Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Superman Related Adventures of Superman Show (Spoilers)

Yes, he deals with Kryptonite a handful of times throughout the series.

I don't have an answer on this one, but I don't remember Alice or any other wife ever being mentioned during the run of the show. I'm not 100% sure about that, though.

S1.E11 - "No Holds Barred"

In this episode a professional wrestler keeps winning matches (and putting his opponents in hospital) by using a hold called the "Paralyzer". Perry hires an award winning college wrestler to watch the fighter fight and figure out what he's doing, because Perry figures it must be illegal. (That the government would still let the fights go on after the man put 7 other wrestlers in the hospital is beyond me!) Clark finds out that the wrestling promoter is crooked and scores two tickets to the next fight from the promoter's competition whom the crooked promoter is trying to put out of business. Clark gives the tickets to the college wrestler (I forget what his name is -- let's nickname him CW) and that guy turns and asks Lois to go with him on a date. Boy, doesn't Clark look surprised by *that* turn of events.

The wrestler paralyses his competitor during that match and challenges anyone to wrestle him. CW does so. He knows he wrestles better and thinks he can beat the "paralyzing wrestler". Lois tells Perry that he needs to talk CW out of the match. Clark sides with CW, agreeing that he thinks CW can beat the "paralyzer". Lois says it's suicidal and stomps out, telling Clark she'll never forgive him.

Even Perry takes Clark to the side and asks him if he sided with CW out of jealousy over Lois. Clark reassures Perry that he really thinks CW can beat the other guy. Clark discovers that the bad wrestling promoter is holding a East Indian swami, with knowledge of pressure points, hostage. The wrestler had been winning his matches by using pressure points to paralyze his opponent. Superman talks to the man and gets him to reveal to him the secret of the pressure points, which Clark then teaches to CW so that he can avoid them.

With this new knowledge CW wins his match against the bad wrestler (much to Lois's relief). Clark discovers that the bad promoter is about to punish the swami and he can't escape to rescue him because Clark's friend the other promoter is trying to get CW to join his wrestling team as a professional wrestler. Finally Clark escapes and saves the Swami just before Lois and Perry break down the bad promoter's door.

***

Clearly, I see a correlation between this episode and the cyborg boxers from S1 of LnC. The upped anti that Lois is dating another man, and Perry knows that it might bother Clark so much that he might said (nice) man into the hospital out of jealousy hints that there might be more to Lois and Clark’s relationship than the show has ever showed.

Lois’s over-the-top reaction to Clark siding with CW, over her, is perfect Lois Lane as we know and love her. I’m even wondering if she also is thinking along the same lines as Perry.

The whole A-Plot regarding the pressure points is interesting and even a bit new age-ish for the 1950s. I applaud the writers and producers for coming up with such an inventive angle.

Clark having CW toss Jimmy around while practicing his moves to ward off the pressure point holds is hilarious. Lots of fun.

That should be fun! Can't wait!

My dad is currently in town and saw these last two episodes (#11 & 12) with us. He said that he had watched the show when it first appeared, but had missed those particular episodes. He seemed to still enjoy them today. They're timeless.

S1.E12 - "The Deserted Village"

Lois's old nurse sends her a gingerbread cookie every year (for her birthday?). When Lois calls her to thank her, she doesn't get a reply. So, she starts calling around town searching for her, but nobody is answering their lines. Clark suggests driving to the hamlet (of 525) to find out what's going on. Upon arriving at the town they find a virtual ghost town.

Meanwhile, the viewer gets to see that there's a strange man in a hazmat suit wandering around the town in a dense fog. He keeps breaking windows with bricks, but doesn't seem to be entering the houses he's damaging. A dog runs in the yard, only to pass out.

Clark and Lois see the dog and check him out. He's dead, but Clark doesn't know how. They hear someone moaning and it turns out to be the town's doctor (and dog's owner) who has passed out inside his house. Clark revives the man with smelling salts and notices a gun and gasmask in the man's drawer.

The doctor brushes aside the incident and suggests in a quite threatening tone that Lois and Clark should leave town. Of course, this makes Lois want to dig in her heels all the more. She finds her nurse outside gardening when they finally get to her house. She also suggests that they leave ASAP.

Clark sees a gun in the nurse's pocket and finds a gasmask in her basket of roses. He suggests that Lois stay with her nurse, but not to eat or drink anything while he goes to check something out. He then runs into the druggist and his son (who I think might be the same actor that played the College Wrestler from E11), who also suggest that they leave town.

While checking things out, Clark hears a gun fire. He rushes off to find that the nurse had scared someone off with her gun, and that Lois has disappeared. (So Lois!) Clark find Lois in cave digging up core samples. He tells her to take the car to safety while he takes the samples to by analyzed. Lois doesn't believe him, thinking he's trying to out-scoop her on the story about the town.

He finally convinces her to leave and takes off as Superman (once, of course, he's found a private mound to change his clothes behind first). Lois continues digging (unwilling to leave) and gets gassed by the Hazmat man.

Superman returns to find Lois and the other townsfolk lying in a heap in the cave. He saves everyone and unmaskes the villian. The druggist's son! The core sample revealed a rare and huge deposit of some minerial used for making the hydrogen bomb, and they wanted to keep it for themselves.

***

I'm surprised that a nurse, who seems so kind to send Lois a giant cookie every year, would be so nasty to her when she shows up trying to help. Really adds to the paranoid feeling of the episode.

Once again the Lois and Clark bickering banter is loads of fun.

Spooky thriller of an episode.

I've watched four episodes so far, enjoying it (though there are some logical leaps that don't quite work for me in e.g. the story with all the statuettes); I'd watch more tonight but the Avengers DVD was in my letter box this evening and I think that's going to jump the queue...

Marcus, I finally got the third disc last week. Let me know what you think of these different takes on canon. (If you've made it through all the extras on your Avengers DVD by now. )

S1.E13 - "The Stolen Costume" - This was most closely resembles "Foundling" in that someone robs Clark's apartment and finds something (his uniform) which could tie him to Superman. Or "And the Answer Is..." in that someone discovers CK=SM and tries to blackmail him into doing something against his nature. Or "Top Copy" when someone discovers Clark's hidden uniform closet. This show deals mostly with Clark's fear of discovery (and not having another suit). He gets a private detective, “Candy”, friend of his to look for “the thing” that was stolen from his apartment, but he "can't" tell private eye what it was. Great dialogue in the “I can’t tell you, just find it” scenes. Interesting discussion about Superman’s uniform between the head of the robber’s gang and his moll. The moll discovers that the uniform can’t burn or be cut. She thinks that Superman must be the “other guy” when he’s not in uniform, because he’s really two guys. (She’s one smart cookie.)

The head bad guy wants to make sure that Clark Kent is Superman, so he plants a bomb in Clark’s secret closet to see what happens when it explodes. The gang of robbers confuse the private eye for "Clark Kent" and kidnap him, trying to blackmail Superman. Clark follows them until. He busts down the bad guy's door and knocks out his friend the private eye so he doesn’t know that CK=SM. Then the takes the bad guy and his moll to the top of a snowy mountain, while he thinks about how to keep them quiet. He says he’ll bring them food, but they don’t believe him. They try to climb down and fall to their deaths.

So with this scenario, did Clark kill them or did they kill themselves by not believing him?
Factoid: Clark lives at the “Standish Arms” apartment building.

My one major complaint was the lack of the usual supporting cast, mainly Lois Lane. That, and the ending was a copout.

S1.E14 - "Treasure of the Incas" - Lois bumps into a man outside an auction house who gives her money to buy an artifact for him, because he can't be seen buying it. While she's in the auction, the man is murdered. The murderer tries to get Lois to hand him over the tapestry. Lois buys tickets to Lima, telling Pan Am that Perry approved payment, BEFORE she went to talk to Perry about it.

***

S1.E15 - "Double Trouble" - This is mostly a smuggling story where the smuggler dresses up as a woman to sneak into Metropolis. Jimmy gets embroiled in the mess, when the smuggler gives a fake package to Jimmy to hand to his contact, which only ends up getting Jimmy kidnapped. The "Double" from the title isn't very noticeable; a minor character and his twin, each of whom is shown far enough apart that one doesn’t think about it. The “double” is only obvious in the title. When Clark mentions noticing the resemblance, I could hardly remember the first character.

Another Episode without Lois! A very good Lois and Clark mystery, I don’t want to ruin it for you with too many spoilers.

S1.E17 - "The Runaway Robot" - A spacey rural reporter “Horatio” for the Daily Planet creates a robot named “Hero” to catch criminals. Things go awry when trying to capture some robbers, Horatio ends up in jail for causing the robbery (because the jeweler is missing $60K in diamonds). Horatio protests his and Hero’s innocence. The robbers want Hero to be a criminal instead, so they steal the robot from police custody and kidnap the inventor to control him. Lois and Clark must clear Horatio’s name, but he does everything in his power to thwart them. :rolleyes:

The inventor reminds me of a mix between Dr. Hamilton (TOGOM) and the source, Stuart Hofferman, from the Source. Good intentioned, but with bad ideas, and always trying to sneak off when he’s supposed to stay put.

A fun episode due to the slapstick behavior of Horatio, although the robot is kind of hokey.

Interesting Tidbit: Lois fighting with the bad guys and screaming when they tell her to shut up is fun too.

The Professor from Gilligan’s Island plays the bad guy.

***

S1.E18 - "Drums of Death" - A more ominous title than episode, as I don't think the "drums of death" are ever referenced in the entire show, although drums were implied as a form of communication in the “bush”. This one deals with voodoo. Perry White's sister, an photographer, gets kidnapped along with Jimmy (who had gone to assist her) in Haiti. Perry is sent on a wild goose chase in which he also gets captured, while Superman finds and rescues the victims.

I figured out the answer before the end.

Another episode missing Lois! I'm glad our show put Lois in the title, so they wouldn't do episodes without her. I love the banter between these two. Very frustrating that half the episodes on Disc 3 don't have Lois at all.

Actually it was not always clear that Clark Kent was raised in Kansas. In one map of Sueprman/Batman world, they show Metropolis and Gotham City on the Delaware Bay, and Smallville as essentially a Suburb of Metropolis. They actually have the map at the Smallville (comics) article on wikipedia.

There was a 1978 publication that said that Smallville was a quiet town nestled in the hills just inland from the Eastern Seaboard.

"The Adventures of Superman" Radio show had Clark raised on the farm of Eben Clark in Iowa, this was in the 1940s. A 1984 comic publication placed Smallville in North-east Pennsylvania or Northern New Jersey.

It is only with John Byrne's Superman reboot in 1986 that Smallville comes to be universally designated as in Kansas.

I have to second the view that they should have not ever done an episode sans Lois.

The "Drums of Death" Episode would have worked with Perry sending Lois and Clark to rescue Jimmy and the chief photographer he was working under. They could have even had that chief photographer be Lois' aunt instead of Perry;s sister.

It is still the same actress. This one is memoralble because it has enforced method acting. When the badguy knocks Lois out he accidenttally hit her, so the actress was out.

I think they should have let the Lois and Clark love story develop. I guess though it does not in the comics at this point either, but still.

The first time I watched the show, I remember being disappointed whenever Lois missed out on an episode, too. There were some really good episodes without her, but I still would have liked for her to have been in all of them.

Well, even LnC had lots of cop outs. My favorite was in "The Dad who came in from the Cold" where at the beginning the spy who is dieing and giving Superman the computer says something about Superman looking just like Clark Kent without glasses.

I do have to agree that this episode would have been better with Lois. Lois doing the detective work to find the suit would have been fun. They could even have the people know the person in question was Kent, and they think it is Ms. Kent instead of Mr. Kent.

Well technically the episode is not "without Lois". Jimmy is only at the docks because he is tagging along with Lois who is doing an interview with some celebrity just after landing. Still, I would agree Lois is underutilized in this episode.

She comes back from setting up the irterview just in time to see Jimmy get hauled off in the ambulance. If she had been there when Jimmy met the man disguised as a woman she probably would have seen through the disguise immedately.

Actually Lois being there when Jimmy gets kidnapped makes it even more odd that Henderson is discussing the issue with Clark later on. I can't see Lois being OK with not being let in on the whole situation. In fact, I can see her trying to keep Clark out of the story entirely.

It is amazing that they listed the show as staring George reeves and Phyllis Coates, considering how many shows either do not see Lois, or see her in only a bit part.

Well, in the LnC wedding arc, we got "Seconds" where thinks she is Wanda Detroit up until the point where she looses her memory, again, and then she does not know who she is. On the other hand, since we have Terri Hatcher playing both Lois and her clone, we definantly see plenty of her in the episode. Well, OK, some of us think that they could have ended the amnesia arc at that point, without the secondary hit, or Maxwell Dieter, and just had her recover her memory from being back in Clark's arms.

OK, since we even get short backglimpses of "Lois and Clark" together when Wanda is having her dreams in "Seconds", my claim it is Lois free probably does not hold water. Still, I think they dragged that whole story line out too long.

That's what I meant. It might as well been another reporter for as much screen time as she got.

S1.E19 - "The Evil Three"

Another Lois free episode. This one is very similar in plot to "E6 - "Night of Terror", only it happens to Perry and Jimmy, instead of Lois.

Perry and Jimmy go fishing and end up at a hotel to stay the night. Perry's been there before, but this time the hotel is run down. Apparently the previous owner disappeared without a trace. Perry insists that they stay there, despite the current owner telling him that the Hotel is now haunted, run down, and without electricity. Perry senses a story. Jimmy's ready to high-tail it out of there. Perry contacts Clark via car-phone, and asks him to check out the previous owner's death and to get back in touch with him. Before they can reconnect, Jimmy sees a "ghost", and both Perry and Jimmy get captured by the new owner and the "ghost", who think they are there to steal the previous owners riches. The third evil one isn't really evil, more insane.

S1.E20 - "Riddle of the Chinese Jade"

Set in Chinatown, an old antique's store owner wants to donate a family heirloom to a museum. The finance of the old man's grand-daughter decides to steal the Jade statue and sell it to have enough money for them to get married. The man he hires to steal the statue is disreputible and double crosses him, when the grand-daughter has to be abuducted with the statue.

Not a bad episode, except that Henderson lets the finance go at the end. Nope, book 'em, Danno! IMO.

S1.E21 - "The Human Bomb"

A man makes a bet with a buddy of his that he can get Superman to do his bidding for 1/2 an hour. To accomplish this, the man straps a bomb to his chest and handcuffs himself to Lois Lane. Then he makes her stand out on the Daily Planet ledge with him. Superman agrees to sit in Clark's office for a half-hour and not bust some robbers the Bomber has hired to take something from a museum. Of course, Superman double crosses the Bomber using a silhouette.

I liked that the full cast was included in this episode, and wondering why this man would ever want to do such a thing to Superman, until the end.

S1.E22 - "The Czar of the Underworld"

This one is set in Hollywood, and is another episode without Lois.

Clark and Henderson go to Hollywood as guests of a movie studio, which is making a movie out of series of articles that Clark wrote about a case that Henderson solved. The man about whom the case involves, is still at large and trying to kill both men, studio heads, actors, etc., through-out the episode to make sure the film isn't made.

My favorite scene is when Perry calls Henderson and Clark up at the studio to chew them out for letting someone else scoop the story that an actor was shot on their movie, even though Perry finds out about it almost at the same time that the event occurs. Henderson, to get Perry to shut up, hangs up on him.


S1.E23 - "The Ghost Wolf"

Another episode which utilizes the full cast (minus Henderson). Those, I must say, are the best ones.

Lois, Clark, and Jimmy are sent out to a lumber camp in Oregon to find out who is sabtoging the lumber that makes the pulp which the DP uses to print the newspaper. It's a fish-out-water tale, involving a Werewolf (the susposed suspect). We get our characteristic, Clark tells Lois to "stay" for her safety, and she's gets annoyed and marches off to do her own investigating. Needless to say, the wolf likes Lois and follows her around, so she's constantly running into it. They certainly are being "team players" on this story, even though Perry sent them together to cover it.

My favorite line is Lois saying to Perry, when he tells her she has less than an hour to catch her flight "But I haven't a thing to wear!"

Perry responds, "What woman ever did?"


S1.E24 - "The Crime Wave"

This is by far the worst episode yet. Mainly because the first 10 minutes of the show is clearly clips from all the other episodes strung together to make it look like new footage. My kids and I had fun trying to guess which episodes the clips came from. Also, whenever Superman goes off to catch a criminal, those action scenes were also borrowed from other episodes. Without that one flaw, it wasn't that bad of a plot.

The plot is that there's a "crime wave" in Metropolis. Superman and a task force, headed by Henderson, Perry, and a leader of a citizen's coucil (a lawyer), vow to take down the top 10 wanted organized criminals creating havock in Metropolis. We keep getting glimpses of the unknown #1 Crime Boss. He's clearly someone we've met earlier in the episode. When it seems that Superman is closing in, the Crime Boss hires a scientist to trick Superman into a room, which can apparently kill the invulnerable man.

That part of the episode was nerve wracking enough, that my daughter thought that Superman was really dead. My reassurances that Superman wouldn't be dead fell on deaf ears. I think this episode would have been better if the Crime Boss had turned out to be Lex Luthor, but sadly not.

24 episodes in and not one mention of Superman's biggest foe.