A 1966 WEEK PRELUDE: The rigidly animated cult-favorite debuted 60 YEARS AGO… — The Marvel Super Heroes, the House of Ideas’ first foray into screendom, premiered Sept. 5, 1966, so this serves as a prelude to our next big theme event — 1966 WEEK, a 60th anniversary celebration of an extraordinary, landmark year in popular culture. Starting Sunday, we’ll be bringing you a whole host of features on everything from Star Trek, to Batman, to the Beatles, and much, much more. Get ready for it! Far out. — Dan — By PAUL KUPPERBERG And a-one and a-two and a-three… Meet the sulky over-bulky kinda’ hulky superhero Optimistic and electrically transistored superhero An exotically neurotic and aquatic superhero The Marvel Super Heroes have arrived!  Super powered from the forehead to the toes Watch them change their very shape before your nose See a cane-striking superhero change to Viking superhero A humdingin’ real swinging shield flinging superhero They’re the latest they’re the greatest ultimatest superheroes The Marvel Super Heroes have arrived! Marvel house ads had alerted fans that the Marvel Super Heroes were on the way, and on September 5, 1966, they arrived on TV screens across the country. The syndicated animated series ran on New York’s Channel 9, WOR-TV, and while they were broadcast in color, I originally saw them on our black-and-white set. It didn’t matter. Because 1966 was shaping up to be a great year for comic book fans! The live-action Batman premiered on ABC-TV on January 12, then we got The Marvel Super Heroes and, five days later, Filmation’s animated New Adventures of Superman on CBS Saturday mornings. Like most Saturday morning fare, The New Adventures of Superman was produced in limited animation, which is a technique that reduces the amount of new artwork and movement in a scene to speed up production and lower costs. The Marvel Super Heroes — produced by Grantray-Lawrence and featuring segments starring Captain America, the Hulk, Iron Man, Thor, and Sub-Mariner — took the idea of limited animation to the extreme. Instead of fully animating newly drawn characters, Grantray-Lawrence photographed or traced panels and artwork directly from the comics and moved individual elements, i.e. an arm or Captain America’s shield hurtling through the air, over stationary backgrounds. The animation was stiff and kind of strange, because unlike anything before or since,...