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popculturebuffet · 7 months ago

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Supermay!: It's A Bird... It's a Plane.. It's Superman! Review (Comission for Emma Fici)

Hello all you happy people and welcome back to Supermay! A celebration of all things man of steel. And today boy oh boy do I have a treat for you. It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a goddamn musical. We're taking look at the 1975 tv adaptation of the 1966 Stage Musical It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's superman! Baby.

This is something i've wanted to watch since seeing a clip of what turned out to be the final number years ago: It looked cheesy as hell and I was here for it. And when I pitched it to Emma her response was a resounding

So here we are.

So thanks to wikipedia I got some background on this one. Usually not the best source but I didn't have a lot. It did give me stage actor and superman in the broadway version Bob Holiday's 2000's as hell website

it's funly nostalgic and the guy seemed genuinely nice and i'ts mostly to tribute the man. Ther'es the odd bit like "sounding every bit as masculine as superman must" but it's mostly a nice little tribute. It didn't tell me much but it did impress that Bob HAD to maintain the superman posture live on stage and that the musical had flying effects, which is neat.

Otherwise the musical did well with critics.. but Audiences didn't catch on. They may of just not been in the mood for this level of camp, it may of been that old attitude that "comic books ares for childrens", which is true but their also for everybodys at the same time. At any rate it didn't do well.

The weird thing is.. it was a case of DC accidnetly undercutting itself. Around the same time the camptastic glory that was Adam West Batman started airing so an intended Time article for the musical was reduced to a blurb to promote batman instead.

So a decade later DC tried to recoup some losses, lisenscing the musical to ABC in the hopes of getting some of that sweet high school and regional theater money. And instead.. ABC just shoved it on their schedule and didn't really give a shit. So yeah this musical is mildly cursed and I feel bad fo rit. It's a wonderfully campy little piece of superman history, a truly odd, truly unique thing that deserves it's flowers, so today i'm giving them to them. So come fly with me under the cut as we experince bargin bin sweden hating lex luthor, jealous journalists, wacky mobsters, depression, an iconic musical number, gay supervillians in love, and all the camp that's fit to print. It's A Bird, It's a Plane, It's Superman! .. and some ads!

Commericals!:

As a brucey bonus, the person who put this specail on youtube also added a cluster of superman themed commericals at the end. I'm going to tackle them because my good friend @jess-the-vampire recommended them. We watched the musical together but she stuck around for these commericals.

We open with one from Bob Holiday, who promotes Aqua Velva.. and honestly I wish more than just the soundtrack for the stage musical existed because he seems like an excellent superman.

The next is just superman using an at and t card to call the office as they try to get back to .. contact london. And Lois brings up he always disappears? I don't get you commerical

Now we get into the real nonsense. Lex Luthor has kidnapped superman.. to ask why superman peanut butter tastes so great. The funniest part of this is I could buy lex being THAT petty that he can't just ASK superman, he has to kidnap him, put him near a giant chunk of kryptonite and demand he tells him. Some kids save superman, they enjoy some peanutbutter and luthor finds out he'll find out someday, SOMEDAY SUPERMAN YOU'LL TELL ME THE SECRET OF YOUR RICH CREAMERY PEANUT BUTTER!

Anyways, now for superman to say no to smoking! Some man dressed like a wizard is teaching children to smoke. Man big tabacco is really having to get clever. I remember the old days when they didn't have to be as subtle

Superman then fights Nick O Teen again.. yes that's really his name.

Yes he really looked like that. And the sad part is this special proves this isn't even the dumbest guy he's fought. he fights nick as he tries to corrupt youth at baaseball and then claims you can quit any time only to disprove it when superman takes his sigs. He also coughs up a big black cloud when superman does this? Superman.. I I think you might be killing this guy. Give him his smokes superman, let him live!

Superman then calls a kid who smoked to be cool a looser. This is somehow only the second most dickish thing he's ever done.

We then get a few less takable adds: Superman picks up a kid who was abndoned by his friends for being intrested in drugs and relaizing drugs ar efor loosers, then promotes a kit for asmatic kids.. which is actually really nice. Good job superman.

We then get an add for underoos which is a bunch of children dancing around in their underwear. I feel like i'm going on some sort of watchlist just for watching this. There's Superman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman and Spider-man! And another add which adds batman and the hulk.. and the dukes of hazzard? Also this add made me realize the venture bros were wearing underoos for some time

Though the actual aquaman underoos are way more half assed

That's just..sad.

Anyways enough about children's underwear, for the love of god enough about children's underwear, let's have some airforce propoganda by some weirdo in a mustache and some weirdo in a superman outfit who gets recurited for the airforce.

Now Taco Bell is offering SUPERMAN GLASSES. Super fuckin shooter.. I actually want one of those now. I miss when restruants did this. I wasn't really around for it but I miss it.

Now superman on viewmaster! God I loved how these things looked as a kid.. on the outside. could never really see them well.

Next superman rescue two kids from the evils of WEEEEEEDDDD and just fly them to the boys and girl club. I mean that last part's nice and children shoudln't smoke weed but like... do they have a ride home? Are you just going to fly them to my house.

Now for a create a super villian contest. Everyone gets puffy stickers! EVERYONE EVEN YOU. EVEN IF YOU DON'T WATCH THEM. Also Casey Kasem robin. That's dope.

Now for a living french fry from superman french fries

And now our feature presentation

So we open with some .. weird as hell introductions to most of our cast. And it's right away we get one of this special's weirder quirks: out of Superman's suprisingly large supporting cast and main rogue's gallery only THREE characters from the comics are in this musical: Superman himself, played by David Wilson, Lois Lane played by Lesley Ann Warren and Perry White played by Al Ludden. I couldn't find anything really on wilson, but Warren's been in a ton of stage and tv while Ludden was the host of pass word. Yes weirdly Jimmy Olson is left out.. I wonder why

Fair enough then. So rather than say get Lex Luthor or Jimmy in the plot we instead get Max Mencken, an egotistical reporter who hates superman for stealing all the attention played by Kenneth Mars, mars assitant who has a thing for him Syndey Carlton played by MASH star Loretta Swit, the only actor I recognized in this, and David Wayne as Dr. Abner Sedwick, a mad scientest working for the Metropolis INsittue of Technology who wants to kill superman to conquer the world. There's also a mafia boss played by Malachi Throne, thankfully replacing the racial sterotypes with hired goons

Yeah while I get not using some of supes Rogues, Braniac would hard to be get right on stage back then for instance, it's very weird to me that they don't use Luthor for sedwick's role. Ther'es nor eason it CAN'T be him: while Luthor didn't have sedwick's veil of legitmacy back then (A weird thing to think about) it's not that big a change nad as seen by the 80's onward, it actually improves the character. I get Max, they wanted more characters at the planet and there didn't seem to be a deep bench and Jimmy never would've fit the roll. It's honestly hilarious to me as Steve Lombard, Morgan Edge and Jack Rider would all fill similar rolls over the years to this one, while Sydney would likely be Cat Grant, the planet's gossip columnist, these days.

At any rate we get a quick recap of superman's origins that also belies that this musical is goofy as shit, using comic panels and leaving subtly at the door as this is superman's rocket in this version

I'm all for it though: the musical's clearly meant to be tounge and cheek and is trying to be funny.. but is that rare work that's both genuinely funny once in a while and so bad it's glorious. Someone wrote a joke this corny, thought it was funnya nd put it on tv. Someone had to assemble this prop and I salute them.

So we get clarks teen years, him becoming superman all in miniture before we get our first number. We Need Him. And I have enough praise for later numbers I can comfortably say this is dogshit and not feel too bad about it. Like it is just bad. 80% of it is just them saying WE NEED HIM, WE NEED HIM, WE NEED HIM, WE NEED HIM, WE NEED HIM, WE NEED HIM

Listening to the original version, it was more of an operatic crowd number originally.. why they dumbed it down to the point of being grating I have no clue. While this does update the arangments, the arangments aren't really BAD for the most part but this is just.. awful.

Thankfully we soon get our first planet scene and our general characterizations for our bullpen: Clark is going with the old "he's really a mask for superman" routine, with Clark having a very whiny voice i'd swear was doing a rick moranis if rick was acting at that point. God there was a time when rick moranis wasn't a thing. Such dark days. It's fine... like I said in the clash of the superheroes review, i'm not a fan of "clark is just a costume superman puts on", but this musical is going for camp. Having everyone forget Clark's even there and exagerating this dynamic to all hell works just fine.

What dosen't is Lois. Lois feels like a prop in this: she loudly goes "scoop" in a shrill voice, never realizes Clark is there and genuinely kinda sucks. She's mostly there for Clark to pine over, the villians to kidnap later and that's it. I'm so relived Crisis on Infinite earths gave us the modern lois: no nonsense, hard nosed, but with a kind nature versus "SUPERMAN MUST MARRY MEEEEEEE". It's too Amy Rose for my taste.

We get our next umber it's superman next.. and this one is also not good and once again can be blamed on the rearrangment taking away the orchestra and replacing it with.. nothing.

Thankfully we're rescued from this by the oldest of superman's foes.. the mafia! The sad part is out of superman's three big bads in this film.. it's the closest to being true. It's still not entirely true as looking into the first 10 issues or so of action comics, it's mostly shady buisness douches, corrupt wardens and other conmen, putting the comic WAY ahead of it's time, it's still entirley plausable he fought some mobster in a sterotypical suit in his early career.

So the cartoon gangsters added to this version work for me. It helps their just so fun: their over the top, goofy and fit this over the top and goofy musical like the hats they all wear. They also get the first good number of the musical, It's a Swell Country, which was made for this special but I honestly coudln't tell as it's really good and like "Mean Green Mother From Outer Space" should be added to future stage versions. IT's a fun song about how it's a "Swell country" for criminals, and will be even more swell once they take care of superman

Back at the planet, Lois interviews Abner Sedwick. Sedwick tells lois MIT has death ray and Clark overhears, becomes superman and easily takes care of it. He seems to have foiled Sedwick's grand scheme.. but it turns out having him stop the death ray was part of it.

Later in Sedwick's office he gets a solo revenge, this weird shatner style number where he sing talks a lot. And also actually sings. Sedwick however.. is the best. He talks to the audience a lot and his motivations are hilariously petty: he just abrubtly reveals why he wants to rule the world: to destroy sweden. And why? Because he keeps coming in second place for the noble prize. Ten years in a row. I honestly think at this point their doing it just to fuck with him and are doing so at their peril.

Turns out Max was there the whole time and pieced it all together.. and it also turns out he dosen't care that Sedwick is evil as he also wants to kill superman. I've seen worse meet cutes, i'll take it.

Max comes back to the office and we get what Jess perfectly described as

The Woman for the Man is a good song and works well out of context, a lot of these songs do, but my god is it uncomfortable to watch two minutes of a guy hitting on a woman who just.. is not interested while he does not get it. Reminds me of what a younger me might of become had he been a bit more of a douche and ab it less awkward and I don't care for it. Lois tells max to fuck off and he vows revenge on superman because it's superman's fault his sexual harassment no jitsu didn't work for the 80th time.

So while the cartoon mobsters decide Sedwick might be worth kidnapping because superman is gun proof, Max blows off Sydney

To go talk to sedwick who reveals his plan which is honestly, especially for something like this... really clever. Superman's too powerful to beat normally.. so their going to break him mentally.

Clark has other problems though as we get

With You've got Possiblities. The song itself.. is utterly fantatsic. I'd actually heard this one around but never knew it was from a superman musical. it's an utter classic, being hilaroiusly dismissive and Swit's super 70's version works. And unlike other rearrangments while i'll admit the original is better.. this one's still good and there's more reason to do this "update": the original is such a big song, you kinda HAVE to make it your own and Swit does.

That said the gag for the first half is that Clark isn't intrested... and Sydney won't take no for an answer. Clark DOES come around eventually.. but it's still deeply uncomfortable, even more than the max stuff as it's clear they aren't on clark's side here like they were with lois.

Clark and Sydney hook up.. and then this never really comes up again because they presumibly cut that part of the plot out for time.

So we get Sedwick's plan: he's going to put a bomb under city hall

Again it's clever: the death ray was so he could plausably throw a celebration for superman at MIT , and then blow up city hall at the same time. now he has Max, Max can slander superman in the media for missing the attack and this will destroy him mentally.

The two then sing you got what I need aka

Yeah there's no way around this Max and Sedwick are gay as hell and this musical number is gay as hell and being bi as hell I love every minute of it. Suddenly the two villians just come off like their going to make out any second from now and given their both asepects of lex luthor it works. I honestly wish they had end up together: their both egotistical, petty and hate superman. It's a great foundtaion for a relationship.

They get interuptted by the mobsters, btu Sedwick decides he wants kids after he realizes their ALSO after superman. Well henchman.. same thing really. Either way their adopting these sterotypes.

We then get back to the planet as Lois falls in love with clark because he's always there.

Yeah once again they just.. step up a subplot for time's sake. She sings a song about it. Once again it's not great. I do not know why they kept this subplot, it impacts nothing. The syndey thing really impacted nothing. This musical is somehow a LOT happneing, max and sediwick's evil plan, falling in love and adopting a family of mobsters, sydney and clark, lois and clark, sexual harassment, more sexual harassment, blowing up sweden, and also nothing of consequence happening and i'm somehow here for it.

So with clark kent happy it's naturally time for the universe to shit on him.. wait no that's peter parker. The Universe is going to take a steamer on clark's life anyway as our power couple pull off their plan, with superman at his celebration and meeting Jerry and Joe, two hippies based on Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster, superman's creators. it's a sweet touch that only gets sweeter later, but for now the explosion happens and Sedwick's able to turn the crowd against him thorugh the power of "comic book unvierse characters can be real dicks"

Superman is now hated and clark's frustrated, while Sydney is fed up with max's crap and gies us a song. And for once.. it actually DOES feel necessary this scene is happening. Not only is max kidnapped during it but it gives payoff to sydney's crush on max

The song is the underrated "Oh Do You Love You" a REALLY fun song i'm shocked didn't blow up like you got possibilities. It's one long take that at max's ego and it is AWESOME. Loretta Swit can REALLY sing and while she got to show it off with possibiliteis she really gets to go all out here.

Max is abudcted during it as Sedwick thinks he's superman. Max asks "Husband are youf ucking high", pointing out the obvious: why would he do all this frame superman shit if he was. They figure out it's clark, they always forget about him, as did Sedwick's computer, so Sedwick heads to clarks to finish off their foe while Max has lois kidnapped.

We then get another song.. and sadly another weak one. Seriously this musical bounces between all time bangers and "please god make it stop" The Strongest Man in the World is about superman's vunerablility which SHOULD work and I like the staging of him changing into clark as he does it, but the awkward singing and

Suck the energy out of it.

Sedwick shows up and reveals he' knows who clark is. He then proceeds to psychologically break him, accusing him of pretending to be clark as a gag, being a hero to lord his power and of being a freak. This leaves superman in a super depression and thus he can't rescue lois when the mobsters kidnap her.

It's then the table turns as everybody betrays everybody. We also get another lois song and I genuinely feel terrible for Lesley Ann WarreN: Three numbers.. and all of them awful. Moving on Sediwck betrays max and then is betrayed by the mobsters who even give their king boss the award for best criminal just to make sedwick feel worse. Id ont' remember him teling them about the noble prize thing but he's also the kind of guy who strikes me like he'd bring it up every chance he got.

Superman then.. goes.. to drown himself...

Yeah just.. the fuck. I get it was the 60's/70's, these jokes were okay but it's just a weird turn. He also can't drown himelf because he has super lungs GET IT IT'S FUNNY BECAUSE HE CAN'T DIE BUT WANTS TO.

Thankfully this segues into the musicals best non musical scene: Joe and Jerry runn into supes again.. and upon seeing his crisis admit part of why they love him..is that he is a freak. He's not normal, he is diffrent. and that's okay. He gives hope to all the other "freaks", all the outcasts who need someone to cheer and to look out for them. He's the defender of the downtrodden

With his confidence back, superman arrives and we get the best number of the muiscal, Pow! Bam! Zonk! a gloriously cheesy number where Superman cleans house. It's a nicely silver age segment of superman giving plnety of one liners as he talks about how he's regained his sense of self and easily beats up the mobsters with some great funny bits like them shattering a blackboard over him or two using ONE MOBSTER AS A BATTERING RAM. I'ts one long fun sequence showing how awesome superman is and David WIlsons ings the hell out of it. It's cheesy, fun, and incredibly well coregraphed. A great climax.

In the end our hero triumphs, our villians have amnesia so their good now and max is good to syndey though maybe she'll consider a throuple with sediwick. DA END. Seriously it just kinda ends. Lois is back into superman, tha'ts it. Go home.

It's a Bird It's a Plane It's Superman is fun as hell. It's not super good: only a few jokes land... but it manages to be cheesy so bad it's super. It's got great numbers dotted with hilarously bad ones, goofily petty villians, wacky mafia mobsters, and a truly bonkers plot that while itnetionally so has aged to the point it's even more zany than intended. Add in a weird lack of superman, a truly awesome final number, and some goofy effects and title cards, and you have a good time. Well worth the 90 minutes. Check it out on youtube. Stick around for the commericals and thanks for reading.

#superman #it's a bird it's a plane it's superman #lois lane #clark kent #musical theatere #musicals #abc #dc comics #broadway

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