The Thing 2-Disc Box Set DVD

The Thing is the late-1970s Hanna-Barbera Saturday morning animated series about a teenager named Benjy Grimm who can transform into the rocky orange Marvel Comics superhero by tapping his magical Thing rings together. The series aired on ABC and NBC in 1979, with a 23-episode run that put a younger spin on one of the Fantastic Four's most beloved characters.

The format is the appeal: each episode pairs a fresh teen-life complication or villainous threat (a picnic crisis, a Bigfoot meeting, a circus stampede, a beach-party crash) with Benjy's running ability to call on the Thing's power, holding the show's blend of high-school sitcom and superhero-of-the-week storytelling as the engine. Episode titles like "Picnic Panic," "Bigfoot Meets The Thing," "Circus Stampede," "To Thing Or Not To Thing," and "Lights, Action, Thing!" telegraph the show's commitment to teen-hero storytelling. The animation has the unmistakable late-1970s Hanna-Barbera look.

For late-1970s Saturday morning programming, this was a piece of the studio's stretch of teen-superhero adaptations, sitting alongside other school-meets-secret-identity cartoons of the era. Suited for longtime fans of Marvel Comics, viewers with affection for the era's particular brand of teen-hero programming, and anyone curious about the lineage of Fantastic Four animation that has carried across decades.

Memorable installments include "Picnic Panic" (the opener), "Bigfoot Meets The Thing" (a fan-favorite), "The Thing Meets The Clunk" (an early classic), "The Big Bike Race" (a goofier swing), and "The Thing And The Absent-Minded Inventor" (the closer). This 2-DVD collection brings 23 episodes of The Thing into one place, the complete teen-Thing run in one set, ready for a long Saturday morning marathon.