Everything Is Terrible dug up a copy of ABC’s musical TV special It’s a Bird… It’s a Plane… It’s Superman! from 1975 and made a three-minute compilation of the insanity. The show was adapted from a 1966 Broadway play which debuted the same year as the Adam West “Batman” TV series. The campy humor of the play may have worked in ’66, but it didn’t translate well as a TV special a decade later.
The show was significantly shortened, and the ethnicity of a troupe of evildoers was changed from Chinese acrobats to Mafia-style gangsters. The show was broadcast on the ABC network under its Wide World of Entertainment late-night umbrella title to poor critical reception. It starred David Wilson as Superman/Clark Kent, Lesley Ann Warren as Lois Lane, Loretta Swit as Sydney Carlton, David Wayne as Dr. Abner Sedgwick, and Kenneth Mars as Max Mencken. Viewers of this re-make felt that the TV production lacked the energy of the original Broadway show. [Wikipedia]
Don’t tell me how to feel, Wikipedia! I think this video has plenty of, um, “energy”. But you can judge for yourself:
For more of the TV movie, the first two parts are available at Uber Nerd Nation.
[Video: Everything is Terrible via Comics Alliance. Inset picture: Epic4chan]