Question: Maybe it's my ...

Question: Maybe it's my memory going in my old age, but I seem to remember a live-action superhero show from when I was a kid. It was a one-shot show, with characters from the DC comics. Help me out and tell me I'm not crazy. — Rodney

Televisionary: You're not crazy, Rodney, though the youthful version of me sure wished Legends of the Superheroes was but a madman's hallucination when I suffered through it in 1978. Alas, it was real, alright.

Now, I have no idea if you were as much of a comic-book geek as I was as a kid, but just imagine how much I looked forward to some of my favorite superheroes appearing on TV. Now picture my steadily falling face as I watched the Hanna-Barbera-produced Legends, which was like a staged version of the execrable Super Friends — only much worse. Remember the extreme close-up of young Danny's horror-stricken mug in The Shining? Darned close.

In the accursed first installment, Captain Marvel, Green Lantern, Black Canary, Huntress, the Flash, Hawkman and Batman and Robin (Adam West and Burt Ward recreating their series roles) take on a rogues' gallery of villains that included Solomon Grundy, Sinestro, the Weather Wizard, Mordru, Giganta and the Riddler (Batman's Frank Gorshin). The plot revolved around a doomsday machine the villains created, which for some reason required our heroes to stop by a gas station to be ambushed by the bad guys while Marsha Warfield (yes, Marsha Warfield) hung out in a phone booth and described the whole scene to a friend on the other end of the line.

Painful as that was, I tuned in for the second installment (there were only two, thank the Fates), but quickly turned it off when I saw that it involved Ed McMahon and the heroes getting together to roast a senior-citizen hero called Retired Man. And as if that wasn't bad enough, Ghetto Man also put in an appearance.

After years of therapy, I've almost stopped crying.