Not for the Faint of Heart...or Brain

Once upon a time, when the world was more innocent, when the threat of nuclear annhiliation was prominent, when breakfast cereals were made of 98% sugar and 2% corn syrup, the Superfriends were always there to make sure that kids in the 80s stayed so confused that there was the possibility that their tiny little brains would blow up in their skulls. So, let's harken back to a time when polyester ruled, when afros were big, and Saturday morning cartoons made absolutely no freaking sense as we shatter your will to live with:

Superfriends: The Legendary Superpowers Show Presents: Island of the Dinasoids!

It makes my heart weep when I see the title of a show running longer than most novels nowadays.

Anyway, the episode starts with Batman's $40 million Batplane crashing down on an island without any outside interference because, as you well know, Alfred don't know jack about jet propulsion. In the Batplane with Batman is Professor Stein, the nerdy half of Firestorm. Just wait, it gets better. Carrying with him is a machine called the Omnicaster, a device that would allow anyone with, oh, I don't know, a death ray or a sonic disruptor or Pat Boone records to rain down fiery destruction to the entire planet through the use of Satellite Beams! This device was only made for good, mind you, which is why it's not going to be used like that today. Bats and Stein find a fortress (!) in the middle of the jungle (!!) where a Doctor is using a Genetto Beam (!!!) to turn animals into dinosaurs (wait, what?). The good Doctor Korwin, being not at all crazy as a bat-shit salad, shows them how the device works, eyeballs the Omincaster! and shows Batman and Professor Stein to two rooms that they can use. The crazy part of this hasn't even happened yet.

Meanwhile, Ronald Raymond, the beefcake portion of Firestorm, starts to wonder what in the hell is taking two people in a supersonic bat-shaped jet so damn long to get back to the Hall of Justice. He talks Wonder Woman, Robin and Apache Chief into helping him look for them. Remember, this is in the 80s, so this apparently wasn't a ploy to stay in close proximity to a 6' tall Amazon with blue eyes and perky...perkiness for several hours. Nope. Not at all. The quartet hop in the Invisible Jet (so named because nothing about four people in a sitting position traveling at Mach 2 would cause suspicion) to find out where Batman and Stein have run off to. They come across the island, land and are taken immediately into the fortress where they find out that Batty and Steiny are now dinosaur/human hybrids called Dinasoids. Turns out that wacky Dr. Korwin is a Dinasoid himself, having walked into the path of the Genetto Beam when it was in the process of turning a rhino into a triceratops. Because nothing says lab safety like walking in front of a glowing beam shooting out of a box toward a creature with the intent purpose of changing its molecular makeup to something that got killed by a meteor 65,000,000 years ago. Crazy science, I tell ya.

While all this is going on, Apache Chief has been wandering around outside to look for clues, in an apparent case of not realizing that he's not a detective, or, to put a finer point on it, none too bright. He finds the Doctor's former assistant, who relays the backstory of Korwin going old-school. Chief then decides that the rest of the gang are in trouble (mainly because he's not there, therefore they couldn't button their pants without help), grows to 40 feet tall and sets off to rescue a master detective, an Amazon warrior, two men who merge to create a being that can alter the basic building blocks of matter itself, and a kid in green speedos with a cape. Why? Because he can grow 40 feet tall, and they were all about the quota, son. All about the quota.

Anyway, back to the plot. Apache Chief busts in like a 40 foot tall Native American hellbent on busting into something, finds what's happened to everyone, and in a plothole so large that even a man screaming Inekchok couldn't wedge through, the Doctor's assistant finds a way to reverse the polarity of the Genetto Beam when it's about to be hooked up to the Omnicaster! to turn the entire world's population into a devolved race of dinosaur/human hybrids as dumb as the Superfriends. The assistant changes the Superfriends back into normal-ish human beings, changes the Doctor back into a stark-raving lunatic and evolves the dinosaur population back into more mundane instruments of death and destruction, otherwise known as nature. Korwin learns a lesson about messing with Darwin, the Superfriends learn a lesson about just leaving people where their expensive toys crash-land, and Batman learns that he needs a better flight crew if he's going to be taking the Batplane out for a joyride. Superman, it's rumored, refused to be in this episode because the writers owed him big-time for making him appear in The Planet of Oz, considered by my 3 year old son to be completely unwatchable. And if that doesn't tell you something about humanity, then nothing will...