And lo there came a day…a day unlike any other…when bloggers across the Internet that focus their energies on DC characters band together to…well, to show off some cool videos featuring the animated opening sequences of the characters we happen to cover. This is a Superman blog, so I thought it would be keen to show you not one animated opening for the Man of Steel but a whole bunch of them!
So let’s get to it!
First up is the opening sequence to the 1966 Filmation New Adventures of Superman series.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XY9rOVu0RBk
Part of me thinks I shouldn’t like this series. Another part of me can’t help but love it. Sure the stories are kind of simplistic, but so were the comics that were being produced around the same time. The DVD set had a neat featurette on the creation of this series, so I thought I would throw those in as well.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_QsKZtK3xA
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8ELoVkLog8
About twenty years later (in 1988 to be exact) an animation studio called Ruby-Spears decided to take a crack at the Man of Steel. Marv Wolfman was hired as the head story editor, which was pretty dang cool. Oddly enough it was because of his animation work and not because he had written Superman in the comics both before and after Crisis on Infinite Earths. I was 12 years old when this series hit and to say I was excited about it is an understatement. I had been reading the Superman comics regularly for over a year by the time this show premiered so the fact that there was an animated series based on my new favorite character was a big freaking deal. The opening sequence to this series is amazing and the YouTube video below really doesn’t do it justice. Buy the DVD set. It is worth it.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meKa6t6hNug
Flash forward about eight years. A little show called Batman: The Animated Series does very well in the ratings leading the WB, still a new channel at the time, to ask the people responsible for that series to produce one about Superman. On September 6th, 1996 the series premiered in prime time. They took the first three episodes and edited them together into an animated film and I vividly remember having a bunch of people over to my apartment to watch it. The series lasted until the year 2000 and was, to my mind, one of the best adaptations of Superman ever produced.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUcKJflBG8Q
Finally I present a series that, oddly enough, I never watched. I know. I am a horrible Superman fan. In my defense I am terrible about following episodic television. Something always gets in the way. This series looked interesting, though and originally it was supposed to be about Superboy but legal difficulties threw a monkey wrench into those plans. The intro is very cool and has a jazzy, seventies vibe to it. All they needed was some flutes in there and it would have been perfect.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIpz-wrxxzc
By the way, they re-did the opening credits in the second season.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7iz3PgO1Ic
And that is it for my end of this crossover. As I mentioned a bunch of us single character bloggers banded together from remote galaxies for this theme so be sure to check out what everyone else did for their particular end of the DCU. How? Just follow the dancing links below!
Animated Anthem Day
- Aquaman @ The Aquaman Shrine
- Hawkman @ Being Carter Hall
- Swamp Thing @ The BLOG from the BOG
- Booster Gold @ BOO$TERRIFIC
- DC Characters @ DC Bloodlines
- Wonder Woman @ Diana Prince
- Firestorm @ Firestorm Fan
- Martian Manhunter @ The Idol-Head of Diabolu
- Green Lantern @ The Indigo Tribe
- The Vixen @ Justice League Detroit
- The Atom @ Power of the Atom
- Flash @ Speed Force
- Supergirl @ Supergirl Comic Box Commentary
- Doctor Fate @ Tower of Fate
On a personal note to the regular followers,; I will be back to regular blogging soon, folks. I have a lot of neat stuff in store as Jeffrey and I head into the final chapter of the Death and Return of Superman saga on our show From Crisis to Crisis: A Superman Podcast. Coming soon…Reign of the Supermen!
More to follow…
Still love a good shirt rip!!! And thanks to Netflix, the Ruby Spears Superman DVDs are heading my way!!!
Wait. “For truth, justice, and freedom”? That’s not Superman!
(j/k of course)
Will take the term “freeddom” over “and all that stuff”.
Isn’t Supes about due for a new series? Great job on the x-over today.
I hadn’t seen the ’66 opening in Lord knows how many years. I forgot how huge that Wayne Boring inspired Superman was, even compared to other heroes and especially for the times. Love Krypton exploding into multiple fireballs. Dig that swingin’ beat!
Mark Waid is excellent at this behind-the-scenes stuff. He’s even got a good radio voice. I wish he turned up in more of these things (a.k.a. I wish his relationship with DC was better.) It was so very par that Flash got the nod for starting the Silver Age, and even as they pushed in on that JLG-L art featuring J’Onn J’Onzz, they kept pushing past him to the Atom. Eat it, Martian!
I like the Williamsish music and effects on the ’88 Superman, but his feats are kind of boring, and it lacks the cheesy zeal of the earlier series. I’m amazed it took nearly two decades to do another one.
The premiere of the ’96 “movie” was alright. I liked the retro-futurism, and the series improved over time. I haven’t seen either in years, but at the time, I preferred Super-TAS to Bat-TAS.
I’ve never seen an episode of Legion, and I may have to change that, because the opening was fantastic! So energetic, with such wonderful designs! The music wasn’t exactly futuristic, but it was badass nonetheless. The second version was comparatively weak, and way too Superboy-centric for my taste.
I love that Ruby-Spears opening – nice adaption of the most excellent film score of all time …Superman in 78..
Cool.
I got the Ruby-Spears collection on DVD a while back and enjoyed it, although not as much as I did when I was a kid and would get up at seven in the morning on Saturdays to watch on CBS.
The Animated Series set the bar pretty high, but it was far from perfect. The stories seemed lazy at times, like the episodes featuring Green Lantern and Aquaman, and of course, Superman was no where the power level much of us fans believed he should’ve been.
Legion was a fine cartoon, but it never got to stretch its legs. I like Young Justice, too, but it definitely needs more, much more Superman!