Saturday Morning's Forgotten Heroes: Young Samson (1967)

Of all the "super adventure" heroes that Hanna-Barbera produced between 1966-68, Young Samson somehow has fallen right through the cracks, such that it was not included in Hanna-Barbera's World of Super Adventure rerun anthology package 11 years after the series' initial airing on NBC. Here, Muttley16 offers the intro we know so well:



Samson (Tim Matheson, Jonny Quest, Space Ghost) is at first glance a typical teenager roaming the highways & byways with his dog, Goliath. When danger threatens, however, the youth clangs a pair of special wristbands together to transform into an adult analog of himself, purportedly derived from his Biblical namesake. At the same time, Goliath is transmuted from dog to lion, with one black front paw intact. In his lion form, Goliath can shoot laser beams from his eyes and leap long distances.

All that aside, Samson was really not much different from his superhero brethren in the H-B stable, though he didn't have a Rogues' Gallery of arch-enemies like, say, Space Ghost or NBC stablemate Birdman.

When it came to syndicated distribution, Young Samson, along with 1966's Space Kiddettes, somehow got thrown together with some entries from other studios' shows. I can recall seeing a "Fractured Fairy Tale", from Rocky & His Friends, being packaged with Samson, for example. Young Samson has turned up periodically on Boomerang, but WB seemingly is not in any hurry to release this show on DVD. Would they revive it? Only if they could find someone who cared enough to not only revive the show, but expand on the original stories so it wouldn't seem so convoluted.

Rating: B-.