The Adventures of Superman
“Faster than a speeding bullet. More powerful than a locomotive.
Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. Look, up in the sky!
It’s a bird. It’s a plane. It’s Superman!”
Quite an introduction, but no one deserves it more than he does.
Possibly the most popular fictional character of the 20th century,
Superman has been an enduring figure for over 60 years, a true King of
all Media, having conquered comic books, radio shows, television, and
movies.
Superman first graced our world as a character in Action Comics #1
in June of 1938, and after only two years, the character had his own
radio show, starring Bud Collyer. Between 1941 and 1951, Superman was
featured in theatrical cartoons, two 15-chapter movie serials, and a
full length feature, Superman and the Mole Men, starring none other than George Reeves.
When the superhero came to television in 1953, Reeves took on the part for the long-running The Adventures of Superman.
Superman was born Kal-El, on the doomed planet of Krypton. Kal-El’s
father, Jor-El, had the foresight to put his baby on a rocket ship
bound for Earth, in order to survive the impending death of his people.
Landing safely in the farming community of Smallville, Kal-El was
rescued and raised by the Kents, who named their little boy Clark. As
he grew, Clark realized that he had extraordinary powers of strength,
sight, speed, and basic invulnerability, but he kept them hidden so as
not to appear strange to others.
As an adult, the mild-mannered, glasses-wearing Clark moved to the
big city of Metropolis and got a job as a reporter at the newspaper
Daily Planet. There, he could stay aware of breaking news and rush to
the rescue if necessary. He worked alongside sassy reporter Lois Lane,
for whom he carried a torch, as well as the eager Jimmy Olsen and tough
editor Perry White. But when crime reared its ugly head, the glasses
came off, the shirt was ripped open, and the red cape came out, all in
the confines of a telephone booth.
Criminals were no match for Superman. Their bullets ricocheted off
his chest, their cars were too slow to get away, and unless they hid
behind a wall made of lead, Superman could always find them with his
X-ray vision.
Superman’s only true weakness was Kryptonite, fragments from
Krypton’s explosion. The little pieces of Kal-El's homeworld could
drain Superman’s powers if he got too close to them. Any enemies that
knew this little secret tried desperately to get their hands on the
substance and beat Superman in the only way they could.
With the exception of The Big Forget, an episode when
Superman revealed his identity to his co-workers, who subsequently
forgot after being exposed to a mysterious vapor, no one ever learned
that Superman and Clark Kent were one and the same.
The first two seasons of The Adventures of Superman
consisted of 26 episodes, while the remaining seasons were limited to
13 each. Though the show originally aired in black and white, it
converted to color in 1954.
This show's producers quit making new episodes of The Adventures Of Superman in 1957, but Superman's reign was far from over...
