The Adventures of Superman is a surprisingly engaging television series, even if calling it a Superman show is a little off-base this week. This is Jimmy Olsen’s world, and we’re just living in it.
1. World’s shittiest family
“The Haunted Lighthouse” starts with five plus minutes of voiceover narration, explaining that Jimmy Olsen’s aunt invited him to spend his vacation at her house on an island off the coast of Maine. Jimmy hasn’t seen her since he was a baby, so he’s basically walking into a stranger’s house. He meets his cousin, Chris, who basically sizes him up and says “The fuck you looking at?” as soon as he shows up. He’s told he can’t go to the beach (?) or look at the old lighthouse (?), and to stay out of the woods. So, Jimmy’s vacation is basically ‘read a book indoors.’ I’m not judging, that actually sounds dope.
Eventually, things get weird, and there’s a deaf mute housekeeper that keeps bringing him notes from his Aunt, but his Aunt doesn’t know what he’s talking about. So, like anyone would, he calls his work mentor for help.
2. TWELVE MINUTES
Guys, there are 12 minutes of this 25 minute episode before Clark or Superman shows up. Now, I have to say that the episode, despite its weirdness, did get me interested in Jimmy’s story, but this isn’t like The Incredible Hulk, where doing the transformations into the Hulk were too expensive and time consuming to feature too many times per episode. They just decided “you know what’s the best way to get our audience into the second ever episode of this Superman show? More Jimmy!”
3. Laughing a bit too hard
So, there’s a running bit all episode of Jimmy thinking he hears a woman drowning. A high-pitched, “Help me, I’m drowning!” keeps coming from the beach area. Eventually, it is revealed that, no, it wasn’t a drowning woman, it was a parrot trained with the island equivalent of yelling “FIRE” in a crowded theater. When this is revealed, Clark laughs like he’s in a Tim and Eric sketch (seriously, look up this episode, and skip to the very end). It is amazingly out of place, and a wonderfully bizarre way to wrap up the episode.
4. World’s second* shittiest dummy act
We get more Jimmy spotlight here, where he, Clark, and Lois go out for his birthday. I’m not quite sure what the show they paid to see is, but part of it is a ventriloquist act. During the act, the dummy starts ‘speaking’ at the same time as the ventriloquist, leading him to stop the act early. The trio goes backstage (?) to interview him about what happened (?), only to find him talking to his dummy about ‘wanting to take over the show (?).
To try to adequately explain the machinations of the plot that is behind this episode, involving armored cars being robbed would take 1000 words and bore us all to tears. But you need to know this: the way they get the message is relayed about where/when the stickup will be is ‘hidden’ in the dummy act. Except that the ventriloquist isn’t in on it – some guy just stands off stage and talks out of the side of his mouth and people think its the dummy.
What’s so weird about both of these episodes is that they introduce concepts that seem supernatural, but then proves them all to be absolutely normal. That is fascinating, because this is a goddamn Superman show. You have to buy into an alien with superpowers, but a haunted lighthouse or a possessed ventriloquist dummy wouldn’t work! Again, I’m shocked at how much I enjoyed these episodes, but they are really, really different from what you’d think a Superman show would look like.
5. World’s shittiest Superman
These episodes also continue last week’s trend of having people almost figure out Clark is Superman every week. He barely even tries to hide his weirdness; in the first episode, Clark shows up on the island sans boat, and when Jimmy asks how he got there, he just says “that’s a very long story.” Then, when Jimmy’s real aunt (syke!) talks about how Clark looks a lot like Superman, before she can say the word, Clark changes the topic about as awkwardly as humanly possible.
Continued belowIn the second episode, Clark just flat out jumps out of Lois’s car when she’s not looking to turn into Superman, brags about his super hearing, and has someone say about him “HEY MAYBE HE’S SUPERMAN.” But no one with any power seems to notice, so whatever, man.
But Superman is also totally cool with letting a thug fall to his death, and only really seems to hop to when it looks like Jimmy might be hurt. This is still on the good side of Superman III, drunk, breaking bottles with peanuts Superman, but this is still a pretty damn selfish Supes.
*The World’s Shittiest Dummy Act? Jeff Dunham
