Episode 126 - The Fleischer Superman Shorts with Brendan and Nick Connors

For many, the Fleischer Studios produced Superman Animated Shorts are the classic depiction of the Man of Steel and it's about time we talked about them.  For this conversation, Case and Jmike are joined by Brendan and Nick Connors from the City of Supers podcast.

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Meeting summary:

●      In the meeting titled "126 - MoS - The Fleischer Cartoons.mp3," hosts Case Aiken, Jmike Folson, Nick, and Brendan Connors discussed the historical significance and impact of the Max Fleischer Superman cartoons. The meeting covered detailed analyses of various episodes, including 'Superman (The Mad Scientist)', where they compared it to early comics and radio shows, 'The Mechanical Monsters' with its iconic robots, and 'Billion Dollar Limited' featuring a thrilling train robbery. They also examined episodes like 'The Arctic Giant' with its Godzilla-like creature, 'The Bulleteers' with its impractical car-plane hybrid, 'The Magnetic Telescope' involving electromagnetic themes, 'Electric Earthquake' with its ethical implications, and 'Terror on the Midway' featuring a King Kong-like gorilla. Action items included watching the initial episodes, reviewing specific episodes for their kaiju elements, and listening to the City of Supers podcast for further superhero content.

Notes:

●      🎬 Introduction to Fleischer Superman Cartoons (00:00 - 02:22)

●      Discussion on the historical context and significance of the Fleischer Superman cartoons.

●      Introduction of hosts and guests: Case Aiken, Jmuk Folson, Nick, and Brendan Connors.

●      Overview of the Max Fleischer Superman cartoons and their impact on the Superman mythos.

●      🎥 Episode Analysis: Superman (The Mad Scientist) (02:23 - 12:57)

●      Detailed discussion on the first episode, 'Superman' or 'The Mad Scientist'.

●      Comparison to the radio show and early comics.

●      Iconic scenes like Superman fighting the beam and the introduction of the vulture.

●      🤖 Episode Analysis: The Mechanical Monsters (12:58 - 23:41)

●      Discussion on the second episode featuring iconic robot designs.

●      Superman fighting robots and the introduction of his x-ray vision.

●      Lois Lane's proactive role and the recurring mountain lair.

●      🚂 Episode Analysis: Billion Dollar Limited (23:42 - 33:40)

●      Analysis of the third episode involving a gold robbery on a train.

●      Lois Lane's badass moment with a Tommy gun.

●      Superman's struggle against tear gas and bullets.

●      🦖 Episode Analysis: The Arctic Giant (33:41 - 42:28)

●      Discussion on the fourth episode featuring a Godzilla-like creature.

●      Comparison to early dinosaur depictions and the rapid melting of ice.

●      Superman's fight against the giant creature and the collapsing bridge.

●      🚗 Episode Analysis: The Bulleteers (42:29 - 52:04)

●      Analysis of the fifth episode with a car-plane hybrid used by villains.

●      Discussion on the impracticality of the vehicle and the mayor's overreaction.

●      Superman's method of defeating the vehicle and the destruction caused.

●      🔭 Episode Analysis: The Magnetic Telescope (52:05 - 01:01:13)

●      Discussion on the sixth episode featuring a mad scientist with a magnetic telescope.

●      Superman's use of his powers to boost a scientific device.

●      Comparison to modern electromagnetic telescopes.

●      🌊 Episode Analysis: Electric Earthquake (01:01:14 - 01:12:19)

●      Analysis of the seventh episode with a native american mad scientist.

●      Discussion on the ethical implications and the underwater base.

●      Superman's struggle against wires and the scientist's valid points.

●      🎪 Episode Analysis: Terror on the Midway (01:12:20 - 01:23:36)

●      Discussion on the ninth episode featuring a King Kong-like gorilla.

●      Superman's fight against various circus animals.

●      The detailed animation of animals and the iconic close-up of Superman's butt.

Action items:

●      Watch the first two episodes of the Fleischer Superman cartoons for reference (01:11:43)

●      Check out the arctic giants and terror on the midway episodes for their kaiju elements (01:11:55)

●      Listen to the City of Supers podcast for more superhero content (01:18:04)

Transcription

00:00
Case
When we covered the first on record, but the second time they actually did a Batman Superman crossover. We had to listen to the episode before it to get the lead in. And the one before it was about them dealing with a bunch of, like, kleptomaniac little people. And yes, I mean, all the things you think about that. Like, when I started listening to it after we had, like, picked out the episode list, I didn't realize that was the plot of it. Like, I couldn't remember. It had been a while, and I was like, oh, my God, we have guests who are listening to this. And they're like, what did Casey do? Hey, everyone, and welcome back to the Men of Steel podcast. I'm case Aiken, and as always, I am joined by my co host, Jmike Folson.

00:56
Jmike
Welcome back, everybody. So glad to have you.

00:59
Case
Yeah, glad to be here for an episode that is honestly long overdue.

01:03
Jmike
Yeah.

01:03
Case
Considering that we are a Superman podcast and we've been going for, like, 120 some episodes, I'm not sure the exact episode number this is dropping at because all of our backups we had recorded, pre sag strike, are finally coming out. But today we are talking about something that is pretty crazy that we haven't discussed so far. Today we are talking about the Max Fleischer Superman cartoons. And for that conversation, we are joined by Nick and Brendan Connors.

01:27
Brendan
How's it going?

01:28
Nick
Hey, very nice to be. Very glad to be on. A little nervous now to be on anticipated episode.

01:33
Case
You know, I mean, we've touched on similar stuff to this at some point. And one thing we didn't talk about before we started recording is we have done a bunch of episodes on the radio show, which is intimately related to the cartoons because the cast overlaps. So this is not like, our first rodeo in this era or even really dealing with the people involved in this all. Like, we don't need to spend that much time talking about the cast, although I do want to talk about how, man, they sound weird. Like, I have very distinct ideas of, like, what all these actors sound like. And there's, like, something going on with the audio quality in this that, like, Bud Collier just sounds very different as Superman and Clark Kent than he does in the radio show. And I get it. It's a radio show.

02:16
Case
The audio quality is, like the thing you have to have. But it's interesting that it is as different as it is.

02:22
Brendan
I haven't heard much of the radio show. Is it as episodic as this is, or is it a little more.

02:27
Case
It's very serialized. So for one thing, most of the stories are like, five to ten part stories and in some cases even longer. And for another, it directly feeds into the next episode every time. So when an arc ends, the epilogue of every arc's last episode is the prelude to the next arc so that you're always hooked on it.

02:47
Nick
That's the lovable things with anything superhero related. It's like, well, you can watch this one, but you have to watch this five episode arc or this. Read these ten comics that aren't good, but they're kind of related.

02:59
Case
Fortunately, I would say that talking about the Max Fleischer cartoons, it's like the opposite problem, which is that you can watch a lot of them and then kind of forget them because there's a lot of, like, overlapping themes and stuff. And so for today's episode, we're talking about specifically the Fleischer Studios cartoon. So for people who really want to get into a deep dive on this whole thing, there's like 20 some episodes total of the overall, like, this era of animated Superman shorts that were, generally speaking, serials or, like, placed as, you know, pre rolls for a movie kind of stuff. And they're divided in two. So the first half is the Fleischer studios, which is famous animation house quoted at the time because they didn't want to do this production of, like, just like giving some astronomical figure that.

03:45
Case
Not Warner Brothers, because it wasn't Warners yet, but, like, the DC came back and was like, yeah, no, let's do it.

03:51
Jmike
Let's do it. That's crazy, though.

03:54
Case
Yeah, no, they pitched. It's like, no, it would cost at least this to get this done. And then it was still a pain in the ass to do it because money doesn't buy time. So they still had to kind of deal with all that. But about halfway through the production run, the studio was absorbed and rebranded and became famous studios. And there is a noticeable difference in the production slate as well because this is the first batch of these movies versus the second round that occurred. And the second round occurring happens way more into the world War two period. There's a lot more propaganda kind of stuff going on. We're not talking about those today. They are uncomfortable.

04:28
Brendan
Sort of the opposite of the radio show problem. There is a hard stop at these.

04:36
Case
Yeah, yeah. The radio show has some stuff going on with it. Like, I'm not gonna say that it's, like, woke, but at the very least, it's like, usually, like, man, there are particular germans that are really bad guys. Out there, and it's like, yeah, no, let's just deal with that. Like, Superman definitely does not like nazis. We can all agree on that one. So, guys, this is your first time on the show. I'm curious, coming from the standpoint of comic book fandom and superhero fandom, where do you guys fall? And specifically, just in general, and then specifically with Superman and then specifically with these cartoons. Brendan, why don't you go first?

05:11
Brendan
Yeah, of course. I thought I knew so much more about comics before I started a superhero based podcast. I felt like I knew, like, five to ten things, because I, in terms of comic reading, I try to hit, like, the big ones just to have any sort of, you know, I've read, like, all stars, Superman, like, you go through watchmen and all, but I was never a weeklies guy, and I never will be a weeklies guy. But I think they're neat. They wear tights. They have capes. This one has a cape. And Superman specifically, though, like, the earliest thing I can remember of Superman is Superman Returns, which I thought was phenomenal at the time, because I had never seen a man fly on screen before. It made me believe a man could fly. And then you watch it again.

05:55
Brendan
But I'd always like, I don't think I've ever disliked a Superman film or, like, property that I've seen. But then these specifically, it was actually when. It was just, like, two years ago when we started city of supers, which we'll get to in plugs, but I wanted to get golden age sort of stuff because I thought it would be fun to have a very base knowledge of superheroes going into it. But I kind of fell in love with these. They're very charming. They're very beautiful. They're incredibly well animated. You can tell that they used all of the money.

06:28
Case
Yes.

06:29
Brendan
And I was also surprised that you going through the backlog, I was surprised you guys hadn't covered it. I almost felt like when I asked, I was almost trepidatious. Like, are you guys saving this for, like, anniversary episode, or is this going to be, like, the 500th?

06:43
Nick
I think for me, if you asked child Nick what his favorite superhero would be, it would probably be Superman. But if you also asked what his character he picks in Mario Kart, it would be Mario, because he's on the COVID So I did really enjoy Superman. I think I got into comics later in life, like, in college, and it was mainly due to just the success of the Marvel movies. And I wanted to read more about Marvel. So most of my superhero knowledge is based on Marvel. But then I started getting into that. Jaded Watchmen, invincible, you know, the boys kind of comics and tv shows. So this was a really nice change of pace where everything just. Superman's just nice, and he saves the day, and he's a hero.

07:24
Nick
But, yeah, I'm very excited to talk about these because they're very fun and very beautiful animations.

07:31
Case
Yeah, yeah, super beautiful. Like, pardon the pun. There wasn't intentional. It just. This is the thing about Superman, which is that, like every other superhero, where it's, like, adjective, name, super is the one that we just kind of default to in the english language. It's like, it's. That's why. That's why he's the first superhero where it was like, it must have been us, Superman, because, like, that's not. That's not a weird thing to say. As opposed to, like, it was a wonder woman who did that too. You know, it's like a slightly different kind of vibe. It must have been a Captain Marvel who could have moved that train. So we've referenced the money a few times, and I probably should actually give a figure.

08:07
Case
So it was $100,000 that they quoted per short, which in today's money, comes out to 1.54 million for ten minutes of footage for each one, which is so much. And it dropped down to 50 when it switched over to the famous studios one. And that's another thing that we'll talk about differences when we ultimately tackle those in a future episode. But for right now, let's talk about these. So the radio show is super popular. They are like, let's bring on that cast, because common practice for radio shows at the time is that they don't credit their actors so that they can be supposedly the people. So Superman is talking to you.

08:45
Case
And so the actor Bud Clayton Collier had become, you know, pardon me, I almost said super identified, but, like, again, english language, but had become extremely, like, marked as, like, this is Superman's voice. He's the one who, like, brought that whole idea of a Clark Superman change in the voice. The one that, you know, Kevin Conroy, like, aped for Batman, the animated series. You know, to really, like, exemplify it with, like, the, like, well, this looks like a job first. You know, like, having that actual vocal change and having that, like, proficiency as a voice actor to really convey two different parts, despite the fact that it's one actor and it's on an audio medium. And so when they were trying to make these, they really wanted to bring those elements. So they bring the cast over and they make. They make these.

09:30
Case
And, you know, we're going to talk about the first nine of them, which I am not sure how often I have seen all of these. I'm pretty sure I've seen all of them at some point, but they kind of blend together. There's some shared elements between them that lend itself to it. But it's interesting looking at these from the perspective of, well, we just recently looked at my adventures with Superman, which is the very modern update of Superman in animated format. And you can see the similar elements. You can see how much that these cartoons really shape the Superman mythos in a way that even more so than the radio show, even more so than the comics, where it's like, okay, this is the look for the character.

10:08
Case
I mean, obviously, it's got the black s instead of the yellow section, but all the jokes about Superman just saving Lois are in here. Like the phone booth stuff, the rapid change stuff that's all really baked in here in a way that even the radio show, he more just sort of ducked away and then Superman shows up kind of thing. You're visualizing him constantly transforming in some sort of the phone booth scenario or the Janitor's closet or whatever.

10:33
Brendan
He does use whatever. He's pretty open about it in these cartoons.

10:37
Case
Yeah. There's one I really appreciate where I'm both confused why the scene happens, but at the same time, I like that it's like a different location. And we'll talk about that when we get to it. But on that note, these are all really short. So I kind of feel like we should just sort of work our way through them because a lot of my notes are just like, man, that's the same thing, right?

10:56
Nick
For how much the producers paid for these, I would be a little upset over, like, okay, he just says that line, and I think that's the same animation as the last one.

11:05
Case
I'm curious, like, how much could they even cut corners at this phase of animation? It looks really good. Like, beautiful. I think I forget. Did I share the link with you guys for, like, the HD remasters that are just, like, up on YouTube?

11:18
Brendan
Oh, no. I didn't realize that there were HD versions.

11:21
Case
Like, they look really good and, like, they clearly have, like, the assets to make them look really good. So that part is never really an issue. That said, talking about the first one, which is kind of just called Superman, it's also called the mad scientist. This is the one where Lois's model is so different from every other.

11:38
Brendan
This is the only one where she doesn't look like Judy Garland.

11:41
Case
Yeah.

11:42
Brendan
They could tell what was marketable in between the first one coming out and the second one. And then they hardship.

11:47
Case
Right? Like, very distinct, like, facial features that just do not appear in all the later ones. Like, all the later ones, at least consistently the same person.

11:53
Brendan
This is the only one where she has a nose that is lost on.

11:57
Nick
The rest of them.

11:58
Case
All the later ones, they have that, like, little anime nub kind of thing going on. So J Mike, noting that this is coming in the wake of the success of the radio show, I took this as an adaptation of the Doctor Dahlgren atomic Beam story, which is like the second story in the originals that we looked at. Did that also come across to you? It's not a one to one, and it's been a while since we looked at it, but, like, did you get that vibe?

12:22
Jmike
Oh, a little bit. But, like, I was reading around and everyone was kind of saying this is like a ultra humanite type thing.

12:29
Case
Oh, the first villain.

12:30
Jmike
Yeah, yeah. They were like, it's kind of a comparison to that one. I was like, I kind of get it.

12:36
Case
I think this one sets up the mad scientist as the default villain for the weak man to deal with in all these. Nick, you brought up Invincible earlier, and this is the one that has that iconic building catch shot that I think is directly parodied in the fight. That's funny, because that sequence is not in the comic fight. It's in the tv show. So it's like one where I'm like, I think they put that in there just to be like, oh, yeah, no, this is where we get into the deconstructionist motion of the invincible comics before we get come around to the reconstructionist face. Here's the staple of Superman material. Here's invincible trying to do that. And here's what happens to gravity and to a building when pushed it into a weird angle. Oh, it's going to collapse and everyone's going to die.

13:20
Nick
When nothing is made of rubber in.

13:22
Case
The real world, but it is an iconic shot. It does have that kind of rubbery physics that we associate with, like early, like Bugs Bunny and, like, Mickey Mouse cartoons. You know, it's there. It's very much the pilot. This is what you are used to expecting from a cartoon. Here's a Superman cartoon. Here's, you know, all that, but it's hitting all the big nails like that. You need to hit, like, all those beats are there.

13:41
Brendan
I was a little surprised just because I'm not too familiar with, like, golden age Superman. Because in the very beginning of this, they say that he grew up in an orphanage.

13:49
Case
Yes.

13:49
Brendan
Which I had never heard before.

13:51
Case
So that is straight up doing the opening from action comics as opposed to the first issue of Superman, which does not go into the Kents or anything like that. So also interesting for us to see that here. So this comes out in 1941. So it is several years after a lot of these elements have been added. But it kind of makes me think of the original Ninja Turtles movie, where it's way closer to the original comics than the tv show that was out at the same time. Just because of production cycles and what source material they were looking at. Or, like, the pilot for the 66 Batman is like a direct issue adaptation, you know, minus the Bat Watusi. It feels like that's where they're trying to figure out what they're referencing. They take like, okay, yeah, action comics number one, super famous.

14:36
Case
Like, a ton of people, like, bought it. Everyone knows it. It has a one pager origin for him. All right, yeah, we can adapt that pretty quick. But it's interesting that they're specifically looking at that and not the stuff that has been built out by the larger origins of the character.

14:52
Brendan
He's much more everyman once you get to seeing Clark Kent, even though he's, like, corn fed, middle of nowhere americana, kind of doing the everywhere thing when he does grow up with the Kents. But this is truly. You can put any face you want on him. You don't know where he came from. He is just a man deciding to do what's right. They wait, like, six or seven episodes until it almost feels like a twist that they're in Manhattan, right? Yeah, it's, like, shy. But I didn't know if there was a metropolis at this time either.

15:23
Case
I'm not sure. It took a long time for it to become, like, formally metropolis, as opposed to just a city. There's a lot of the early radio show where they just say the city, and there are times where they start to break your brain on if it's east coast or west coast, even. It's a lot.

15:38
Brendan
And as Christopher Reeves taught us, Superman cannot be on the east coast and the west coast at the same time.

15:44
Case
Not without turning the planet backwards. So this, like, first episode, however, is very much, here's a man scientist. We're gonna deal with it. The punching the beams, like, that's gotta be something that they're parroting in man of steel, right? Like, where it's so iconic. But they treat a laser radioactive thing as if it's like a hose, you know?

16:07
Brendan
But that is. I mean, that's probably, like, the strongest image from this episode. And honestly, maybe the whole series is him fighting. Fighting the beam back. And it's like, you truly, like, if I try to put myself in, like, the shoes of, like, a child who paid a nickel to hang out at the movie theater all day and this is what they saw. Like, I'd lose my mind. My brain would melt out of the side of my ear.

16:29
Nick
Yeah, they would have your actual reaction of a man can fly. I've never seen that for in theaters. As opposed to yours in 2006, watching Superman.

16:39
Case
Yeah, because, like, there wasn't really much like it. I mean, Popeye, I guess, had, like, super strength feats that were kind of similar, but, like.

16:47
Brendan
But this doesn't play in that sort of, like, rubber hosey. Well, of course, the animation style is different.

16:51
Case
There's little bits of it. You can see that this is the bridge, especially in this episode, more so than the later ones where, again, the buildings, there's, like, some of the physics are a little bit weird. But then you get to the next one and it seems that they've kind of decided, all right, we're gonna kind of lock it down a bit.

17:05
Brendan
It's much more grounded than anything else, like, cartoon wise, that I had seen, at least where it feels like a human being punching something or picking someone up or jumping around a lot. They do so many leaps and bounds in these. It's something I've ever seen in any of their Superman property when they're really doing the bounds over a building. But that's his main. What he's like, he does at the end of this episode. He has Lois in one hand, he has the mad scientist in the other. I think he does it, like, three times at the end of episodes. But, like, one big bounce and then you see him falling into the city.

17:37
Nick
Well, you never see Superman in modern day jump higher than a building. But that is like, that was his third thing at the beginning.

17:45
Case
Right?

17:46
Brendan
I love how in the opening, is this where we get this? Or was this in the radio show? The faster than a speeding bullet.

17:53
Case
More powerful than it comes from the radio show. But this is definitely where it became, like, the thing that everyone knows because.

18:01
Brendan
Faster than a speeding bullet, you see him, like, whiz across screen and then can leap tall buildings in a single bound. You see him jump over a building, but then more powerful than a locomotive. They just show a train to remind you how big a train is. But it's very funny, and we'll get to them. But there are specific episodes where it's important to know that he is faster than a literal bullet. He is more powerful than an actual locomotive. I was expecting a big building to be a bad guy at some point, but it came out, though. He does catch the building.

18:30
Case
He does catch the building. And that's where it gets kind of weird with the whole jumping versus flying. At this time, he officially couldn't fly, because at this time, the powers of Superman were coming from him being a super advanced alien from a planet with higher gravity than Earth. So the Kryptonians initially were super beings themselves, and then it was like a John Carter of Mars style. And on the lighter gravity of this smaller planet, it's even more so. How crazy is that? He can just jump around freely. And between these cartoons and the radio show, it was sort of just wiped away in favor of narrative convenience of just like, oh, yeah, no, he's just soaring through the air. Oh, yeah. Well, like, it's annoying to animate him, jumping every time. Let's just have him kind of fly.

19:15
Case
But that's why there's, like, action scenes where he'll, like, have to, like, jump onto a thing. Like, he can get to anything in the air, but he can't necessarily control that much about it. Like, once he's up there. I kind of prefer that for his power set, frankly. But it is weird because it's been so long since that actually was what his power set was.

19:34
Brendan
He's very fallible in these. Like, there's nothing to say that he can't die at any point. Sure, he gets shot a million times, but later on we see him almost drown, which feels like something that Superman shouldn't be able to do.

19:48
Case
Right. I think that these are where we start seeing in animation that specifically electric attacks look fine to do to Superman. Like the animated series from the nineties, every character who had electric powers, like, you would see Superman take the hit, and we see that all the time in my adventures with Superman. Like, it just seems like the kind of thing where you're like, yeah, no one knows how that. How bad that would be. We can say it hit Superman pretty hard. Like, all right, cool. And there's some very iconic moments of him getting the shit shocked out of him. And, like, that's, like, kind of nice.

20:22
Brendan
One of his biggest villains in these shorts are electrical wires that have fallen onto him or are attacking him seemingly by themselves or aren't plugged in. Right.

20:31
Nick
I do love in the age of comics and movies we have now where it's like, they have to be so convoluted, and it's like we're talking about multiverses and everything, and it's just very fun to, like, here's the most iconic superhero, arguably the most iconic american figure. And it just. A conversation happened was like, hey, it looks dumb when he jumps. Can he fly? Okay, you can do that. I think that changed the course of superhero comics history.

20:57
Case
Yeah. Across the world. Because this then goes on to influence, like, all this development and animation that happens in Japan. To the point that supposedly, when they were making the world's finest crossover of the nineties animated series, they had Batman flying because the studio was like, well, he has a cape, so he should be able to fly. Right? And they had to be like, no. Can you give him a grappling hook, please? That said, the first one is very much like, here's a proof of concept. Like, here. Here is Superman. Here is proof that we can make it look pretty cool without it necessarily being too cartoony. Like, there's cartoony elements, but it looks pretty good.

21:38
Brendan
You get about halfway through this short, and then they introduce the bad guys. Vulture.

21:43
Case
Right?

21:44
Brendan
Incredibly loony, too. Like, there's that word. I forget who made it. It might be George Lucas, but the word toyetic, where you need to have a character in something nowadays to, like, sell toys. And he was incredibly toyotic. There shouldn't have been a crypto later. Like, they should have strapped a red cape onto him, and he should have, like, turned. He had personality coming out of his wings.

22:05
Case
Yeah, that was very much like a classic looking, like, animated, like, vulture character. Like, getting looped in from, like, a Warner Studios kind of situation.

22:15
Brendan
We heard you can do birds. We need a bird today.

22:19
Case
I'm surprised. So I recently rewatched the super bunny or super rabbit, pardon me short that bugs Bunny did. That is, like, a very one to one opening to the point where, like, I was surprised they got away with it because at the time, warriors did not own the Superman rights, of course. And it's like, to the point where it's like, it's a Boyd. No, it's not a Boyd. It's a plane. It's not a plane. And I'm surprised that we don't have that vulture, like, making appearance. Let's move on to the next one, which I think is the one that I have seen the most, and I think it's referenced the most. Which is the mechanical monsters. And I think it gets referenced the most because it allows Superman to fight something.

22:58
Case
And it's an early one, so that, like, there's really, like, good action sequences there. I freaking love the robot designs in this. I think they are. They're so cool in that kind of janky forties kind of way.

23:12
Brendan
They do have that sort of, like, my mom put together two cardboard boxes for Halloween sort of feeling. But it's so, like, it's so exciting to actually, like, bring them to life.

23:20
Case
Speaking of toyetic, like, yes. Like, can you imagine this being released today? Like, you would have so many action figures for these robots and then just have, like, a. Like, a dry erase spot for the number.

23:30
Brendan
They look like the mock up was made of Lego to begin with.

23:33
Case
Right.

23:35
Brendan
They copped these for the beginning of sky captain and the world of tomorrow, right?

23:38
Case
Yep.

23:39
Brendan
Like, one to one. They're just, like, pretty much, yeah.

23:43
Case
I think these are just really iconic robot designs, for one. It's nice to have Superman fight robots because he can fight robots and then not have to worry about murdering people. But it can be these big action scenes and maybe they're strong enough to hurt him. And at this point, they seem to be. There's a spot where one of them does the two handed Captain Kirk kind of double punch on it and it's like, oh, that actually looked like it really hurt.

24:06
Brendan
There's something so I don't know how many robots are really shown in media up to this point. Like, I know we're, like, past the point of Metropolis, but I don't think we're at, like, Ray Bradbury yet where there is, like, something so scary in just the plainness of them. And, like, you can see the electricity, like, moving through them. Like, they almost look like they hurt to be alive. There is something so the other about these that, like, you need your dad, Superman, to take care of.

24:30
Case
Well, that's a good description of Superman at this era where he very much is, like, supposed to be, like, the ultimate dad or big brother or best friend to you, the audience, the kids who love this stuff, as opposed to, like, you putting yourself in his shoes, necessarily. Like, it's more like, look at this masculine authority figure.

24:50
Brendan
Did they have a kid in the radio show? I know that was very popular back then. Like, Captain America.

24:54
Case
Timmy Olsen shows up pretty fast.

24:56
Brendan
Oh, sure, of course.

24:56
Case
Yeah. That's actually where he's, like, introduced. And he's distinctly kind of young. He sounds young. I think he's supposed to be, like, 15.

25:05
Brendan
Oh, I think, yeah.

25:06
Jmike
He and Robin are the same age.

25:07
Case
Yeah, he's, like, 1516. But there are, like, spots where, you know, it's like, the weird gender versus age politics of the time where, like, he and Robin take Lois out, and they're like, no, we'll pay for you, Miss Lane. You can't expect a dame to pay for it. It's like, jimmy. Like, I. Like, I'm an adult with a real job. Let me pay for dinner.

25:27
Brendan
It's funny to, like, cut 90 years in the future when he's, like, apocalypse. He's like, a threat to the world and universe.

25:37
Jmike
I also like the fact that, like, in these episodes, like, lois is very proactive.

25:42
Brendan
Yeah.

25:42
Case
Yeah, she is.

25:43
Jmike
Like, she's always doing something, and she's like, oh, I wonder what this does. And then she hops into the robot's case, and immediately it gets snatched off.

25:50
Case
Well, and she's always, like, ducking. Clark is, like, one of the places really fun. She's not just proactive. She's, like, kind of a bitch. And, like, I enjoy that.

25:59
Jmike
Oh, Clark, you left that over there.

26:00
Case
Whoops.

26:01
Brendan
She does.

26:02
Nick
There's a. You find it out more and more where, like, they keep being so coy to each other, and it just seems this weird thing, and it's like, are we pretending that neither of them know that he is Superman? She's very coy about it, and she's like, oops, you left this over here. I guess I have to go do something dangerous. Oh, Superman's here, and Clark's not here.

26:24
Brendan
But there's a point in every episode where he does say, this looks like a job for Superman, which is funny, because he always speaks. Whenever he does that line. He speaks. He says it. He starts it much higher than he talks as Clark Kent, because he's, like, talking as Clark Kent here. And then this looks like a job for Superman. And then, if I'm not mistaken, Superman does not speak in these. I can't remember a moment where he, like, where he has a couple times.

26:46
Case
It's a couple of lines, but it's not very much.

26:48
Brendan
Yeah, he's very silent. Yeah, but he never sounds that deep.

26:52
Case
Yeah. I mean, again, this goes back to the radio show. Like, Clark is generally speaking, like, the upper registers for. For Collier. I don't think it's that surprising that, like, when you're trying to, like, make that distinction. Like, you'll, like, really lean into both ends when you're doing, like, the one line of it does seem like the capture. I don't know. He sounds deeper as Clark in these than he does on the radio show.

27:14
Brendan
Oh, interesting, because we kind of see the same thing later with Christopher Reeves. Like, whenever he takes out the glasses and, like, straightens his shoulders out, like, it tells the whole story. Yeah, there's no fat on any. On any of these, but, like, any of the ideas either. They're so cut and dry.

27:28
Case
Yeah, I would not say that any of these are decompressed stories. It is shocking how much, like we blitz through in each of these, like, prepping for this, where it's like, I've got to watch nine shorts. Oh, it was like an hour and a half at most.

27:43
Jmike
Which is also funny to me, is whenever he does this is the job for Superman thing, and he runs into the phone booth. Does anyone ever find the clothes?

27:53
Brendan
They make a point. Well, these aren't, like, exactly rotoscoped. I know they used a lot of reference. But when he changes, it's in silhouette, and that seems like a man changing clothes, but you have to see it every time he's taking off his jacket and his pants and his boots. You know for a fact he's not wearing those clothes anymore.

28:13
Jmike
And then. Cause, like, in one episode, he also, like, changes in the car. And, like, no one notice this at all. This guy just rushes in and comes out of Super Mario.

28:21
Nick
My favorite one is he's with, like, you hear Lois is in danger. He's with three other people who work at the daily plan. And he goes, this looks like a job for Superman. And then he leaves the room, looks around, goes into a closet, dresses, comes out as Superman, looks around, and then flies out of the daily Planet.

28:42
Brendan
He flies out the front door. He does.

28:43
Case
He flies out the front door several times.

28:46
Brendan
But there always is a moment where he does decide, now it's a job for Superman. Like, robots stealing jewels. Fine, it'll work itself out. Lois Lane has Mister Magoo'd herself into trouble in the back of one of these robots. Well, someone's gotta go save her.

29:03
Nick
She is very much like the Warner brothers buttons and Mindy thing, where, like, with the dog, like, she's also not. It's not like a damsel in her chest. Like, she's very competent. She does it. She does it because she wants to find the scoop. But, like, this episode especially, she just, like, Mindy is walking through the construction site and almost like she just kind of crawls into a robot, knowing full well that Superman has to save her.

29:28
Case
Yeah, this is a good spot to bring up that this is where we actually see his x ray vision, where he uses that to look inside robot. And that's a really cool sequence. It's like that written stimpy style, like, high definition of his face. Using it with his eyes open.

29:40
Brendan
When his eye bulges out, like the one turns into a big upside down u shape, he looks exactly like Christopher Lloyd. The end of framed Roger rabbit. And they also, they sneak it in to the beginning. They're like faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive. Also, he has extra powers. This is the only one where they do that.

30:01
Case
Gifted with senses, blah, blah.

30:03
Brendan
Yeah.

30:04
Case
I do also want to bring up that this is now two for two of having just some, like, weird fucking mountain that overlooks the city.

30:10
Brendan
Yes. It's not going to be the last.

30:14
Case
And I now have a headcanon that it's the same base every time and people just keep moving into it. But then it gets weird because then they say that it's Manhattan and it's like, there's no mountain like that.

30:26
Brendan
I'm excited to hear at the end of this because I have answer what everybody's favorite supervillain hideout is.

30:33
Case
Let's move on to number three, which is the billion dollar limited, which is.

30:37
Brendan
The train one more powerful than a locomotive. And he sells what's on the tiny. A big plot device in these is that they'll show, like, the headlines for the most part in the beginning of that episode. And at the end of an episode, they'll set it up and then they'll say Superman saved the day. And then also in a secondary headline, and then he vanished. Like, that can't be part of the same story. I feel like it's almost a problem at this point that the Daily Planet needs to stop running. Headline above the fold. This is where all the gold in America is going to be next week, right?

31:10
Case
Let's just open it up to, I guess, more mad scientists kind of what? Like they've got some pretty cool tech. Specifically, they have, I have this note, they have a really awesome armored car. Batman should get one of those. But it's true.

31:24
Brendan
It does the hit a button and it like, hides their front plate. So, you know, they're evil.

31:30
Case
Armors it up extra.

31:32
Brendan
This is the first, like, team we see, and they're all in the same uniform. These, like, these four guys who are going to stick up this train. And for, like, animation purposes, they gave them all 05:00 shadow. So, like, they could kind of be interchangeable in the sequences. But I can't like, can you imagine the meeting before?

31:49
Case
They're like, all right, nobody shaved.

31:51
Brendan
Nobody shaved for two days to be anonymous.

31:55
Case
Mike, I know that your. Your beard is gonna grow too fast. You gotta shave it at least once. It's gonna be too obvious. So it's a weird one because on the one hand, I don't really fucking care about, like, a gold robbery of a train. But on the other hand, there's some, like, some cool stuff going on with it. Oh, yeah, I have a note. Like, yeah, Lois firing back with a Tommy gun. Like, that's some badass sequences right there. Like, Lois is not a damsel in distress. She just constantly puts herself in situations that no person could survive.

32:21
Brendan
Yeah, yeah. This one has a lot of memorable set pieces like that because for every thing that Superman, like, thinks he saves the trade and, like, has saved the day. They always have a backup plan. They're like, well, now we got to the bridge.

32:35
Nick
My favorite part in this one is when he's trying to stop the train and then the bad guy's in front of him and they throw tear gas. And that tear gas is very active.

32:45
Case
Yeah, I have a note about that too. I really like that. It feels like a modern Hercules type thing. Like, he's, like, breathing through all this tear gas. It's like he's powering through this thing that should stop or possibly kill any human. And it's like, look at this man. And, like, I think that kind of requires us to be back in the mind space of the forties of, like, Superman is a man but an impossible one, as opposed to, like, some sort of alien super entity that's, like, totally different from what we kind of, like, conceive it as being, you know.

33:15
Nick
Yeah, they get the tear gas, which is effective, and they go, all right, boys, let's light him up. And if anything, the bullets they shoot at him make him stronger.

33:28
Brendan
Like, I'm sure the confidence they felt.

33:29
Nick
Over this fighting, this demigod, it's like, oh, we found his weakness, boys.

33:36
Brendan
And then that sequence is such a. Because you can't show. I guess. I don't know. We're post code at this point. So you can't really show, like, violence. Violence. Like, if he gets shot, like, you can't show his, like, suit get ripped open or start to bleed. I don't know that Superman would. But you can show that his pompadour is falling out of the gel that he put in. This is the most damage he can take, but it's very effective. Like, to see him struggling and sweating.

33:59
Case
Yeah.

33:59
Jmike
Oh, my gosh. He's disheveled. Oh, he's so stressed.

34:05
Case
More than any of these, this is the one that felt like a labor of Hercules type story. And I know I said made the Hercules comparison before, but where it's like a person who is the strong guy hero being like, can you get over how strong this man is? Like, how big this man is?

34:21
Brendan
They also, at the. At the very end, I think, lowers the Superman. Pardon me. Lars Clark calls him uncanny. And I specifically wrote uncanny. Stay in your light. You have so many adjectives to describe Superman. This is anything but uncanny.

34:37
Case
I do have a note that this would be modernized actually fairly easily in terms of doing it. Twitter instead of the Telegraph stuff, how that's being updated with the news. That said, of course, the idea that you got to steal the gold is pedestrian. It's very.

34:54
Brendan
I'm also not 1000% sure that their goal was to steal the gold. At no point do they have, like, a bag or a truck. It seems like they're more like they just want to blow up the train. They seem more anti train than pro gold, which is.

35:07
Case
I mean, they're like, I'm okay with that.

35:09
Brendan
Yeah, it's like a terrorist move.

35:11
Case
Not the anti train part, but the anti gold part. If this is like a fight club plan to, like, destabilize our economy, totally here for it.

35:19
Brendan
Lois, you met me at a very strange point in my life.

35:23
Case
I would be down for that. I'm also down for the next episode, which is the arctic giant.

35:29
Brendan
This is fascinating to me.

35:31
Case
There are so many things. I have so many questions about why they did it the way they did, but at the same time, it's a Godzilla fucking episode. Before Godzilla, like, by, like 15 years.

35:41
Brendan
I had to remind myself watching this, I was like, well, wait, when did Godzilla come out? Oh, they hadn't invented the a bomb yet.

35:48
Jmike
Right?

35:49
Brendan
Like, I forgot what the response, but.

35:51
Case
It'S spot fucking on. Like, he's got the same frills and big buck teeth. Well, yeah, I mean, I get it all comes back to, like, the iguanodon. Like, the first, like, really identified dinosaur and having kind of a similar body plan to all that. Like, and so it's like, this is a t rex. Is it, though?

36:10
Brendan
Like, this also very early in this episode, because, again, you only see Superman ever change in silhouette, either through a mirror or against the back of a wall. Lois is, like, getting the assignment to go, like, check out the frozen beast at the natural history museum. You see her on the silhouette talking to Perry white. And she puts on her hat. And something about that very much implies that Lois Lane is her alter ego. It's an interesting mirror moment. She does get ready in the same way. But you can't argue that Lois Lane sort of has superpowers in these. In, like, a domino sort of way where she's just incredibly lucky.

36:46
Nick
Yeah.

36:47
Case
Yeah. Her superpower is that she knows Superman personally.

36:52
Brendan
Great perk. You can basically fly.

36:55
Case
I mean, effectively, right?

36:56
Brendan
Yeah. Anytime you jump off a building, you're gonna start flying in a minute or two.

37:00
Case
That purple comet will just, like, rush on by.

37:02
Nick
I can punch this robot super hard in about 15 minutes when Superman shows up.

37:06
Case
Yeah. How are you gonna defeat me? I will scream. What is that gonna do? You will see. I like that they describe the tyrannosaurus as being mammoth sized. I don't understand why it's not a mammoth.

37:22
Brendan
Yeah.

37:23
Case
Like, I realized that, like, dinosaurs are, like, cool. Like, I love dinosaurs a lot. Like, if I look over at the bookshelf to my right, there's way more dinosaur toys than what a grown man should have. But it is kind of weird. The easy one would have been just like, yeah, no, it's a frozen mammoth. That seems less of a stretch.

37:41
Jmike
Get more eyeballs than dinosaurs.

37:43
Case
Yeah. Well, and then this is also, like, a weird spot here where, like, if it was a giant reptile, the frozen and thawed part works better. But if it was actually a dinosaur, it doesn't, because dinosaurs were warm blooded animals. Like, and I know the science at the time did not know that dinosaurs were warm blooded. They were just like, oh, they're big reptiles, and that's why the anatomy is, like, kind of lumbering and whatnot. Instead of being, like, bird. Like, it's just kind of funny that it's like, well, it's, like, a little more scientifically accurate because of the reptile part, but it's because you think that they're a different kind of thing than what they are.

38:20
Brendan
For the tools you've had, you've done an amazing job.

38:24
Case
I do have a note of paraphrasing what the guy says as they're, like, showing the cooling machines, which is, damn. We have to be super careful while they casually put down this thing of oil right next to a spinning turbine.

38:36
Brendan
This is, what if I love her to death? If Lois just stayed home, none of this would have happened.

38:43
Case
Well, I don't know. Like, she's not the one who, like, causes the mistake.

38:46
Brendan
Yeah. To be fair, like, Osha wasn't on site.

38:48
Case
Right? Like, yeah, they were just, like, completely not caring about this whole thing, where it's just like, we got to make sure this thing doesn't fuck up. You know what? Let's. Let's make sure that we stop looking at the machines.

38:59
Brendan
But they do stop looking at the machines. It goes haywire. It goes from freezing to melting to danger.

39:04
Nick
Very quick.

39:05
Case
So fast.

39:06
Jmike
Really fast.

39:06
Brendan
It also feels like just because of how quickly the ice melts. I know. Like, it's compacted and it's thousands of years old, but it does. Millions maybe. I don't know. Dinosaurs, hundreds. It does seem like it's boiling hot in the museum. Yeah, it's a puddle immediately.

39:21
Case
Well, I mean, like, I guess if this is supposed to be, like, a New York stand in or New York itself, and it's the summertime, like, that flies. Like, that's a good one. Like, that concrete just, like, magnifies the heat. And probably the refrigeration tech was probably pumping out a bunch of heat. So the buildings around are actually super hot.

39:38
Jmike
But, I mean, if that's the case, like, everybody in that building should be dropping dead as soon as they walk outside.

39:44
Brendan
New York is really good at creating structures incredibly quickly to house this thing because it seems like they discover it. Helicopter into New York, and, like, oh, and we built a stadium sized room for the natural history museum. And then, spoiler alert, Superman saves the day in this one. He learns to use wires to his advantage.

40:05
Case
Right.

40:06
Brendan
This Godzilla monster is defeated by those wires on the bridge, which I believe this is the second of three times. We will see that bridge collapse.

40:15
Case
They repair really fast. Maybe Superman's helping with that.

40:18
Brendan
Like, oh, sure.

40:19
Case
He could behind the scenes doing this.

40:21
Brendan
Yeah, they didn't have a damage control back then.

40:24
Case
Also, this is not the last time that we will see animal that the size just kind of changes all the time, like, from shot to shot. How big is this thing? Is it like, a building size? Is it, like, about an elephant? Who could say?

40:39
Brendan
It came to my mind. I was thinking about Humpty Dumpty at the very end, because the. The monster starts walking through the water, and there are, like, police boats shooting guns at it, and there are firefighters hosing it down. It feels very like all the king's horses and all the king's men. What were the horses doing? Like, I don't know if they thought they were going to refreeze it. There's something just very charming about that. Like, everybody get in. I don't know what it is either. We'll see.

41:03
Case
Yeah, just hose it down. Like, why? I don't know. So next up is the bulleteers, which I have watched multiple times. And every time I start to watch the episode and the name the bulleteers pop out, I assume it's rocket packs, even though I've seen it recently. And I just have so many questions about the plans in this one. Why is it a car?

41:28
Brendan
It's hardly a car for half of it. It's a plane.

41:31
Case
Why is it ever a car? It's like, we better land. I mean, so why is it even a car? Just be a plane. I often lament the dearth of cool, somewhat plausibly explained gadgets in later superhero media. I just understand this device. It could have been a helicopter. It could have been an autogyro.

41:53
Jmike
Because it looks cool case.

41:55
Case
I know, but it's just, like, drop off. Or it could just be the rocket plane and just punch through buildings. Like, why does it ever need to land? Except, I don't know. Well, we better drive back up to the mountain base that we have shared with mountain. I mean, this is episode five. Three of the five have had the same basic layer.

42:16
Nick
This was probably my favorite beginning, because when they zoom in on the bulleteers, they just kind of have these, like, nah, henchmen like voice. They say they should sound like that, and they look ridiculous with their kind of hoods on. And they just have this thick New York Superman. We're gonna come get you.

42:36
Case
I also have a note of the mayor being like, damn criminals have a fast car, so we better start martial law.

42:41
Brendan
Yes. His sandbags in the streets.

42:43
Case
Yeah. Like, that is not a proportionate response.

42:48
Brendan
What was their. They wanted the, like, the treasury. Like, just like all the money in the treasury or something.

42:53
Case
Yeah, it was also money, whatever.

42:56
Brendan
Because they're just punching holes in buildings.

42:58
Case
Right.

42:58
Brendan
Which they start with the police station, which I was kind of on. Like, honestly, on board with the bulleteers.

43:03
Case
Yeah, that works.

43:06
Brendan
But, like, it's funny because the car, it does have wings. And it'll retract the wings. I guess it's kind of implying it gets to speed and then it can just zip through a building.

43:15
Case
Right.

43:15
Brendan
Shaped like a bullet. But the way that Superman defeats the plane at the end is that he tears off the wings. And I wrote, superman, no, they don't need them. You have no idea. You've made it a weapon.

43:26
Case
So you might notice he grabs them, and then he just, like, chucks the plane at someone's farm, and it, like, blows up. You just see it hit countryside, but because of the way they drew everything, it's not just, like, undisturbed nature. It's like, very clearly, like sections of farming everywhere. So it's like someone's barn blew up.

43:45
Brendan
He has a duty to the city. He has a duty to New York City, not state.

43:52
Case
Fuck you, Yonkers. But, yeah. Like, again, every single time the name came up, I was like, ooh, is this one with rocket packs? Oh, wait, no, I've seen this one.

44:04
Brendan
Just the car. They have the best costumes as well because they're shaped like bullets themselves, which I feel like, more to your point, you imagine that they would have individual bullets.

44:13
Case
Right? It's just like, now we've got a cool plane, which, admittedly, it's a cool plane car thing, but it's one that just, like, kind of feels like, well, we got criminals. What do you want us to do?

44:28
Brendan
Also, just in terms of construction, the Daily Planet, it more or less keeps its geometry, and it's, like map throughout the stories, but sometimes they just, like, come up with a cool shot and they need something else, because at the very beginning of this episode, Perry White's office has two doors so that Lois and Clark can enter it at the same time from across the room. He's just in the middle of a hallway, or one of them was in his bathroom. Like, there's really no possible.

44:53
Case
Yeah, yeah.

44:55
Brendan
Also, I think the Perry White looks like Bobby Hill in these. I started seeing it. I couldn't stop seeing it.

45:02
Case
Oh, Bobby Perry. That's my purse.

45:09
Brendan
To the mad scientist. I don't know you.

45:14
Case
Speaking of mad scientists, let's move on to the magnetic telescope.

45:17
Brendan
This is the most mad scientist. This is the platonic ideal.

45:20
Case
Yeah. This is one where it's, like, just truly just a scientist who is, you know, crazy, as opposed to, like, I'm gonna steal shit. I will note. So this. This is the time where I actually stopped to make a note that I'm glad that Siegel and Schuster are credited on all of these. I believe that's all of them total. But, like, this is the one where, like, I was like, oh, that's nice. I should. I should write down that part there because they weren't always credited on all the Superman stuff.

45:45
Jmike
No, they were not.

45:46
Case
And my note is, it's that damn mountain. Again. Also, funny sidebar that these days, there are a lot of electromagnetic telescopes that are looking for radiation signals and so forth.

45:54
Brendan
Oh, interesting.

45:55
Case
Yeah. So it's, like, actually not that out there concept wise. But also, this episode is such a wasted opportunity for things that haven't been invented yet in Superman lore. Like, if this episode came out once the idea of kryptonite existed, it's such an easy way to bring kryptonite to earth and explain why it's there, but it just didn't exist yet. Like, they hadn't come up with the idea because Clayton Bud Collier had not had to take a week long vacation, and so they hadn't had to come up with an idea for why he's unconscious for the entire time.

46:25
Brendan
But he does start as a scientist. Like, he talks to the press, he talks to the army. He was funded to do this. Yeah, I feel like it's the US's fault to put him in the middle of a metropolitan area, to pull comets out of the sky. Also true. That's their fault.

46:40
Case
They're like, well, we had this fucking base already set up from some mad scientists. It was easier to set it up there. They already had the power runs.

46:47
Brendan
The episode starts. He brings a comet out of the sky. There's chaos. So he talks to the press in the army, and he says, you guys, you don't understand. I really want to do this right? This is, I wanted to do this for so long. It's going to be awesome for science. And he has, it's a, it almost looks like the smell of scope, for lack of a better term, and the handle, it's a wonder that they get, like, a good sense of it when, like, Lois takes the wheel later on because there's two sides of the lever. It's forward and reverse. I couldn't infer which of those is good and which of those is bad.

47:27
Case
Right? Like, what's it gonna do?

47:28
Brendan
Which is going which way?

47:30
Case
I have a note that, like, the cops screw things up worse, and that actually makes us a weird parallel to Krypton with, like, the scientist being like, no, no. Like, don't f. Like, we have to make the world better this way through science. And it's like, you. You crazy mad scientist. This is the one where Clark leaves the daily Planet and takes a car and then, like, has to stop in the middle of it and transform into Superman, which, again, I appreciate that we are getting a different transformation sequence. Like, considering the legacy of sailor moon and stuff like that, where we want this kind of shonen transformation or hinchy transformation. Pardon me, but at the same time, why does he take the car? Just fucking, just go as Superman?

48:16
Case
Like, is he just trying to, like, keep his cover and being like, well, I need to have receipts, like expense. Otherwise, like, how did you get there? It's like, well, I have a metro pass. Like, what?

48:28
Brendan
He has a flexible spending account. He doesn't have to. Technically, at the end of the month. These comets look so cool. Like, I still have never seen anything like these in 2d animation. Things like flashing balls of fire and white light.

48:42
Case
Mm.

48:43
Jmike
Well, that, and, like, the pieces flying off of them are destroying, like, everything in the area. There's, like, cars driving down the street, and then, boom, they're gone. People walking down the street. Boom, they're gone too. Everybody gets them.

48:57
Case
Also, Superman can't win this one just by punching things. Like, he wins by using his powers to boost a scientific device rather than using his powers to just, like, punch it into oblivion or whatever.

49:09
Brendan
And I like that he befriends wires.

49:11
Case
Yes.

49:12
Brendan
He becomes a wire. He connects because it snaps in half. And he, like, the current goes through, right.

49:17
Case
Which is also, like, a really iconic shot for Superman. But, like, that's him using the invulnerability power to solve a problem that he couldn't hit. And that's like, a really cool aspect of that. Like, where, like, no, he has to be this man of science that he can get away with doing, you know, this incredibly dangerous thing by virtue of the powers that he has. That's so fun and cool. And a thing about Superman that often is overlooked in adaptations. And I really like it here.

49:45
Brendan
These sort of go on a run. I'm just realizing where there's, sure there's a mad scientist, but there's nothing to punch in. Like, the next three, it's all like natural disasters. We have the magnetic, we have the comets coming down, and then we'll see an earthquake, we'll see a volcano. Like, it's all him versus the environment. Like, Superman is stronger than Atlas has it on his back at this point, right?

50:07
Case
So I really like this one. It comes across very strong, even though there's some audio that, like, sounds like it's through, like a can on a string at points. Like the mad scientist. Like, it's like, well, what the fuck is the filter going on there?

50:21
Brendan
I am curious about that because Clark hardly says anything in this episode too. Like in the, like, the first half, like, when he's Clark before Superman, I think he only says the thing to the driver. He doesn't. And then, of course, the famous line, but he doesn't talk to Perry. He's just, he's in shots, and then he leaves yeah, bad audio week for Fleischer studios, maybe.

50:40
Case
So next up is the electric earthquake. And I have some complicated feelings about this episode.

50:45
Nick
This was the first time I was on the inside. Or how cartoon car. Or at least his explanation.

50:54
Brendan
But why does he make the complaint to the Daily Planet?

50:57
Case
It's weird. Okay, so for anyone who's not familiar with this one, because, like, we're at the point now where these all kind of run together like it's another mad scientist situation, blah, blah, blah. This is one where the mad scientist, it's set up where I'm guessing he's Lenape, like the tribe that occupied Manhattan before. And he points out, like, hey, Manhattan is stolen territory from my people. Like, you guys should give it back. And they're all like, ha. We can't do that. Like, that's crazy, doc. But he's not wrong. No, he's not wrong at all.

51:29
Brendan
But then he does sort of take it to the. If I can't have it, nobody can.

51:32
Case
Yes. That is. That's where he goes too far. But also the way he goes too far is he's a mad scientist. And you know what? Like, I actually appreciate that. Like, well, you know, you could have gone with a native american stereotype, but instead you made him a mad scientist. And I kind of appreciate that.

51:46
Brendan
Like, this and the magnetic telescope are, like two of the, like, the strongest, like, Sci-Fi concepts.

51:52
Case
Yeah.

51:52
Brendan
Because he just has these sort of. These big wires have a mind of their own.

51:55
Case
Yeah.

51:57
Brendan
Because they're, I guess they're in the Hudson and they're. They're just sort of clipped to different points on bridges, to rock masses under the water. And Superman's, like, pulling them up at one point and he. He goes up to breathe because he has to. Because Superman can drown, apparently. And, like, they bring him back down. Like, there's one or two wires that go, no, no.

52:15
Case
Superman, I do love that he has an underwater base. Like, that's a. That's a nice change of pace here.

52:21
Brendan
Looks like a teapot.

52:22
Case
Yeah.

52:23
Brendan
And it has a front door. He takes another picture down to it. But there's a big front door.

52:28
Case
Well, maybe when it was under construction or something to that effect.

52:31
Brendan
Oh, sure. For the most part, whenever, like, Lois comes face to face with a mad scientist, they're just like, they grab her and they throw her wherever they're gonna put her. There's a. There's an interesting relationship that he sees her spying on him. There's only one way down in the elevator. And he, like, invites her to, like, come see. I want you to come see, like, my genius here. Before having a metal chair that can strap her heads and legs down, which, when you live alone, don't we all have a.

53:01
Case
Weird, tender dates? He's had. I have a note that, like, there should be an episode of Yoh. Is this racist on this particular short? Because, like, I actually don't know where this falls. Like, yeah, he's the bad guy ultimately. But again, it's nice that it's not going on racist tropes. He has valid points. They have valid points of, like, well, we can't all just leave all of a sudden. It's kind of insane to do this. I don't know. I don't know.

53:26
Brendan
But I feel like this point in, because we're getting into the prime time of american westerns, there's one solid depiction of Native Americans in american culture at this point. So it is nice to see one, like a modern scientist. But there's also, like, just the idea that, like, this is stolen. Like, that we're on stolen land, that it's almost a land acknowledgement of an episode. That's not the angle that they have ever, like, that's not what John wayne is talking about. Like, john wayne doesn't meet a tribe and go, oh, you guys used to be in Wyoming. That's terrible.

54:00
Case
No, no, of course not john wayne.

54:02
Brendan
Not john wayne.

54:05
Case
John wayne would be like, you pansies. Let me go dodge a giraffe and then yell at you.

54:12
Nick
Canonically, in this is how old is super? How old is Clark Kent? And is he a draft dodger?

54:20
Case
There's different reasons in each version. Like, if he's been involved or not. I think the deal in the comics is that he accidentally read the eye chart. In the wall behind the eye chart, he was looking at, like, he focused too hard, and so they marked him.

54:32
Brendan
As a four f. That's really good.

54:35
Case
In the radio show, he actually was a war correspondent, you know, so they could do, like, war stories.

54:39
Brendan
Wasn't there also at one point, somebody was talking to me about this recently that there's at least some line of comics where Hitler had, as featured in the. The dial of Destiny. Hitler had the sword that cute. Like, that made Jesus bleed. Oh, and something about, like, having the spear of Destiny.

54:56
Case
Yeah, yeah.

54:56
Brendan
Having the spear of Destiny. Like, he, like, kept superheroes out of Germany.

55:00
Case
Yeah. So that was the thing in the. In the comics that they used to try to explain it because there are those world war. Two propaganda pieces, like the, like, slap a jap, you can buy a war bond one and stuff like that, which are, you know, of their time. Yeah. So there was the comic strip where, like, Superman ends the war. Usually it's a retcon reason for why, like, Hitler had the spear of Destiny, and so that held people back. J Mike, you might remember we looked at the golden age and said, they talk about how that was actually a story concocted by the us press.

55:29
Case
And the real reason is that they had, like, a superhuman that can neutralize powers as, like, their reason, which strikes me as the kind of thing that even though it was a James Robinson script, that feels like a thing that Roy Thomas would have introduced when he was doing all star squadron. So that feels like what the Bronze Age explanation for why the heroes didn't get involved during the golden age. I don't know the full history of it, because it's always a little complicated on that one. And Marvel does do the superhero stuff, obviously, Captain America, and there's the invaders. There's a lot of stuff going on. It's a big war, and some of these would actually make a big difference. But other guys, I don't know, our man would be helpful, but would he necessarily turn the tide of the war?

56:13
Brendan
Probably not if you put him on the right boat.

56:17
Case
Yeah, exactly. They'd be useful for a battle, but they wouldn't necessarily win the war.

56:23
Brendan
Sure.

56:24
Case
But, yeah, looking at the electric earthquake, I enjoy a lot of it. It's just kind of, like, complicated to even decide where I come down on it. It's like they make shockingly good points, and then that guy is still the bad guy.

56:38
Brendan
I mean, we see it in Black Panther.

56:40
Case
Yeah, I was about to say, yeah.

56:41
Nick
Every marvel where it's like, this leftist guy, it's like, oh, our people have been tortured, enslaved, and all that. It's like, yeah, so we're going to kill everyone. What?

56:52
Brendan
That is a struggle. Too far.

56:54
Case
Too far.

56:55
Brendan
Falcon and the Winter Soldier humanitarian group are the evil bad guys that Captain America has to fight. And then all of a sudden, they're like, yeah, kill the hostages.

57:08
Case
So let's move on to volcano. And my first note is that is a different actor playing Perry White.

57:17
Brendan
What?

57:18
Jmike
How could you tell?

57:19
Case
Because I've listened to that goddamn radio show a lot. And also, like, it just really stood out. And I was like, oh, that's not Julian Noah. I looked it up. I was like, yeah, he's not credited, so no idea. But shocked me.

57:32
Brendan
This one also, I don't know if this is a big thing in the radio show because we really haven't seen it up to this point, but Perry White is sending them on a story to report about this volcano that's about to erupt. And he's like, lois, Clark, I know you hate each other. I know you can't stand working with each other, but just this once, you guys are gonna have to work together. And Lois doesn't like Clark in this episode.

57:54
Case
Oh, she's so devious. Like, this is the one where she steals his press pass.

57:57
Brendan
Yeah, she hides the press pass.

57:58
Case
Yep.

57:58
Brendan
That's so much of it. I mean, like, it felt silly because he's like. He hands Clark, here are the train tickets, Lois. Here are the press passes. And I was like, what are we doing?

58:08
Nick
He goes back to the lobby and waits.

58:10
Brendan
You already have two envelopes. That's so when it's erupting and he's just, like, fumbling with his hand in the waiting room.

58:17
Nick
If I was, like, a six year old in 1941 and this was my day, I'd be so annoyed up to the desk.

58:24
Brendan
And he's like, I need a new press pass. And the guy's like, that guy's not in right now, right? Bureaucrat.

58:30
Case
The ultimate enemy of Superman. Red tape. Also wires. This has a lamer wire sequence in it, but I don't have fucking much to say about this one. Like, yeah, it's a natural disaster. This is the spot where I'm like, how many more of these are we watching for this one?

58:50
Brendan
Well, this one sort of terror on the Midway. The 9th episode has an incredibly different tone. I feel like this is the last one. That's very, like, happy go lucky in the daylight. Superman fighting foes. Terror on the Midway is almost scary when you get into, like, the fights of it.

59:09
Case
Yeah, I mean, it's so. It's a King Kong monster parody episode. And another one where, like, if this was later in the pantheon of Superman stuff, it would have been Titano and it would have been Beppo, the super monkey, as the monkey. Instead, it's just this, like, what is it gigantic.

59:26
Brendan
Like, is that, like, gigantic and mumbo. Mumbo. Phenomenal name for an elephant.

59:34
Case
So, you know, it's like, well, all right, it's King Kong. They're doing King Kong. It's a gorilla that is a very different size every time he's in frame. Sometimes he's just a bit bigger than Superman. Other times he is bigger than the building. There's a spot where he's bigger than the elephants. And I'm like, well, that's. That's starting to get into the crazy space. And then sometimes just dude sized.

59:55
Brendan
I feel like we don't spend enough time on the clown who is dancing with a line of elephants, doing a copy.

01:00:01
Case
Oh, yeah.

01:00:02
Brendan
Like, that guy's from Krypton. I feel like he should have had much more of a sway in the ensuing chaos. There's nothing malicious about this. There's no plot here.

01:00:15
Case
Yeah.

01:00:15
Brendan
Nobody releases the elephants to, you know, to rob the circus or to kidnap somebody. Like, just like a couple. A couple ropes snap. And what are ropes but the wires of the circus?

01:00:31
Case
Yeah, very true.

01:00:31
Brendan
I mean, you also see a couple. This is very, this is a very specific reference. You see a couple of children in this episode, and I don't know how many other kids that we've seen, and one of them looks so much like Nancy.

01:00:45
Case
I thought that, too.

01:00:45
Brendan
Nancy. Yes. It like, this feels like a direct sequel to that very charming four panel where she goes to the bank to get out alone, and he's like, what do you need $0.50 for? And she's like, the circus is in town. And then the two of them are seeing the circus.

01:00:58
Case
Right.

01:00:58
Brendan
This feels like what happens after that.

01:01:00
Case
I thought that, too. I was like, that can't be. But, like, I like. Because they're very well detailed and look like comic strip characters.

01:01:10
Brendan
Yes. They look like were supposed to know who those kids were.

01:01:13
Case
Yeah, exactly. So I enjoy that the gorilla just kind of gets out because the monkey sort of allows for that situation. All of the animals, I like how they're animated. I think they all look really good. The conga line of the elephants is so good, but the gorilla details are really good. Size aside, his foot design is. Oh, that's actually like, the right proportions of, like, where the gorilla's, like, thumb is on their foot. Like, it's not just a hand. Like, their proportions are like. It's kind of like halfway between foot and hand. That looked pretty good.

01:01:43
Brendan
The panther's shoulders, like, move in that way. You don't see into, like, you know, like the Jungle Book.

01:01:50
Case
Right? Yeah. I love that they have Superman fighting these, like, big animals. Like, that's like, that's a cool element. If this wasn't, like, episode nine, if this was, like, episode one or two, it'd be like, oh, yeah, like this, you know, incredible. Man is fighting, like, the mighty panther and the lions and such a fierce gorilla. But at this point, he's fought robots. He's fought fucking volcanoes. Like, it's not quite as high up on his feet sheet as you would have for anyone else.

01:02:19
Brendan
I don't know how much violence that they can show. I feel like there must have been some toes stepped on with the censors because there's a great deal of this that's in shadow. There's a very clever moment where Superman changes. And, like, when you're seeing the silhouette, he just, like, ducks behind, like a circus tent or something. And then you see the panther's silhouette jump into it, and then he bumps out. He jumps out as Superman, pulling it off of him. Like, especially when it comes to the animals, like, getting out and, like, people being attacked. There's a lot of shadow. There's a lot of interesting shots. There's also. There's like, a ten second long, like, close up of Superman's play.

01:02:53
Case
I have that note. I was so well detailed. No, my notes is close up on Superman's butt. Look at them cakes.

01:03:03
Brendan
Cause, like, the way that they, like, superman's, like, wrestling with the ape on the ground. And then they cut to this shot and it seems very, like, it seems like, b roll. Like, b team. Like, they just got it on the day and they need to, like, move them in time. Like, it's not a cartoon and they could do anything, but they just use it to take a good 10 seconds to show you why. He's the man of steel.

01:03:21
Case
Yeah. Like, like, for a long sequence of his butt in those, like, strongman trunks. And they're like, mm, yeah, that man works out.

01:03:31
Brendan
I would be so remiss to miss that. The way that Superman gets to the circus is, once again, he has a driver and he gets in and he goes, get going, Joe. See what's cooking. Like, Joe's supposed to know where the chaos is coming from in town. He does not fly to the circus, if I'm not mistaken.

01:03:49
Case
Yeah, he takes a taxi, which is like, again, like, if he's trying to, like, make a plausible scenario of Clark Kent being on site, I'm like, okay, cool, but just understand the harm you are potentially causing by not using your own power.

01:04:06
Brendan
Yes.

01:04:09
Case
But, yeah, I like this one overall, just in terms of. It's got good action sequences that we haven't really seen in a while. He actually gets to fight some stuff, which is always fun.

01:04:18
Brendan
He doesn't tussle with anything his own size for the most part, which is like, superman never really harms a person. Like, he'll pick somebody up by their scruff. But he never, like, punches somebody in.

01:04:28
Case
The face because that would be murder. Yes, it's a king Kong parody. Yes, it's the second kaiju episode.

01:04:36
Brendan
Somehow 15 years before, that was a.

01:04:40
Case
Phrase I know, right? And I feel like it should have been earlier in the slate, but it was a nice mix up. A lot of the stuff I really like about the Fleischer cartoons are on display here. I really enjoyed that. So a good way to round out that first run of Fleischer cartoons before we get into famous studios with the next episodes, the Japan tours, which is just rough.

01:05:08
Brendan
Do you think that was the same guy who wrote the bulleteers? Oh, God, he's just a man for portmanteaus.

01:05:15
Case
So I will say it was really fun to go back and look at these. They are so short and so to the point. And they do run together. There's so many times where it's like, that's definitely the same mad scientist base because why the fuck wouldn't it be? And it would be more interesting if, like, when he's dealing with the magnetic telescope one, if, like, the robots, like, are activated by accident and, like, come out or something, but that's just not how they were working at the time. And so what are all your takeaways from watching these? Like, I've seen these before. Like, I don't remember them all very well because they do kind of run together. But I know I've watched them all at various points. I was happy to rewatch them.

01:05:53
Case
But I'm curious what your takeaways were if you guys hadn't all seen them before. So why don't we start with J Mike and then kind of go around?

01:06:01
Jmike
I mean, I remember seeing these at multiple times from, like, a distance. I'm like, oh, that's the flagship things. And you keep moving. Oh, those are really cool. But I'd never, like, really stopped and, like, watched them, and that's how I learned that Superman's greatest weakness is electricity. It's not Kirsten Knight. Cause he can fight it off now. It's electricity. Oh, yeah. These are really cool versions of the character from way back in the day that people don't really appreciate that much because, you know, it's old school Superman. It's not the new stuff. But, yeah, I feel like everyone should take time to watch these just because they're an amazing piece of art from that time period.

01:06:42
Case
Yeah, I think they exist by reputation more than necessarily people having really sat to watch them. Yeah, everyone refers to them when they talk about classic Superman. They know the opening sequence, and probably they know at least one of the first four episodes fairly well. But it does seem like they kind of are a blip for a lot of people. And like I said, I don't remember them that well, even though I've seen them a bunch of times, because they are kind of like a lot of the same setup of here's a mad scientist, here's his mountain lair, and here is Lois being a bitch to Clark. And then rinse, wash repeats. Brendan, what are your thoughts on all these?

01:07:16
Brendan
It's funny because, again, I only watched it for the first time a couple years ago, and I watched them a couple times before we did this episode. But if I'd never seen these before and you asked me to write what I thought one of these was gonna be, you could nail it. And folks at home, if you haven't watched these, if you've only been half listening this episode, you could write one of these, and they would end up like, it almost. It almost feels like reading the dictionary again in a very good way, where you've absorbed so much of this. And sure, you've never sat down and, like, taken it in, but, you know, this.

01:07:49
Brendan
This is like the mythos that, like, culture has left in anybody, and it's just exciting to get to sit down and, like, go back to the beginning, read the source material, brush up, and honestly, I, like, I don't know exactly the route that James Gunn is going, you know, in a super. What's it. Superman legacy is the name of it, but I really hope they get back to basics. Like, I think. I think it's. I think this is the time to go back to full spandex and, you know, big glasses.

01:08:17
Case
Yeah. I mean, there's. There's definitely hope. Like, Superman and Lois had him wear this exact suit in all, like, the flashback sequences of when he was first getting started. And that got a lot of fanfare, so there might be that kind of vibe. Nick, what's your big takeaway from this?

01:08:32
Nick
I think. I mean, I was, you know, I think probably 1011 when I started really getting into superhero movies and just loring comics. And that was when I enjoyed it. Now I'm kind of this 27 year old cynic where I look at everything and what's the new thing that came out? Oh, this is awful. This does this. This does this. And it was very nice to see something from 85 years ago that is just. This is what superheroes are. We're kind of coming up with it. On the fly and all this nice stuff. Here's like a seven minute, very tight window of what superheroes are. And it's fun to pick it apart now. But, like, I think it's a very cool idea of, like, a six year old having his brain explode watching that in a big theater. I totally recommend it.

01:09:10
Nick
It's very beautiful. It does this kind of cool thing where, like, especially the mad scientists, where you have realistic animation, but you also kind of have this fun, rubbery rotoscope, you know, Fleischer type animation. So definitely recommend it. I think it's a lot of fun, and I think it's kind of is a palate cleanser for all, like, the cynical superhero content I'm consuming nowadays.

01:09:32
Case
Yeah, we've mentioned this before. It's free. This is super public domain. It's available on YouTube. You can easily watch.

01:09:39
Brendan
I was amazed to find that out, that it's properly in the public domain.

01:09:43
Case
So it's easy to come across. And if you prefer to have physical copies, those are readily available as well. It's not hard to get a hold of and watch these and good versions of them, which I think is a really nice part of it. All the remasters are really good looking and really fill the screen with color in a way that's like, you know, aesthetically pleasing. Looking at these pieces, I wouldn't want all my superman to be this, but I am very glad that this is here. This is that snapshot of, like, of the tropes being codified for the first time. Everything you can guess, like, everything you would expect and you would guess about each one of these is very much present in each of these, except for the bulleteers not being goddamn rocket backs, they're all strong pieces.

01:10:29
Case
And if it was only one of any of these, it would be considered, like, this great masterpiece of Superman lore in general. As it is, the first two or three are probably the ones people remember the best just because they probably had the most replays. They're the ones that introduced the stuff. The robots are so iconic in the mechanical monsters episode, the holding the electric charge part. There's so many parts to all these that those shots stand out so well. And you remember those moments really distinctly. And it's just a matter of like, well, which plot was the thing that mattered for it? And they almost don't really matter because it's always like, well, which mad scientist was it? It was this one, but it allowed for that cool sequence. And there's a lot of cool sequences in all these.

01:11:09
Case
And watching all of the Fleischer studio. Hundred thousand dollar per episode cartoons takes 90 minutes, and there's nine of them, so you don't. You can watch, like, one and then, like, go about your business and you're fine. Like, it's like a TikTok approach to superheroes.

01:11:26
Nick
And even if one is boring, which once you get to the third, he's fighting Earth one. It's over in two minutes. When you get to the action, you're like, oh, this is two and a half minutes left.

01:11:38
Case
Yeah. So I would definitely recommend. I mean, it's easy to say, yeah, you could go check out all of them. I would say definitely check out the first two because those are definitely ones that people reference a lot. And then, I don't know, I would probably say the arctic giants and terror on the midway, just because they're Kaiju fights and that's kind of fun. And, like, we're, you know, they just announced another King Kong x Godzilla movie, so.

01:12:01
Brendan
Oh, sure.

01:12:01
Case
So you could go check that out. And, like, the magnetic telescope, I think, is my. My other one that I, like, really would stand by as being like, yeah, fucking check that out.

01:12:10
Brendan
I. If I had to, I think that'd be. I think it's fun to all say bulleteers. My number one with a bullet. Though the electric earthwake does have its charms. And also including far and away, my favorite bad guy hideout. That's so silly down there. It looks like SpongeBob's house.

01:12:24
Case
It is the coolest base. All the others are just like, we're up in the mountains and we've got a fortress.

01:12:28
Brendan
We have our room. But in the. In the mechanical monsters, the guy does have a big mine, which answers the question that it was on everybody's. Where do you get all that metal? It's a big smelting pot, but yeah. And I feel like nine people could watch these and have nine different episodes. Like, there's something that just one of them will just, like, your heart leave. It's exciting. It's invigorating.

01:12:50
Case
Nick, what was your favorite?

01:12:51
Nick
I think billion dollar limited. It did feel like these villains fighting, I guess, because Superman does exist in this universe, but just, you know, like, if someone were to a villain, were to face Superman now in the real world, they would have a concept of superheroes. These guys, these villains do not. And they're just trying to fight this demigod that is coming at them. And I just love that. It definitely does feel the concept of, like, what if we wrote him? What if? What if he wrote a short where he was stronger than a train so people would believe it.

01:13:21
Brendan
It does. Because Superman's never knew in any of these. So it does kind of imply that, like, everybody is like, well, my plot is foolproof. No way that guy's getting anywhere near me.

01:13:35
Case
Or they don't believe that he's really there. And it's like, oh, fuck, he's real. J Mike, how about you? Which one stood out the most?

01:13:45
Jmike
Oh, man. Kaiju or giant robots?

01:13:50
Brendan
The usual question.

01:13:53
Jmike
Arabic Kaiju's and giant robots, you can have both. These days I'll say the mechanical monsters. Just because it's such a cool fight scene with him and the robots in the cave and Lois is, like, helping and the guy is like. He's twirling his evil mustache. He can't stop all the robots. Oh, get away.

01:14:18
Brendan
These guys were in, like, lab coats. Like, classic mad scientists. That man was in a tuxedo. Yeah.

01:14:23
Jmike
He was in a tuxedo. Yeah. That's really cool. A lot of really cool fight scenes. A lot of really cool iconic scenery and imagery.

01:14:33
Case
Yeah, that robot design is so good. Like, the flaps that open up. Like, it doesn't make sense aerodynamically, but it feels like they're trying to make sense. Like, I appreciate that a lot. And, like, feels like a biplane transformer, which is great.

01:14:45
Jmike
Like, I mean, they say they could have had him fight dinosaurs and kites and the robots at the same time.

01:14:52
Case
I'm just saying, if there was continuity between each of these, he could have actually, like, really rolled into that. Like, oh, the arctic giants loose. Let's, like, let's get the robots together and hold it back up. Gigantic is loose. Let's go, dethaw. The arctic giant.

01:15:08
Brendan
Was the radio show that deep? I know you said they had, like, five episode arcs, but whatever. They go like, oh, brainiacs back. I know this is before brainiac, but, like, were they separate or, like, building the world out?

01:15:19
Case
They did really build out the world. They would have crossovers where, like, villains would, like, team up and stuff would come up. And, like, the radio show famously, is, like, where we had, like, the Ku Klux Klan episode and, like, really deep, like, breakdowns of, like, social issues. Like, I would say that, like, the one gripe I have with the Fleischer cartoons is that it made the perception of old school Superman material feel way more childish than necessarily. The totality of it was because these specifically were shorts for kids that we would put on. But the sister material is actually pretty deep. Like, they have a lot of conversations about the death penalty, about the treatment of prisoners, about the nature of terrorism, because there are bomb threats and stuff that go on, and it's how do we respond to those kind of situations?

01:16:06
Case
Like, what kind of fear does that put in people? They're really cool plots. There is a train plot in the first arc that is really cool because trains just keep disappearing. And it turns out that they have. The villain of that story has found a spot where there are train tracks that run into what used to be a mine, but is now filled up with water from a dam, and that it's really hard to see the tracks because of brush and stuff. And so he's just flipping the switch to, like, have the trains go off the rails into the water.

01:16:38
Brendan
Oh, interesting.

01:16:39
Case
It's really cool because all these people are disappearing and no one knows what to make of it. And the threat is people not even being able to conceive of what is being done. And that's the power that this character has. He's not a physical threat to Superman or anything like that, so those are cool. His henchmen comes back and starts working for someone else later. So there are arcs where that kind of stuff happens a lot. And generally speaking, Superman isn't able to solve the problems by way of being Superman. Clark has to solve the mystery, and then Superman shows up to actually deal with the bad guys. And so those allow the stories to have more legs to them, which is really cool.

01:17:19
Case
I'm a giant fan of the radio shows, and this is doing a really good job distilling it down to ten minutes. But there's definitely a space for a longer form of it than what we're getting here. The reason why we haven't done this as, like, a big episode so far is because they're like these kind of, like, little snippets that, like, hit you, and they're like, oh, yeah, that was cool. Moving on with my life. Hit you like, oh, yeah, that was cool. Moving on with my life. If people want to be hit with something else, that is cool. Why don't you guys talk about your podcast City of Supers.

01:17:46
Brendan
City of Supers is an improvised comedy talk show that takes place in a world of superheroes. I play Beck wayward, sort of a Dick Grayson type, who now in his twenties, is retired and needs something to do with. With his life. So he starts a podcast interviewing supervillains and superheroes and anybody in between. And I'm joined by.

01:18:05
Nick
I play Donny Dennis, who wants to be a superhero. The reason Beck and I know each other is because were both part of the same orphanage, and the ravaging rat adopted him and not me. So we kind of had different lives growing up.

01:18:18
Brendan
His parents, in a circus accident, fell on my parents. It's a lot of.

01:18:23
Jmike
Wait, what?

01:18:25
Brendan
The show's a lot of plays on cloud, classic tropes. A lot of the episodes are, you know, we're not interviewing Superman and Spider man. Like, people will come on with, you know, an idea or a play on a character or, like, you know, a superhero trope. It's really a smorgasbord. And there's a lot of really wonderful Philadelphia improvisers. It's a lot of fun, and it's. We're bi weekly. We're half an hour, as my girlfriend likes to say. It's the perfect amount of time to go to Trader Joe's turn on a podcast. So we fit right in that niche. We just had our one year anniversary episode, which was a two parter, which, if you're fans of the radio show of Superman, kind of more follows rather than sitting down having an interview, where we sort of go out into the field.

01:19:07
Brendan
And that's also a nice sort of buffet of folks because we have a bunch of recurring guests come back for that one. So I'd say start with those. And if you're a fan, go back, listen to their episodes. You can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, most. Anywhere you find your podcasts, you can follow us online. City of supers on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok and City of Superspod on Twitter and YouTube. And if you want to become a maximum member on our patreon, it's only $100 a month.

01:19:33
Nick
Yeah, venmo us whatever amount, whenever.

01:19:36
Brendan
We'll do something for you.

01:19:39
Case
It's like back in the day when, like, artists were trying to figure out how to do, like, musicians, I should say. We're trying to figure out, like, how not to do iTunes, but also put their stuff online. And it was just like the in Rainbows track for where it's just like, oh, yeah, just whatever. Whatever you think is a good amount from Radiohead, we can take it. Whatever. Yeah. No, everyone should absolutely go check that out. Where can people find you individually on the socials?

01:20:05
Brendan
I'm awesome. I just left Twitter and I'm so happy about it.

01:20:09
Case
Probably a good choice.

01:20:11
Brendan
Thank you kindly. Nick, are you on socials that you would want people to follow?

01:20:15
Nick
I don't think so.

01:20:17
Brendan
Anything important?

01:20:18
Nick
I post city of superstar, and then whatever my fiance tells me to post.

01:20:24
Jmike
Oh, man.

01:20:26
Case
Well, everyone should check out city of supers. And then I guess they can't find you directly online, so don't. Don't find them online.

01:20:35
Brendan
Don't go looking.

01:20:36
Case
Don't go looking, God damn it.

01:20:37
Brendan
That's our business.

01:20:39
Case
But check out city of and then circle back and check out what we're doing. J Mike, where can people find you and follow you?

01:20:45
Jmike
Oh, gosh, I feel like Nick here. Like, I'm on. I'm on there. I'm on the socials occasionally, but you can find me on Bluesky and Twitterike 101. I might post something occasionally if case reminds me and tags me in something. I'm like, hey, that's really cool. Should totally go check that out. Yeah, that's where you can find me. I'm there.

01:21:08
Case
As for me, you can find me on most socials. ACs Aiken, except for Instagram, where I'm holding on to my aim. Screen name for dear life, Quetzalcoatl five, because I was a pretentious kid in high school, also a legion of superheroes fan, because the five I actually chose, that wasn't just like a wrongfully signed upper. You can find the show on X Men of Steelpod. You can find stuff that we're putting up on the youtubes at the certain POV media. Otherwise, you can head on over to certainPov.com, where you can find lots of great shows. Let's give a shout out to jukebox Vertigo, which just came back from a brief hiatus and they've reformatted a little bit because Josue has some life stuff going on.

01:21:48
Case
But Keith, recently, as of the time recording, did an awesome episode that was a retrospective on the eighties and how that music is way better than people sort of like, write off eighties music as being, quote unquote, a bad decade for music. And they've got more stuff on the way. So check out jukebox vertigo. That's also a really fun show. You can find it@certainpov.com comma, along with more episodes of this show, you can find a link to our discord server where you can come interact with us directly, a really fun time. And then aside from that, you can just find us here next time. And until then, stay super man.

01:22:31
Jmike
Men of Steel is a certain pov production. Our hosts are J. Mike Folson and case Aiken. The show is scored and edited by Jeff Moonen, and our logo and episode art is by case Aiken.

01:22:58
Case
Are you tired of watching your beloved characters being tortured by careless authors. Are you sick of feeling like they could have swapped out all of the painful action and the plot would remain untouched? Subscribe to books that the fortnightly book review podcast focusing on fictional depictions of trauma, we assume that the characters reactions are reasonable and focus on how badly or well they were served by their authors. Join us for our minor character spotlights, main character discussions, and favorite non traumatic things in the dark books we love. Find us on Spotify, iTunes, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcasts costs. CpoV, certainpov.com.