Superman: The Live Action TV Series

[tomswift2002]

Lois and Clark lasted four years, and Dean Cain put on the suit every episode for that entire run.

He didn't put on the suit in the second episode. I'm guessing this was because they were trying to emphasize that this was more of a romantic comedy than a superhero show.

On the DVD's for L&C, I remember Deborah Joy Levine mention in a commentary that her take on the series was that Clark Kent was the "person", while Superman was the "disguise", instead of the other series were Superman was the "person" and Clark Kent was the "disguise", and how it would be more interesting to see the Superman mythos from that angle.

As for the criminals in the 50's George Reeve show, I'm surprised that Lex Luthor never appeared. He is probably the one "super" criminal where he is just an ordinary human who is super-smart.

In the Superboy series it was always interesting to see just how the writer's got around the Superman problem whenever the issue of Superman came up, but due to the producers not having the Superman rights, Superman could not be said or heard. But I remember when I was first watching the Season 3 DVD, the episode that featured the Superboy's that landed in different universes in different times, I thought the older 1930's Clark Kent looked like Warren Beatty , and I was wondering whether there was some cross promotion between Superboy and the 1990 "Dick Tracy" movie. But it wasn't Warren Beatty, it was someone else.

 

[Christopher]

On the DVD's for L&C, I remember Deborah Joy Levine mention in a commentary that her take on the series was that Clark Kent was the "person", while Superman was the "disguise", instead of the other series were Superman was the "person" and Clark Kent was the "disguise", and how it would be more interesting to see the Superman mythos from that angle.

Which, of course, was just following the lead of the post-Crisis comics, John Byrne's late-'80s reinvention of Superman. Focusing on Clark as the real person and Superman as the facade was Byrne's innovation, not Levine's. As were other things L&C adapted, like Ma & Pa Kent being alive and Lex being a business mogul with a romantic interest in Lois (although L&C changed Lex into a more attractive character so that the interest was mutual).

As for the criminals in the 50's George Reeve show, I'm surprised that Lex Luthor never appeared. He is probably the one "super" criminal where he is just an ordinary human who is super-smart.

Luthor never appeared in the radio series either, or in the Fleischer cartoons. And none of the radio villains ever made the jump to the comics or the screen. The name of the Atom Man was used in the 1950 film serial Atom Man vs. Superman, but it was just an alias used by Luthor. There just wasn't a lot of crossover in the villains.

The radio series had several criminal-genius villains, but had a tendency to kill them off or lose sight of their characterizations when they were brought back. There was one with great potential, the Laugher, a really obese but debonair criminal mastermind adorned in diamonds, who laughed constantly at others' misfortune and who considered Superman the only worthy foe he'd faced in many years and relished the challenge of outwitting him. This guy was essentially Luthor, the Joker, and the Kingpin in one package, which could've been amazing, aside from the silly name. But he was ignominiously killed off by his own gun blowing up in his face when the writers, I guess, couldn't think of a way out of the cliffhanger they'd set up, and yet years later he was retconned back to life with little of his personality intact and used only as a supporting player in stories focusing on other villains.

Probably the other big evil genius from the radio show was Der Teufel ("The Devil"), a Nazi scientist whose debut storyline is missing, but who was the mastermind behind the creation of the Atom Man. But he, too, was killed off and a more ordinary criminal mastermind (who I think was named Jones) took his place for the second half of the Atom Man saga. I don't really understand why the radio series had trouble committing to recurring villains. Maybe it's just that the format of the pulp-influenced adventure stories at the time relied so much on the villains getting their lethal comeuppance at the end.

 

[Gaith]

I'm no expert, but it sounds to me as though L&C had the highest batting average. From what I've seen and read of later-period Smallville, seasons 4-10 were mostly completely awful. If L&C was pretty good for two of three seasons, though...

 

[Christopher]

^L&C had four seasons, from three different sets of producers. So it was only good (albeit inconsistently) for 50% of its run. As for Smallville, I think at least half its run was good (if flawed) -- seasons 1-3 were good and 8-9 were good, and I think at least season 5 was reasonably good.

And I haven't seen all of Superboy, but I think only its first season was especially weak. And I think most of the Reeves series is pretty well-regarded, although it did get lighter and more comical over time.

 

[Captaindemotion]

I haven't seen the Reeves serial, though I saw Superman v The Mole Men, which was included in a DVD set of the big screen movies I got some years ago. Haven't seen Superboy either.

Of the remaining two, I voted Smallville on the basis that the first 4 - 5 seasons were pretty good and then the quality plummeted drastically, so I gave up watching. That's still a better innings than Lois and Clark, which had two good seasons before jumping off the cliff. Once they got the couple together, it really got so bad.

 

[Forbin]

I grew up with George, so that sort of locks in my vision of Supes. But yes, it turned into a silly children's show after a while.

I vaguely remember the Superboy series as being good (I recently got it on DVD and watched the first few eps, which aren't really very good).

Never watched Lois & Clark for some reason.

Gave up on Smallville out of frustration after the "Kal El can fly. I can't" episode. Plus the fact that Welling was getting older and older and still wasn't "Superman" yet. When Superman returns came out, I realized Welling was older than Brandon Routh!

I guess I'm gonna stick with George.

 

[urbandefault]

Just found this, a pilot for a Superboy series in 1961. It obviously wasn't picked up, but interesting.

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xc4tL24pZRw[/yt]

 

[tomswift2002]

^L&C had four seasons, from three different sets of producers. So it was only good (albeit inconsistently) for 50% of its run. As for Smallville, I think at least half its run was good (if flawed) -- seasons 1-3 were good and 8-9 were good, and I think at least season 5 was reasonably good.

And I haven't seen all of Superboy, but I think only its first season was especially weak. And I think most of the Reeves series is pretty well-regarded, although it did get lighter and more comical over time.

L&C was still pretty good in its 4th season, and I really wanted to see where the series would've gone in a 5th season. Really the worst Season for L&C that I found was Season 3, but that was when they had the frog-clone storyline.

As far as "Smallville", I found the first two seasons to be rather hokey. I never really watched the show on TV: I saw the Pilot episode and episode 2 on the VHS that Warner's released up here and I was really wondering why the second part of the "Pilot" did not connect to the first part (Warner's had edited the two episodes together into a single movie), so I was kind of turned off by the VHS. I did get the DVD's later on, but even when I watched the DVD's I never really found the show had a stand-out season. But if I had to pick "Smallville"'s best Season, it would have to be Season 4, but even then it barely gets that level as it was nearly as forgettable as the other seasons. The only Season that I really watched on TV was Season 8, but that was only for about 6 episodes: the season openers and finales seemed to have been the best episodes of the series, while the other 20 or so episodes of each season really went downhill fast and had a hard time recovering for the season finale.

"Superboy", did have a weak First season, but visually it, along with Season 2 were the most visually bright of the seasons. Seasons 3&4 tend to get darker in both storytelling and visuals with a lot more night shooting. And I think the brighter visuals of the first 2 seasons also gave Superboy that look of what Superman represented. (Warner's has released all 4 seasons on DVD, with Season 1 having been given a general retail release, while 2-4 were released via the Archive program).

The 50's series is also infamous for how the producers, for the last 4 seasons, reduced the number of episodes produced to 13 per season in order to pay for shooting the series in color, and I really enjoyed Warner's decision to release 2 seasons in one DVD set.

The 1961 Superboy pilot was released as a bonus feature on the Complete series release of "Smallville", but I've found the set really expensive to double dip on DVD. Now if Warner's ever remastered the first four seasons in HD and did a Blu-Ray release with the 61 pilot thrown in as a bonus in HD. (The 1959 Superpup pilot was released Superman 1977-2006 Blu-Ray movie collection---but while the first 20 minutes appeared to come from film, the last 10 minutes appeared to be from a 3rd or 4th generation VHS, which I found odd.)

 

[The Old Mixer]

And Smallville... what a roller coaster.

More like a ferris wheel to me...it just kept going round and round and round and never actually went anywhere.

 

[Warped9]

The first season of Adventures Of Superman with George Reeves, filmed in b&w, had a different tone than what came later. While there was humour it could also be edgy (for its time). The b&w also added a mood to it much like the Lost In Space's first season being shot in b&w.

After the second season of AoS it was downhill. It needs to be said that while Reeves considered himself a failure for doing the show and being unable to break away from it he always carried the role with dignity. It's sad that he resented being typecast in the role even though he was revered because a generation later he wouldn't have been quite so pigeoonholed. Christopher Reeve didn't seem to feel typrcast by the role and did manage to go on to do other things. But seriously Christopher Reeve is just as strongly identified for his role as Superman as George Reeves was.

 

[Trek Survivor]

Voted for Lois & Clark, though admittedly haven't watched any of the others.

Actually, I've only seen seasons 1-3 of L&C!

But that season one hooked me instantly, and I'll always consider Hatcher and Cain "my" Lois and Clark. I loved the whole "Superman is what I can do, Clark is who I am" theme, and it was funny, sexy, right amount of action and adventure etc.

Yeah, just a great series. I thought season 2 was a decline in quality, as was 3. But it still shines as just a great TV show.

 

[Melakon]

The acting world of George Reeves was quite different than the world of Christopher Reeve. In the 1950s, television was looked upon by actors and studios as less prestigious than motion pictures. It's surprising that studios churning out short subjects like Columbia, or serials like Republic, didn't immediately embrace television as an outlet.

By the time of Christopher Reeve, actors were already moving between film work and television without damage to their careers.

One of George's biggest worries though, was he didn't think he had any fans older than 12. If he'd managed to hold on another 10 years, he would have been popular all over again during the 70s nostalgia craze of Howdy Doody and other 50s shows.

 

[Agent Richard07]

Gave up on Smallville out of frustration after the "Kal El can fly. I can't" episode. Plus the fact that Welling was getting older and older and still wasn't "Superman" yet. When Superman returns came out, I realized Welling was older than Brandon Routh!

On Smallville, Clark became Superman when he was about 24. That's a lot sooner than most other incarnations of the character. Reeve's Clark became Superman at 30, Cain's was in his late 20s and Cavil's was in his early 30s.

 

[Christopher]

^Yeah, but the point is that the actor was a lot older than his character. Clark was 24 at the end of the series, but Welling was 24 at the start of the series a decade earlier. He was an awfully unconvincing 15-year-old in season 1.

 

[Forbin]

Reminds me of an episode of Fame where a substitute teacher had the hots for Nia Peeples' character. He said "She's no ordinary 16 year old!" I said to the TV, "Yeah! She's 24!"

 

[RandyS]

Lois and Clark lasted four years, and Dean Cain put on the suit every episode for that entire run.

He didn't put on the suit in the second episode. I'm guessing this was because they were trying to emphasize that this was more of a romantic comedy than a superhero show.
[/QUOTE]

Actually he put on the suit near the end of the pilot episode, so it did in fact, appear in every episode.

 

[Agent Richard07]

Actually he put on the suit near the end of the pilot episode, so it did in fact, appear in every episode.

The third episode then. The one where the government agent wanted to do him in. We never saw Clark in the suit.

I'm surprised that they managed to make the pilot into two episodes. When it first aired, it was only an hour and a half, not two hours. Did they add in extra footage to pad out a full hour for each? Or did the original airing not have many commercials?

 

[RandyS]

Actually he put on the suit near the end of the pilot episode, so it did in fact, appear in every episode.

The third episode then. The one where the government agent wanted to do him in. We never saw Clark in the suit.

I'm surprised that they managed to make the pilot into two episodes. When it first aired, it was only an hour and a half, not two hours. Did they add in extra footage to pad out a full hour for each? Or did the original airing not have many commercials?

No, the Pilot was the first episode, not the third.

 

[Christopher]

^I think you're talking past each other. Of course we all know he put the costume on in the climax of the pilot, regardless of whether you treat it as one episode or two. Richard07 is saying he didn't put the costume on in the episode after the pilot.

 

[Admiral2]

^^^I think it doesn't matter, because my point was mainly that watching Lois and Clark you could actually count on Clark putting on the suit in a given episode, unlike Smallville, which could be subtitled "The new Adventures of the Red-Blue Blur."