Hanna-Barbera in the 60's employed a double-feature technique for it's animated adventure programs, combining two more or less unrelated cartoons into a joint program. This resulted in such favorites as Space Ghost And Dino Boy, Birdman And The Galaxy Trio, and Moby Dick And Mighty Mightor. HB offered a bit of self-parody with Frankenstein Jr. And The Impossibles, as both cartoons made use of the same sense of over-the-top pop camp humor of the Adam West Batman series. Frankenstein Jr. was in essence America's answer to Gigantor, as boy genius Buzz Conroy was frequently sought by the authorities to handle monstrous emergencies with his giant living robot Frankenstein Jr. The design sense for this feature was very comic booky, presenting exaggerated science fiction episodes in a relatively straight-forward manner that wouldn't strike kids as comedy until several viewings later. The Impossibles, which was more blatantly humorous, was a bit of a spoof on Beatle-mania and the spy/superhero scene. The Impossibles was a rock group which regularly entertained screaming young girls. But, when danger struck and their boss Big D gave them a call, the group transformed into The Impossibles: super-powered agents who fought for law and order. This usually meant going after some colorfully costumed mad man with an outlandish scheme to take over the world -or who just wanted to steal art treasures. The crime-fighting trio included Fluid Man, Multi-man, and Coil Man. This was a cartoon I would watch just because I enjoyed the background music so much, being a sort of spy/surf/adventure/jazz sound with lots of blaring horns and electric guitars. As was so often the case with these things, despite HB recording song numbers for the civilian Impossibles to sing, we rarely heard more than a few seconds of them. Too bad, as they were usually kinda catchy.
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