When I saw the ad for "Challenge of the Superheroes" in the TV Guide I was really excited. All those heroes vs all those villains. Sure, I knew that Mordru had no business being there with most of them, but then, neither did Earth S' Captain Marvel or Dr. Sivana. It was billed as a battle, and I was looking forward to some good fisticuffs between the "Justice League" and the Legion of Doom. There would also be live action versions of such heroes as Green Lantern and Hawkman, and many others who had never been portrayed before. I was really looking forward to this.
I was really not pleased. All the villains were played by comedians for the most part, and barely had any idea what their roles were. Ick. There were some action scenes, which were not bad, actually (this is from the recent viewing, because I remembered none of them) but the emphasis was comedy. Frank Gorshin reprised his role as the Riddler, and he was great. A few of the comedy bits did make me laugh, but most was just awful. The costumes were not good, the masks worse, and both Black Canary and the Huntress (still the daughter of Earth 2's Batman at the time) get little to do.
At least the Roast of the Superheroes was honest in what it was about. It was marginally funnier than the first one, with Ruth Buzzi as Aunt Minerva getting the best (and most risque) lines. These aired in early 1979, and I had not watched either of them since then. I got VHS copies a few times, but could not view it.
This time it wasn't as bad, since I had much lower expectations. I still can't figure out who greenlit this, wrote it like this and thought it was a good idea. It was a Hanna-Barbera production, since they had some of the rights to DC characters. Notably, Wonder Woman and Superman were not present at all, but Giganta was. Go figure. The DVDr of the shows looks great, though it is evident how cheap it was. The fun stuff is the bloopers and outtakes. Worth the $6 I spent on it.
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