Adventures of Superman (TV Series) - Production

Production

In 1951, California exhibitor and B-movie producer Robert L. Lippert released a 67-minute black-and-white feature starring George Reeves and Phyllis Coates called Superman and the Mole Men with a script by Robert Maxwell (as Richard Fielding) and direction by Lee Sholem. The film prompted the first television season to go into production in August/September of the same year. The series discontinued production, however, and remained unaired until September 1952 when cereal manufacturer Kellogg's agreed to sponsor the show, as the company had previously done with the Superman radio series. The success of the series came as a complete surprise to the cast. Jack Larson remembers being in New York City and was totally caught off guard by his new found fame. Regarding the initial feature film, Superman and the Mole Men, was edited into a two-part story called "The Unknown People" and was televised late in the first season, the only multi-part story of the series.

After the first season's filming was completed, actress Phyllis Coates made other commitments and did not return as Lois Lane for the second season. Noel Neill (who had played the character in the theatrical serials) stepped into the role, and remained in the role until the series' cancellation. The core cast thereafter remained intact with Phillips Tead occasionally joining the regulars in the last seasons as the eccentric recurring character Professor Pepperwinkle. To promote and advertise the show, cast members Reeves, Hamilton and Larson were able to gain extra money by appearing in Kellogg's commercials during the second season. However, Noel Neill was never approached for these, because sponsors worried that scenes of Clark Kent having breakfast with Lois Lane would be too suggestive.

From the beginning, the series was filmed like a movie serial with principals wearing the same costumes throughout the show to expedite out-of-sequence shooting schedules and save budgetary costs. For instance, all scenes that took place in the "Perry White Office" set would be filmed back to back, for future placement in various episodes, which was often confusing to the actors. Money was further saved by using Clark's office as Lois's office with a simple change of wall hangings, thus dispensing with additional set construction. Other scenic short-cuts were employed. In the last seasons, for example, few exterior location shoots were conducted with episodes being filmed almost entirely in the studio.

The budget for the series was relatively low with a complete episode averaging $15,000. The series' actors were paid $200 per episode, with the show's historians and Jack Larson stating that the cast had to make repeated requests to producers before they were given a $50 raise, or else they would quit production. By the end of the run, star Reeves was making at least $2500 per episode, but the rest of the cast still made considerably less. The stars were signed to a "run of the show contract," meaning the producers could demand their services to shoot a new season within thirty days' notice. However, this clause also prohibited them from doing any long-term commitments like movies or plays.

Reeves's red-blue-and-yellow Superman costume was originally brown-gray-and-white, so that it would photograph in appropriate gray tones on black-and-white film. After two seasons the producers decided to film the show in color, a bold move at the time. Very few TV series were filmed in color in the mid-1950s. Color television was only standardized in 1953, so most viewers owned black-and-white sets and could not see the show in color. The visionary producers knew that color television was on the horizon, and predicted that the filmed episodes would be more valuable later. They were right: the Superman series ultimately commanded ten times the asking price for black-and-white programming. Filming of the color episodes began in late 1954, and were broadcast in monochrome starting in early 1955. Because of the added cost of filming in color, the producers cut the number of episodes per season in half. Each 26-week season would feature 13 new episodes and 13 reruns of the older black-and-white shows. The monochrome prints of the color episodes also had to be treated so that there would be a somewhat similar contrast in the colors of Reeves' new costume as there were with the one from the earlier seasons (with the contrast increasing each season), as the gray tones of the blue and red colors would otherwise have been rendered nearly indistinguishable.

Throughout the last 50 episodes, a lackadaisical attitude toward flubbed lines prevailed, ascribed to morale deterioration among cast and crew with the added expense of color filming and salary disputes. Producer Whitney Ellsworth later admitted: "Sometimes there was just garbage in the rushes, but we were often forced to use what we had, rather than relight the set and go again."