¶ Intro / Opening
Where were you on November the nineteen seventy two?
I wasn't even born yet. Where were you?
I wasn't born either, But you know what was born? HBO, the very first paid subscription cable television service. It would soon spread like a virus across the United States, although it began humbly by just showing a NHL hockey game
Vancouver Canucks versus the New York Rangers. Now, the reason they they were able to show that, the reason that they needed to show that is because suddenly they had their own twenty four hour television station and virtually no content to fill it, so they would fill it any way they can't. Originally called the Green Channel, did you know that that was that?
I didn't know that that was.
Their working title? And then when they got funding from Time Warner, they were going to call it the Sterling Cable Network. And then somebody else said, well, maybe we should make it attractive. And so the idea of buying a ticket from a box office and it's at your home box office, here we go.
So evocative. I love that. I love that name. I always did.
I did too, And of course that the ad their their little promotional logo in the nineteen eighties with the miniature city. Cannot be beat.
That theme, I love it.
¶ The Evolution of Cable Networks
HBO was the first many stations they'd soon spawn. The Cinemax Showtime would jump onto the scene. There'd be a whole bunch of a whole bunch of local cable networks. That Z channel was a paid cable network in Los Angeles pretty famously, but so much time and so little to fill it, so you did it anyway you could, including on occasion showing filmed versions of theatrical productions. Now,
¶ Welcome to Cable Box Theater
this is our Patreon only subscriber show, but this is our inaugural episode, so we're including everybody. We're welcome everyone, all you midnight viewers. This is what some of the stuff you're going to get over on the Patreon channel. This is Cable Box Theater and my co host is night mister Walters and Noise Junkies host mister HP. HP. How are you doing.
I'm doing great. I'm so excited that these are real great memories from when i was a kid watching these old cable shows, so I'm really excited to talk about this with you as such.
We're we're going to be We're gonna be takes you can look at a lot of these theatrical productions, and you can too, because everything we're going to be talking about, we're going to be spoiling. But everything we're going to be covering here at Cable Box Theater is available for free. Our choice tonight is available on YouTube, so you can go watch that right now if you'd like, and then come back and we'll be waiting now. It's actually kind
¶ Superman: A Theatrical Flop
of a bait and switch here because we are talking about something that was filmed for television broadcast, and it is a film of a theatrical production, but this one actually aired in nineteen seventy five, and it aired on.
It was a late night They buried it in their late night schedule because they were attempt the theatrical production was a flop and they were looking to recoup some of the show's financial losses and boost interest in licensing by putting it on network television.
And how coincidental that with the recent resurgence of the DC universe with James Gunn at the Helm and the first character he's decided to tackle his Superman and way back in nineteen seventy five February the twenty first of nineteen seventy five on ABC, they aired It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's Superman.
Wide World Special. HP.
¶ Analyzing Superman's Character
You're a super fan of Superman, are you not? I?
Yes, I was a big comic book kid growing up. I wouldn't say I was. I was a huge Superman collector. I certainly was. I saw the original Christopher Reeve Superman in nineteen seventy eight. I saw that in the theater as a five year old. He in fact, did make me believe a man could fly. And just in terms of pop culture, I've always been fascinated by Superman. Because well we're not going to go into it here, but yes,
I've always loved Superman. So I was really excited. I own the Broadway cast production of the soundtrack to this show from nineteen sixty six. To be really honest, brutally honest, I've never been able to get through the whole thing for one reason or another, so I was excited to actually see this production of that show. What were your thoughts going into this? I know obviously you were big into comics as well, just like I was. What were your thoughts coming into this?
I was always a big fan of Superman as a comic character, though preferred to see him cinematically. I wanted to see him fly around. I loved all of the old cereals, you know, in the television series in the nineteen fifties, George Reeves and the old Fleischer cartoons. I was not so much into the comic, but for some reason, I do need to see Superman flying and not a drawing of him doing that.
Superman was certainly one of those for me. It was like an old guard. I was always more of a Marvel kid growing up, because Superman always seemed to be a bit of a fuddy duddy. That's terrible. Only a fuddy dudy would actually say fuddyduddy nowadays, But he was always more of a you know, the boy scout kind of boring as a comic. I think.
Superman Man, am I glad to see you? What are you doing on this deserted road.
Some guys from school drove out here and we've got to stop pooling around with drugs. When I told them all drugs do is mess up your head and get you in a lot of trouble, they kicked me out of the van and drove off.
You're right not to get involved in the drug scene. Nobody with any sense wants any.
Part of it.
How do I get home?
That's no problem at all.
Yeah, And well, that's the thing. The things that made me think he was a nerd when I was a kid, or the things I admire about him now, coupled with we're not going to go full into nerddom here, but you know, coupled with the idea of the last son of Krypton this, you know, and raised right and then does the right thing like that, there's something great about that. My favorite Marvel characters Captain America, He and Superman would
be buddies. I think, at least the incarnations of Superman we got up until the nineteen eighties, when suddenly everything became gritty and dark, especially in the nineties. Oh my god, he has to die anyway. Back in nineteen sixty six,
¶ The Production's Shortcomings
no one was really thinking about Superman too much. But
¶ Set Design and Audience Impact
you know who was David Newman and Robert Benton, screenwriters of Bonnie and Clyde. They wrote the book, Charles Strauss wrote the music with lyrics by Lee Adams. I would say that they chose to adhere strictly to the idea of Superman, that they were given in the comic strips in the nineteen thirties and really didn't pay any attention to anything past that decade, even though it was a contemporary set play.
Agreed, But I think I would go further and say I believe they were also influenced by the nineteen sixty six Batman television show. The campiness of that can't be overstated with this production, both the Broadway production and consequently this televised version of it. There's a lot of biff bang pal at one point, and it's really, honestly, well we'll get to it, but it's it is almost playing as a slyly sort of satirical look at Superman instead of an actual story in the Superman universe.
Basically, well, it's funny you should mention Batman. This was a flop on Broadway and you know, it only played for one hundred and something performances, you know, basically played for six months effectively. But the creators of it felt as if The Batman had taken the wind out of their sales, because why do you need to go see a parody of old cartoons and comic strips at a theater when you can just sit at home every week and watch your favorite stars guest starring on this can't be fun romp.
Well. The other thing that I couldn't help thinking as I'm watching this is well, number one, let's just say like Superman is almost incidental to this production. He really doesn't feature that much in it. It's mostly about his antagonists and the things happening to them. But what you would get, at least in an average episode of Batman
that you don't get here much at all is some action. Sure, it's can't be action in Batman, it's you know, the superimposed Biff Bang pal, but there was a good ratio of action to you know, other happenings in to give an episode this it just seemed interminal. It goes on forever and ever and there's barely any action going on, and in fact, for most of it, Superman is basically just a sad sec loser. That was my impression as I'm watching this.
It was awful as campions. The Batman television series ever was. They were complete comic book stories in a half an hour or a couple of episodes. Obviously because it was serialized on the same Bat time, same bat channel, they were telling you a story about Batman and fighting his villains. This is more a satire I think about the sixties. I guess I don't really know. The plot, such as it is, involves Superman pining for Lois Lane, who only
has eyes for Superman. Like, that's the same Superman plot we're going to get in everything. But it's really clumsy here, and Superman is a loser and nobody likes him, and neither does the audience. That plot is going on. Meanwhile, we've got Perry White running the newspaper. Perry White's kind of hip and cool. We have an antagonist reporter named Mankin here played by Kenneth Morris.
Yeah. It was from young frankin Stein and the producers.
Yeah, and he is the best thing in the in this production, and evidently in the original Broadway production was played by Jack Cassidy, which I can only imagine how fucking fantastic that was.
That's right, Yeah, yeah, I did. I did come up with that. Yeah, that's he what a gem. That guy was weird, but a really cool actor.
Yeah. He had a pretty spectacular episode of a Night Gallery, which we covered on Midnight Viewing.
And he also had a great episode of Colombo.
He sure deal with that. He had a few episodes of Colombo.
That's true. He was in a couple times. I'm thinking of the one where he was the Magician. I love that episode. I can't think of the name of it.
But yeah, okay, So the major plot, such as it is, there's a scientist who wants to get revenge on the Nobel Prize Committee and he's going to use Superman to that. And the villain here is doctor Abner Sedgwick, created for the Broadway play. Don't know why he's a mad scientist. He introduces himself as such. Why isn't this Lex Luthor.
I didn't nderstand that either. There's one of the big problems I had with this is there's far too much that was created just for this production. I can't imagine and that sort of period of time that it's not as if there were going to be there was a licensing issue the way they couldn't use Lex Luthor. It's inexplicable to me because you could have had that character very easily be Lex Luthor with a few tweaks and a few changes to his character and some of the
things that he does. But yeah, it didn't make any sense to me at all, but that kind of runs through This whole scenario is a lot of things concocted just for it.
This Professor Abnercentwick is a ten time Nobel Prize losing scientists, and so his plan is to get revenge on them by destroying the world's symbol of goods, Superman. Ooh, we said this was pretty much lifted from the nineteen thirties, but even the nineteen thirties plots weren't this thin and stupid, which makes me, by the way, glad that they invented a character because maybe uller heads prevailed and said, don't use Lex Luthor, don't tarnish him by making him such a moron as a villain.
But don't forget there's also so there's Abner Cedric, but there's also this sort of side plot where the mafia also wants to take down Superman. I don't recall exactly why they wanted maybe because he's just so powerful that they want him out of the way. And one of the mafioso is played by none other than al Malnaro Al from Happy Days. That was quite a shocker to see him there. Yeah, and he's not very good here.
No, he can't really sing. Nobody can really in this production, it would seem so Yeah.
Leslie and Warren can sing, and no, no, and Loretta Switt is actually the best singer out of all of them.
Okay, didn't mention her. We have to mention her. She's part of the plot here, another invented character, why you know?
And actually was interesting because I came in thinking that they were going to play her like would expect a society columnist to be very devious and sneaky, But truthfully, she's actually one of the more good hearted people of the whole show. Really.
Yeah, right, let's get into this now. Because you brought up Leslieanne Warren.
She's terrible, Well you don't like you don't like Leslie and Warren anyway, because you already are on record as saying you hated her and clue.
This is not our first tango with Leslieann Warren. I thought she's bad and clue, and I think she's fucking dreadful. Here, man, here's my impression of Leslie an Warren. Oh, that's Leslie and Warren from beginning to end in this Oh, that's.
The spirit Sydney.
Oh, I wish I had encourage to feel the same way about Superman.
I'm tired of waiting around for him. She's miscast as Lois Lane. For me, Lois Lane is well. Margot Kidder is the epitome of los Lane. She's the driven, smart, motivated reporter who will get the scoop no matter what. Leslie and Warren plays her more like kind of a bubble headed sort of waif who is obsessed with Superman but doesn't really understand what's going on, or she doesn't have a lot of agency in this in this production. So yeah, she's maybe miscast, but I don't think that's
she does the best with what she has. That's the part that's written.
There's always one cast member in anything that's evoking another time where they have to fully commit to the other time, like, oh, this is kind of a screwball comedy we're doing, so I'm going to play it just like they would have played it in nineteen thirty nine. No, don't do that. This play takes place in nineteen sixty six. She seems like she's like a like she stepped off of the silver screen. It's way too literal, But I will say it's not entirely her fault because they let her go
with her terrible first instinct. By setting up Lois Lane as a fucking moron of a character, she might as well be Clark Kent's secretary. She does nothing as a reporter. She just sits around mooning for Superman. At one point, they give her a dream sequence where one of the songs tells us what she really wants.
Wanted just to be away that Connie left his brothers was plot.
They then invented this character Sydney, played by Loretta Switt and originally by Linda Lavin in the original. In the Broadway production, who is Lois Lane? That's Lois Lane. She goes nose to nose what the fucking villain of the piece and lets him know what a shit he is. She encourages Clark that he's not a loser at all. He's actually a good looking guy and he's got potential, and that he can be just as good as Superman. It's Lois Lane.
But you have to admit it is weird that they have this charcause besides doing that, besides being effectively a cheerleader for some of the characters in the picture or in the picture in the show, she doesn't really do anything else. She doesn't really feature into any of the outside of the Daily Planet scenarios or scenes or anything
like that. So as happy as I was and pleasantly surprised because I didn't know that Leretta's switt hot lips for mash could sing, could dance, could be so charming and really, I think next to Kenneth Mars, I think she was one of my favorite things in this production.
Oh it's the two of them, Like the play comes alive with those characters. Unfortunately, it's supposed to be a play about Superman, right, and one of big old chunk of would they got for Superman? Here Ali the America and found the nations everywhere?
Bad? We could get together?
Awful?
Was Michael Parraine out of that he actually quits the laure too young at this point or his brother Frank.
That's who I was getting flashbacks from. The guy looks just like costUS Mandalore. You know what's interesting, This guy, David Patrick Wilson is the guy who played Superman. I think he was actually in Eddie and the Cruisers with Michael Perey. It's crazy, what what a What a fine, what a poll you just made Father alone?
You can't sing? I know that much, Man, see you.
Night outdid.
This part of his set of skills as Superman is not super singing.
He's so bad. His costume is ill fitting. He's just a schlubby guy and there's zero charisma going on. It's Superman. Look, we grew up you and I grew up Father Malone with the really up to the at least up to this point, the definitive Superman, Christopher Reeve, the man played Superman beautifully. He played Clark Kent to a t. He was nebbish, but there was a smirk about his performance,
Christopher Reeve. But with this guy, David Patrick Wilson, you just get nothing from his performance of Clark Kent is just he's just a schlub. He at one point he's typing and he gets his tie cat and his typewriter and he has to sheepishly get up and you know, to real toy boy.
Then he looks the typewriter and walks off set with it. Right, and not only that, speaking of the ill fitting Superman costume, even worse, I don't care what a schlub Clark Kent. Is he's supposed to look sharp. They've got him with the undone tie, the top button unbuttoned, so the caller is open, fedora back on the head, you know, just like like he seems like Clark Kent at the end of the day.
In every not that Clark Kent is supposed to be mister charisma, but he is, like you said, he's supposed to be sharp. He's supposed to be you know, he's supposed to be a good reporter, is what he's supposed to be. And you get none of that. You don't get the impression that this guy can add two plus two, let alone write an effective column about Metropolis. In any sense. He's terrible.
They've chosen to turn Superman into the front page. Well, it takes place at a newspaper, so we'll just set the whole thing in the newspaper and then we'll cut away to a couple other things. But really we just we're just interesting what's going on here at this newspaper. And that's fine. It could have been good if they had somehow figured out a way to make Lois and Clark as interesting as Sydney and Mankin.
You could do it.
You don't.
I mean they're going for, we said, more of a satirical look at the character, which I guess I've read enough parodies of Superman and actual comic parodies to know that it could be done. There's a way to do it. But if you're going to if you're going to go to a live show featuring Superman a play like this, I guess I would just expect more Superman and more action and more interest. But you don't really get any.
I mean, Superman doesn't feature into it until really the last third of this production, which and even that half of it is him openly weeping on his couch and sucking his thumb for reasons I think we'll get into but it's just by the time you actually get his trumphant finale where he beats up all the bad guys, it's too little, too late. Even that's played kind of goofy. It's very Batman sixty.
Six, very Batman sixty six. And for the television version here they've got, you know, they apparently cut a bunch of numbers mercifully and added Gary Owens as a narrator. Also, evidently they updated some of the musical numbers to make it more contemporary for a seventies audience. I did not go back and listen to the sixty six soundtrack because I heard the songs here and I did not enjoy them.
There's some updating of the instrumentation, certainly, I think I detected a little bit of groovy bass and some chicken guitar at times. I didn't have the stomach to go back and re listen to the sixty six soundtrack like you. Some of the dialogue I think had been updated. I think there's that whole climax with a Siegel and Schuster proxies saying how they're freaks.
And oh no, that's a stage production.
That part is in nineteen sixty six. Really they talked about freaks and all that. Wow.
Yeah, we didn't mention that there are two peripheral characters who show up on the campus at that Doctor Abner Sedgwick is staging his is villainous plot from Jerry and Joe to kind of hippie dudes who are cheering on Superman, and then later on when Superman gets into trouble, they basically rescue him and let him know that he's all right. Man, even though you've got problems. Man, It's all right, it's cool.
You could be a freak. We're all freaks, baby, And of course Jerry and jo are supposed to be a Seagull and Schuster, the creators of Superman, ironically not invited to the original Broadway production, nor could they afford a ticket.
Yeah, that's a sad tale, Seagull and Schuster basically having their their creation essentially just stolen from them. But that's the story for another time. But yeah, some of the I mean, but I think more often than not, we're talking about the soundtrack, the nineteen seventy five production that we're discussing, I couldn't Most of it is played in the style of you know, corny nineteen thirties musicals anyway, so I couldn't detect much of an updating there. If anything,
some people really liked that kind of thing. I wasn't really a fan.
I liked one song in it, and I think it's the only song that sort of had a life beyond the musical. That's the You've Got Possibilities song. Loura Linda Lavin did it originally, but it's the Sydney song to Clark Kent, letting him know that you know he can be better than he's he than he sees himself.
Hair cut, simply terrible, necktie, the worst range, just unbearable.
Want to attackle first. Still, you've got possibilities. No, you're horridly square.
I see possibilities, and he there's.
Something then, around the same year that the play came out, Peggy Lee to the cover of it, which is pretty fucking fantastic.
I think that that is from just what I've gathered informally online. I think that's anyone's gonna pull anything of any lasting value from the production, and I think it's that song. It's You've got possibilities. I think if you go to YouTube, there's performances from local productions all over the place of just that song.
It was worked into many, many performances in many, many lounges over many many years.
Yeah, the song the I like that song. That was fine. The song that I pull out of this as being my favorite was not that the one that I really liked, and it was another it's telling that it's another Loretta Switt number. It was called Ooh Do You Love You? Which is her So this mankin this sort of up to no good reporter. She is talking to him about how the only person that he loves is himself, and this song is basically just telling him like you were, you had love at first sight, and it was you.
It's a great song from the moment you saw you how your.
Heart began to come way, which was much more promote on that day.
You can't forget as you will let you are a cigarette.
You just knew it was love.
I can't overstate the fact of how charmed and how surprised I was by Loretta Switt. I thought she was really good in this because I only knew her, like I said, from watching her and Mash and she was on love Boat. She did a few other things, but she had range, and I thought she was quite good in this. But then again, compared to the likes of David Wilson and David Wayne as the mad scientist Abner,
he was I mean, he's having fun. I have to say, like David Wayne is clearly enjoying what he's doing, but it's so corny. He has a song, a duet with Kenneth Mars that is just grown inducing right terrible.
And you know, here's the thing. So Lois Lane and Sydney. They should just be combined into one character, and that's Lois Lane, and then Mankin and Sedgwick should just be combined into Lex Luthor. Like the song that she sings to Mankin could easily be sung to Lex Luthor as well.
Yeah, or he could have it could have actually been him singing that song to himself, reflecting the fact that he loves himself. I could see that. Have you could have condensed a bunch of these characters into into one. I thought it would have worked probably better because it was one thing that we have to bring up because we haven't brought it up yet. Is the sets drove me crazy because I mean I think what obviously what they're trying to do is go for a comic book
meets reality sort of a thing. So what you have is they're in the Daily Planet office, for example, and there's a bunch of desks and people work and typewriters. But the periphery of it, and the doors and the windows, everything looking out along the periphery of the set is done in black and white line drawing. So you have a window and the window frame is drawn. It's almost like it looks like it's drawn in permanent marker of
some sort. I understand what they're going for, but to me, it just looked cheap and awful, like a children's middle school production. What did you think of the sets?
Well, you know, at the top of the episode, I mentioned our usual fair here are the shows that would films of theatrical productions that showed up on HBO and Showtime and stuff. And in those cases, those are literally that there is an audience at a theater and a play is being performed, and they're filming the play as it occurs. This sort of a production is more in keeping with that NBC like, let's do something live productions
where there is no audience. They have a studio, like, they have a sound stage that they've outfitted to, you know, replicate a theatrical production kind of, but the camera's a little more free form and can move through it and everything. It's less what we're usually about here at Cable Box Theater, and true do that. I would say that since this isn't a theater, they could do anything they wanted, and they decided to do the most slap dash version possible.
If you look at photos of the original Broadway production, they have built this giant grid with all the different characters standing in it like a comic book page.
Oh, like panels of comic that's cool.
And like at the top left like letterings, it says, Meanwhile, you know, it's it seems like they were going for something really cool for the live audience, and here they're giving us the bare minimum of like here's you know, pop art is in right now, right, Andy Warhol, Yeah, you guys like that.
Well, And you brought up another point that I wrote down here that I think really worked again this production. Now, when you're filming a live comedy or musical performance without any audience, it really it's like you're you right, get one hand tied behind your back effectively, because what it's doing is it's robbing the musical numbers and any comedy of any real power, because you don't get that audience feedback of laughter at something or applause at the end
of a musical number. In this a musical number is over even something that's maybe a little bit of a showstopper, and you get nothing. It's just silence. And as a viewer of it, as someone watching it a televised version of it, it's it just I don't know. It doesn't film me with any kind of adrenaline. It what I've watched, it just feels like limp. You know, did you get that impression?
Oh yeah, there's no air in the room. It's just sort of dead silence going on. And something as arch as this play is how way over the top, like you need to be feeding on an energy of an audience, even if it's a recording of an audience watching it live. You know, there needs to be some sort of contagiousness to the laughter. If something you thought was kind of funny, if everyone is laughing, you know, maybe it saves it a little bit. But here, if a joke lies flat, it lies flat.
It just hangs there like nothing. And I mean they try to combat that a little bit with that narration, like you said, but it doesn't really do much to restore any energy. Because I think even even a mediocre musical, if you have if you can get that feedback of an audience applauding that, it just it feels like a bigger deal than it actually is, or it makes it seem like a more energetic number. But this is just it just like I said, it just kind of hangs there like nothing.
So just like they've invented Abner Sedgwick as a villain, just like they've created at Max Mankin, they've also created these mafiosa characters. But they needed to be sensitive here. They didn't want to resort to their original nineteen sixty six Broadway production, which featured not Mafiosi at all, but the Flying Lings, a Chinese acrobat villainous troop that was the big prime mover of the underworld in Metropolis, and they needed to take out Superman because he was disrupting
their operations. So you could imagine there was lots of jumping and flipping going on with the Lings. Some of the Lings father ling, ming, fouling, tiling, fan poling, and dong ling. They figure, we're going to put this on television. This is insensitive. I know, Italian mafiosi with gigantic broad fedoras and pinstriped suits and they all talk about, hey, boss, what you do in boul They wrote a song for these fools about how great the country is because they're they want to steal everything.
Well, not only that that the song, there's a line in the song that I wrote down where they say it's a swell country where there ain't no gun control.
It's a crusty souls swell contry, no control.
It's a swell country, ever.
You can't reach.
Just look at all the bone a lawyers terrific.
They just want to.
Drive a politician's a best bug can buy.
Even back then, they were this is the villain crowing about how this is a country that swell because there's no gun control, and here we are. We've learned nothing as a country since then. It's depressing. What was interesting when you just said, but this was originally an awful
Chinese stereotype. One thing they forgot to update is at the final song or the finale of Superman finally getting his mojo back, he's beating up all of these mafioso that are coming at him and acrobatically doing their thing. There is a line one of his lyrics does reference karate. The karate is okay. That must have been a callback to the original, because these mafioso aren't. They're not coming at him with karate moves. They're just swinging at him with sledgehammers and things like that.
Yeah, but they figured out they're just gonna think he's talking about fighting.
At least they had, you know, the good sense to update it there, because I can't imagine how, even in nineteen seventy five, how culturally insensitive that would have been. Not that to your point, not that the Italian stereotypes are much better.
But why it had to be an improvement in some minor way. But I guess cartoonish versions of you know what were already cartoon versions of gangsters. You know this, Ultimately, you know there were villains to be had. I just don't understand why they're creating anything at all. Like it's not like Superman doesn't have his own rogues gallery.
When I think about it, though, there is a modern analogue to this. If you recall a little Broadway production called Spider Man Turn On the Dark or turn Off the Dark? Was it turn on or off?
I don't really turn off the Dark?
Turn Off the Dark, which was the soundtrack was by Bono and the Edge of U two. Correct me if I'm wrong, But I don't. I think all of those super villains were created for that show as well. I don't think they used any of the canonical Spider Man foes. Am I wrong about that?
I think it started out that way, and then they then they added the Green Goblin.
That's right, there was the Green Goblin, but I think there was like some kind of like not Madam Webb, another Spidery kind of thing with webs that it would ensnare Spider Man. Anyway, My point is I guess this is setting a precedent that maybe maybe that's what they do. Maybe you try to create new villains to offer a fresh experience to the theater goer. For me, I will say if I were a diehard Superman fan and I went to see this production, it would be disappointing, horribly
disappointing that they didn't go with Lex Luthor. I mean, he is the quintessential Superman villain.
Right, Yeah, you can't have it without him. I'm sorry, it just doesn't work if he's not there. I mentioned that we have a chunk of wood here as Superman, right, and I think a better performer could have done better because the problem is the play the book. It leans into camp if you want it to. Unfortunately, our two leads have fucking taken that and run away with it.
At times, it felt like I was reading a mad magazine parody of Superman and that's clearly what they're going for, because what you have is Abner's scheme to basically make Superman a pariah and hated by the general public. The capstone of his plan is he goes to visit Superman to talk about everything. You're basically you know, psychoanalyze him, and he basically convinces Superman that everybody hates him, that he's a loser, that he's better off just not being
Superman anymore. And it the climax of it is, as I said at the top of this episode, Superman in the fetal position on a couch, sucking his thumb, crying, saying I can't be No one wants to see Superman in the fetal position, sucking his thumb, crying about how everybody hates him.
Nobody wants that the scene you're talking about, the fucking mafioso come in and kidnap, blowing Lain in front of him, grab him.
Report Superman, save me, save me.
I can't I'm paralyzed. Grant the guyl freaked out. Oh it's all psychosomatic, but there's no time to ty.
You must save me now.
I don't mind Superman having a crisis of conscience and an existential dread moment. But he can't do that in spite of Lois Lane being put into peril. That's a fundamental problem.
It is for me, if Superman is going to have an existential crisis, I want him to have a five o'clock shadow sitting in a bar in the daytime, flicking beer peanuts into a mirror, bellowing at people, what are you looking at, and eventually clamax in him fighting himself in a junkyard and a good Superman prevailing. That's what I want. That's Superman three.
By the way, obviously, and I agree with that. I think they we're going for some sort of mid sixties parody here, where basically this entire play is a really bad stand up comics, Like I think it would go a little something like this, like that's what this is, over and over again.
What we're getting is super Duperman. That's what we're getting. It's the mid to late sixties parody of Superman played broadly and played for laughs, like, hey, let's tweak the nose of the legend of Superman just a little bit. That's not what I want. And they kind of try to have their cake and eat it too by having him bust in with some action at the end. But like I said, it's even that's I mean, that's it's
Batman sixty six. Like I said, there are ways to do something smart and satirical around Superman.
But the same end, I would like to see another production. I would like to have seen the original production with Jack Cassidy and Linda Lavin in it. I can't speak to the other performance of that, but like I said, I I think something could be wrung out of this.
In twenty ten, they did a revival at the Dallas Theater Center where a new book was written by Roberto Aguire Sarcassa or Sarcassa pardon me, who would eventually take over Riverdale to end both Archie Comics and the Riverdale television series.
Oh that's the guy you were talking about, Okay, I see that.
Yeah, And apparently there was a concert in twenty thirteen, and I guess every revival since then basically is using that book. Now.
I have to check that out. I wonder if that's available somewhere online. I'd like to see how they updated it. Interesting, but yeah, I don't know. I mean, part of me is happy that the attempt was made to do this. It's just I can't help thinking that a better story, a better play, a better musical could have been made
from this material. I think the most recent one was twenty sixteen, but it goes back as far as the early nineties, and just based on my informal searches, you can find clips on YouTube of local productions of its Superman. It's probably I don't know, maybe it's very easy to license. That's why it seems to pop up, and it's probably a good draw for people. Hey, Superman, I know Superman. I'll go to the middle school and check that out.
Why not, Well, I'm just looking at the cast list of a recent revival of it, and I think this is what the updated book, where the characters are listed as the Court Jester, the Scarlet Widow, Kazam, Marilyn Nezbit, Jack in the Box, Blackbird, Jupiter. Yeah. I think they have updated it significantly.
If I knew that it was updated, I might take a chance if there was a local production of it, maybe in Boston, like a you know, Broadway in Boston kind of thing, or touring production. I check it out.
Couldn't be worse than this, that's for sure. The one thing that the seventy five production has in that sense is that at least the instrumentation, as you mentioned earlier, is somewhat updated, So that's a little more contemporary and that's probably more pleasing to my palette, whereas I think the sixty six to one has played a little bit more cornball and straight. But maybe I should go back and check it out again. I don't know, maybe i'd be surprised.
Well, I think, you know, I think his sensibility for the music was a bit off here, but his he would get it right. The comic book musical. Just a decade later, two years after this aired, he wrote the music for Annie.
Really, that's I didn't know that. That's interesting.
Yeah, it's a huge libraty, which when you hear that, like it makes a little more sense, like what he was doing with Superman as character.
I agree. I would have loved to have seen Jack Cassidy as Max Mankin because that part seems very much in his wheelhouse.
I'm sure he was electric and that was a criticism at the time that he was so good that, you know, as you mentioned at the top, like people were like, where's Superman like this. It's all about that guy, Max Mankin.
You know, I'm looking at the album cover for the sixty six soundtrack. Jack Cassidy is top build. Oh yeah, and his font is a little bigger than everybody else's. It's kind of funny.
Well, he's a big star at the time.
Yeah. No, he deserved it, you know. I mean that guy, he could do it all. Is it fair to characterize it as a noble failure? Or is nobyl giving it far too much credit for them alone?
¶ Final Thoughts and Future Episodes
I think you can see the bones of something interesting here, but I think this production of it, other than as a curiosity piece and maybe as a waypoint toward the original or some updated versus some other version of it, I think it's worth a look. But other than that, it rubs me the wrong way in a lot of different ways. I don't think the music is necessarily up to snuff. But you know what you are correct about.
Loretta Switt and Kenneth Myers are so fucking good and this that every scene they're in is definitely worth the look. And this is on fucking YouTube, so you can actually just look up their scenes and watch them, and I think that would be delightful. I don't know that you need to sit through the all two hours of this, and I can only imagine what the like. Even longer version because they cut this down for television version must be.
Yeah, because I think all told the one that I watched on YouTube, I think it ran about ninety minutes or so it was. It was not an incredibly long sort of part of my life that I had to devote to this. It's worth it, I would say, check it out. You can't beat the price free, so you see for yourself. Maybe you'll maybe you'll see something in it that we didn't, but it's worth checking out for sure for free.
Thank you all for joining us on our inaugural episode of Cable Box Theater. From now on, if you want to continue listening, well, just head on over to patreon dot com. Slash follom alone as a Cable Box Theater is a Patreon subscriber show of the many free bonus things we're doing on over there. HP. When you're not here, where are you? I know your hosting night mister Walters and Noise Junkies. Bo Let me let me step in.
Go everyone go listen to Noise Junkies HP. Is the current host, the ring leader, the The The, the Great Baboo.
Yep, it's it's I've I've taken on the mantle of the the the curator of Noise Junkies. Check that out. Some new episodes coming on a semi regular cadence. You can also check out my band camp site hpmusicplace dot bandcamp dot com. I do have an ep that is very close to being complete, so some new content finally there. And and as Father Malone mentioned night, Mister Walters a taxi podcast myself and Father Malone, good times, fun taxi stuff. Check that out as well.
And as for me, you're listening to this show here. We're going to be back next week with more midnight viewing with Father Loans weekly round up. All right, we're gonna be looking at at least one movie I know about. That's John carp produced The Fog. That'll be next Monday, and then the week following or the Friday following will be another Tales from the dark Side. Thank you all for joining us here at Cable Box Theater. We'll see
you next time or something. I don't know. I got to come up with a catchphrase here.
Just try one if you don't like it, it's easy to give up.
Oh, nicotine, I'd better move fast up.
Away nick one, keep gone, souper man.
Is it hard to get out smoking oil?
Is it easy?
Like nicotine? Says?
You know?
Good Win?
Back nicotine? No, no, Superman, leave me one, please, I need one.
That's how hard it is. That's why I never say yes to a cigarette.
What's seeing you?
Superman?
They won't let me play with him?
Why not? See?
I'm too good?
I know how you feel.
Why don't you try the air Force?
Well, let me play the outfield last year and.
You're at Air Force recruiter.
I will, I'll do it.
How about you coming along?
And you could use a job too.
It's a bird.
It's a plain.
Right to nerve.
It's a real change of underwear, wearing under funder and you can choose some more than one woman, can't you?
That is that woman? The Spider Man? You w yes, I.
Underware.
You could buy underruths where you buy underwear.
It's underwear that it's underwear.
Still storst stop star strossis
