I’ve seen a few people online worry that, with only two months left until the debut of James Gunn’s Superman, there hasn’t been enough marketing yet. They’re worried that it shows a lack of confidence in the film. But to the contrary, I think we’re about to see Warner Bros repeat what they did two years ago with Barbie. Just like Superman, up until May there wasn’t an awful lot of official chatter yet. Then there was an AVALANCHE. New trailers, merch, a website where you could turn yourself into a Barbie meme. There was no escaping it and, in case you didn’t notice it, it turned out to be the highest grossing movie of the year. I think we’re at the beginning of that same push, and it started this week.
The debut of the new Superman trailer makes this the perfect week to kick off “Super-Sponsor,” a look at some commercials and comics that have featured the Man of Steel over the years. It’s always amused me, how fictional characters get pulled in to make a pitch for things like dog food, and I’m sure that this week is going to trigger some core memories for people. But first…
Wed., May 14
Notes: It’s funny, as the previous Superman trailer is what actually made me decide to start this whole “Year of Superman” blog in the first place, but now James Gunn is telling us that wasn’t a trailer at all. It was a “teaser,” he says, and the first real trailer is the one that hit today, May 14. What’s the difference between the two, you ask? I’m honestly not sure. If I were to guess, I would say that the first “teaser” just gave us glimpses, flavor. The trailer gives us a little more meat – in other words, the first real clue of what the story is gonna be. And of course, as it should, it starts with Lois Lane. In the trailer, Clark agrees to allow her to interview her as Superman about some recent actions that have apparently caused no small amount of controversy. Superman, he insists, has stopped a war. But Lois is questioning if that was the right thing, on the international level.
Oh, how I LOVED this. First of all, the interplay between David Corenswet and Rachel Brosnahan was spot-on. They are charming and affectionate, but at the same time, she’s a reporter, dammit, and she’s not going to blanch away from asking the hard questions. He went into a foreign country. He went without permission. “You seemingly acting as a representative of the United States–”
“I wasn’t representing anybody except for me!”
The way the tension is sculpted here is flawless. Superman going in to save lives regardless of laws or treaties? Lois refusing to back down as he has to answer for it? This is who BOTH of these characters are.
I know that some people have been concerned about the tone, afraid that Gunn (whose Guardians of the Galaxy films and The Suicide Squad both leaned heavily on comedy) would be too jokey, too flippant. This new trailer shows us a Superman who is good, decent, and pure, and struggling against a world that has difficulty accepting these things, and while it isn’t bereft of humor, it isn’t leaning on it the way those other films either. (And come on, people, even Guardians of the Galaxy mixed in the humor with real pathos. If you watched Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and didn’t shed a tear, I don’t know what I can even say to you.”
We also see María Gabriela de Faría as the Engineer, working with Lex, storming the Fortress of Solitude. We hear a nice monologue from Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor, explaining how he can’t handle this alien dominating the conversation around the world. (It almost sounds like Superman is still new in town, the way Lex is talking here. We know this movie won’t be an origin story, but it remains to be seen just how far removed from the origin we’re actually going to be.)
We see more of Mr. Terrific, Guy Gardner, and Hawkgirl. We see Krypto stealing the show a few more times.
We see a movie that promises to be about a hero trying to do the right thing and a world that doesn’t know how to handle it.
I’ve been optimistic about this movie from the beginning. As of the teaser back in December, I’ve been gung-ho. Now? Now I’m…
I don’t know. What’s the next level up from gung-ho?
I’m overjoyed, and I cannot wait for July 11.
Commercial: Milk-Bone Dog Biscuits: “For Honor”
Notes: As I said, I think this is where the marketing avalanche begins, and after Krypto became the star of the first teaser trailer, I’m not surprised to see it begin with Milk-Bone. Aside from a little Krypto footage we’ve already seen from the teaser, the trailer, and the sneak peek, we also get a scene of Mr. Terrific playing with Krypto and giving him treats, which I believe is my wife’s favorite part, as she squealed adorably with glee. I don’t own a dog, so this isn’t going to make me purchase anything, but if I did…I gotta admit, this ad would work.
Comic: Superman: A Friendship Unleashed #1
Notes: In addition to the Milk-Bone commercial, we also got a new digital comic book, also sponsored by Milk-Bone. It’s a pretty simple 10-page story by Ivan Cohen and Travis Mercer, starting with Superman and Krypto playing fetch and then winding up having to save a dog park from an out-of-control fire engine, then working together to stop a S.T.A.R. Labs disaster that the fire truck was racing to prevent. Also, there are prominent Milk-Bone logos whenever it was easy to sneak it into the artwork. Is it a great comic book? No. But it’s cute enough, and it gives Krypto a little bit of a spotlight. Historically, this is mostly notable as – except a brief prophetic vision in an episode of Creature Commandos – the first actual story appearance of David Corenswet’s Superman…well…anywhere.
Thur., May 15
Comic: Superman Meets the Quik Bunny #1
Notes: Hailing from 1986, this one-shot brings Superman face-to-face with his greatest ally: a cartoon rabbit!
No, wait, they did that in Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew #1. I guess the big difference here is that Cap gets his power from eating irradiated carrots, whereas the Quik Bunny gets his from chocolate milk.
ANYHOO…In this comic, the Weather Wizard attacks Washington, D.C., and Superman leaps into action to stop him. Why Superman instead of, say, the Flash (Weather Wizard’s usual sparring partner) or Wonder Woman (who actually lived in D.C. at the time)? Because Quik paid for Superman, dammit. Superman is quickly (no pun intended) joined by the Bunny and his friends, the Quik Club – four genius kids who are there to problem-solve and catch the Weather Wizard.
It’s a ridiculous story, but there are a couple of things for which I really do give them credit. First of all, the product placement is surprisingly kept to a minimum. The Quik Bunny and the kids are introduced while drinking chocolate milk, then it isn’t mentioned again until the climax, where the Bunny is feeling down and the kids give him a jolt of Quik to get his head back in the game. There’s one last mention on the final page, when Superman joins the Bunny and the kids for a glass, but I can allow that. After all, once you’ve saved the nation’s capital from a bad guy with control over the fundamental elements of the climate, a cool glass of chocolate milk probably WOULD hit the spot.
The other thing I like about this comic is that it’s not JUST a comic. Every two or three pages, we get a little activity that ties into the story – mazes, word scrambles, connect-the-dots, and other such games that make the book a little more interactive. Granted, modern comic book nerds would find the notion of taking a pencil to the pages of a comic book to be horrifying, but comics like this weren’t made for people who were just planning to put ‘em in plastic, they were made to give away to KIDS (and entice them to beg their parents for Nestle Quik), and kids like that sort of thing. Or at least, they did back in the 80s. Maybe it wouldn’t work now, I don’t know, but as a kid of the 80s, I for one appreciated this silly little comic book.
Fri. May 15
Comics: Superman: The Computers That Saved Metropolis
Notes: Remember Radio Shack? That little store where you could buy all the computer and electronic components that you needed? My dad was an early adopter to computer technology, and I liked accompanying him to Radio Shack because sometimes – SOMETIMES – they had these free giveaway comic books. I didn’t care that they were kind of dumb, that the “Tandy Computer Whiz Kids” were ridiculous characters, and that every book they produced were blatant commercials for Radio Shack’s TRS-80 line of personal computing devices. You know what I cared about? FREE COMICS, that’s what.
By the time I was going to Radio Shack with Dad, the comics they were producing were mostly published by Archie and starred the Whiz Kids in their own adventures, but there were three comics from before I got into them that I had to hunt down later, because they featured Superman. The first was The Computers That Saved Metropolis from 1980. The story kicks off with Superman taking time out of his busy schedule to give a guest lesson to an elementary school class about the history of computers, because apparently there were no crimes, natural disasters, or multidimensional incursions that could be a better use of his time. He begins lecturing the kids – and the reader – on the history of the computer, with a kid named Alec acting as an audience surrogate in that he finds the lecture kind of boring, despite the fact that it’s being given by Superman.
At the end of the lecture, the kids sit down to practice using the computers just as Superman is called away to stop a freak tornado that appeared out of nowhere in the middle of Metropolis. Rather than investigating this meteorological anomaly, Superman instead goes back to school where they have a little contest to see if the computer can complete math problems faster than he can. (Spoiler alert: It ends in a tie. The most ridiculous and improbable tie since the first time Superman raced the Flash.) A second test ends in Superman’s defeat, but only because (we learn) that freak tornado was the work of Major Disaster, who used it to release millions of microscopic Kryptonite fragments all over the city. The tiny crystals aren’t enough to take Superman out entirely, but they’re fogging his brain and making it hard to control his powers. With Superman operating on reduced efficiency, Disaster starts his REAL plan, screwing up the city’s computers. So Superman, of course, calls in the Justice League to take care of the situation.
HAHA! Just kidding! No, that would make sense. No, instead he burrows under the elementary school (it’s too dangerous for him to fly), bursts through the floor, and then has children use the two computers he brought in earlier that Disaster didn’t have a chance to monkey with to help guide him through averting Major Disaster’s major disasters. In the end, of course, Major Disaster is captured, the Kryptonite passes out of Superman’s system, and Alec and Shanna wind up on the news talking about how awesome computers are.
We just saw the origin story of the Tandy Computer Whiz Kids, folks. And yeah, it’s silly, and it’s ridiculous, and it is utterly illogical that Superman would allow children to guide him in the control of his powers when hundreds of thousands of lives are at stake. But ask yourself this question: is it any less plausible than the fact that Adventure Bay has outsourced its entire first responder system to a child and his six dogs? Or that virtually every law enforcement organization in the world accepts the help of the gang in the Mystery Machine? The children are our future, people. Time we accepted that.
Sat., May 17
Comics: Superman: Victory By Computer, Superman: The Computer Masters of Metropolis
Notes: Superman followed up his first adventure with the TRS-80 Whiz Kids a year later in another special, Victory By Computer. In this one, Superman and Supergirl both appear in Alec and Shanna’s classrooms, at which point the students are immediately disappointed because the all-powerful superheroes from another planet didn’t bring new computers with them. Man, and I thought MY students had attitude sometimes.
But it’s okay! Turns out that Superman and Supergirl DID bring computers – the brand-new TRS-80 POCKET computer, small enough to fit in the little pouches under their capes! As in the first special, we launch into an educational lesson, but instead of the history of computers, this time it’s about programming and modern technology. I give Radio Shack credit for at least not repeating themselves, and there is an amusing sequence where the kids are walking across a giant keyboard that looks like they got it out of the Batcave.
Oh yeah, and Lex Luthor is up to some shenanigans, this time summoning Supergirl and trapping her in a room with red sun lamps which – as we all know – negate Kryptonian powers. Fortunately, Alec and Shanna are there once again to lend a hand, aiding Superman in his cousin’s rescue with the help of an ancient and mystical creation known as…the MODEM.
In the third and final team-up with the TRS-80 kids, The Computer Masters of Metropolis, we get a new guest-star. This time, it’s Wonder Woman who shows up in Alec and Shanna’s classroom. (Meanwhile, across town at another elementary school, these visits from the fire department are seeming lamer and lamer.) After the lesson, it’s time for a surprise field trip – Wonder Woman is taking the kids down to the Metropolis World’s Fair to check out the computer exhibition. Their old pal Superman, meanwhile, is already at the fair, where he’s standing guard after Lex Luthor threatened to destroy the fair because they refused to showcase any of his scientific achievements. (Golly, I wonder why?)
There’s more Wonder Woman than Superman in this book, and she spends the first half of it giving the kids a tour of the fair, talking a little bit more about the history of computers, and impressing upon them just how integrated they have become in our daily lives. It’s actually pretty quaint to read this sort of thing – in 1982, computers were still a novelty. If they were to try to write a story today talking about how everybody uses computers, it would seem as ridiculous as telling them how important cars or, like, refrigerators are. After the kids go home, Wonder Woman sticks around in her Diana Prince identity, unaware that Luthor has tricked Superman into yet another Red Sun trap. The guy must keep the factory that makes those bulbs in business all by himself.
Superman is stuck in an auditorium bathed in the red bulbs, and Luthor has rigged the place with explosives to prevent him from escaping. But he’s made a mistake, as villains do – he forgot to remove the TELEPHONE. So Superman calls the Daily Planet and…gets a busy signal. So who does he call next? Batman? Supergirl? The Inferior Five ?Ambush Bug?
HE CALLS ALEC. THE SIXTH GRADER WITH A COMPUTER.
And Alec calls Shanna.
And Shanna calls the World’s Fair and has them page Wonder Woman, who saves Superman from the trap, and they capture Luthor.
These books are wild, guys.
Like I said when I wrote about the first of these three comics, they’re silly and quaint, and just as a nerd who loves both Superman and weird comics, I enjoy having these. But there’d never be any danger of them turning up in any collected edition of the Greatest Superman Stories ever told.
On the other hand, I wonder who actually owns the TRS-80 Whiz Kids now that Radio Shack doesn’t exist anymore. Is that valuable IP floating around somewhere? Could Alec and Shanna turn up in some gritty Black Label series, probably by Tom King? And if so, would they still be…the Computer Masters of Metropolis?
I’m just kidding, guys, this is never gonna happen.
A quick note that has nothing to do with the Whiz Kids, guys, but that I thought was interesting. If you’ll recall, I started this week’s blog writing about the new Milk-Bone comic book, and at the time, I thought it was digital-only. Looks like I was wrong, though – there WAS a print run, and you could order it from Milk-Bone with a box of dog biscuits. Apparently this was ridiculously popular, so popular that the website had to be taken down and the print version of this book is now showing up on eBay for upwards of $80. It was absurd to me, and I couldn’t figure out why people were going so crazy for it – then it hit me.
Like I said then, TECHNICALLY, that Milk-Bone comic book is the first appearance of David Corenswet’s Superman. And I bet the speculators are pouncing on it for that reason.
I’ll check eBay again in six months. It’ll probably be more reasonable then.
Sun. May 18
Commercials: “Superman Peanut Butter,” “Superman Vs. Nick O’Teen”
Notes: Over the years, Superman has occasionally turned up in commercials for products or services that didn’t really have any relevance to him personally. In fact, in one case, they even NAMED a product after him for truly astonishing reasons. Back in the early 80s, Sunnyland Refining Co. had a new brand of Peanut Butter it was planning to launch, and so of course they asked the obvious question: who is the obvious spokesman? Peter Pan was popular, of course, so maybe another flying hero. Condorman? Casper the Friendly Ghost? Tweety Bird? No. The obvious answer, of course, was Superman.
Or something like that, I have no idea how Sunnyland wound up making Superman Peanut Butter, and Google has not been particularly helpful in my research, but I sure as hell REMEMBER Superman Peanut Butter. I remember it, I miss it, and I firmly believe that if we could bring it back today the world would be at least a little bit better for everybody except for people like my nephew who have nut allergies. (Sorry, Grant.)
There were a few commercials over the years for Superman Peanut Butter, but the one I remember most fondly was this one from 1983, in which Superman has been captured by Lex Luthor. Luthor, demonstrating the primary concern of most supervillains, wanted Superman to tell him the secret of why Superman Peanut Butter tastes so great: “So fresh roasted,” Lex intones, “So creamy!” As he berates the Man of Steel for his refusal to share his legume-spread secrets, a bunch of random kids peek in through a glassless window, drop a rope, and swing Lex’s Kryptonite to a lead box that has been left conveniently open, allowing Superman to burst out of his cell and capture him. I don’t know exactly which level of the DC Multiverse this commercial takes place in, but this is clearly not the smartest Lex Luthor we’ve got. On the other hand, this Superman was willing to die in order to protect his peanut butter secret, so maybe he isn’t the smartest Supes, either.
At any rate, this goofy commercial has stuck with me for all these years, and darn it, I DO still long for a slice of toast with a thick layer of Superman Brand Peanut butter. A few weeks ago, in the Comic Book Collecting Facebook Group I help moderate, someone asked the question of whether anyone ever REALLY bought Superman Peanut Butter just because of the association with the character.
Yes, sir. I assure you. We did.
The same year that Superman Peanut Butter launched, we also got a trio of anti-smoking ads starring the man of tomorrow. All three ads follow the same basic pattern. A bunch of kids are being approached by a hideous villain called Nick O’Teen who tries to entice them to try cigarettes. Superman shows up. Superman kind of brutalizes Nick. Then he crushes the cigarettes with his Kryptonian might and stares at the camera.
That is not to suggest that the commercials are identical, of course. In one of them, Superman destroys the cigarettes in front of Nick’s face as he begs, pathetically, for a fix. In another, Nick is disguised as a wizard teaching the kids magic tricks with cigarettes before Superman stops him. And in one, Superman just gets so fed up that he hurls Nick O’Teen far enough away that – as my wife commented as she watched the commercial with me – “he straight-up murdered him.”
Maybe, but who’s gonna cry for the guy trying to give cigarettes to kids?
To say that these ads are poorly made is an understatement. Superman is constantly off-model, and he doesn’t even seem to have a consistent voice in the three of them. In fact, in the first it almost sounds like someone was trying to do an impression of Arnold Schwarzenneger before he began to speak the flawless English he is known for today. But the question remains: were these commercials EFFECTIVE?
Well, the message we seem to take away from them is, “If you try cigarettes, you will be brutally killed by Superman.” And I gotta admit, that’s enough to make me never want to take a puff.
In 2004 we once again saw Superman grace American televisions to shill a product. This time, though, he wasn’t alone. Superman (voiced by Patrick Warburton) is joined by none other than Jerry Seinfeld in an ad called “A Uniform Used to Mean Something” by American Express. Although most of us saw the 30- or 60-second truncated versions of this ad campaign, there’s a full five minute short film on YouTube that you can – and should – watch right now.
Seinfeld (who of course CLAIMS to be a huge Superman fan, but ask yourself, where’s HIS “Year of Superman” blog? Huh? HUH?) and Superman are going out to lunch. They engage in a series of conversations that would have fit in perfectly on his self-titled sitcom – complaining about the amount of mayonnaise on a sandwich, discussing how great the surround sound on Jerry’s new DVD player will be (“What do you care? You’ve got super-hearing.” “Yeah, but it’s not SURROUND SOUND.”) And then, as Superman is stuck reading the reviews for a new musical, a crook rushes past and steals Jerry’s DVD player right out from under him. Superman stops him, of course, but not before the criminal throws it at Superman and it breaks.
WHAT DO WE DO?
Superman’s suggestion, of course, is that he fly around the world so fast that he goes back in time and stops the DVD player from being damaged. Jerry has a simpler idea – his American Express card protects his purchases from theft, damage, or being bounced off a superhero’s chest for 90 days after purchase, and he easily gets a new one.
If somebody wanted to create a time capsule of pop culture in the early years of the 21st century, they would pretty much HAVE to include this ad. It was ridiculously ubiquitous back in 2004, it seemed like it was on the air every other commercial break…and what’s more, it also serves well as a bite-sized taste of the Seinfeld TV show, as well as the kind of stunts credit card companies used to use to draw in customers.
Man, Super-Sponsor week is a ride, my friends.
Mon., May 19
Short Film: Stamp Day For Superman (1954)
Notes: Remember those days in school when the teacher would pull out a filmstrip, the VCR, or the DVD player, depending on how old you are? (If you’re too young to remember the DVD player, I’m not even sure why you’re reading this blog.) Weren’t those days the best? Well, in 1954, the people behind the TV show The Adventures of Superman made an 18-minute short film to promote US Savings Bonds. Superman (George Reeves) and Lois Lane (Noel Neill) are on a stroll down the streets of Metropolis when they’re alerted to a robbery. Lois goes off to get the story, while Clark goes after the robbers. One of them gets away, but the other turns himself in to Superman, confessing that the only reason he turned to crime is because he’s never been able to save his money, which makes you wonder how somebody from 2025 made it to the 1950s.
Back at the Daily Planet office, Jimmy Olsen (Jack Larson) shows off the brand-new typewriter he bought when some of the US Savings Bonds he bought back when he was a kid finally matured, because even in the 50s Jimmy was one wild and crazy guy. His glittering purchase gives Clark the idea of having Superman visit Jimmy’s old school to help promote “Stamp Day,” the day to buy savings bonds. As Clark and Jimmy go to the school to help set up for the promotion, Lois gets a phone call from an informant who confesses that he’s the missing robber – he knows he’s going to get caught, and he’ll only surrender to Lois Lane, alone.
I want to offer a US Savings Bond to anybody who can guess what happens to Lois next, but I’m a public school teacher and there’s no way in hell I can afford that many.
Thaaaaat’s right – Lois gets caught and tied up, and it’s going to be up to Superman to get her out of yet another one. This time, though, he’s got the added difficulty of setting her free in time for Stamp Day!
I haven’t gotten around to talking about the Adventures of Superman show yet, although I fully intend to do so when I do the planned week where I watch the first episodes of all the assorted Superman TV shows. But I’m delighted that this goofy little short exists, giving me a chance to wax poetically about it here during “Super-Sponsor” week. Although the story is, naturally, a blatant propaganda film promoting the purchase of savings bonds (to the film’s credit, it never tries to claim otherwise), you still get to see Reeves and Neill at their best. Reeves is square-jawed and charming, and although his Clark and Superman have very little difference in how he plays the characters, he’s like a Wayne Boring Superman climbed right off the page and came to life. And while Noel Neill’s Lois frequently had to play the damsel in distress, I don’t remember a single episode where she lost her cool, pleaded with her captors, or hatched some hare-brained scheme to entrap Superman in marriage. No, even while she’s tied up by the dubiously-named robber “Blinky,” she’s clever and snarky. Honestly, she’s got the best traits of the era’s Lois Lane and none of her foibles.
If you extract the scenes about Stamp Day (which honestly wouldn’t be difficult to do) you would have a pretty standard – albeit short – episode of the TV show. What’s more, because the movie was made for the federal government, it’s in the public domain. And yet somehow, I wasn’t aware of its existence until 2016, when it got goofed on as the finale of the RiffTrax Live: Mystery Science Theater 3000 Reunion Show. As I’m almost as big a fan of RiffTrax and MST3K as I am of Superman, watching this film with almost every MST3K host, bot, or mad throwing out their bon mots was just a delight. It’s not a bad episode on its own, but if I’m being honest, I enjoy it more with the riff treatment.
Comics: New Gods Vol. 5 #5 (Cameo)
Tues., May 20
Commercials: Ralph Nader Kryptonite Commercial, Superman for the US Air Force
Notes: Kids, once upon a time, there was a guy named Ralph Nader. Nader is a lawyer who kind of became a celebrity through advocating for consumer protection and environmental causes. In fact, a book he wrote in the 60s pushed public opinion to the point that the government began to enforce stronger safety regulations for the automobile industry, so hey, thanks Ralph. He also ran for president several times, although he never made it as a major party candidate, but he’s still kicking it at 91 years old, so there’s still time, right?
“Blake, why the hell are you talking about Ralph Nader?” you may be asking. And for once, Presumptuous Disembodied Voice From the Back of the Auditorium, I am in complete agreement with you. Ralph Nader showing up here in my Year of Superman blog makes no sense. But neither does what I’m about to talk to you about. In the 1980s, Nader appeared in a one-minute television spot talking about the various colors of Kryptonite. Normally, when I link to something off my site, I just kind of drop the link in the middle of a paragraph and trust that you’re smart enough to click on it, but I’m not going to do that this time. No, I need to draw attention to it, because I think everybody needs to see this. Go ahead. Click the link below and watch this commercial with me.
Ralph Nader Kryptonite Commercial on YouTube
Back? Okay, let’s talk about what we all just shared. Ralph Nader – PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE RALPH NADER – spends 60 seconds telling you about the various versions of Kryptonite that exist, and warns you to be careful not to be scammed when purchasing your Kryptonite from some sort of sleazy backroom dealer. “Gold Kryptonite robs you of your powers! Green Krytonite makes you drowsy, inert, and eventually destroys you! Red Kryptonite…now that’s the unpredictable stuff.” Then he closes off the spot by telling you that if your Kryptonite is not properly and clearly labeled, you should take your business elsewhere.
This. Is. BONKERS.
And the thing that’s MOST bonkers about this is that I have NO IDEA WHY THIS COMMERCIAL EXISTS. There’s no tag on the end that points you to a product, a service, a movie. There are clips from the old Adventures of Superman TV show with George Reeves, but if the commercial is intended to promote reruns of that show, why don’t they tell us what time and channel to tune in? And what’s more, why show panels from the comic books, or footage of the Superman balloon in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade? Neither of those would promote the TV show at all. It’s almost like a Saturday Night Live bit, but there’s no audience laughter to indicate as such, and I can’t think of any other TV show of the era that would have made a spot like this…nor does it really go wacky enough to suggest that it was intended as a comedy sketch. So what IS it? WHY WAS THIS COMMERCIAL MADE? WHY DOES IT EXIST?
If you know, friends, please tell me before it drives me insane.
The last commercial I’m going to talk about is a recruiting spot from 1974, in which baseball player and manager Dick Williams talks about how the Air Force is like a baseball team – all about people working together and learning skills.
As he walks through a baseball stadium, he encounters Superman (or, rather, an actor wearing a rather shoddy Superman costume) pouting because they won’t let him play baseball with them. “They say I’m too good.”
“I know how you feel,” Williams said. “Why don’t you try the Air Force?”
I mean, let’s be honest here, if Superman WERE to join the military, the Air Force makes the most sense.
While not as completely nonsensical as the Nader spot, this one is kind of depressing, seeing a schlumpy kind of guy in a Superman costume moping around a baseball diamond. He should have cheered up anyway – he was only six years away from getting consistently shown up by a pair of sixth graders using a Radio Shack TRS-80 computer.
Comics: Challengers of the Unknown Vol. 5 #5 (Guest Appearance)
Super-Sponsor week comes to a close, friends. This was a weird one. I would have had many more commercials to choose from if I’d used actual Superman products, like the action figures, and maybe I’ll come back and do that some other time. There are also a few other giveaway comics I managed to identify – such as one from the 90s or early 2000s in which Superman and Supergirl talk about energy conservation – but I don’t actually have a copy to review. (Yet. But as long as eBay exists, the possibility stands.) At any rate, this was a bizarre spin around the world of Superman, and next week I’ll be getting back to some more traditional stuff, with TWO new Superman-related titles making their debut this month to talk about. And since one of them stars Superman’s famous cousin, I think I’ll go ahead and declare next week SUPERGIRL WEEK.
See ya then.
Blake M. Petit is a writer, teacher, and dad from Ama, Louisiana. His most recent writing project is the superhero adventure series Other People’s Heroes: Little Stars, volume one of which is now available on Amazon. You can subscribe to his newsletter by clicking right here. You can join in the Kryptonian Konversation every day in the Year of Superman Facebook Group!
Blake M. Petit 