For All Mankind #5

FOR ALL MANKIND #5 - SUPER FRIENDS #5

Rob and Super Friend David Gallaher review "Telethon Teachery" by E. Nelson Bridwell, Ramona Fradon, and Bob Smith, from SUPER FRIENDS #5! Plus Listener Feedback!

Check out images from this comic by clicking here!

Opening and closing themes by Hanna Barbera.

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12 responses to “For All Mankind #5

  1. David’s right, that moment with Marvin levitating is a thing. It’s an “early installment weirdness” thing, to borrow tvtropes’ lingo — Marvin doesn’t demonstrate that or any other power thereafter. The cartoon’s creative team might have had only a partial accord on whether the Junior Friends have powers or what their deal is, which to be fair is totally understandable, case in point the sentient dog.

    Holy Moses, they used Funnyman in this issue. Kudos for you two for catching that, the reference went right over my head.

    I had to reread page 1 to confirm that this telethon was supposed to go 25 hours, with the Super Friends just being there at the opening part — Batman seems to say that their League teammates would at some point show up and take their spot. But on the final page the telethon is over. The Super Friends were on duty all 25 hours, then? Seems none of the other JLAers could make it and relieve our guys. I hope they at least called with excuses or something.

  2. Daphne Dean and Dexter Myles were in Flash Comics
    Daphne was a childhood friend of Barry Allen’s, She grew up to be a famous actress.
    Dexter was the Curator of the Flash Museum.

    Regarding the coins fired from an airgun, That could actually be fatal. There have been airguns that were used as silent killing weapons. (Particularly in popular fiction. Sherlock Holmes was endangered in the Final Problem and The Empty House by a deadly airgun rifle welded by Moriarty’s associate Col. Sebastian Moran)

  3. Fun episode! I enjoyed the issue. Thanks to David for sharing the Larry Davis / Funny Man tidbits. I had never heard any of that before. I loved David’s enthusiasm for all of it (Marvin aside).
    I do have to say that I prefer Wendy, Marvin and Wonder Dog to the Wonder Twins but I don’t think I saw the former as a kid. I don’t remember seeing first season episodes until I was an adult. So while the Wonder Twins annoyed me as a kid, I discovered and appreciated Wendy, Marvin and Wonder Dog as an adult who hadn’t seen the Super Friends in years.
    I agree with Rob that the extremely negative letters were ridiculous. Just don’t buy the book! The one guy said he didn’t like the art or the story but he’s hooked and has become a Super Fanatic. Very odd.
    Thanks for the episode. I hope that For All Merchkind with Chris returns next episode.

  4. Welcome to the show David.
    You did a great job with Rob and it was so nice to have a new episode to listen to while I did my walk/jog this morning!

    You guys talked about Larry Davis, Jeanine Gale, and Wilfred Pennyworth on the show and golddragon71 talked about Daphne and Dexter in the comments above, but of course, the Glorious E.N.B. wasn’t just making up names when he created the guest list for the SuperThon.

    Scott Free is Mr. Miracle, Kathy Kane is Batwoman, Steve Lombard worked with Clark at WGBS, Chip O’Doole sang a hit song called “Earthquake Rock” in Jimmy Olsen, Gregory Reed is an actor who is famous for portraying Superman in the movies, Carlo Di Rienzi – who we saw perform his magic in the show – was a member of the original Secret Six, and Linda Turner was a Harvey superheroine called Black Cat – Truth be told, a few of those I had to look up!

  5. I think Robin may have been throwing shade at Wendy on the show because she gets mentioned in the opening sequence and he doesn’t. Still not cool, but understandable (although it probably would have made more sense to take it out on Marvin, since – as you noted – Wendy tended to make more useful contributions.)

    As for Greenback’s wardrobe change, I think a better look for him would be green three-piece suit, so he has kind of a gangster vibe.

  6. Who’s on DC Universe? There’s a Super Friends watch-along this Thursday night. I shared it on the DC Universe Facebook group and tagged Shagg as he’s a member of the group. That would also be a fun FW Network thing to do. Some kind of watch along and comment together thing. Maybe a Patreon member bonus?

  7. Great episode! David brings the knowledge with the Funny Man bit! I am aware of Funny Man, but I would have never guessed it was him, because I didn’t know his secret identity. All the name drops are pure ENB, even Tony Stark. ENB wrote the Inferior Five which was constantly lampooning Marvel comics. In the 60s, he was probably more aware of Marvel than anyone else at DC, who never thought that upstart company could eclipse them in sales. Um-hummmm.

    Marvin floating in that episode WAS weird. Did he have powers, or did he have cartoon gravity-defying powers like Wile. E. Coyote’s ability to walk on air until he realizes he IS walking on air? Who can say. If Marvin did have burgeoning powers, I could accept his placement on the team much better. Wendy is clearly very bright, Wonder Dog is surprisingly useful. Marvin is much better in the comics. Nuff said.

    The always wonderful Ramona Fradon seemed to be suffering from a common ailment of the Super Friends show (and Filmation’s Batman series as well), by inverting Robin’s “R” insignia. In almost every panel scanned here, the circle is yellow with the “R” in black, which is the opposite of what it should be. Batman seemed to suffer from this more on SF, but the second Filmation Batman series made that mistake and stuck with it for the whole run of the show!

    Chris

  8. I like how ENB had Greenback reveal that he didn’t want to go to New York to rob Tony Stark. Greenback is a local baddie that doesn’t want to travel, plus that is a nice way of explaining why Iron Man didn’t kick his behind before the Super Friends got to him.

    I think I disagree about Batman being the Friend of the month, or whatever you called it. He stayed captured almost the entire issue and Superman allowing Batman to take out Greenback seemed to be kind of a “pity capture.” You know Superman was thinking, “Wonder Woman and I have done all the real work. Might as well let Batman stroke his ego by catching the bad guy.”

    I know you highfaluting Fire & Water guys like your critically acclaimed comedy dramas like MASH and Cheers, but I think ENB may have been watching one of my favorite shows, The Beverly Hillbillies, when he wrote this issue. Greenback’s costume immediately reminded me an episode that parodied the 66 Batman show, when Drysdale filmed a commercial where he was Super Banker.

    http://jmperkins.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/2009-10-09_121441_SuperBanker-500×372.jpg

    The episode is from later in BH’s run when it got pretty hit and miss, and this episode was pretty much a miss… except for the commercial scene where he had Elly May dress in a tater sack (that’s potato sack, for you yankees) in a “before” scene to show how Super Banker had transformed her into a sophisticated lady with fancy city clothes in an “after” scene. Damn, Elly May looked good in that tater sack!

    According to 70s cinema, you can use coins for combat. Remember in Death Wish when Paul Kersey (Charles Bronson) fought off hoods with a bag full of change? He didn’t shoot the change at them, but still. Maybe Death Wish came on right after the Beverly Hillbillies went off.

    Ok, I know Elly May looked good most of the time, but damn, she looked good in that tater sack.

    I’m really enjoying the show. Keep them coming!

    One last comment…Damn, Elly May looked good in that tater sack.

  9. Impressive pod cast most impressive. The villain kind of reminds me of Mr. Drysdale from the Beverly Hillbillies favorite super hero. Money Man. But, yeah you can be hurt by being shot with Money. Billy the Kid stole one of his jailers shot gun loaded with coins and from an up stairs window shot him while he was on the ground and killed him. Or so the legend goes. Nice use of the heroes and cool guest shot of Funny Man. Though Yeah I 2 thought of Larry David. Now I can see him doing an HBO super hero comedy show as Funny Man.

    Ware he runs into other heroes in a super hero bar as the others stop crime out side of it and he does his best to avoid fighting crime and just hang out at the bar. This was a fun enough comic. I think it’s Marven most of us hate. The dog doesn’t fit the show but he’s fine. But, I like the Wonder twins better. Any way it’s probly a family thing with Robin and home girl. After all she is related to Bruce. And Robin is Bruce’s ward. So that might cause family rivalry. Hmm, Bats as the hostage and Aqua Man has to save him. Kind of a fun thing and yeah it’s great they show his power levels in this. Great to see Supes at the end being Super Man.

  10. Another great show, another great episode. Loved the geekiness of the discussion of how to improve Greenback. I remember as a kid thinking he should have come back. Clearly, an airgun was a pretty powerful weapon!

    I wanted to add my 2c regarding the intro of the SF cartoon. I always thought when Ted Knight was talking about the Cosmic Legends of the Universe that he was talking about how the whole universe was familiar with these four heroes. Kinda like how everybody in the West knew of/about the Lone Ranger…. atleast, that’s how I thought about it.

  11. Splendid show, as ever, David is a great guest. I’d love a special Fire and Water Presents episode telling us more about his non-canon characters project.

    I don’t think anyone mentioned it, but the first Super-Thon was held in Justice League of America #114 in 1974, the Anakronus issue – it stuck in my mind because I’d never heard of a telethon.

    Did the TV cartoon ever follow up on Wendy and Marvin after they graduated?

    Rob, your solution to the ‘cosmic legends of the universe’ line makes sense. Respect! Well, more respect.

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