#3 – It’s A Bird… It’s A Plane… It’s Superman
1966 was the year that Batman turned
TV and comic books upside with its Technicolor pop art shenanigans.
While a March 1966 Broadway opening means that a Superman musical, It’s A Bird… It’s A Plane… It’s Superman, probably
wasn’t too influenced by the January debut of the Dynamic Duo, it
definitely reflected the same attitude towards comics and comic
characters. In other words, it’s really silly.
It’s
also pretty terrible. The show ran for a modest 129 performances,
closing about three months after it opened. The show took serious
liberties with the Superman mythos, introducing a lame romantic
obstacle in the person of Daily Planet columnist Max Mencken, who is
jealous of Lois Lane’s feelings for Superman. The villain is Dr. Abner
Sedgewick, a ten-time Nobel Prize losing scientist who wants to take over the world so he can destroy Sweden in revenge.
The music and lyrics were by Charles Strouse and Lee Adams, an otherwise powerhouse team who brought us Bye Bye Birdie and who would later go on to get a comic musical right with Annie. Their work on It’s a Bird… is fairly uninspired to these ears, and they have songs with titles like Bam! Pow! Zonk! (surely Batman must have been some sort of influence), although You’ve Got Possibilities has proven to have a life of its own outside the show.
The
show was turned into a TV special in 1975; it ran on ABC and was simply
wretched. It’s notable for casting the lovely Lesley Anne Warren as
Lois Lane. Everything else is nigh upon unwatchable, but don’t take my
word for it – I’ve embedded the program below.