It's a Bird... It's a Plane... It's Superman!

Today, April 18, 2018, is the 80th anniversary of Superman's first appearance in Action Comics # 1 which premiered at newsstands on that date way back then in 1938. So it was with that in mind that I finally got to watch the entirety of this TV adaptation of the Broadway musical from the mid-'60s based on The Son of Krypton. It was meant to be campy, like the Batman TV show from that period, and, boy, there's a lot of camp here. David Wilson plays the Man of Steel who gets weepy near the end but I don't want to mention why just watch the thing if you're willing. Lesley Ann Warren plays Lois Lane with such cheery dreaminess that it's almost infectious. Kenneth Mars and Loretta Swit are fellow Daily Planet scribes created especially for the musical. And David Wayne is the main villain and he's the funniest one in the cast especially whenever he breaks the Fourth Wall! I also recognized Al Molinaro as one of the gangsters who help in the villainy. Two more characters are a couple of young men who address each other as Jerry and Joe, one ID's himself as wanting to draw and the other wanting to write about Superman. It's clear they're meant to be Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, Kal-El's creators. In fact, the last thing Superman says to them is "Hey, Jerry, Joe, what can I say without you there wouldn't be a Superman!" Truer words were never spoken and it's pertinent here since at the time, they still weren't credited as Supes' creators (in fact, they hadn't been since the last of the Famous Studios cartoons that featured him back in '43) and wouldn't be until the release of Superman: The Movie in '78. In summary, It's a Bird...It's a Plane...It's Superman! was a partly enjoyable take on the comic book legend.