Justice League 'did Superfriends right'

In the wake of last weekend's Justice League Unlimited finale, Toon Zone bids a fond farewell to the animated Justice League, and looks at how the series evolved:

By the time it ended, Justice League/Justice League Unlimited had accomplished a task some of us had been anticipating for thirty years: it submitted itself to The Challenge of the Superfriends, and it won. For decades that hammy old show had been a rebuke to those who dreamed of making an epic adventure series on a TV budget. It had tried to squeeze evil villains and earnest heroes into twenty-minute stories; it wound up looking like a bunch of circus clowns piling into a Volkswagen. By bringing back Luthor and Grodd and their legion of insidious incompetents, Timm and his collaborators could apply what they had learned and show how such a serial could be done. That is not the greatest reason for calling Justice League a landmark, but it will stand for many of the other reasons: it did Superfriends right. Any producers who do not study and learn from this series will unnecessarily risk resurrecting Superfriends after Timm and company had finally buried it.

Much more at the link, of course.