Adventures of Superman The Clown Who Cried Television 

Five Thoughts on Adventures of Superman‘s “My Friend, Superman” and “The Clown Who Cried”

By | July 20th, 2019
Posted in Television | % Comments

This week, Adventures of Superman introduces a few odd characters, and reveals something very specific about Clark Kent’s sense of humor.

1. Mr. Boombatz!

“My Friend, Superman” features an Italian stereotype so broadly drawn you can see the grease stains on the television set. Tony, proprietor of a diner that serves such delights as “Super burgers,” “steak sandwich with ketchup,” and [checks notes] pickles, claims that he’s a good friend of Superman’s. This is standard comics fare, where we see people overstate their relationships, or have others refuse to believe that they, in fact, do know a hero.

This takes a different path, as Clark Kent is a regular at this diner, but as far as we can tell, Tony is full of shit. There is no evidence given to his claims of being friends with Superman, save for a bent rifle he keeps hanging on the wall. It appears that Tony is either exaggerating to the point of ridicule, or just plain lying. But no one really calls him out on it, they just sort of playfully go along with it, like the guy who claims he’s dating a supermodel.

Side note: the way he says sandwich, sangwich, instantly made me nostalgic for old Italian relatives of mine, who said it that very way. I wonder if anyone in the universe says it that way anymore.

2. The first of each week?

This episode is essentially about mafia protection rings, and its nothing all that groundbreaking in terms of content, but it does have a really dumb line of dialogue, which doesn’t seem to be dumb on purpose. The crooks tell Tony that they’ll be back to collect their payment “on the first of each week.”

So…Sunday? Monday?

3. Huh?

The episode spends a lot of time showing these two-bit gangsters trying to outsmart Tony, Superman, and the like but, of course, they fail pretty spectacularly. But the climax of the episode is so fucking weird. So, Superman shows up and corners the crooks in the diner. But instead of calling the police, or tying them up, everyone in the restaurant – Jimmy, Lois, Tony, Tony’s jailbait daughter Jimmy’s obsessed with, random customers – picks up food and plates, and just starts whipping them at the gangsters.

Again, the business owner is destroying his own property, I guess to embarrass the crooks? It seems like it is just a waste of his money, not to mention all the clean up time it would take.

This is just dumb.

4. “Leave it to me, I’ve got no conscience.”

This is literally a sentence uttered by a sentient being on this show. And yet, by my math, he does the least egregious crime of Superman, one of the titular clowns, or him.

So, here it is: there’s a Metropolis telethon, and Clark and Lois go to a circus to get a clown to perform. The clown has a visiting ex-clown buddy in his tent, and so when Crackers – the evil clown – hears about this, he bonks Rollo – the good clown – on the head and takes his place, so he can steal all the telethon’s money.

Jimmy Olsen bumbles his way into this, and gets caught, which is where the strongman utters his conscience line. He’s supposed to keep Jimmy locked up for a day or so, and that’s the morality play that gets him to admit how dead inside he truly is.

Far worse than this is Crackers, who wants to steal money from needy kids, and worse still is Superman. The end of the episode features Rollo and Crackers, duking it out on the roof of a building, and they both fall off. Superman makes no attempt to save both, and instead saves Rollo, as he’s not a piece of shit. I mean, I get that choice, but this is Superman, he could’ve saved both. But nope, he just straight lets a clown die.

This is essentially the prequel to the lost Jerry Lewis clown/holocaust film.

5. That said, Clark loves a clown

No one in the known universe has ever laughed as loud or as hard at anything as Clark laughs at a clown. Dude loses his SHIT at least thrice this episode and, while it is fine for 1950s TV clowning, I can’t imagine this motherfucker at a comedy club.


//TAGS | 2019 Summer TV Binge | Adventures of Superman

Brian Salvatore

Brian Salvatore is an editor, podcaster, reviewer, writer at large, and general task master at Multiversity. When not writing, he can be found playing music, hanging out with his kids, or playing music with his kids. He also has a dog named Lola, a rowboat, and once met Jimmy Carter. Feel free to email him about good beer, the New York Mets, or the best way to make Chicken Parmagiana (add a thin slice of prosciutto under the cheese).

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