The Super 6: The Complete Series

I completely missed this show when it aired back in 1966. I thought it was just another super hero program and stayed away. Believe it or not, it's really a humorous cartoon take on Super Heroics. All twenty episodes of the original program are here, with the bridges between the cartoons. Super Bwoing is in every show, and sounds like a very young Jimmy Stewart. He's really an incompetent teenage super hero, and rides through the air on his electric guitar. He has a funny relationship with the supervisor of the Super Six headquarters, sort of like Maynard G. Krebs and his teachers. Most of the Super Bwoing cartoons have strong or clever endings, the hardest part to write in a comedy script. The Matzoriley Brothers are the second cartoon in every episode. They are a three headed man with a separate personality for each head, one is timid, one is brash and one is Chinese. The voices are by Paul Frees and Daws Butler. These cartoons are weighed down by the complexity of the Matzorileys. They confront various villains and only a few of the cartoons are really well written. Some are very well animated, however, principally by Don Williams and Ed Love. The animation (limited as it is) was a lot of fun for me to watch. The balance of the show is divided among the other 5 heroes in the Super Six, Captain Zammo and his little sidekick, Super Scuba and his mermaid girlfriend, Magneto Man and his little boy sidekick, Granite Man and his pigeon and Elevator Man, who operates independently. Captain Zammo is the funniest, he leaves all the dirty work to his tiny sidekick, who loves Captain Zammo and never questions him. The layout design for these episodes is the work of Corny Cole and still retain a modicum of freshness 47 years after they were done. Granite Man and his Pigeon friend are OK, but have a potential that really isn't carried through in the stories, many of them have weak or inconclusive endings. However, the fact that Granite Man is a park statue most of the time until the Pigeon brings him to life has a slightly unsavory tinge to it that's humorous. Super Scuba's relationship with his Mermaid girlfriend has potential, but for the most part his adventures are routine, fighting underwater villains with outlandish submarines and ships. He's almost like Sam Spade and his secretary Effie, but without the innuendo. The underwater backgrounds are done with a "salt resist" technique that's not rich enough to be used in so many episodes. Magneto Man and his boy sidekick are good looking charaters, but Magneto has one power, which are his magnetic hands, and the little boy is really the brains of the operation. This was designed to make kids feel good about their superiority over the adults in their lives. These episodes don't really have much build and are saddled with weak endings. Elevator Man is really the Joe Friday of the bunch, his power to enlarge and grow small is cleverly worked into his plots, the design and size changes are clever enough to make up for the usual weak endings. One episode is a tribute to "The Incredible Shrinking Man", as the life of Elevator Man is threatened after he loses his special enlarging belt; he shrinks down small enough to ride an ant up a wall!I was very much surprised that this show was as good as it was. It's no Jay Ward, although the character and layout design was done by some of the same artists that worked on Ward programs. It's taking the Super Hero craze of the late 1960s and making fun of it. Friz Freleng's favorite gags abound, like the Matzoriley Brothers being crushed by a drawbridge several times in one cartoon. The DVD is of very good quality, played smoothly, beautiful color, good menu, no extras. Pick this one up, especially if you don't take your super heroics too seriously!

An unexpected surprise. One for the quality of the release and two for the fact it got released in the first place! This was the first made-for-TV animated series made by DePatie-Freleng Enterprises(The folks that brought us the Pink Panther theatrical shorts). Although the animation quality is slightly lower budget - the writing and voice acting is still top notch. With familiar voices like Paul Frees, Daws Butler, June Foray & Artie Johnson(among others) you can't go wrong.The series itself revolves around 6 super heroes-Super Scuba, Magnito Man, Elevator Man, Granite Man, Captain Zammo and the super hero in training Super Bwoing(the guy riding the guitar and always goofing up.) The show also features The Matzoriley Brothers - A guy with 3 heads(and 3 distinct voices). The character likely modeled after a villain featured in an episode of The Inspector(also featuring 3 heads). Each half hour program has 3 cartoons. A Super Bwoing, A Matzoriley Brothers and one featuring one of the other Super 6 characters. It also has the in-between cartoon bumpers in tact(the way I wish some of the Hanna-Barbera cartoons of this era did).One of the things I love about the series is the theme song - which for a fan of the music of the 1960's era - you'll recognize the vocal as it was sung by Gary Lewis!The video transfer is absolutely gorgeous for a vintage series from 1966-Bright, Vivid colors and clear sharp lines. Much better than what we've seen from many of the Hanna-Barbera series of the same vintage. Sound is your typical clean mono-no major surprises there. No bonus material-but for the price you can't really expect it.I'm truly hoping that this only marks the beginning for more DePatie-Freleng series to see the light of day - such as The Houndcats, Bailey's Comets, Baggy Pants & The Nitwits, Super President, and maybe even some of the original TV versions of the Pink Panther show with original cartoon bumpers in tact.If you enjoy the Pink Panther, The Inspector or The Ant & The Aardvark and like animation of this era - you should add this to your collection as well. Supporting releases like this can lead to more like it-and that can only be a good thing.

THE SUPER 6: DEPATIE/FRELING's long lost Saturday morning cartoon SUPER 6 spotlighted an agency of colorful heroes for hire, namely SUPER BWOING (a klutz on a flying guitar who talked in JIMMY STEWART's uncertain tones), SUPER SCUBA (think AQUAMAN), MAGNETO MAN (he sported a CARY GRANT voice), ELEVATOR MAN (who could shrink or grow to mammoth proportions), GRANITE MAN (a statue brought to life by his pigeon sidekick) and CAPTAIN ZAMMO (a flamboyant loudmouth). Boasting a hip "instant ear worm" GARY LEWIS & THE PLAYBOYS theme song, each show featured a SUPER BWOING toon, a segment starring one of his lantern jawed compadres and a BROTHERS MATZORILEY episode (average joe's, except for their three bickering heads). The story lines varied in quality while the cookie cutter villains, hardly in a league with THE DICK TRACY SHOW's FLAT TOP and PRUNE FACE, were given needed punch by voice vets PAUL FREES and DAWS BUTLER. Like TERRYTOONS' similar THE MIGHTY HEROES and the winged rodent BATFINK, THE SUPER 6 may be "super-obscure" now, but maybe...just maybe...that's what made them so special.RATING: FOUR ZIP! ZAM! ZOWIE! AND SWOOSH!'S

I got this on a whim, I checked out a few episodes online and I thought it seemed like good quality programming for the family viewing. It’s hilarious, and the whole family thoroughly enjoys it. Every child has already decided who’s their favorite superhero.Highly recommended.

An excellent TV cartoon series that was never shown in Great Britain, each 25 minute episode has 3 cartoon segments. Made by the same producers, who gave us The Pink Panther cartoon series. Really great.

I loved this animated show by the ace artists behind the "Pink Panther" cartoons back when I was a kid and am thrilled that the entire series is now out in a good quality DVD set.Most of the cartoons are superhero stories set around a special 'Super Service' agency whose cranky cigar-chomping dispatcher assigns its various costumed employees to go forth and rescue those in need, with the adventures ranging from the slapstick parodies of Super Bwoing (an inept and overly enthusiastic teenage hero-in-training who flies around riding his guitar like a surfboard) and Captain Whammo (a/k/a Captain Zammo due to a copyright tangle with Wham-O Toys, a time-traveling fop who refused to sully his flamboyantly flouncy costume and thus made his eager little assistant Private Hammo do all the work and take all the lumps) to the more serious stuff starring Elevator Man (a size-shifting, tough-talking troubleshooter who was my favourite of the bunch), Granite Man (a muscular stone statue brought to life by a magic spell chanted by a talking pigeon named Percival), Magneto Man (a magnetic-powered Brit with a computer-brained kid sidekick named Cal) and Super Scuba (a laid-back undersea adventurer with a tag-along mermaid secretary named Bubbles).To top it off, the superhero shorts bookend the ongoing misadventures of the Brothers Matzoriley, a truly unique cartoon creation that can be best be described as "What if the Three Stooges shared the same body?". This strange little creature had three heads, the one on right a bossy tough guy, the one on the left a whiny wimp, and the one in the middle Chinese (I have no idea why he was Chinese, other than the fact that the saying "One out of every three babies born on Earth is Chinese" was popular in the sixties...).That is, in fact, one of the things that might be a problem for some 21st century viewers. There is a bit of sixties-style mild racism (well, "mild" when you consider back then many minorities still lived under the threat of gun, rope and fire...) in some of the episodes directed towards Asians and Native Americans that could bother the more politically correct out there, although to be fair while he was indeed an obvious ethnic stereotype the cheerfully philosophical Chinese middle brother Wong was always presented as smarter and braver than the two other Matzoriley siblings Weft and Wight. Still worth warning folks about though.The only other negative I have to mention about the set is based on something that may have only have happened to me. When my "Super 6" DVD set arrived I discovered that both discs had come loose in the mail and gotten badly scratched.Now this isn't a criticism of the seller who had taken extra care with the package and wrapped my order carefully in bubble wrap. No, it is more directed to the manufacturer who went with shallow holders in the plastic case which apparently could not handle normal postal handling.As I said though, this may have only happened to me, and it hopefully should not dissuade other people interested in buying this set because other than that, I can still highly recommend "Super 6" to fans of old TV cartoons and superheroes in general.

Very entertaining for an older cartoon!

Can't get any better, A++

Promptly delivered and brings back wonderful memories!!!