Subscribe!
Hero High (1981) |
Category: DC superheroes |
First episode title: Boo Who
How familiar with the show am I?: I wasn't aware of it.
Is this the first episode?: Different listings show different episode orders, but the place where I actually got the episode said that this one was first.
Hero High, as you might be able to tell from the title, is a show about a high school for future superheroes - and villains, judging by some of the characters on show here. It was originally shown as a double bill with Shazam and occasionally crossed over with it, making it tangentially a part of the world of DC Comics despite being an original work.
The students at Hero High include a typical Superman-type pair with some of the standard powers, Captain California and Glorious Gal, and their evil counterparts, Rex Ruthless and Dirty Trixie: Rex's powers are also pretty standard, but Trixie's are based around her "bag of tricks" from which she can take almost anything. We also meet AWOL, a boy with vanishing powers; Misty Magic, who can cast magic spells; Weatherman, who can control the weather; Punk Rock, a cool dude with a guitar; and a penguin called Peter Penguin and a hyena called Giggler, both of whom can fly. Their teacher is Miss Grimm, a strict old lady, and the principal is Mr Sampson, a strongman in a loincloth.
Miss Grimm's class all arrive for the school day, but Rex Ruthless is late. When he does fly into the classroom, he smashes through the door, earning a telling-off from Grimm and the mockery of the other students. Then Grimm tests a couple of the students to check if they've done their homework, but they've been slacking - AWOL manages to vanish all of himself except his shoes, and Misty Magic manages to levitate one of her fellow students but then drops them again. Then Mr Sampson comes in to address rumours about a nearby house being haunted, and tells the students that he and Grimm will be taking them all to the house tonight to show them there's nothing to be scared of. Class ends for the day, and Rex Ruthless and Dirty Trixie, while flying through the air, make plans to prank Captain California and Glorious Gal at the haunted house.
That night, it's dark and stormy, and there is a very typically "haunted"-looking old house. Rex and Trixie arrive in the house first, and cover up a hole in the floor with a rug. AWOL and Misty walk right over it without falling in, so Rex goes to check on it and falls into it himself. Trixie uses her powers to generate a ladder to get him out. Captain California and Glorious Gal are then sneaking carefully through a large living room, and what looks like a covered-up chair keeps following them around, but it turns out to be an equally frightened Weatherman. Meanwhile, Giggler is sneaking up on Peter, when Peter encounters a floating, glowing skull! As he runs in fright, he accidentally knocks Giggler over, and as they roll as one ball, they also bowl over Punk Rock. AWOL only avoids the chaos by vanishing, Misty gets spun around, and the two animals finally stop rolling when they hit Weatherman. The floating skull then scares everyone else out of the house, and we see it's actually a projection from a device that Rex and Trixie are using in the attic. Outside, Grimm and Sampson tell off the kids for getting so scared. Rex and Trixie celebrate their victory, but then they get scared themselves by what looks like a ghost floating around. At the sound of their screams, Captain California and Glorious Gal fly back in to rescue them, and discover that the "ghost" is just an owl under a sheet. Then Giggler starts chasing Peter all around the house and into the sky.
OK I have to get this out of the way straight away. This episode's actual plot - the whole "playing pranks in a haunted house" thing - does not make use of the characters' powers whatsoever. You have two supervillains trying to cause some trouble for their fellow students and they're not even using their powers to do so, relying on typical cartoonish tricks instead. Rex can fly - surely he can find a way to simulate a ghost that way? And Trixie's bag of tricks should be able to generate any number of spooky items. It heavily feels like the plot was written for some other show and the Hero High cast was just plastered onto it.
It's a shame, because the cast do have potential, which for all I know might get used in the other episodes. Captain California and Glorious Gal, obvious parodies of Superman and Wonder Woman (although the Captain's name indicates a knock-off Captain America), could use pretty much any kind of powers and it wouldn't seem out of place. Instead, here they are mostly reduced to creeping around like Shaggy and Scooby-Doo once they reach the haunted house, despite flying to get there.
The name "Rex Ruthless" seems to be based on Lex Luthor, but instead of specifically parodying Superman's genius nemesis, he just seems to have generic "villain" vibes. I should note that the evil characters never get called "evil" or "villains", since in theory they're all in training to be superheroes, but it's obvious where Rex and Trixie's lives are going to lead.
Speaking of Dirty Trixie - what, she has a bag that she can take anything out of, and the one use she gets out of it is to generate a ladder to rescue Rex from the pit? Where is the imagination here?
If I'm going to point out one little detail that I did like, it's that they remembered about AWOL not studying his vanishing properly. In the classroom, he's only able to vanish everything but his shoes (or feet? whether the shoes are filled isn't clear) - and in the house, when vanishing to avoid Peter and Giggler, he indeed leaves his shoes behind again.
Misty doesn't seem to try to levitate anything after getting it wrong in class, which is again a failure to make good use of the characters' powers - if she and AWOL are going to walk over a carpet that has a pit under it, why would you not have Misty use her powers to do so?
Oh yeah, and I've skipped over the one thing that actually does seem to be haunted about this house: the stuffed animal heads on the walls, whose eyes turn to look towards the characters! That's the only thing about the house that we don't learn of an explanation for. It is probably just meant as a joke in that case!
Despite my tone here, I do like this show, especially the characters and their powers. That's why it's all the more frustrating that the writers didn't put them to better use!
Want to talk about cartoons? Or perhaps you have some feedback about the site, or some fanart to share? Whichever it is, please get in touch!