The first episode of The Adventures Of Superman premieres in syndication on TV stations across the United States, based on the comic by Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel. George Reeves, Phyllis Coates, and Jack Larson star. Robert Rockwell guest stars as Jor-El in a retelling of Superman’s origin story.
Jor-El, a member of the ruling council of the distant planet Krypton, warns his fellow councillors that Krypton’s end is near: the planet could break apart at any time. His peers laugh him out of the room, but that doesn’t change the planet’s fate. When Krypton begins to break apart just as Jor-El predicted, he and his wife place their only son in a small spacecraft and send it away to the planet Earth.
The vehicle crashes on Earth, bursting into flames. Farmer Eben Kent and his wife Sarah witness the crash and hear the cries of the infant inside; Eben manages to save the baby before the spacecraft explodes. They raise the child as their own, though young Clark Kent eventually has questions about the fact that he has abilities that no one else seems to have. On Clark’s 25th birthday – or at least the 25th anniversary of his arrival on Earth – Eben suffers a fatal heart attack. Clark eventually leaves his childhood home for the city of Metropolis, where he seeks a job as a report for the Daily Planet. Editor Perry White is less than enthusiastic about his new hire…until Clark somehow scoops the rest of the Planet’s staff, including ace reporter Lois Lane, turning in the first article about an airship crew member who would have fallen to his death if not for a flying man in a cape…
written by Richard Fielding
directed by Tommy Carr
music by Leon Klatzkin
Cast: George Reeves (Clark Kent / Superman), Phyllis Coates (Lois Lane), Jack Larson (Jimmy Olsen), John Hamilton (Perry White), Ross Elliott (Eben Kent), Robert Rockwell (Jor-El), Herbert Rawlinson (Ro-Zon), Stuart Randall (Gogan), Aline Towne (Lara), Frances Morris (Sarah Kent), Dani Nolan (Miss Bachrach)
Notes: Superman’s origin story unfolds here much as it does in other media, though the name “Kal-El” is never spoken here. Sarah Kent is responsible for making Superman’s costume, having sewn it from the blanket in which he was wrapped as an infant on Krypton. (How this fabric can withstand bullets and burns, and yet can still be cut up and sewn, isn’t explained.) Beginning an unfortunate decades-long tradition, Superman’s creators, writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster, are not credited anywhere in this adaptation.
LogBook entry by Earl Green