Monster of the Day #1644


Dracula also plagued the Superfriends (not the season we examined, this was one of the Wonder Twins years). As was often the case in this violence-free cartoon era, Dracula made people vampires by shooting vampire beams at them, generally from his hands or eyes.

This is Attack of the Vampire, also on Dailymotion. Enjoy!

  • Dorothy P Cobb

    Superman gets his power from the sun, so wouldn’t he be a rather weak vampire?

  • Beckoning Chasm

    I wonder what Dracula had to trade to get that bag of magic beans.

  • Ericb

    The Superfriends should sign up Aquaman, Hawkman and Robin for some Dracula therapy so the might finally be of some use.

  • So instead of a extraneous hot superhero chick we now get… this. Me thinks my carping is only making matters worse.

    Being slightly less silly (but only slightly less) one wonders why Lex Luthor hasn’t sicced more vampires on Superman. As Dorothy pointed out, Supes’s power comes from the sun. On this Vampires are known to be weakened (if not out right destroyed) by daylight.

    Then there’s the general question of power level. Vampires are stronger than people. But is that based on the characteristics of the victim before death (meaning that a wimp would be a weaker Vampire than a jock) or does the curse make all Vampires equal strength? A Superman who could no longer do his job in the day time is advantageous; one that can no longer push planets around would be ideal.

    On this, you put your death rays/secret laboratories/whatever on holy ground, you never need worry about the Big S popping in during your best monologue. I’m really having a hard time seeing a downside to this.

    In fact, one wonders why Lois didn’t give Dracula a ring just to find out if Clark really was Superman…

  • zombiewhacker

    Hmm… a Blade vs. Vampire Superman smackdown. I’ll bet that’s one superhero crossover Marvel and D.C. never thought of.

  • Gamera977

    Aren’t vampires destroyed by running water? Would kinda suck for Aquadude…

  • They can’t cross running water (such as a river or stream). Which is yet another reason Lex needs to give ole Varney a buzz on the cell.

  • Eric Hinkle

    ‘Vampire beams’? Oh how I loved the lunacy of 70’s animation.

  • bgbear_rnh

    Probably cheaper to animate than a bite as well.

  • Beckoning Chasm

    So, I just watched this. Aside from the world’s most asthmatic vampire, the show really highlights how the Super Friends just fly off without any kind of a plan at all. “Let’s just show up and wing it,” seems to be the motto.

    And the show really flies the cheap flag. Late in the episode, there’s a scene where Batman and Robin are talking in the Batplane. BOTH of them have their faces turned away from the camera. On the other hand, gratuitous giant spider was pretty funny.

  • Rock Baker

    Never caught this one, though I do remember an episode with the Frankenstein monster running amok. Tho, I can’t remember if it was actually called such. (Not that there was any reason not to use the public domain name of Frankenstein.)

  • Eric Hinkle

    And less likely to get the censors in an uproar.

  • Eric Hinkle

    I think I remember that one. It started off with a normal Frankenstein Monster. The Superfriends defeat it and the mad scientist gets the idea to give his next monster all of their powers, or something like that. And it just goes from there.

  • Rock Baker

    Actually, I recall a different adventure, Likely they did it more than once, though.

  • Ken_Begg

    Sometime I’ll go into my theories how why vampires are stronger than normal humans but not car-tossing superheroes. And yes, size and strength in life do come into it.