Saturday Cartoon: Green Lantern In "The Vanishing World"

Some people would use some of that fancy, hifalutin screen capture technology. I just pointed a camera at the screen and took pics while enjoying some sixties DC Filmation Superheroes. If you haven't watched any of these, they're a trip, and like many retro cartoons, best enjoyed on a big wide screen where you can really see the groovy, spacey graphics stretched out bigger and well, slightly wider than they were originally presented. For your Saturday infotainment, here are some sights and sounds...no, I guess that would just be sights, from the Green Lantern episode, "The Vanishing World". Just think of this as being kind of like a 2-D Viewmaster on a slight angle and we'll be fine. Okay, this is possibly the lamest idea for a blog entry yet, but here we go.

First is the intro, with the face of a Guardian, and it isn't the colour loss from taking a pic of a TV screen, the Guardians in the sixties Filmation GL really don't have blue skin.

It could be that, despite all the weirdness coming up in the episode, the producers thought throwing a big blue face at the audience first thing might throw them off. But then, cartoon colourists love to annoy comic fans.

Next in the intro:

Hal Jordan in big-fist Kirbyvision!!!

So then the story starts, as Hal, flying in a plane, they got that right at least, is contacted by his faithful sidekick Piefa-what the...? Who's this blue kid???


Yes, there is no Pieface, aka Thom, in this cartoon, instead there is a young man from Venus, I believe, whose name is Kiro (I think that's how you spell it). Perhaps they thought Pieface would be offensive to Eskimoes, or Inuit as we call them in Canada. Strangely, Kiro speaks just like a stereotypical Eskimo, making him simultaneously offensive to the Inuit and the Venusians.

Then the proper title of the episode appears over a shot of...um...something...

Looks like Ferris Aircraft way back there, anyway - though I don't think Carol ever appears. One of the things I like about the Filmation DC cartoons is how the title of an episode appears after some action and sort of floats over the graphics, it somehow makes it seem more like a moving comic.

So it isn't long before Kiro gets his scrawny blue @$$ captured by some space nogoodniks.

They don't like Venusians so much.


GL will have to rescue him, first taking his oath.

The scene of GL taking his oath is nice, and the power battery looks particularly beautiful. Strangely, in the cartoon, he only says the last two lines of his famous oath.

So Hal takes to the air.

And that is my camera playing tricks, he doesn't have red hair in the cartoon. Wouldn't wanna step on Guy Gardner's toes.

So next our heroes are on the Vanishing World, an asteroid that appears for an hour once every year before vanishing into another dimension, hence its name. As can be seen, its wildlife is none too friendly.

But that's no problem when you can zap your troubles away with the power ring.

But it doesn't take Kiro long to get caught by another charming native life form, a pink snake that shoots fire out of his mouth, natch.
I was clearly getting too excited to hold the camera steady by that point, so if you feel like watching the episode, here it is. Though it won't be quite the same as watching it on a widescreen, you will get to hear how sloshed the voice for Hal sounds. Well, it's wonderful stuff. I do so love the superhero cartoons.