Plastic Hassle?

Plastic Man: The Complete Collection (1979)

"From out of the pages of DC Comics!"

Do the Plas!

Plastic Man was introduced in Police Comics #1 (August 1941), published by Quality Comics. Created by writer-artist Jack Cole, Plas started out as crook Patrick "Eel" O'Brian. During the robbery of a chemical plant, he was doused with a kind of acid that turned him all rubbery. He was taken in by monks who healed him. O'Brian decided to abandon his crimanl ways and become a hero. With a goofy sidekick, Woozy Winks, Plastic Man became a crime fighter in order to seek redemption.

Disco Mummy

Plastic Man, Penny his "sort-of" girlfriend, and his Polynesian sidekick Hula-Hula travel the world working for the "Chief", who is the head of some sort of law enforcement agency. Plastic Man much like Spider Man likes to wise crack as he fights the bad guys. Penny is madly in love with Plas but he hardly ever notices, he seems to have a crush on their female boss, the Chief. Then there's Hula Hula, a Lou Costello-ish sidekick with a bad luck jinx, whose antics are sure to get on your nerves.

Plas and the gang

Plastic Man's rouges gallery is unique to say the least. They're an odd and very 70's assortment, with names like The Weed, Doctor Dome, Dr. Superstein, Ghostfinger, and Disco Mummy. They're really never much of a threat for Plas and mostly played for laughs.

Superstein!

Puddle Trouble

Being a fan of the Superfriends cartoons and other 70's superhero cartoons I enjoyed the nostalgia of these cartoons, but they really haven't aged that well. The humor here is very broad and Plas and the gang's antics can get very repetitive after a few episodes. They're best watched one or two at a time. The episodes pretty much follow the same set-up every time. Villain steals something and Plastic Man is sent to arrest them and get back what ever they took. If you can tolerate the show's short comings and have fond memories of seeing it in the late 70's or when it was syndicated or just have a hankering for old school Saturday morning cartoon fare check it out.

Computer Head styles a funky jacket

Featuring all 35 cartoons of the show on four discs. There's a decent retrospective featurette, "Plas-tastic: A Brief History of Plastic Man," which gives a decent overview of Plastic Man. Also there's a 15-minute cartoon from 2006, "Puddle Trouble," which was a pilot for a series that wasn't picked up. That's a shame because it's insane and would have been a fun series.