Crisis of Infinite Episodes - Muppet Babies: Sing a Song of Superheroes

The Muppet Babies animated series aired over 100 episodes from 1984 through 1991. During the final season,  Sing a Song of Superheroes paid homage to comic book superheroes while the Mupplings sang opera. We ended up with tributes to Batman, the Wonder Twins, and even the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.This really cannot be considered a classic, but it certainly is a lot more than just a set of cameos. And, this is probably the closest thing to a Batman Ninja Turtles team up you will ever get.

Crisis of Infinite Episodes - The Village Of Lost Souls

Brainiac was the alleged brains behind the town of mindless people. The stakes were pretty low here and its a shame that the new, menacing Brainiac has no plan worthy of his look.

Crisis of Infinite Episodes - Uncle Mxyzptlk

After red kryptonite exposure turned Superman into "Superbrat," the Friends had to babysit when who would you know showed up? Uncle Mxy. Overall this was pretty unremarkable except I got quite angry that Jayna chose to turn into a giant T-Rex. How many times in the past would that have come in handy and yet she always turned into an octopus or eagle. This time, she played her T-Rex card to capture a runaway giraffe? If I were in charge, that along would earn her expulsion from the team. Nevermind the fact that the Twins were the ones that brought the red K to Supes in the first place. Bring back Marvin and Wendy.

Crisis of Infinite Episodes - The Case of the Shrinking Superfriends

 

Aw, I had begun to wonder what had become of the Wonder Twins. This episode gave them a chance to ally with the other juniors, Firestorm and Robin - just don't call them Teen Titans. And I suppose the writers were already out of ideas, because we got another shrink ray treatment courtesy of Lex Luthor. To be fair, this was the first time I recall a double shrinking. Still, this one was kind of a dud.

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Episode Count: 0485
Series Count: (6 of 14)

Crisis of Infinite Episodes - Two Gleeks Are Deadlier Than One

 If there is anything more ridiculous than the Justice League nearly being defeated by an evil robot Gleek, its them being saved by the Wonder Twins, in PANDA mode! At least we got the treat of a return appearance by Giganta and everyone's favorite talking gorilla, Grodd. 

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Episode Count: 0463
Series Count: (65 of 66)

Crisis of Infinite Episodes - One Small Step For Superman

This was a messed up episode! After inadvertently playing fetch with a grizzly bear, a kid knocked his head and inexplicably became paraplegic. Turns out, his body was fine, but the loss of the use of his legs could be blamed on the guilt he felt over his dog running away- or something like that. Despite a near tragic wheelchair escape sequence, the boy was able to eventually will himself to walk again. Thanks for the free psychology lesson Super Friends. This episode is somewhat notable for the inclusion of a sort of proto-Metallo, kryptonite powered robot - or it would have been if the whole thing hadn't been a ruse by the Friends to make the boy overcome his depression. As for the dog, I think he got eaten by the bear because he never came back.

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Episode Count: 0460
Series Count: (62 of 66)

Crisis of Infinite Episodes - An Unexpected Treasure

Another stink whiff of bad Wonder Twins featuring a couple kids that found a flying saucer just laying around in the desert. A very likely scenario indeed.The Hawks also appeared in this one with She-Hawk rocking a new look and believe it or not, this alt-Hawk look just may have been the episodes true unexpected treasure. Now I don't know if Hawkgirl dyed her hair and went on a shopping trip or if Hawkman was flocking with a new chick, but one has to wonder why the redesign for this one short?

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Episode Count: 0457
Series Count: (59 of 66)

Crisis of Infinite Episodes - Bully For You

Great use of the word "bimbo" in an otherwise horrible episode. For one thing, Batman nearly let a guy fall to his death, a failure that was prevented by him landing on a Jayna-octopus full of water. Also, the bimbo found Batman's lost utility belt which caused an earthquake - once again saved by the Twins. Way to be upstaged Batman. Frightening people isn't what makes Batman tough after all, its believing in himself. 

Crisis of Infinite Episodes - Space Racers

 Not only did the Wonder Twins invent the fist bump, but they were the original street racers as well... well space racers. That's some serious cred. To be honest though, Jayna was racing against her will. There were a lot of problems with the episode, but the worst was when Flash said that even he runs under the speed limit. Does that apply to when he is running in space on the rings of Saturn? Maybe there just isn't a space speed limit. Another terrible episode in the can.

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Episode Count: 0451
Series Count: (53 of 66)

Crisis of Infinite Episodes - A Pint of Life

Nothing like a little lesson about blood transfusions to get your Saturday morning off on the right foot. Somehow the episode managed to work in quite a few Indiana Jones references making it actually halfway tolerable - although its shameful that Aquaman was almost killed by fish. Join us next week for Aquaman and the Temple of Doom!

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Episode Count: 0448
Series Count: (50 of 66)

Crisis of Infinite Episodes - Invasion of the Space Dolls

"They're not space dolls, they're space action figures." The perfect gift for a six year old space monkey on his birthday. This was another that fell into the embarrassingly bad category and what a shame coming on the heels of the excellent Krypton Syndrome. The alien invaders were foiled by bad batteries and I am not sure how they ever came to being to begin with if they were so reliant on Earth batteries.

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Episode Count: 0445
Series Count: (47 of 66)

Crisis of Infinite Episodes - Roller Coaster

Some kids were up to no good. How bad were they you ask, they went on a ride on an abandoned roller coaster. Now that's hard core.Lucky the Wonder Twins were on hand for a classic eagle / water bucket combo save. This is one that should have remained lost. Oh well, its always nice to see Atom, especially when he gets to mock the monkey.

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Episode Count: 0442
Series Count: (44 of 66)

Crisis of Infinite Episodes - The Witch's Arcade

Any episode that opens with an ostrich powered by an ice wind sail gets points in the plus column right away. The shrinking plot was just icing on the cake. Sure it was preposterous, but Wonder Twins in a pinball machine was a bit of fun and Wonder Woman at any size is always a treat.

Crisis of Infinite Episodes - The Stowaways From Space

Yep, it was terrible - though an octopus / ice unicycle combo does deserve at least half a star - functional and kinky. Seriously, though, what was the point of either of those transformations. Absurd is one thing, this is just nonsense. I really want to go on a rant about how bad this was, but it seems silly to get so angry over a 30 year old episode of Super Friends. Still, this was one of the worst most pointless things ever made. I feel simultaneously bad for the people who had to make this to maintain a livelihood and angry that this was someone's idea of an "honest day's work." Maybe this was a school project or something. In that case, I guess it should earn at least a C for being better than a diorama.

Crisis of Infinite Episodes - The Aircraft Terror

 Why are the Wonder Twins in every episode all of a sudden? I guess that's a minor issue though in this adventure which had a commercial airliner turn into a dragon after a lightning strike.Not only that, but the dragon could turn other aircraft into monsters. I sure hate it when that happens. The only good part of this disaster was when the Batjet was transformed into a flying bat. Please oh please, these episodes have to get better soon...

Crisis of Infinite Episodes - The Creature from the Dump

When prepping for the Crisis of Infinite Episodes experiment, I began to scour the web for some of the episodes that were not yet available on DVD. Let me say, I think I own every animated episode that has been released, but the Super Friends shorts were among the few that had never been released (luckily, I found that they were available for digital purchase on Amazon giving me a high quality viewing experience) . While most of the shorts were actually viewable on YouTube, this episode was not. For some reason The Creature From the Dump was an elusive SOB. Not sure why this one was so hard to track down... but its not really worth the effort. Then again, the toxic Bat-Monster was quite a treat.

Crisis of Infinite Episodes - Mxyzptlk's Flick

Mxyzptlk the movie man is back with yet another movie themed caper.  Kudos to Robin for a hilarious line. When a caveman swung out of the movie screen and picked up the Batmobile, he exclaimed that it looked so real. Really Robin? As far as Mixed Pickles movies go, this one had an interesting gimmick of the imp being able to rewind and rewrite the action making the heroes do stupid things. Using the tape recorder to play Mxyzptlk's name backwards did seem a little unsportsmanlike, but it got the job done.

Crisis of Infinite Episodes - Three Wishes

And here we go with another genie episode. Running out of ideas, are we? Of course the wishes backfired. Luckily Superman had experience bottling genies even though the twins still had a wish to spare. They used the last wish to wish away the whole episode, unfortunately we were not given the same luxury.

Crisis of Infinite Episodes - Garden Of Doom

Wow. This was pretty amazing. It had form of a giant rabbit holding ice shears vs a killer tomato plant, tiny Wonder Woman and a pea pod vs a cricket, and a banana monster. It actually was a pretty fun episode though its time like this that I wonder why they didn't use the Atom. Its not like there are that many occasions when he would actually be helpful - better not to squander the opportunities that do make sense.In any case, this one turned out a lot better than I expected.

Crisis of Infinite Episodes - Eruption

Jupiters! You can always count on the Wonder Twins for a life lesson. This time it was "Never hang glide into a volcano." Another good lesson - only slightly less applicable - the gorilla on ice stilts combo isn't very effective at lava rescues. I don't know, I am a bit of a sucker for shows with people getting surrounded by lava. I think it stems from a childhood imagination of trying to avoid stepping on the "lava" carpet at home and building all sorts of makeshift pathways. For that, I give this a pass. Its not great, but lava trumps space termites any day.