.

The episode opens with Iceman watching a meteor shower and noticing that one one of the meteors is about to hit New York. You’d think that some astronomer somewhere in the world would have already noticed that weeks ago and let, like, Reed Richards know about it or something. Anyway, the news that the city is about to be destroyed causes Firestar to suit up and immediately save the day, since she’s the only Spider-Friend that takes her job seriously. She does so by setting the meteor on fire. Since when all you have are fire-powers, every problem is something combustible.

Rather then, like, explode the meteor or anything like that, she increases the meteors heat until the rock grows wings and then steers it out over the East River and explodes it there. I… what? We’re two minutes and change into the episode, including the title credits and we’ve already hit the Craziest Damn Thing Firestar has Ever Done threshold.

Firestars…. completely inexplicable superheroics do not go unnoticed in Japan by Shirow Yoshida, the OTHER Fire-based mutant hero, Sunfire, or his Sinister Uncle who lounges around his Supervillain Base in Samurai Armor, flanked by Robot Minions.

It should be noted that Sunfire has no idea that his uncle is actually a bad guy at this point.

Uncle Badguy demands that Sunfire go and kidnap Firestar so they can use their combined Fire-powers to power up a perpetual energy machine. After Sunfire leaves, Bad Uncle reveals to… his robots… that his real plan is to use their combined fire powers to revive a giant fire monster he has sleeping in his basement.

Meanwhile, back in New York, the Spider-Friends are attending a carnival. Firestar and Iceman use their powers with Great Responsibility to screw with park goers while Peter fails utterly to win a stuffed bear for Aunt May. Exhausted from watching Peters repeated failures to do anything right, and she opts to go have a nap on the first seat she sees. Seriously, she’s in her jammies and everything.

Naturally, the first chair she finds is inside a helicopter which promptly takes off with a sleeping old lady in the front seat (…) and then, because in comic books, Helicopters have a 100% crash rate, it starts to crash. Firestar leaps to the action, and tries to save the helicopter by… well… setting it on fire.

The damnest part of it is that this plan works perfectly. Sunfire, who was showing off his Robot Minions to carnival goers, shows up to help Firestar by… also setting the helicopter on fire and restarting the stalled rotors with yet more fire.

Fire… is pretty magical, guys.

Iceman recognizes Sunfire from his X-Men days. Firestar invites Sunfire to dinner, which causes Peter and Iceman to immeidatly go out of their way to try to upstage him and impress her. These plans fail since in addition to being a powerful mutant with flight and heat-generating powers, Sunfire is also a master of Akido and knows how to pronounce dog breeds.

Sunfire is summoned back to his nice old uncles Supervillain Base and Firestar tags along. While Sunfire goes off to meet his uncle, she turns on a TV and promptly gets attacked by Robot Samurai for her troubles.

This is a TERRIBLE first date by any standard.

She incinerates the robot before Sunfire can return and their secret identities are kept safe. Not VERY safe, since there’s a robot who has been melted to slag by her feet, but if Sunfire can overlook that, so can we all.

Back at the Apartment, Firestar is wistfully looking out the window thinking of Sunfire, and Sunfire, still trying to kidnap Firestar has opted to turn to Sky-writing to get his message out. Which works perfectly.

Their second date (which, as far as Sunfire knows, is their first) works better and they have a romantic evening of saving planes by setting them on fire. Meanwhile, Spidey and Ice-Man decide to check out Sunfires Uncles factory under no assumptions of him being a super-villain and under every assumption that Sunfire is making time with their lady-pal! They immediately get captured by Uncle Bads Samurai Robots because… this is Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, and nobody is good at being a Superhero. Iceman gets away from the Robots and leaves Spider-Man behind because he is an even worse superhero then Spidey.

On his way out, Iceman runs across Sunfire, who has finished his date and wanted to tell BAD UNCLE that his plan to woo fair-lady Firestar is going off without a hitch.

And he also immediately sets Iceman on fire. Automatically making him my favorite character in the show. While the two of them are busy fighting, BAD UNCLE slips a Mind-Control Hat on Icemans head which makes him pass out.

Firestar is juuuuust about to agree to help BAD UNCLE with his Perpetual Energy Fire Monster plan when one of the Robot Minions decides to take over the large TV screen and announce that Spider-Man and Iceman are still unconscious, and Firestar then decides that she has to save the day again. While she starts Flaming On, Sunfire does too and that was the Firemonster needed to wake up.

Sunfire FINALLY realizes that BAD UNCLE is a bad guy and goes ahead and beats up some Robot Samuroids and frees Spidey and Iceman so they can all fight the giant fire monster. Which BAD UNCLE is controlling with an Atari joystick, while shouting “DESTROY! EXPLODE!” into its ear using a jetpack.

I love you, Bad Uncle!

The Fires, Sun and Star, bemoan the fact that the monster stole their powers and Spidey has the brilliant idea of using the leftover energy from the Reactor “It’ll refuel your powers for sure! If it doesn’t Kill you first!”. He says that second part with a lot more menace then was really needed. Luckily, it works perfectly and nobody dies. Then everyone fights more robots because… there was still a few more minutes to fill for the episode. Mostly using the same animation from the last time it happened.

Back outside, the Spider-Friends decide its time to fight the Fire Monster by having the Fire-twins create huge flaming tornados in the river which suck up all the water and then throwing all that water at the monster and I’m not even sure if using fire as a channel for moving water is even the stupidest thing I’ve seen so far in this episode.

With the monster defeated, Bad Uncle is rounded up by the police and sent to a Crime Hospital to cure his being crazy. Sunfire goes with him and so, Firestar resumes being a swinging single.

And so the day is saved, and the only ones hurt were the thousands of people in New York city who were either crushed or set on fire by the monster. A heroic end, to a heroic day.

Banded Together From Distant Galaxies

Invasion of the Fearians!

Opening as per usual, in the Mushroom-Vader Legion Base, Gorilla Grodd is complaining about Luthors leadership, and is bored with the boring and predictable crimes they’ve committed so far. Bear in mind that this is the second episode, and the first involved hypnotizing the entire Justice League to commit felonies so they’d be arrested, and using their absence to mutate/put a hat on every single human being so they could steal the entire planets commercial wealth.

So… Grodds got some pretty friggin’ high standards. But then again, he’s a super-intelligent ape from the invisible utopia of Gorilla City. So… I guess he has a different standard on what would be considered “imaginative”.

Luckily, Captain Cold has a solution to their problems, as he’s been in contact with the Fearians, the natives from the planet Venus. I… don’t know how or why he would be doing this. There’s a bunch of Legion members who hang out in space all the time, but not him. He just shoots ice at stuff.

Anyhow, the Fearians have some pretty simple requests; make the planet hotter, wetter and more full of vegetation, like Venus, so they can conquer it. more easily, and in exchange, they will help the Legion defeat the Superfriends.

The Legion was really only paying attention to those last four words, so they go right ahead with it.

Captain Cold starts off by building a giant version of his ice beam and uses it to freeze… like… the entire continental United States. Seriously, like, five or six cities encased in glaciers before anyone said “Hey… HEY! Quit it!”

Since Cold is Flashs enemy, he runs over and save the day by… well… running around everything really really fast until he changes theirs molecules. That’s pretty much all Flash knows how to do in this show, and BY GOLLY it works. “COMPLETELY UNAWARE”, says the narrator, whom I love, “THAT HE’S CREATING VAST QUANTITIES OF STEAM!”

And, of course, this was only phase one, phase two involves Black Manta… well… I’m not really sure how to phrase this… so I’m going to just come out and say it…

Black Manta sets… the pacific ocean… on fire

S-somehow?

So anyway, Aquaman leaps at the chance to be useful and, after crashing Mantas ship, he puts out the flaming water by using his AQUATIC TELEPATHY to summon whales to make tidal waves capable to extinguishing flames. Also, coincidentally, flooding the entire West coast.

That’s not me being snarky, this is literally what happens. This is plot-relevant. Aquaman destroyed the entire pacific rim.

The Superfriends are AWFUL at their jobs.

Anyhow, plan 3 involves Sinestro using his Yellow Power Ring to summon dozens of giant asteroids to smash the planet. And so, Hal Jordan, the one Superfriend who is vulnerable to the color yellow and one of at least four who can travel through space, decides to save the day. Because he’s a damn idiot.

Sinestro also locks Hal into a yellow-light prison and starts spinning him super fast because… he’s… a jerk? But this plan backfires because he got spinning so fast he entered blue-shift, so Hal could break free easily.

And I will tip my hat to you on that, Superfriends writers. That was nicely done.

Anyway, Hal still can’t do anything about the meteors so he just opts to use his ring to move the Entire Earth a a bit over so they miss it entirely. And then he forgets to put it back.

Man… Hal… man…

That ain’t like forgetting to put the milk back in the fridge, you know?

Anyhow, back at the Hall of Justice, and after congratulating themselves for the worst imaginable job of saving the planet, the Superfriends realize that, no, they’ve actually been doing a terrible job of saving the planet this week, and they’ve successfully transformed the Earth into Venus 2. (The actual term used, and yet another reason I love this stupid show.)

“It’s almost as though we’ve been responsible for all that’s been happening” exclaims a shocked Aquaman.

Also, the Justice League Computer has a thermostat reading the current temperatures of Canada, Russia, Taiwan and New Jersey.

Hell of a thorough computer you built there, Batman.

Anyhow, making good on their end of the bargain, the Fearian leader shows up and encases the Superfriends in an indestructible force-field and just, you know, leaves them there while the Legion takes over Washington DC. Also, Brainiac made robot duplicates of all the world leaders… because… the writers wanted to remind the kids at home that the Legion has an evil robot man on staff?

Anyway, to make up for his gigantic idiocy from earlier, Hal uses his power ring to turn the Superfriends invisible, tricking the Fearian Leader into thinking they escaped, so he’d drop the forcefield. Which works, and he gets sent back to Venus. Also, not really sure if he suddenly became two inches tall, he’d always been two inches tall, or if the scenes perspectives just went screwy.

With the Fearian defeated, the Superfriends go about fixing all the damage they’ve done (and which they’re still blaming the Legion for) and they’ve ALSO rounded up and dismantled all of Brainiacs androids. Off camera. I have no idea why that plot-point was even introduced.

So anyway, there’s the usual G-Rated fight scene that follows, and then Luthor turns the dome of the capital building into a rocket ship and blasts off, leaving Superman to vow that justice will never rest!

But… for how long!