Aside from West and Ward, the cast included Garrett Craig as Captain Marvel, Howard Murphy as the Green Lantern, Bill Nuckols as Hawkman, Barbara Joyce as The Huntress, Rod Haase as The Flash, Alfie Wise as The Atom, Danuta Rylko Soderman as the Black Canary, and William Schallert as "Scarlet Cyclone/Retired Man." Superman was unavailble to the producers as he was currently headlining his own theatrical film series. Likewise, Wonder Woman was not included as she was starring in her own series for rival network CBS at the time.
This special was followed soon thereafter with a parody of the Dean Martin Roasts, called (logically enough) The Superhero Roast, and featured the same cast. Collectively, these two programs are known as The Legends Of The Superheroes, and for decades, were popular bootleg videos at comic book conventions. These days, they're legally available on MOD DVD from Warner Archive.
Marsden:
ReplyDeleteI remember watching these back when they were on tv. I seriously thought I'd imagined them until I looked it up on the internet. Thanks for posting this.
How have I never seen nor heard of these before now? That would have been manna to me when I was 13.
ReplyDeleteI know, right? I'd never heard of these shows until Scott Tipton did an article about them in his Comics101 online column a few years ago. I know I was back from England when this aired, so my only guess is that since there was no Wonder Woman in it, it flew under my radar. But it has Black Canary, Huntress, and Giganta in it, all of whom I love, so how did I miss this?
DeleteHaving since seen some footage of it on the YouTubes, it's kinda cringey; you gotta love the characters just enough to be able to laugh or your head will explode.
Truly, it is the "Star Wars Holiday Special" of superhero shows.
But BLACK CANARY, yo! Hubba hubba!
Your Pal,
Storm
chris i love this u are the best everything u post is my childhood more time tunnel
ReplyDelete"These days, they're legally available on MOD DVD from Warner Archive." Unless you live outside the US. Warner archive won't ship out of the US.
ReplyDeleteBut they're also available through Amazon, which will ship internationally.
DeleteI feel the worst for both West and Ward in this.. Playing up the comic elements between them was fun to watch, but it's all-in-all an embarrassment. I suspect even an 8yr old would cringe.
ReplyDeleteI recall seeing at least 10min of 'Challenge' when it was broadcasted. I had moved past 'serious' comic collecting by that point, and I recall I was heavily disappointed.
I couldn't sit through these when I was 16. I was so mortified, I changed the channel. a friend recently sent me discs of these so I girded my loins with alcohol and sat through them late one night. Not only were they as awful as I remembered, they were worse. These are "Star Trek V" bad...in fact they make "Trek V" look better.
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