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Although short SuperFriends episodes were produced by Hanna-Barbera from 1980-1983, SuperFriends: The Legendary Super Powers Show was the first new format SuperFriends series since 1979's The World's Greatest SuperFriends. Continuing the previous three years' policy of producing short stories, this series' format was two stories per half hour, so all the separate stories were ten minutes long each. Also, in spite of appearing in the opening credits, Aquaman doesn't make an appearance in any single episode of this series.

Unlike previous series, this one was produced as a toyline tie-in (which was just becoming a very popular practice at the time). The toys were produced by Kenner, and the general story as detailed in the mini-comics that accompanied the figures and the mini-series published by D.C. themselves was that the major heroes of Earth had teamed up to fight Darkseid and his villains. This series followed that storyline, and so was more in line with the very popular Challenge Of The SuperFriends series, which also featured actual super-villains from the comics as regular adversaries. One of the most obvious tie-ins was the character of Brainiac, who had been given a radically different look for his toy (despite him appearing in his original form in the opening credits). His look on the show was similarly updated.

Being produced to promote toys, there were a few departures from past SuperFriends series in order for the series to appear more modern and have a higher profile in a more competitive television market. The most notable change was the addition of Adam West to the voice cast, who was chosen to return to his most famous role by voicing Batman instead of Olan Soule, who had done Batman's voice for all previous SuperFriends episodes (as well as the original Filmation Batman series, and Scooby-Doo guest appearances).

Source: TV.COM