cartoons

So I was watching the episode “Mxyzpixilated” from season 2 of Superman: The Animated Series, featuring, as you might guess, Mr. Mxyzptlk. At one point during the story, Clark Kent is scanning the Daily Planet funny pages, into which Mxyzptlk has inserted himself as one of the strips:

Thanks to the miracle of DVD technology, and my obsessive need to repeatedly pause and look at details of cartoons that otherwise would just flash by onscreen, only barely noticed by the viewer, I was able to get a better look at the other strips on the page. According to the episode’s commentary track, the other strips are in-jokes and references to members of the production team, in addition to being parodies of popular comics.

Of the production team members referenced, the most recognizable is, of course, Paul Dini, one of the prime movers behind DC’s animation initiative. Here he is in a parody of Calvin & Hobbes:

The next strip is, of course, a parody of Peanuts, where the “punchline” is (again, according the commentary) a direct quote from the person being caricatured:

The next parodies Dick Tracy, and I’d almost rather read this than what’s going on in the real Dick Tracy strip right now:

And here’s the Mxyzptlk strip, credited to Superman’s (and Mxy’s!) creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster:

And the last looks like a parody of, if not the strip Momma, then at least of cartoonist Mell Lazarus’s style, with a pretty brutal last panel (what you can see of it) which they probably only got away with due to it only appearing onscreen for a split second:

Whenever brief gags like this flash by, I wonder if there were kids watching this as it originally aired, or during reruns, who were tantalized by the quick glimpse they were able to grab, who knew there was more there than what they saw, but missed their chance to see what was there. Even if they recorded it on their VCR, getting consistently clean stills when pausing the tape was never a sure thing. And beyond even that, I wonder if the people behind the cartoons ever thought there’d come a time when in-jokes like these would ever become easily accessible to anyone outside of the team that actually produced these shows.

Well, okay, they probably did, fans being obsessive about this sort of thing and all (like, oh, say, screen-capturing the frames in question and straightening them out). But I certainly wanted to show my appreciation for the extra level of detail and humor added into what is already an excellent cartoon.

EDIT: I’m being told in the comments section here that the Modern Masters Volume 3: Bruce Timmbook includes the above artwork in full, and is much more clear than in my screenshots. So check that out if you get a chance!

From the New Adventures of Superman DVD, featuring those cartoons from the mid-1960s, here is the first animated appearance of Brainiac:

On one hand, he’s kinda mopey looking, and doesn’t appear to be much of a threat at all. On the other…he doesn’t say a single word throughout the entire episode, which is…kinda creepy, actually. And at one point he turns himself invisible, and he just kinda winks out with no sound effects whatsoever, which is 1) pretty unusual for a cartoon of this period to show such restraint, and 2) is even more creepy.

Another thing about the cartoon is that we get a backstory for Brainiac that has nothing to do with the Brainiac backstory established at that point in the comics (a trend continued with the Krypton-based Brainiac origin from the ’90s Superman: The Animated Series show, and in Smallville). Explained in this episode, The Return of Brainiac (more on that in a second), Brainiac is a robot built by Dr. Hekla from the planet Mega. And when Brainiac is eventually destroyed (and again, more on that in a moment) it is commented that Dr. Hekla will just build another one and send it back to Earth.

Now the episode is called “The Return of Brainiac,” even though this is the first appearance of Brainiac on this DVD…can’t say for sure if this is the proper chronological order of episodes on the disc, but I was a bit amused to have my first encounter with the animated version of this character be in a show titled “The Return of….” And the backstory thrown out in dialogue appears to refer to a previous appearance, so if there is another Brainiac episode in this set (and I haven’t yet watched the second disc), the episodes were either put on these discs out of order, or the episodes were originally produced and aired out of order. Or the producers just assumed viewers already knew the character from the comics, and never bothered with an “introduction,” as such. Or they just plain threw him out there. It doesn’t matter, really…the writing on these were very much at the “well, this’ll do” quality, so explicit episode-to-episode continuity was certainly not a priority (nor should it really have been, of course).

EDIT: Sure enough, I checked the Wikipedia article and episode #33 is called “Superman Meets Brainiac.” The episode list there seems to match the episode order on the DVD, at least for the first disc, so the Brainiac intro episode is way after the “Return of” one. Still no idea if these are in the original broadcast order on the discs.

Anyway, given the very inhuman portrayal of Brainiac in the cartoon, and the continuing emphasis on his…robot-ness, I guess, this frees up Superman to just full on shoot Brainiac in the face with heat vision beams:

Oh, just let Brainiac’s smoking robot corpse sit there for a while…it’ll be fine:

One more about this cartoon…this was the first one on the disc that actually triggered a memory of my watching this show as a child. And it wasn’t Brainiac, but rather, his shrinking gun:

The gun rang a bell, as did that sparkly energy-cloud thingie. Strange things to remember, but those images stuck with me all this time.

A later episode on the disc also sparked an old childhood memory of watching the cartoon…specifically, “The Iron Eater,” featuring a critter that looked a little something…like this:

I’m not kidding. Superman totally fought this dude:

Man, how could anyone forget a mug like that?

So, from 1966’s The New Adventures of Superman cartoon, here is the episode that introduces the first (I believe) animated version of Lex Luthor. Here he is sitting at his console of evil Christmas lights:

He’s using his console to make contact with someone who might give him some new ideas on defeating Superman, which, okay, sure, even supervillains need to outsource once in a while:

…And today’s supervillainy consultant is — drumroll please — Merlin, the famed wizard of Arthurian legend!

Well, sure, why not. Anyway, Merlin’s big idea is for Lex to cook up some of Merlin’s Magic Marbles which will turn him into a child, thus evading Superman’s attempts at finding and catching him.

I was just going to leave it at that, with a “’60s cartoons so crazy” conclusion, but you people want to see Young Lex Luthor:

On the right, with the head full of black hair. Yeah, yeah, I know, it’s supposed to be red. Or reddish brown. Or brown. The dude on the left is one of his henchman, also reduced in age, though frankly he doesn’t look much different from his adult self.

And here they are, with Lex just openly mocking Superman (who doesn’t recognize him) by asking for an autograph:

Oh, no, let’s just stand here with our bags of loot in front of the guy with x-ray vision.

Anyway, I haven’t seen this cartoon since watching in in reruns (repackaged with some Aquaman cartoons, I believe) sometime in the 1970s. So far, going through this DVD, I haven’t spotted any particular episodes I remember, but boy, the theme song and the music sure bring me back:

From the Superman The Animated Series episode “The Last Son of Krypton – Part 1,” in which Sul-Van flies and crashes a small aircraft in an attempt to distract Krypton’s police force:

“Those…aren’t…PILLOWS!”
This scene struck me as a bit odd upon my first viewing of the DVD (and the first time I’ve seen this episode since it originally aired in 1996). And, upon listening to its commentary track, I’m glad to know I’m not the only one, as most of the commentators burst into an extended fit of giggles when Sul-Van’s “crash pillows” made their appearance. Of course, they never explain why they’re laughing, this commentary being on a DVD intended for children an’ all.

This could all have been avoided if only they’d applied some other color to those crash pillows. Did that long-ago issue of Amazing Heroes teach us nothing?

(Here’s the link to the full “those aren’t pillows” clip from Planes, Trains & Automobiles, in the off-chance you require some context.)