The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure

Did You Know?

• The show continued a narrative format started with the original Superman radio show, featuring a narrator who compressed and dramatized the storytelling.
• The Justice League of America and Teen Titans were featured in team adventures, with the Teen Titans including Speedy, Kid Flash, Wonder Girl, and Aqualad, but not Robin.

Production

The series relied heavily on DC Comics staff for its writing and script editing. Bob Haney and George Kashdan, who were also working on the original Teen Titans comic, handled most of the episodes featuring guest heroes. Mort Weisinger, the editor overseeing all Superman comics in the 1960s, edited the scripts for the Superman segments. This approach kept the show closely aligned with the comics, though it introduced original elements like new secondary characters in the Hawkman, Green Lantern, and Atom episodes. For most of the characters and teams, this was their first time appearing in animation. The exceptions were Superman and his supporting cast, who had already been animated in the 1940s shorts and The New Adventures of Superman, as well as the Superboy characters from the earlier The Adventures of Superboy.

Legacy

The show's popularity led Filmation to create a Metamorpho pilot and develop plans for Plastic Man and Wonder Woman pilots. A broader DC Comics cartoon hour was in the works, with concept art including Metamorpho, Plastic Man, The Flash, the Blackhawks, the Doom Patrol, B'wana Beast, Green Arrow, and the Metal Men. These plans ended when CBS obtained the animation rights to Batman, following ABC's hit live-action Batman series. In 1968, the program was retooled into The Batman/Superman Hour, featuring new Superman/Superboy and Batman segments.

The existing Aquaman shorts were repackaged into a half-hour show called Aquaman, which also kept the guest star segments from the original series, airing on Sunday mornings. The series was later spoofed in the Teen Titans Go! episode "Classic Titans." Years afterward, Warner Bros. Animation and Television adopted the same format for The New Batman/Superman Adventures, combining episodes of Batman: The Animated Series and Superman: The Animated Series into a single hour, using both old and new episodes. This show aired on Kids' WB from 1997 to 2000.

Episodes

Thirty-six episodes of Aquaman were made. In one story, Aquaman and Aqualad prevent Black Manta from sinking a luxury liner in the middle of the ocean. Another episode features reptile creatures attacking an Atlantis power station. A frozen Viking from the past is accidentally thawed out and tries to take over Atlantis.

Sun beings come to Earth with the goal of draining all the oceans. Alien hunters arrive in the sea looking for big game. Mera gets taken by a plant monster in an underwater world. A giant made of lava rips open a volcano and fights Aquaman.

A creature with tentacles that spray deadly acid heads toward Atlantis. A dragon with freezing powers battles Aquaman. Mole people use drilling submarines to assault Atlantis. An evil queen uses submarines shaped like sperm whales to attack the city.

Black Manta steals an enlarging ray that Aquaman invented. Eight-armed beings capture Aquaman. The Torpedo Man, a super-fast swimmer in armor, tricks the Aqua team into a dangerous shipwreck. Fish-like aliens from Saturn attack Earth.

A mutant scientist called the Brain uses his intellect against Aquaman. A pirate named the Fisherman sets a trap at the Aquacave. A satanic raider and his crew hit an oxygen plant and then go after Atlantis. While spying, Aqualad discovers that Black Manta, the Brain, and Queen Vassa have joined forces to overthrow Aquaman and Mera.

The Torpedo Man teams up with two other armored villains, Magneto and the Claw, to destroy Aquaman. A giant mastodon-like creature attacks a mermaid society. A raider uses a beam to turn a poisonous phosphorus boulder into a sea giant. Aquaman helps the Navy test an undersea fighter, but Black Manta captures it. A gang of pirates operates a giant submarine robot.

Home media

In 1985, Warner Home Video put eight Aquaman episodes from the series onto VHS as part of its "Super Powers" collection, which also included Batman, Superboy, and Superman; those tapes came out again in 1996. Later, in October 2007, the same company issued "The Adventures of Aquaman: The Complete Collection" on Region 1 DVD, a two-disc set holding all 36 Aquaman segments plus bonus features. Then, on August 12, 2008, Warner Home Video, with DC Comics Entertainment and Warner Bros. Family Entertainment, released "DC Super Heroes: The Filmation Adventures," a double DVD featuring 18 cartoons starring Hawkman, Green Lantern, the Flash, the Atom, the 1960s Teen Titans, and the Justice League of America; this set reached Region 2 on October 13, 2008.

In February 2014, the Filmation cartoons were reissued on two budget DVDs: one with the Atom, Flash, and Green Lantern segments, and the other with the Hawkman, Justice League, and Teen Titans segments.