Adam Graham's Blog: Christians and Superheroes - Posts Tagged "television-program"

Flights of Fantasy by Michael J. Hayde

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


In the 1940s and 50s Superman surged across the airwaves with a decade on radio and six seasons on television. In this comprehensive volume, Hayde examines the history of these two fantastic productions under Robert Maxwell on radio and for the first television season and then under Whitney Ellsworth for the rest of the TV run.

Hayde has done a thorough job researching the Superman's principals and production history of both the TV and radio version. About 2/3 of the book is dedicated to the TV series which makes sense as there tended to be more challenges around that production than the radio version. For devotees of the TV series, there's a wealth of production notes as to how certain episodes were shot, plus Hayde also shares key insights into the editing process and how and why many scripts changed between their first draft to what aired on television.

However, Flights of Fantasy does more than examine the technical aspects of the series, the book also has a lot of fascinating information on the cast and crew of Superman including stars Bud Collyer (radio) and George Reeves (Television.) How the two men reacted differently to the fame the role of Superman brought is a recurring theme in the book.

While the main narrative of the book is interesting in and of itself, Flights of Fantasy is also a solid reference book for fans of the series with five appendices including logs of every radio and television episode as well as plot summaries for all television episodes and all available radio programs, and plot details on two TV episodes of Superman that were never filmed.

Overall, Flights of Fantasy is a great book for fans of the Man of Steel's earliest adaptations.



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