Two Jimmy focused episodes reveal one of the great truths of Adventures of Superman: Jimmy is an asshole.
1. “Boy”
When I was a kid, I used to look at my dad’s 1961 high school yearbook and laugh at home every 18 year old looked about 35. This was how people dressed/presented themselves before the mid-late 60s, and so I recognize that some of my thoughts on this would be true for any show of the era.
That said, this show plays faster and looser with the term “boy” than almost any other media. Anyone who clearly couldn’t be a grandfather is called a boy, and while you may think the title of this episode refers to a child, it is, at best, a teenager, but more likely someone in his early 20s. They talk about this “boy” as if he is a toddler, so much so that Clark offers him to live with him. Added bonus, Jimmy’s living there right now!
There is so much about Jimmy that is unclear by the end of these two episodes. We’ll get into it more.
2. Asshole evidence, part 1.
So, the “boy” in question is the nephew of a mobster who has recently been imprisoned. He doesn’t want to stay with Clark, but realizes that he may have evidence against his uncle, and so he stays there to steal it. Well, give this hood ten minutes with Jimmy, and he turns him into a lazy fucker, talking back to Clark and Lois, people who show him a ton of compassion and love, despite him being a total tool.
Being a dick to Clark is especially tough, because although he is, also, a tool, he is putting you up, boy! He’s making sure that you have a roof over your head, he’s saved your job dozens of times, and you’re going to give him lip? Eat shit, kid!
3. Fixer
Fixer is a term for a certain type of person; it someone who (duh) can get you out of jams and help find solutions to difficult situations. I have no idea why someone would be so well known as a fixer that not only does their gang refer to them that way (sure), but so does Superman? Wouldn’t Superman call him by his name? Or just “hey, criminal” or something? To be so intimately familiar with a criminal’s deal and not arrest him/stop him seems really weird. I can’t imagine him walking around say “hello, rapist” or “what’s shaking, arsonist?” This show is so weird sometimes.
4. “I’m a brother Shamus!”
“Semi-Private Eye” is centered around Jimmy wishing he was a private eye, or a Shamus as he keeps calling himself. I know this is slang for private detective, but he uses it about 40 times in the episode, and it’s weird and distracting. Not as weird or distracting is the frankly insane ways that the crooks try to kill Garrity, the private eye that Jimmy so covets. These are mobsters with guns, and yet the two ways that we see them attempt to kill him are by pushing a chimney on him and using poison gas canisters they throw against the ground like Chinese poppers. Just shoot the fucker! Why go through all this trouble to be cute about it?
5. Asshole evidence, part 2
So, Jimmy witnesses Garrity and Lois get kidnapped (how does he witness this? Because Lois goes to Garrity to have Clark followed, to see if he is Superman. Lois is an asshole, too), and instead of calling the police, which he starts to do, he blows them off, puts on a raincoat and hat, and does the lamest private eye impression I’ve ever seen. In his ‘quest’ to save them, he manages to get handcuffed to a bed, be the laughing stock of a pool hall, and generally make a fool of himself everywhere he goes. If it wasn’t for Superman being a sub-par investigator of his own, Jimmy, Lois, and Garrity would all be dead.
Good work, Jim!
