“Superheroes… DISPERRRRRSE!”

Justin’s rating: But when will Ghetto Man get his own film?

Justin’s review: In January 1979, NBC and Hanna-Barbera unleashed perhaps the greatest superhero event ever to hit television up to that point. It was a massive crossover between many DC properties, served as a reunion to the 1966 live-action Batman series, was a pseudo-sequel to the Superfriends cartoon, and felt like a variety show. Because, sadly, this was the ’70s and you can never escape variety shows in that decade.

For as crazy huge and significant as this was, Legends of the Superheroes is almost impossible to find today and virtually forgotten by all but us nosy mutants. Maybe it wasn’t Batman’s finest hour, but it was more Adam West when the country needed him the most.

Just check out this lineup of heroes: Captain Marvel, Green Lantern, Hawkman (who doesn’t fly), Huntress, the Flash, Black Canary, the Atom, and, of course, Batman and Robin. Superman and Wonder Woman couldn’t show up because they were already involved in movies and other shows. The villains roster isn’t too shabby either, featuring Riddler*, Weather Wizard**, Sinestro, Mordru, Doctor Sivana, Giganta, and Solomon Grundy.

This two-night special was split into different parts. The first episode, “The Challenge,” is the one most like the Superfriends cartoon where the bad guys plot to destroy the world with a doomsday device and the good guys try to stop them. There’s also a retirement party for an elderly hero, a pit stop for some used car buying, a psychiatrist session (really), Mordru cruising around a lake on a jet ski, and incredibly brief fights now and then.

Batman and Robin are the core of the story, with Robin never running out of objects to pronounce “holy” and Batman an ever-flowing font of dull advice (“Never go swimming without a buddy, chum!”). They don’t look especially excited to be here, though, and one has to wonder how desperate their financial situation was in 1979 to drive them to squeezing into their old outfits from a decade previous.

Initially, this episode looks promising, with some great costumes and some barely acceptable special effects. The problem is that this is presented as a multi-cam theater production with a laugh track, which keeps everyone on a small number of sets and encourages everyone to ham it up so that the camera stays on them. However, there is some exciting gas station refueling action thanks to Solomon Grundy and some of the old Batman TV show feels, so I’m inclined to be more kind to it than the second part. And they do actually fight with punches, unlike the cartoon, which was 90% grappling.

Because as Legends of the Superheroes continues, it goes into “The Roast,” which becomes even more like a variety show. Ed McMahon wanders in to tell groaners and we meet — seriously — Ghetto Man (real line: “I don’t think Green Lantern qualifies as colored people.”). Hey, that’s not awkward at all!

At least with the first part, there was a loose Superfriends-like story of the heroes thwarting the villains (with jet skis). But this hour removes the plot to leave us with weird cameos and dad jokes. Not good dad jokes, mind you. They’re the kind of jokes that would be printed in a paperback you’d give to first graders at a scholastic book fair.

As with any superhero project from the ’60s and ’70s that wasn’t Superman, this production doesn’t treat comic book characters as anything more than a childish joke in spandex. The heroes are uniformly block-headed idiots who charge right into every trap that the bad guys lay out, and the bad guys have the emotional impulse control of an agitated orangutan. The “comedy” isn’t funny — despite what the tittering laugh track suggests — and only about a third of the cast is giving it their all.

Legends of the Superheroes is a fascinating of an oddity as it is tedious as a watch. You’d have to be in a very specific frame of mind to be up for this.

*Frank Gorshin is the only other Batman ’66 vet who returns, here to manspread in tights as Riddler.

**You don’t have to guess who got picked last for every game in elementary school.

Intermission!

• I laughed at how Hawkman doesn’t fly down at his introduction, he kind of does this awkward ducking-up motion to appear in view
• It’s really hard to bring a group of villains to order
• “Superpersons” ugh
• RETIRED MAN! THE WORST SUPERHERO EVER!
• Batman’s cowl does not fit well with the rest of his outfit
• Hey, the Batmobile’s back!
• 66 cents for gas, dang
• Green Lantern finds a random park gypsy and covered wagon
• At least Green Lantern got his own battle cry right
• Sinestro really likes cross-dressing
• Batman and Robin sadly jogging down the road
• Batman’s very, very serious about automobile purchases
• Hawkman’s wings look like a thick carpet
• They are getting a lot of use out of this gas station
• Captain Marvel’s amazing flying effects, thanks to a green screen!
• You can fit two heroes into a single detached sidecar
• There’s a shocking amount of cleavage on some of these outfits
• “Remember! Never go swimming without a buddy!”
• The Flash kayaking and the girls on a paddleboat is something to behold
• All the villains thanking each other was surprisingly wholesome
• Retired Man is pathetic. Let us laugh at him.
• Truman Capote name drop
• “HOW COLD WAS IT?”
• The Weather Wizard’s power is making a mess with toilet paper all over the set