WTFriday?! 09-17-10 Songs and Stories About the Justice League of America

I was probably about seven, at the drug store in Springdale Mall with my grandmother (I think it was an Eckard's) when I found THIS:Oh man, I loved story records when I was a kid! I think I still have the one that came with He-Man's Point Dread playset memorized verbatim! But this one was of particular interest because even though I so young, I already knew that this was madness because Aquaman N-E-V-E-R got his OWN merchandising! He was lucky to jump onto the group licensed merch and even then, 9 out if 10 times, he was squeezed out in favor of hotshot TV star Captain "Shazam!" Marvel:
You can read all about THAT at the Aquaman Shrine.

This record didn't last long. I'm not sure what sad fate befell it, but I know I didn't have it for very long. I DID strongly remember that I was particularly amazed that not only did the story "Defeat of the Dehydrator" (I guess spoiler alerts hadn't been invented yet...) not only featured Aquaman but his wife Mera! The madness never ends!

Of course in my never-ending quest to shop myself backward in time, I have re-acquired this record and in so doing, discovered that the stories included were actually recorded way back in the 60s for this album:
Oh now, THAT is just bonkers! Why the hell is The Flash the featured character?! Also... Plastic Man and Metamorpho weren't even IN the Justice League! Rob, who runs the Aquaman Shrine, also has a blog about Power Records, the company that released most of, if not all, the super hero story records in the 70s, discovered an ad in a DC comic from 1968 advertising that Wonder Woman, The Flash, Plastic Man and Metamorpho were all going to star on Saturday morning cartoons that fall! (Aquaman already had his own... actually Flash was already appearing in his own segments on it, but I guess they were bumping him up to a headliner.) It never happened, though. I think they scrapped the extra characters in favor of Batman. Like that guy needs more exposure.
The version of this album that I have is this one. It's a reissue from the 70s with updated artwork and a reformatted layout with each character getting equal space. (But we can all see who's in the middle, right? Score!)
Not only were the Flash and Aquaman stories released as a separate 45, but so were the Metamorpho and Plastic Man ones. Oh that just takes the cake. Possibly the WEIRDEST piece of DC merchandising I have ever seen!
I also learned that this record was released, which also includes Green Lantern! These are all-new stories featuring the origins of the heroes, however as Rob from the AMS reveals, although Aquaman's story is accurate, The Flash's is a hybrid of the Golden and Silver Age stories and Green Lantern's is flat-out the Golden Age version, so the depiction of Hal Jordan on the front is inaccurate.

The Songs and Stories About the Justice League of America album is really freakin' odd. The "Stories" part is pretty straight-forward, but the "Songs" are doozies! You can listen to them here: http://www.comictreadmill.com/CTMBlogarchives/2006/2006_Individual/2006_06/001145.php

It's like 60s beach-rock songs about the heroes! The "Justice League Roll Call" features Superman and Batman in their only appearance on this record... trust me, they weren't hurting. They probably had a dozen solo records a piece. Also included is a man pretending to be Wonder Woman. They couldn't find ONE woman to say "Here?!" It's one word! It's not even really sung! No one?!

Odd. VERY odd!