DVD Review: The Adventures of Superman Season 2
The second season of the classic Adventures of Superman, television's first Superman live-action TV show, was recently released onto DVD by Warner Home Video. The set contains 26 episodes (27 if you count the "Stamp Day for Superman" extra!)

Season Two is a bit lighter than some of the violent tones you'd find in the first year. Producer Whitney Ellsworth came on, Jimmy Olsen became more of a goofy sidekick, and Noel Neill took over the role of Lois Lane from Phyllis Coates. Neill was familiar with the role - she played it in the movie serials with Kirk Alyn.

Season Two also contains one of the most memorable and famous episodes of the series - "Panic in the Sky," where an asteroid comes toward Earth and Superman stops it, but is left with amnesia. This episode was later remade in the first season Lois & Clark episode "All Shook Up." It is really interesting to watch the two back to back.

Bonus features for this DVD include a look at the "First Lady" of Superman, Noel Neill. There are new interviews with Noel as well as a few of the folks that you saw on the Season 1 DVD set. It's really interesting to see how ahead of its time the Lois Lane character was. I will admit openly that I had not seen many episodes of classic 1950's Superman prior to getting this DVD, so I was surprised to know there were even stories where Lois was trying to get Clark to admit he was Superman! Can't wait to see more.

Another bonus which I REALLY liked was "Stamp Day For Superman." Basically, the U.S. Treasury sponsored this rarely-seen episode which encourages young people to buy government bonds. It's all propaganda, but it's telling that, in a 1950's sort of way, it's a lot less obvious than Pete Ross yelling "Yeah, Remy Zero!" on Smallville.

Noel Neill and Jack Larson (Jimmy) provide commentary on the previously-mentioned "Panic in the Sky." On the commentary, Larson points out certain obvious errors (they're talking to Clark, yet his glasses aren't on!) and Neill says that they never exposed Clark as Superman because "they wanted to keep their jobs." I'm really impressed that there was commentary on an episode by two surviving cast members of a 50-year-old program. Most shows now released on DVD from that time period, the lead actors are deceased or uninterested. Larson and Neill, depite occasional quiet moments, seemed to enjoy reminiscing.

The show is obviously a bit more naive than what you would see today. Amnesiac Superman puts on his "Clark Kent" clothes almost instinctively as soon as he crash-lands. Some special effects are a litte silly, and some explosions aren't even real; they're animated! But if you're looking for a time capsule on how Superman used to be done, this is the perfect chance.

One final bit of trickery that I should mention: Despite the color photo on the DVD cover, The Adventures of Superman is actually not in color until the THIRD season, which will probably hit DVD later in 2006.

I give this DVD set three out of four stars. It might deserve more later, but right now I'm still having fun watching them all!

. or order the DVD's!

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