Random Thoughts On... Adventures of Superman (Black and White Era)

Well, I’m at the end of Superman Month. This month has been okay for the most part. It had its highs as well as some lows. At least I was able to get most of what I wanted to do done.  I would’ve ended off the month with my last post, but I didn’t get to finish watching the rest of this show’s second season until today. What is it, you may ask? Why it is … (finds announcer’s voice)… The Adventures of Superman!

So, I haven’t watched too many Superman related things before the 70’s. In fact, I don’t know where I first heard about this show. It could have been on the Superman documentary that was released around the time Superman Returns was being made. I’m not sure. All I know is that I hadn’t seen any of this show until about a couple of months ago. When the DC Universe app finally popped up, it was one of the first shows I added to my watch list. So far, I’ve only seen the first two seasons of the show which are the black-and-white seasons. So, I’m pretty much going to give my thoughts on these two for now.

The show started in 1952 and ended in 1958. Before that, you had one serial movie called Superman and the Mole Men. That movie (a two parter essentially) got rolled into the first season itself. Our Superman/Clark Kent was actor George Reeves. As for the others, we had Jack Larson as young Jimmy Olsen, John Hamilton as the grouchy Perry White, and Robert Hayne as Inspector Henderson. Now, Lois Lane actually had two actresses for the show: Phyllis Coates and Noel Neill. Coates was around for the first season only. As for Neill, who actually played Lois in some Superman serials, was the character from the second season onward.

This and the alley run get a lot of play in episodes.

The show had a pretty similar format:

• Long-a$$ intro that’s pretty similar to the Max Fleischer cartoon
• We’d get introduced to the main thing of the episode
• Clark, Lois, and Jimmy would be doing their job and such
• Lois, Jimmy, or Perry would somehow get into trouble
• Clark runs off, changes into costume, and does his crime-fighting thing
• Cue Superman march and possible marching band

So, what did I think of the first two seasons? I thought they were pretty fun overall. It’s weird looking at something this old. The cool thing is that this show really influenced a lot of what we got over the years. You can see the show’s influence  in Superman: The movie, Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, and just about any other Superman property.

"Oh cool! Clark Kent's a Superman fanboy!"

I liked Reeves in the role as Clark/Superman. He and Chris Reeve still get their last name confused by folk. While the two roles were kinda interchangeable, it was cool to see. I like the idea of an assertive Clark doing his reporting thing while Superman is saved for incidents that can only be stopped by him. His costume was nice for its time. Jack Larson was fine as Jimmy. We’d get a lot of the sometimes naïve but smart youngish man. His naivete could get a little annoying at times, though. As for Perry White, I think he needed to take a vacation since he bickered a lot, but he was alright.

Then, we get to Lois Lane. I thought both Coates and Neill did good jobs in the role. They played them pretty differently. Coates was more serious and more of a go-getter in the first season. She also constantly gave Clark crap which is usual for Lois in this era. Neill’s Lois was less serious, smiled a little more, and shot off a machine gun. As for which is better, I don’t know. I actually missed Coates when I got into the second season at first, but I got used to Neill over time. I’ll have to see how she does later in the colored seasons.

The villains for the show were pretty much your stock criminal characters like mobsters, robbers, pirates and your occasional jackass journalist. It had a Golden Age vibe to it all, ya know? There were not too many evil mad scientists, but you did have a couple of absent minded professors whose experiments were used for evil. We had a robot and that was nice. Unfortunately, there weren’t many villains that stood out. They all pretty much had that criminal vibe to them. It was always cool to see Superman take them down in the end.

As I said above, the show had its format. Most of the stories were made to fit into that format, so you got a lot of repeating. Jimmy or Lois would usually get themselves in trouble and Superman had to come and rescue them. Wash, Rinse, Repeat. You would get an episode here and there that would buck the format, though. One big one is an episode where two criminals are trying to figure out Superman’s secret identity. Check out the end of that episode (“The Stolen Costume”) because you may laugh at their fate. The peril was serious enough for the most part too.

Ah yes... Superman punching folk. Quite nice... yeah, seriously!

Overall, these two seasons were pretty nice. I did feel that things improved in the second season. Everyone felt more in tune with their characters, even Noel Neill who had played the character before this. While I wouldn’t call them perfect, you do get some strong material in here. Just remember the period these took place in because you might see some… outdated things like exaggerated foreigners and a little bit of the blackface/brownface. The episodes where Superman himself is in some danger or some peril are the strong ones, personally. Before I go, I wanted to list off some of my favorite episodes from each season:

I wonder if Jor-El ran into Flash Gordon at some point...

Season 1

1. Superman on Earth – It’s pretty much the origin of Superman told in 25 minutes. While the Kents’ names feel like they came out of the Old Testament (Eben and Sarah), everything feels right.
2. The Stolen Costume – A crook steals Clark’s costume from his apartment and his team tries to figure out Superman’s identity. Stay around for the end of this episode.
3. The Runaway Robot – Criminals are using a robot to commit crimes. Clark and the rest of the team have to find out who’s causing the crimes and help the scientist who’s being blamed for them.
4. The Human Bomb – A man bets that he can control Superman for at least 30 minutes. He does this by attaching a bomb to his chest and threatening the Daily Planet.
5. The Unknown People/Superman and the Mole Men – Clark and Lois travel to Texas to report on the deepest well found. When unknown creatures come out of the hole and get threatened by the townsfolk, Superman must intervene. 

Season 2

1. Five Minutes to Doom – The Daily Planet staff must fight against the clock to save a man from the electric chair.
2. Jet Ace – Clark and Jimmy go on the case when Perry’s nephew pilot, Chris White, goes missing. If you like seeing folk pummel each other, check out the end fight to this episode.
3. The Defeat of Superman – Kryptonite makes its first appearance on the show. Criminals tried to use it to take out Superman permanently.
4. The Face and the Voice – A thug who just got plastic surgery gets recruited to impersonate Superman and rob banks. If you want to see Reeves act out for a minute, check this one.
5. Panic in the Sky – An asteroid is hurtling towards Earth and Superman is the only one who can stop it. Unfortunately, his first attempt messes him up good. This episode was later adapted on Lois and Clark.
6. Jimmy Olsen, Boy Editor – Jimmy gets to be editor for 24 hours and ends up becoming a hostage to criminals. If you want to see Lois shoot off a machine gun, check this out.

………………………………………

This was hilarious.

Well, that should end that for now. I don’t know when I’ll finish the rest of the series, but I’ll talk about it here. I doubt I’ll wait till September, though. Well, it’s been good for the most part this month. As for what comes next, I’m not sure. I think I’ll finally get to reading the rest of H’El on Earth for the other blog… oh boy. Until then, Peace, God Bless, and be careful out there.