Frankenstein Jr. and The Impossibles: The Complete Series (Blu-ray Review)

• Reviewed by: Tim Salmons
• Review Date: Sep 18, 2025
• Format: Blu-ray Disc
• 

Director

William Hanna, Joseph Barbera

Release Date(s)

1966-1967 (January 28, 2025)

Studio(s)

Hanna-Barbera Productions (Warner Archive Collection)

• Film/Program Grade: B-
• Video Grade: A
• Audio Grade: A
• Extras Grade: D+

Review

During the superhero television craze of the 1960s, animated shows were getting in on the game, either adapting properties straight from the comics (straight is used loosely) or making up some superheroes of their own. Hanna-Barbera had already had some success with The Huckleberry Hound Show, The Flintstones, and The Yogi Bear Show, and were tooling around with a new show called “Dr. Frankenstein Jr. and the Uggle Dubbly.” Once they jumped on the superhero bandwagon, they re-imagined it, becoming Frankenstein Jr. and The Impossibles. The show originally ran for a single season, from 1966 to 1967, alongside their other superhero-adjacent shows Space Ghost and Dino Boy and The Space Kiddettes.

The show is bookended by two stories featuring The Impossibles and a single story with Frankenstein Jr. at the center. Frankenstein Jr. (Ted Cassidy) is the creation of Professor Conroy (John Stephenson), who lives in Civic City with his son Buzz (Dick Beals). A powerful oversized robot with special powers, he helps Professor Conroy and Buzz in their quest to stop the world’s supercriminals. The Impossibles are a rock and roll band that, when called upon by their chief Big D (Paul Frees), they jump into action as the superheroes Multi-Man (Don Messick), who can make identical copies of himself; Coil-Man (Hal Smith), who can transform into a bouncing coil; and Fluid-Man (also Paul Frees), who can change into any kind of liquid. Together they take on the world’s supervillains before returning to the stage to continue performing their popular music.

Like many Hanna-Barbera productions, Frankenstein Jr. and The Impossibles is a clear reflection of the time in which it was made, but at the same time, that’s what make it endearing. It’s a charming and simple-minded show with only light comedy in mind. It’s also full of ideas, and one of the more colorful programs that Hanna-Barbera took part in at the time. Unfortunately, it didn’t last more than one season, and outside of a single comic book issue, a tie-in novel, and appearances later on in other programs, the show and its characters became more of a niche for animation fans or those who saw it when it originally aired. It recently began to appear on MeTV Toons like many other deep cut animated shows, but it was never revived like its more popular counterparts. (The Flintstones, for example, was rebooted many times over.)

Frankenstein Jr. and The Impossibles was animated using traditional cel animation on 35mm film, finished photochemically, and presented on television in the aspect ratio of 1.33:1. The Warner Archive debuts The Complete Series on Blu-ray, fully remastered from 4K scans of the original camera negatives, and encoded to two dual-layered BD-50 discs. All episodes of the show are solid with sharp linework and medium grain, appearing organic with a vast boost in clarity and detail. Bitrates range between 20 and 40Mbps most of the time, but nothing about the original animation has been sacrificed. The color palette is beautiful with a wide range of hues and perfect contrast. All of the flaws in the original animation have been left intact, as well. These are clean and stable presentations, looking better than they’ve ever looked in their sixty-plus year history.

Audio is included in English 2.0 mono DTS-HD Master Audio with optional subtitles in English SDH. Likewise, the audio portion is much improved, and much more even and balanced in comparison to some of Warner Archive’s other animated restorations wherein they had to resort to using multiple audio sources in order to complete them. None of that is evident here. All of the tracks are clean and crisp with good support for all of the various elements.

The Warner Archive Collection 2-Disc Blu-ray release of Frankenstein Jr. and The Impossibles is housed in a blue Amaray case with an insert that re-uses artwork from the Hanna-Barbera Classic Collection 2011 DVD release of the show (also released by the Warner Archive Collection). The following episodes and a single extra are included on each disc:

DISC ONE: EPISODES 1-9

1. The Bubbler / The Shocking Electrical Monster / The Spinner (21:49)
2. The Perilous Paper Doll / The Alien Brain from Outer Space Part 1 / The Beamatron (21:52)
3. Timeatron / The Alien Brain from Outer Space Part 2 / The Burrower (21:52)
4. Smogula / The Spyder Man / The Sinister Speck (21:53)
5. The Diabolical Dauber / The Menace from the Wax Museum / Fero, the Fiendish Fiddler (21:52)
6. Televisatron / U.F.O. Unidentified Fiendish Object / Mother Gruesome (21:58)
7. The Wretched Professor Stretch / The Unearthly Plant Creatures / Aquator (21:56)
8. The Devilish Dragster / The Deadly Living Images / The Return of the Spinner (21:56)
9. The Puzzler / The Colossal Junk Monster / Satanic Surfer (21:56)

DISC TWO: EPISODES 10-18

10. The Scurrilous Sculptor / The Incredible Aqua-Monsters / The Scheming Spraysol (21:56)
11. The Insidious Inflator / The Gigantic Ghastly Genie / The Artful Archer (21:56)
12. The Return of the Perilous Paperman / The Birdman / The Dastardly Diamond Dazzler (21:58)
13. Cronella Critch the Tricky Witch / The Invasion of the Robot Creatures / The Terrible Twister (21:57)
14. The Terrifying Tapper / The Manchurian Menace / Professor Stretch Bounces Back (21:57)
15. Billy the Kidder / The Monstermobile / The Fiendish Dr. Futuro (22:19)
16. The Infamous Mr. Instant / The Mad Monster Maker / The Anxious Angler (21:58)
17. The Not So Nice Mr. Ice / The Spooktaculars / The Crafty Clutcher (21:56)
18. The Bizarre Batter / The Pilfering Putty Monster / The Rascally Ringmaster (21:54)

• Monster Rock: The Adventures of Frankenstein Jr. & The Impossibles (SD – 5:24)

Monster Rock is an all-too brief vintage retrospective featurette about the show, featuring some glimpses of storyboards and character models, as well as interviews with animators and historians Scott Jeralds, Earl Kress, Tom Sito, Doug TenNapel, and Kirk Hanson.

A mix of superheroes, spies, and rock and roll, Frankenstein Jr. and The Impossibles is a lovely little time capsule that may not be among the top tier in the Hanna-Barbera library, but it’s an amusing and entertaining diversion nonetheless. Warner Archive’s Blu-ray upgrade is among their best animated endeavors. It’s light on extras, but superb in terms of its video and audio quality. Highly recommended.

- Tim Salmons

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