Superboy (TV series)
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| Superboy (later "The Adventures of Superboy") | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Action/Drama |
| Creator(s) | Ilya Salkind, Alexander Salkind |
| Starring | John Haymes Newton as Clark Kent/Superboy (Season 1 only) Gerard Christopher as Clark Kent/Superboy (Seasons 2-4) Stacy Haiduk as Lana Lang |
| Country of origin | United States |
| No. of episodes | 100 |
| Production | |
| Running time | approximately 22 minutes |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | Syndication |
| Original run | October 1988 – June 1992 |
Superboy is a half-hour live-action television series based on the fictional DC Comics character. The show ran from 1988–1992 in syndication. The show was renamed The Adventures of Superboy at the start of the third season.
Contents |
[edit] Background
The series was brought to the screen by executive producers Ilya & Alexander Salkind, the producers of the first three Superman movies and the 1984 Supergirl movie. The series, ironically, came about a year after DC Comics had "erased" the character of Superboy from their continuity in The Man of Steel reboot by John Byrne. Nevertheless, the show went on in October 1988 with John Haymes Newton playing the lead role of Superboy/Clark Kent, along with Stacy Haiduk as love interest Lana Lang, and Jim Calvert as Clark's college roommate T.J. White. Scott James Wells played Superboy's arch-nemesis Lex Luthor and Clark's loving parents, Jonathan and Martha Kent, were portrayed by Stuart Whitman and Salome Jens, respectively.
This version of "Superboy" featured Clark Kent/Superboy in college at Shuster University in Siegelville, Florida (names which reference Superman's creators, Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel). This was, of course, due partially to the fact that the show was filmed in Orlando, Florida, in the Disney (season 1) and Universal (seasons 2-4) studios. At first, much of the action centered around stories that Clark and T.J. reported on for the college newspaper, the Shuster Herald. All the exterior scenes shot at "Shuster University" are actually filmed on the main campus of the University of Central Florida. Siegelville, however, was depicted as a coastal city, as evidenced by imagery of both the new and old Sunshine Skyway Bridges in St. Petersburg, Florida, in the opening credits.
[edit] Comic book writers' contributions
Unlike other television incarnations of the Superman character, "Superboy" was brought to life by many actual comic book writers. Superman editors Michael Carlin and Andy Helfer penned several memorable episodes, such as "The Alien Solution", its sequel "Revenge of the Alien", and "The Bride of Bizarro". Other comic book writers that contributed to the series include: Denny O'Neil, Cary Bates, J.M. DeMatteis, and Mark Evanier.
[edit] Series history
[edit] Season one
Thirteen episodes were initially filmed for Season 1, beginning with "Countdown to Nowhere", featuring Superboy's first appearance in public as he prevents a group of saboteurs from selling a powerful laser weapon developed by the U.S. government to an arms dealer. "Countdown to Nowhere" aired in two versions: an "uncut" version in which the story plays in the present day, and a second version in which the main story is introduced as a flashback through two additional scenes with Lana, Clark, & T.J. in the Shuster Herald's office. The second version has some scenes cut in order to fit the flashback lead-ins into the episode.
The first thirteen episodes of Superboy were rather crude compared to later episodes. The producers, not sure whether any additional episodes would be ordered, did their best to save money on the first thirteen. As a result, the special effects are a bit rougher, and the episodes have a grittier, real world feel to them. This brought about more character oriented stories, and stories with more ordinary villains like drug dealers and crime bosses.
As the season progressed and thirteen more episodes were ordered for the first season, special effects got better and the show took on a more professional look. More fantastic enemies were introduced, such as a gaseous alien who could possess the bodies of others in "The Alien Solution", a life-force vampire in "Succubus", and long-time Superman villain Mister Mxyzptlk (guest star Michael J. Pollard) in "Meet Mr. Mxyzptlk". Superboy's nemesis, Lex Luthor, was introduced in "The Jewel of Techechal" (the first episode broadcast) as Clark's classmate at Shuster U. This Luthor was more interested in fixing basketball games and humiliating Superboy than anything else. The season finale, "Luthor Unleashed", completely changed his character, however, by adapting a popular Superboy story in which Superboy is responsible for Lex losing all of his hair, becoming the familiar bald villain Superman fans have come to recognize. This unleashed a new hatred in Luthor for the Boy of Steel and made him more determined than ever to kill Superboy, rather than just get the best of him.
[edit] Season two
In the second season drastic changes took place. The producers of the show feared John Haymes Newton's arrest for DUI in Orlando (newspaper headlines all over the central part of the state proclaimed 'Superboy busted for DUI') would tarnish the character and lead to the cancellation of the show. Newton was replaced by Gerard Christopher in the lead role. As opposed to other actors who have portrayed the Man of Steel, Christopher was actually a longtime comic book fan who relished the opportunity.[citation needed]
Scott Wells was also replaced as Lex Luthor by Sherman Howard. The change in Luthor's appearance was explained in the second season opener "With This Ring, I Thee Kill", which revealed Luthor had plastic surgery to assume the appearance of Warren Eckworth, inventor of the "Superboy Gun", which Luthor believed could kill Superboy. The character of T.J. White was gone, and Andy McCalister, portrayed by Ilan Mitchell-Smith, became Clark's new roommate. The villains were amped up in the second season, as additional comic book characters were introduced to the series, many of them appearing for the first time in live-action. Metallo (played by Michael Callan), Bizarro (played by Barry Meyers), and the Yellow Peri appeared in the second season, and Mister Mxyzptlk (returning guest star Michael J. Pollard) made a return appearance. The episode "Superboy... Rest in Peace" featured guest star Betsy Russell, who was reunited with series star Gerard Christopher for the first time since the two had worked together previously in the 1985 movie "Tomboy". Also notable is the guest star appearance of former James Bond actor George Lazenby as Jor-El in two episodes, "Abandon Earth" and "Escape to Earth."
[edit] Season three
With the third season, the series saw another change. The show's title officially became The Adventures of Superboy, and the setting shifted from Shuster University to The Bureau for Extra-Normal Matters in Capitol City, Florida, where Clark and Lana were interns. Andy McCalister was dropped from the series (Ilan Mitchell-Smith would make a return guest appearance as Andy in the episode "Special Effects"). The new supporting cast consisted of Clark and Lana's co-worker at the Bureau, Matt Ritter, portrayed by Peter Jay Fernandez, and the Bureau chief C. Dennis Jackson, played by Robert Levine. The tone of the series changed dramatically as darker stories were produced and the overall look of the series took on many characteristics of film noir. A few journalists at the time suggested that this darker look was largely due to the success of Tim Burton's Batman movie from a year prior. Many stories dealt with more mature themes, a change new producers Julia Pistor and Gerard Christopher implemented. In "Rebirth", Superboy is confronted with the possibility that he may have accidentally taken a human life, and gives up his Superboy identity in guilt. "Mindscape" deals with Superboy's deepest fears as an alien life-form brings those fears to life in Superboy's nightmares while simultaneously draining his life energy. "Roads Not Taken" shows the different paths Superboy's life may have taken, as Superboy travels to alternate earths where his life is very different. He meets a version of himself who killed Luthor in a fit of rage and another who has become a despotic ruler of earth. The alternate version of Superboy who took Luthor's life was shown wearing a black leather jacket and sunglasses which bears some resemblance to the Conner Kent version of Superboy as he first appeared in the "Death of Superman" storyline. The third season ended with the two-part "The Road to Hell" with former TV Tarzan Ron Ely guest-starring as an adult, retired Man of Steel from an alternate reality.
[edit] Season four
The fourth season maintained the look and feel of the third, and was the first in which no major cast changes took place. Noel Neill and Jack Larson, Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen in the 1950s series Adventures of Superman, made a guest appearance in the episode "Paranoia". The trend of more mature stories also continued in episodes such as "To Be Human", in which Bizarro becomes human, only to be forced to give up his humanity to save Superboy's life, and "Into the Mystery", in which a mystical, ghostly woman leads Superboy to his dying aunt's bedside. A memorable Luthor tale, "Know Thine Enemy", appeared in this season, and featured Superboy re-living Luthor's tortured memories of childhood via "psychodisk" while Luthor threatened to destroy all life on earth.
[edit] The series' demise
The fourth season would be the series' last. A finale for the fourth season was filmed in which Superboy died at the hands of Luthor. The episode was intended to end on a cliffhanger and the story would be resolved in a series of TV movies. Soon after the episode "Obituary for a Superhero" was filmed, a lien was filed by Warner Bros. against the series. The show's ratings were still high, and the Salkinds were planning on a fifth and sixth season for the show, but the series concluded in 1992 with the two-part episode entitled "Rites of Passage." The planned Superboy finale episode, "Obituary for a Superhero", was reworked and aired within the season, with Superboy showing up alive at the end, having only faked his death to lure the killer out of hiding.
The lien was placed as a result of Warner Bros. wanting the film and television rights to Superman back under their umbrella. The film and TV rights to Superman were leased to the Salkinds (the producers of the first three Christopher Reeve Superman movies and the 1984 Supergirl film) during the 1970s. Although Superboy was a Salkind production of a Time Warner property, it was distributed in the United States by Viacom, which later merged with Paramount in 1994. Because of the number of different companies involved in Superboy, and due to legal issues between Salkind and Time Warner that took time to settle, the Superboy television series has not re-aired on American television since its initial syndicated run. Though Time Warner owns all the footage to every other Salkind production of a Superman property exclusively, it shares ownership of the Superboy footage with Viacom/Paramount and Salkind.
After Warner Brothers put the lien in place and regained the film & television rights to Superman from the Salkinds, the company produced Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. It is believed Warner put the lien in place only to open the door for Lois & Clark, not wanting two Superman-related TV series on the air at the same time (later on, Warner Bros. would produce other Superman related television shows such as Superman: The Animated Series and Smallville, and the feature film Superman Returns).[citation needed]
[edit] Bootleg VHS and DVDs
Some time after the series' cancellation, there was a dispute over what rights to the character the Salkinds actually owned. For a time this prevented any official home video release of the series. Between 1992 and 2006 the only way to see Superboy in the United States was by ordering bootleg VHS and DVD copies of the series sold on Ebay and other websites. The audio and video quality of these copies was varied.
In 1999, Gerard Christopher began offering three VHS tapes of the series created from his personal master tapes (Christopher has masters of all of the episodes he starred in, Seasons 2-4). Each video tape featured four episodes (which were selected episodes from Seasons 3 and 4), and was sold on his website for a price of $25-$30 US. A fourth VHS video tape was released by Christopher in 2002. Christopher not only sold these video tapes on his website by mail order, but also sold them at personal appearances when attending various comic book conventions and shows. In response to overwhelming fan demand, Christopher decided to offer all Superboy episodes on DVD, offering a complete Season 2 set on DVD in June 2004 and planning to sell complete sets of Seasons 3 and 4 in the future. The Season 2 set consisted of three discs, was produced by Christopher himself, and sold for a price of $159.00 US. The latter two seasons were planned to be sold at a reduced cost. Tapes and DVDs sold by Christopher were the best quality copies of the series available, since they were made from master tapes, rather than from off-air recordings like all other bootleg copies. When Warner Home Video announced the official release of Season 1, Christopher announced that his self-produced DVD sets would no longer be available on his website in 2005, with the planned DVD releases for Seasons 3 and 4 cancelled.
In an interview for the webpage supermanhomepage.com, Salkind revealed that the legal battle between the three companies involved in the series' production (Viacom, Warner Brothers, and the Salkinds) was the reason the show was not rerun on television or released to home video. This dispute was recently settled, opening the door for the series to be released on DVD and also through AOL's in2tv free-on-demand internet streaming site.
On June 20, 2006, Warner Home Video released that DVD set of the first season of Superboy. The DVD set included a behind-the-scenes featurette with new interviews with first-season Superboy/Clark Kent actor John Haymes Newton, actors Stacy Haiduk and James Calvert, producer Ilya Salkind, and director David Nutter. The DVD was released in advance of the major film Superman Returns.
[edit] Cast
- John Haymes Newton - Superboy/Clark Kent (Season 1)
- Gerard Christopher - Superboy/Clark Kent (Seasons 2 - 4)
- Stacy Haiduk - Lana Lang
- Jim Calvert - T.J. (Trevor Jenkins) White (Season 1)
- Ilan Mitchell-Smith - Andy McCalister (Season 2)
- Peter Jay Fernandez - Matt Ritter (Seasons 3 - 4)
- Robert Levine - C. Dennis Jackson (Seasons 3 - 4)
- Gilbert Gottfried - Nick Knack
- Scott James Wells - Lex Luthor (Season 1)
- Sherman Howard - Lex Luthor (Seasons 2 - 4)
- Michael Manno - Leo (Season 1)
- Tracy Roberts - Darla (Seasons 2 - 4)
- Stuart Whitman - Jonathan Kent
- Salome Jens - Martha Kent
- George Chakiris - Professor Peterson (Seasons 1 - 2)
- Roger Pretto - Lt. Zeke Harris (Season 1)
[edit] Episode list
[edit] Season 1
- 1. Countdown to Nowhere
- 2. The Jewel of Techechal
- 3. A Kind of Princess
- 4. Back to Oblivion
- 5. The Russian Exchange Student
- 6. Bringing Down the House
- 7. The Beast and Beauty
- 8. The Fixer
- 9. The Alien Solution
- 10. Troubled Waters
- 11. The Invisible People
- 12. Kryptonite Kills
- 13. Revenge of the Alien (Part 1)
- 14. Revenge of the Alien (Part 2)
- 15. Stand Up And Get Knocked Down
- 16. Meet Mr. Mxyzptlk
- 17. Birdwoman of the Swamps
- 18. Terror From the Blue
- 19. War of the Species
- 20. Little Hercules
- 21. Mutant
- 22. The Phantom of the Third Division
- 23. Black Flamingo
- 24. Hollywood
- 25. Succubus
- 26. Luthor Unleashed
[edit] Season 2
- 27. With This Ring, I Thee Kill (Part One)
- 28. Lex Luthor, Sentenced to Death (Part Two)
- 29. Metallo
- 30. Young Dracula
- 31. Nightmare Island
- 32. Bizarro, The Thing of Steel (Part One)
- 33. The Battle With Bizarro (Part Two)
- 34. Mr. & Mrs. Superboy
- 35. Programmed For Death
- 36. Superboy's Deadly Touch
- 37. The Power of Evil
- 38. Superboy...Rest In Peace
- 39. Super Menace
- 40. Yellow Peri's Spell of Doom
- 41. Microboy
- 42. Run, Dracula, Run
- 43. Brimstone
- 44. Abandon Earth
- 45. Escape to Earth
- 46. Superstar
- 47. Nick Knack
- 48. The Haunting of Andy McCalister
- 49. Revenge from the Deep
- 50. The Secrets of Superboy
- 51. Johnny Casanova and the Case of the Secret Serum
- 52. The Woman Called Tiger Eye
[edit] Season 3
- 53. The Bride of Bizarro (Part One)
- 54. The Bride of Bizarro (Part Two)
- 55. The Lair
- 56. Neila
- 57. Roads Not Taken (Part One)
- 58. Roads Not Taken (Part Two)
- 59. The Sons of Icarus
- 60. Carnival
- 61. Test of Time
- 62. Mindscape
- 63. Superboy...Lost
- 64. Special Effects
- 65. Neila and the Beast
- 66. Golem
- 67. A Day in the Double Life
- 68. Bodyswap
- 69. Rebirth (Part One)
- 70. Rebirth (Part Two)
- 71. Werewolf
- 72. People Vs. Metallo
- 73. Jackson and Hyde
- 74. Mine Games
- 75. Wish For Armageddon
- 76. Standoff
- 77. The Road to Hell (Part One)
- 78. The Road to Hell (Part Two)
[edit] Season 4
- 79. A Change of Heart (Part One)
- 80. A Change of Heart (Part Two)
- 81. The Kryptonite Kid
- 82. The Basement
- 83. Darla Goes Ballistic
- 84. Paranoia
- 85. Know Thine Enemy (Part One)
- 86. Know Thine Enemy (Part Two)
- 87. Hell Breaks Loose
- 88. Into the Mystery
- 89. To Be Human (Part One)
- 90. To Be Human (Part Two)
- 91. West of Alpha Centauri
- 92. Threesome (Part One)
- 93. Threesome (Part Two)
- 94. Out of Luck
- 95. Who Is Superboy
- 96. Cat and Mouse
- 97. Obituary for a Superhero
- 98. Metamorphosis
- 99. Rites of Passage (Part One)
- 100. Rites of Passage (Part Two)
[edit] DVD Releases
The first season was released in North America on June 20, 2006. No release dates for further seasons are known yet, however it is known that Warner Home Video does intend to release the entire series.
[edit] Trivia
- The show was canceled following a lawsuit filed by Warner Brothers (the company that owned the Superman "family" of characters) against the Salkinds who had leased the movie & television rights to the entire Superman family of characters in the early 1970s and made the "Superman" film series (starring Christopher Reeve). The Salkinds produced the first 3 films (and the spin-off movie, Supergirl), and later sold the rights to Cannon Films who produced/released Superman IV: The Quest for Peace with Warner Bros. WB claimed that they had first shot at making a Superboy TV series (the show was distributed through Viacom). The case was settled and the rights officially reverted to Warner Bros. in 1993 and the Superboy series has not been rerun in North America since, although a DVD release of the first season did occur in 2006.
- The first two seasons were set at Shuster University, and the school had a building called the Siegel Center. This was a reference to the original creators of the Superman/Superboy characters, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.
- The first iconic "shirt rip scene" in the series appears several episodes into the show's run with "The Beast and Beauty." While following a group of robbers and pursuing policemen on a high-speed chase, Clark Kent steals away from T.J. White after using his heat vision to cause one of their van's tires to blow out. Clark jumps on a skateboard (which he's taken from the back of the van) and rides it towards the camera, ripping open his preppy oxford shirt to reveal the "S" which fills the screen.
- None of the actors on the programme featured in every episode. The Superboy character featured in every episode, but John Haymes Newton only featured for the first 26 episodes, before being replaced by Gerard Christopher. Although it is largely assumed that Stacy Haiduk appeared in every single episode, she is absent from the Season One episode 'Little Hercules'.
- John Haymes Newton was 22 years old when he was cast for the role of Superboy/Clark Kent in 1988. Gerard Christopher was 30 years old when cast as Newton's replacement the following year, 8 years older than Newton was.
- The pilot episode "Countdown to Nowhere" was actually the fifth episode broadcast in most areas.
- This was the first weekly TV series to be produced at the then new Disney/MGM Studios in Orlando, Florida (where the first season was filmed). For the second season onward, the series moved several miles down Interstate 4 to Universal Studios Florida, the largest motion picture and television sound facility outside Hollywood, where it was then showcased as that studio's first weekly television product.
- Gerard Christopher actually auditioned for Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, but he was turned down when producers found out he had already played Superboy. The producers wanted an unknown. Dean Cain was eventually cast as Superman/Clark Kent for Lois & Clark.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Daniels, Les. "Superboy On TV". DC Comics: Sixty Years of the World's Favorite Comic Book Heroes. New York: Little, Brown, & Company, 1995.
- Daniels, Les. Superman: The Complete History. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1998.
- Chambers, Doug. Superboy: The TV Series Accessed on July 12, 2005.
- Cowan, Rennie. The Death of Superboy Superboy: The TV Series. Accessed on July 12, 2005.
- Rizzo, Sam The Superboy Homepage Accessed April 9, 2006
Categories: Articles with unsourced statements since February 2007 | All articles with unsourced statements | Science fiction television series | Superman television series | 1980s American television series | 1990s American television series | Television series by CBS Paramount Television | First-run syndicated television programs | 1988 television program debuts | 1992 television program series endings
