Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Super Powers Collection (Warner Home Video 1985/1996)



Not neccessarily Fleischer Bros. Superman related, but Superman and animation related, and I felt the need to update the blog...
When I was a kid, I can remember seeing ads that ran for these VHS releases in various DC Comics in 1985, and boy, did I want 'em.





Warner Bros. Home Video did two releases of them over the years, originally in 1985 as a promotional tie with the then-current Kenner Super Powers action figure line, and again in 1996 with slightly different box art. I absolutely adore the Kenner toyline, and am always looking for oddball promo tie-ins to it.

 
 
Over the years, I've run across a couple of copies of these four releases...prior to tonight's purchase of this complete set of all four of these gems (three of which, the Superboy, Batman, and Aquaman are of '96 vintage, while the Superman is from the '85 release), I had acquired copies of the '85 release of the Aquaman and Superman cassettes, and a '96 Batman....Superboy always remained elusive to my hunt.  Hell, until tonight, I was under the assumption that the only one of these to get a re-release in '96 was the Batman cassette...
 





Interesting side note about the material contained on these VHS:  This is the only time that the Filmation 1966 Bat-Man and Superboy animated segments have ever been given any kind of home video release.  Warner Bros. did DVD releases of all the other Filmation '66 stuff, but no Superboy (possibly due to the long-running courtcase over ownership of the property) and oddly no Batman...though the Batman segments were released through I-Tunes (I believe) around 2007 as downloadables.







 
Here's the Superman 1985 release...as you can tell, there are subtle box art differences, like the older WB logo and a color border around the box art on the back, as well as the copyright info in the indicia...
 



The logos differ on the two Superboy and Batman releases, the '85 featuring an older character logo design, as you'll notice from the pic of the print ad above...

All in all, a cool find at Goodwill for .99 cents apiece.
 

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