Summary[]
The Batman/Superman Hour was a Filmation animated series that was broadcast on CBS from 1968 to 1969. Premiering on September 14, 1968, this 60-minute program featured new adventures of the DC Comics superheroes Batman, Robin and Batgirl alongside shorts from The New Adventures of Superman and The Adventures of Superboy.
This series marked the first Saturday Morning vehicle of Batman, his supporting cast and some of their classic enemies. At the time the show was ordered by CBS, the live-action Batman TV show was at its ratings peak on ABC. Due to a licensing oversight on the part of the live-action show's producers, Filmation was able to secure the cartoon rights to Batman and produce the series for CBS.
The Batman/Superman Hour went into production close to the start of the 1968 TV season, requiring Filmation to pull as many additional animators from other projects as they could spare to ramp up production. According to Norm Prescott, six episodes of another series already sold to CBS — starring another DC Comics character, Metamorpho, the Element Man — had been completed and were ready to air, but the entire series had been shelved when CBS chose to rush The Batman/Superman Hour on its schedule.
This series was the first time Olan Soule and Casey Kasem performed as the voices of Batman and Robin. When The New Adventures of Batman was produced in 1977, Adam West and Burt Ward reprised the roles they had originally played in the live action TV series. Soule and Kasem would return several times to reprise their roles in The New Scooby-Doo Movies, Super Friends, The All-New Super Friends Hour, Challenge of the SuperFriends and The World's Greatest Super Friends. Kasem would go on to voice Robin with Adam West as Batman in The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians.
In 1969, the series was repackaged into 30-minute episodes without the Superman segments and renamed Batman with Robin the Boy Wonder. Batman would next appear in The New Adventures of Batman in 1977. In 1985, Warner Home Video released five selected episodes of the series on VHS as part of the "Super Powers" video collection. These videos were re-released in 1996 and are out of print. In 1996, episodes were included in The Superman/Batman Adventures on the USA Network. They later aired on the Boomerang Network.
Episodes[]
"The New Adventures of Superman" Segments[]
| Episode | Air Date |
|---|---|
| "Luthor's Lethal Laser" | September 14, 1968 |
| "Can a Luthor Change His Spots?" | September 21, 1968 |
| "The Team of Terror" | September 28, 1968 |
| "Rain of Iron" | October 5, 1968 |
| "The Mysterious Mr. Mist" | October 12, 1968 |
| "Luminians on the Loose" | October 19, 1968 |
| "The Ghost of Kilbane Castle" | October 26, 1968 |
| "The Japanese Sandman" | November 2, 1968 |
"The Adventures of Superboy" Segments[]
| Episode | Air Date |
|---|---|
| "Forget Me Not, Superdog" | September 14, 1968 |
| "Superboy Meets Mighty Lad" | September 21, 1968 |
| "King Superboy" | September 28, 1968 |
| "Double Trouble, Double Doom" | October 5, 1968 |
| "The Trap of the Super Spacemen" | October 12, 1968 |
| "The Space Refugees" | October 19, 1968 |
| "The Monster Molecule" | October 26, 1968 |
| "The Great Kryptonite Caper" | November 2, 1968 |
"The Adventures of Batman" Segments[]
| Episode | Air Date |
|---|---|
| "My Crime Is Your Crime" | September 14, 1968 |
| "A Bird Out of Hand" | September 14, 1968 |
| "The Cool Cruel Mr. Freeze" | September 21, 1968 |
| "The Joke's on Robin" | September 21, 1968 |
| "How Many Herring in a Wheelbarrow?" | September 28, 1968 |
| "In Again Out Again Penguin" | September 28, 1968 |
| "The Nine Lives of Batman" | October 5, 1968 |
| "Long John Joker" | October 5, 1968 |
| "Bubi, Bubi, Who's Got the Ruby?" | October 12, 1968 |
| "1001 Faces of the Riddler" | October 12, 1968 |
| "The Big Birthday Caper" | October 19, 1968 |
| "Two Penguins Too Many" | October 19, 1968 |
| "Partners in Peril" | October 26, 1968 |
| "The Underworld Underground Caper" | October 26, 1968 |
| "Hizzoner the Joker" | November 2, 1968 |
| "Freeze's Frozen Vikings" | November 2, 1968 |
| "The Crime Computer" | November 9, 1968 |
| "The Great Scarecrow Scare" | November 9, 1968 |
| "A Game of Cat and Mouse" | November 16, 1968 |
| "Beware of Living Dolls" | November 16, 1968 |
| "Will the Real Robin Please Stand Up?" | November 23, 1968 |
| "He Who Swipes the Ice, Goes to the Cooler" | November 23, 1968 |
| "Simon the Pieman" | November 30, 1968 |
| "A Mad, Mad Tea Party" | November 30, 1968 |
| "From Catwoman with Love" | December 7, 1968 |
| "Perilous Playthings" | December 7, 1968 |
| "A Perfidious Pieman is Simon" | December 14, 1968 |
| "Cool, Cruel Christmas Caper" | December 14, 1968 |
| "The Fiendishly Frigid Fraud" | December 21, 1968 |
| "Enter the Judge" | December 21, 1968 |
| "The Jigsaw Jeopardy" | December 28, 1968 |
| "Wrath of the Riddler" | December 28, 1968 |
| "It Takes Two to Make a Team" | January 4, 1969 |
| "Opera Buffa" | January 4, 1969 |