Friday, March 23, 2012

Animated World of DC Comics: Superman's "Family Album" (1988)

This was the backup feature to Superman's 1988 solo series on CBS. As I wrote before when discussing said series, the Family Album, which traces the Man of Steel's formative years, was practically mandated by then-head of children's programming Judy Price, but the downside was that it ensured that the series wouldn't be as successful as it should've been.

Veteran comics writer Marv Wolfman, who was one of the writers for the Superman line of comics from DC in those days, also was a writer and story editor on the show, and wrote the opening installment of the Family Album. In recent years, Wolfman has proven he can write non-superhero stories, too, as he has worked on PBS' Dragon Tales.

Meanwhile, let's look at "To Play or Not to Play", authored by Cherie Wilkerson, who shared most of the writing duties on the show.

Edit, 10/19/23: We've found a generic screencap:


Diehard fans would only have to wait 7 years, after the series was cancelled, before the Metropolis Marvel would get another solo series, and of the three he had, this, sorry to say, was the least successful, if only because of network meddling.

Rating: C.


2 comments:

magicdog said...

This was one of those, "blink & you'll miss it" shows.

Ruby Spears tried to do a more serious Superman show and compared to what came before, I think they succeeded despite the "Family Album" segments. I didn't mind them since it was a way of filling in the gaps without doing an entire retelling of the Superman origin story.

Leave it to the suits to drag down potentially good ideas.

hobbyfan said...

As I wrote when I reviewed the DVD a ways back, it was on at the wrong time in the morning. When Super Friends ended its run, it was set up in the center of the lineup (10 am ET), which is where Superman should've been, if it wasn't for Pee-Wee's Playhouse having already been established there.