Very Personal Injury

"Very Personal Injury" is the second episode of Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law season one. It aired on September 2, 2001 on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim block. It was written by Michael Ouweleen and Erik Richter, and directed by Vincent Waller. The Hanna-Barbera series ridiculed in this episode are the Super Friends incarnations of the late 1970's, which introduced ethnic superheroes that only ended up being underutilized, stereotypical clichés.

Apache Chief, a down on his luck former Super Friend, sues Javalux after spilling their hot coffee on himself.

Memorable quotes
Debbie: An Apache Chief to see you, Mr. Birdman. Harvey: Which one? Debbie: He says that's his name.

Characters
In order of appearance:

Mentioned and non-speaking characters are in italics


 * Announcer (Maurice LaMarche)
 * General (Jack Angel)
 * Citizen 1 (Stephen Colbert)
 * Apache Chief (Maurice LaMarche)
 * Citizen 2 (Phil La Marr)
 * Citizen 3 (Jack Angel)
 * Drunk citizen (Jack Angel)
 * Harvey Birdman (Gary Cole)
 * Avenger
 * Debbie (Laraine Newman)
 * Myron Reducto (Stephen Colbert)
 * Sybil Sussler (Laraine Newman)
 * Judge Mightor (Gary Cole)
 * Aquaman
 * Superman
 * Black Vulcan (Phil La Marr)
 * Zan (Michael Bell)
 * Wonder Woman
 * Radioactive Blob
 * Atomic Standard-sized Poodle
 * Space Dragon
 * The bear
 * Alexander
 * Juan Gigante
 * The Negotiator
 * Pitseleh
 * French Tickler
 * Jesse Jackson

Organizations

 * Super Friends
 * Sebben & Sebben
 * Freezoid, Zarog, & Skon
 * F.E.A.R.
 * Multiculture Pals

Locations

 * Hall of Justice
 * Washington, D.C.
 * Lincoln Memorial
 * Javalux
 * Robard's
 * Sebben & Sebben offices
 * Courthouse
 * The Bird Cage
 * Tennessee

Objects

 * Trouble Alert
 * Lincoln Memorial's Abraham Lincoln statue

Vehicles

 * None

Development
The footage that came back from overseas was in bad shape and took extensive time to fix by the editors. The crew worked hard to make the animation look like the quality of the time, in particular q subtle joke about the change in color to the telephone pole took a long time to get right.

Filming
Michael Bell, the voice of Zan, objected to the use of Zan transforming into a washcloth, but the producers respectively told him that it needed to be different to fit the joke. He finally accepted, but not without a shrug of disappointment.

Music
The music is composed by Michael Kohler.

Behind the scenes

 * Apache Chief's case is a parody of the famous 1994 case Lieback v. MacDonald's Restaurants.
 * Debbie still isn't named on-screen, although she's identified by name in the credits for the first time.
 * Michael Ouweleen, Erik Richter, and Melissa Warrenburg provide audio commentary for this episode on DVD releases.

Errors

 * When Apache Chief picks up the telephone pole, the shade of brown lightens, although this is an in-joke to animation errors back when Super Friends originally aired.
 * The Bird Cage is called the Bird Cafe.

Home availability

 * This is free to watch on the US geo-restricted Adult Swim website.