When Superman was first heard on radio less than two years after the comic book appearance, the character took on an added dimension with Bud Collyer in the title role.
During World War II and the post-war years, the juvenile adventure radio serial, sponsored by Kellogg's Pep, was a huge success, with many listeners following the quest for "truth and justice" in the daily radio broadcasts, the comic book stories and the newspaper comic strip.
Airing in the late afternoon (variously at 5:15pm, 5:30pm and 5:45pm), the radio serial engaged its young after-school audience with its exciting and distinctive opening, which changed slightly as the series progressed.
Superman, who can leap tall buildings in a single bound, race a speeding bullet to its target, 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 and justice.
In the first few episodes, Superman's home planet of Krypton is located on the far side of the sun, as opposed to a distant star system as it is in most stories.
This serial introduced the fictional mineral kryptonite, the radiation from which can weaken and even (in some continuities) kill Superman.
[2] That well-known signature opening, one of the most famous in radio history, was delivered by Jackson Beck, the announcer-narrator for the program from 1943 to 1950.
He also had recurring roles, voicing an occasional tough guy and also portraying Beany Martin, the Daily Planet's teenage copy boy.
Decades later, Beck portrayed Perry White, Clark Kent's boss, in Filmation's The New Adventures of Superman (1966–1970), in addition to serving as the show's narrator.
At other times, Batman (Stacy Harris) and Robin (Ronald Liss) appeared on the program in Superman's absence.
The scripts by B. P. Freeman and Jack Johnstone were directed by Robert and Jessica Maxwell, George Lowther, Allen Ducovny and Mitchell Grayson.
Many aspects associated with Superman, such as kryptonite, originated on radio, as did certain characters, including Daily Planet editor Perry White, copy boy Jimmy Olsen and police inspector Bill Henderson.
In 1946, the series delivered a powerful blow against the Ku Klux Klan's prospects in the northern United States.
Stetson Kennedy, a human rights activist, infiltrated the KKK and other white supremacist terrorist groups.
[5] Concerned that the organization had links to the government and police forces, Kennedy decided to use its findings to strike at the Klan in a different way.
Superman historian Michael Hayde has cast doubt on whether actual KKK codewords and details were broadcast in the Clan of the Fiery Cross story arc.
He wrote: "[O]ne is hard pressed to uncover anything that might be construed as proprietary to the KKK, with the exception of one – and only one – sequence, heard in episode #2".
[7] The story-arc was loosely adapted for a DC Comics limited series, Superman Smashes the Klan by Gene Luen Yang, and was released in October 2019.
[8] The syndicated series, titled simply Superman, first aired via pre-recorded transcription disks over 11 stations beginning on February 12, 1940, with an origin story, "The Baby from Krypton".