Adventures of Superman is an American superhero television series based on comic book characters and concepts that Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster created in 1938.

The show was the first television series to feature Superman and began filming in 1951 in California on RKO-Pathé stages and the RKO Forty Acres back lot.

George Reeves played Superman, with Jack Larson as Jimmy Olsen, John Hamilton as Perry White, and Robert Shayne as Inspector Henderson.

In the series, Superman battles crooks, gangsters, and other villains in the city of Metropolis while masquerading "off duty" as Daily Planet reporter Clark Kent.

In most of the series' episodes, Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen, Clark's colleagues in the office, find themselves in dangerous situations that only Superman's timely intervention can resolve.

Jack Larson recalled that, at the time, he was in New York City, and his newfound fame caught him off guard.

For the TV series, Reeves asked that Coates receive equal star billing as Lois Lane, an enterprising reporter who tries to outdo Clark Kent at getting major news stories.

The first season's episodes usually featured action-packed, dark, gritty, and often violent story lines in which Superman fought gangsters and crime lords.

Scripts for the sixth and final season reestablished some of the show's seriousness, often utilizing science fiction elements such as a Kryptonite-powered robot, atomic explosions, and impregnable metal cubes.

In 1954, at the request of the U.S. Treasury Department, the production company made a special short film directed by Thomas Carr.

It features Clark Kent/Superman, Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane as well as Tristram Coffin as a government spokesman and Billy Nelson as a criminal.

The establishing shot of The Daily Planet in the first season was the E. Clem Wilson Building in Los Angeles, California, on Wilshire Boulevard, which was famous for decades as the headquarters of Mutual of Omaha.

The Carnation Milk Company Building, located a few blocks east on Wilshire, served as The Daily Planet's front door.

[6] The opening narration of the show set the stage for each program:[citation needed] Kellogg, 'The Greatest Name In Cereals', presents the Adventures of Superman!

Superman ... who can change the course of mighty rivers, bend steel in his bare hands, and who, disguised as Clark Kent, mild-mannered reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper, fights a never-ending battle for truth, justice, and the American way!

By this time, a springboard was brought in for take off scenes, designed by the series' other SFX supervisor, Thol "Si" Simonson.

The typical technique had footage of Reeves stretched out on a spatula-like device formed to his torso and leg, operated on a counterweight like a boom microphone, allowing him to bank as if in flight.

For the color episodes, the simpler and cheaper technique of a neutral cyclorama backing was used, usually sky-blue or black for night shots.

Techniques for landings involved Reeves jumping off a ladder or holding an off-camera horizontal bar and swinging down into frame.

Actors who landed Superman guest appearances early in their careers include: Other veteran film and television actors making appearances on the show included Dona Drake, George E. Stone, James Craven, Dan Seymour, Victor Sen Yung, Maudie Prickett, John Doucette, Norma Varden, Roy Barcroft, Elizabeth Patterson, and George Chandler.

Director Tommy Carr's brother Steve appeared as an unbilled extra in nearly every one of the first 26 shows and frequently in more substantial character roles.

Producers planned to continue Adventures of Superman in 1959 with two more years' worth of episodes, to begin airing in the 1960 season.

The sudden death of the show's star George Reeves in June 1959 was not the end of the series either, in the producers' eyes.

When Jack Larson returned from Europe after the death of Reeves, producers suggested the series could continue as "Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen", with more focus on Larson's character, playing opposite a "Superman" who would be a composite of stock shots of George Reeves and a stunt double to be filmed from behind.