Apache Chief's own special "shrink ray." Hey, Apache, you know the Super Friends made Aqua Man that amazing jetski, they can probably get you a nice shrink ray if you want. Throw that nasty thing away. I looks like you made it out of a wad of gum and your old peace pipe.
The poor Indians. Their land either got destroyed or traded away for shiny jewelry, they got their name from some Spanish sailor's navigational mistake*, and then they had to deal with us naming our sports teams after their racial slurs. Apache Chief was just another insult. The guy could barely form a three word sentence, and if he did, it took most of the episode for him to stumble it out. There were a lot of Super Friends that had the same problem, but they had the excuse of coming from another country. Do they expect us to believe this guy spent his whole life in some isolated non-English speaking teepee? It was 1978, who did he speak Native American with? The four other people who knew it? And if so, shouldn't he have still learned English anyway? Do you think they're going to know what "Enuch Chuck" means at the headband store?

*The rest of the world was hurt by Christopher Columbus' mistake too. But we're too busy with our huge Columbus Day furniture sales to think about our hardships: With two kinds of ethnic groups called "Indian," we have to spend most of our day clarifying what kind of Indian before we go out for dinner. Have you ever sat down for delicious chicken tikka masala, and gotten served a tasteless bowl of boiled lentils and buffalo jerkey? Let me tell you, it's damn embarrassing to ask for a refund because you went to the restaurant owned by the wrong "Indians." Not to mention they get really insulted when it happens. Here's a line that I can assure you does not help, either: "Calm down, kemosabe, it's not like I stole your bag of foreheads."

It's insulting enough that they made Apache Chief a complete idiot, but I'm surprised they didn't have him selling fireworks out the back of the Hall of Justice. I guess they thought pausing four minutes between each word was Indian enough. Now that I mention it, I don't think he was Apache or a chief. His name doesn't make any damn sense. That's like putting a white guy on a team of Native Americans and naming him "Minnesota President."


And now that I look at his bad tan, he might not even be an Indian. He's the same color as my neighbor's cat when I shave it. The Super Friends probably just found a growing guy, dressed him up in a Halloween costume, and hit him in the head until he sounded like Tanto. Yeah, sorry about that guy too, Native Americans.

I know all the ethnic Super Friends were supposed to make redneck kids learn the beauty of other cultures and stop making them the bad guys in children's games, but we still played Cowboys and Indians and made the fat kid be Apache Chief. And that's a pretty big challenge for a young actor. How do you find the motivation for a character whose only personality traits are talking slow and wearing a buffalo-hide vest?

Continue to Apache Chief Part 2 ->