Welcome folks! I hope you will join me on this journey through Adventures of Superman, which debuted 66 years ago this September. I’m in my mid-30s, and yet this show was still a major part of my childhood, both due to my father loving it when he was a kid, as well as its continued airings in reruns. Every year on Thanksgiving Day, after the Macy’s Parade, WPIX 11 in the New York metropolitan area would show a marathon, hosted by Jimmy Olsen himself, Jack Larson. I would watch this until the minute guests arrived for Thanksgiving dinner, and can still deliver the entire opening credits spiel from memory.
Enough preamble, let’s dig in!
1. A streamlined origin episode
I couldn’t believe how much was crammed into one 25 minute episode. This episode is just about the most concise Superman origin you can have, without missing out on too many key elements. We get Krypton, Jor-El and the Science Counsel, his parents finding him in his rocket, the ‘you’re not like other boys’ conversation, Pa Kent’s death, Clark leaving Smallville, Clark getting hired as a reporter at The Daily Planet, and the first appearance of Superman, all in one episode.
Now, there are some holes, obviously, but the only one that felt really egregious was that we’re not really given a ton of explanation for why Clark decides to become Superman. There’s no key moment, no conversation with his parents, nothing. His mom vaguely says “Help people, Clarky!,” but that’s about it. Without a real motivation, something that happens later in the episode feels really opportunistic and callow.
But the Krypton stuff is probably the most pleasant surprise. While it makes one major change – all Kryptonians are supermen on the planet, and it has nothing to do with our yellow sun – it more or less hits all the points that you’d need: Jor-El is smart, Kryptonians stubborn. We see the ship fly away (powered by what appears to be an oven thermometer mounted on the wall), the planet blow up, and Jor-El and Lara embrace. It takes, maybe, 8 minutes, and it is just enough.
2. Jonathan Eben and Martha Sarah
So when I first watched this episode, I couldn’t get over Ma and Pa Kent’s names being Eben and Sarah, not Jonathan and Martha, as they always were to me. It appears that this started in a novel from the 1940s, and sort of carried over for a few years. Eben though?
Ma and Pa are exactly what you’d expect: simple farm people who love Clark very much. One interesting bit of storytelling is that Kal-El’s ship explodes after he is pulled from it, ‘destroying all evidence’ as they essentially say. Since the show was going to spend no time in Smallville, and wanted adult Superman ASAP, there was no reason to bury the spaceship in the barn, as has been the Superman tradition forever.
Also, in spending less than 10 minutes in his hometown, this show is already the anti-Smallville.
3. “Young Man”
One of my favorite things about old movies is how anyone over 50 calls anyone under 50 ‘young man’ or ‘kid,’ even when the age difference looks negligible. This is especially true when the actors never really looked young to begin with, like George Reeves here. He looks like someone’s grandpa, and is called ‘young man’ in Smallville. Reeves was 38 when he filmed this episode, but young people looked so much older at this time. Don’t believe me? Grab your grandparents’ yearbook one day and look at them. Some of those folks look like they’ve been running a bank for 30 years.
The best example of this is Lon Chaney Jr. in The Wolf Man. Chaney was 36 at the time, but was also a heavy drinker, and looked as far from ‘kid’ as possible, yet the cast refers to him like he’s Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone.
Anyway, tangent over!
4. The Daily Planet
Clark wants a job at The Daily Planet. Like, really bad. Like, he sits in a waiting room for hours, even though he apparently has no job experience. Like, so bad he walks on a ledge outside of Perry White’s office, and then walks in through the (door sized) window. He never really explains why this job is so important to him, but alas, it is.
Continued belowWhat is handled really well, however, is the depiction of the three main Daily Planet staffers who become a part of his inner circle: Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, and Perry White. Lois, played in this first season by Phyllis Coates, is instantly distrustful of Clark, as any good reporter would be. She’s tough as nails, and puts up with zero shit. Jimmy is as naive as possible, saying how he won’t speed on the way to the airport, because he doesn’t want to break the law. (The best part? Lois reluctantly agrees with him, in a sheepish and hilarious way). Perry is all bluster, but with a real sense of justice.
Again, in 25 minutes, the entirety of Superman’s world is composed. He is the least developed part of the episode, and that’s ok!
5. So…he becomes Superman for a job?
So, in what is maybe the most dated news story of all time, the Planet crew is arguing in Perry’s office when news breaks out that “A dirigible flying over the airfield” is dragging a man behind it. Clark sets a wager with Perry: if I can get an exclusive with that soon to be dead guy, will you hire me? The deal is struck, and Clark flies there, saves him, exploits him, and then gets a job.
Wait, huh?
So, Clark decides that Superman’s role is to be the ultimate reference on Clark’s resume? I know this is not unique to this episode, but doesn’t this seem pretty terrible? The Superman I know wants to help people because that’s what he does and wants to do, not because it’ll help him land a job.
Lois, rightly, calls bullshit on Clark, pointing out that he left the offices after them and beat them to the airport. How could this be possible? “Maybe I’m a super man, Miss Lane.”
This is classic Clark negging, but he gets the job, and we are set up for next week. Next week: “The Haunted Lighthouse” and “The Case of the Talkative Dummy!”
