PIE MAN & SUPERMAN

'Pushing Daisies' returned to the airwaves to complete its undeserved Death March towards cancellation. Well, as it's only back for three last episodes and two have now aired, it's more of a Death Stroll.

ABC treated this series shoddily, but the audience is to blame as well. And once it's gone, it's going to be that much harder for TV creators to come up with something that doesn't smack of the same-old, same-old.

Anyhoo, enough of my griping... for now.

During the run of last week's episode, there was a lot of discussion of Superman - who he was as a man and as a super-man. His identity as Clark Kent was even mentioned.

This has been brought up before in Toobworld Central. Despite all the various incarnations of Clark Kent/Superman that have popped up on TV, on Earth Prime-Time, there was only the One: from 'The Adventures Of Superman'. But sadly, Superman died. (According to our splainin, it's tied in to events that took place in an episode of 'Crime Story' which took place in the early 1960's.)

By this point in the Toobworld timeline, everyone now knows that Superman's secret identity had been that of Clark Kent, mild-mannered reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper. There was even a foundation dedicated to the memory of Clark Kent (mentioned in Jerry Orbach's final episode of 'Law & Order'). And all of the details of the life/lives of Clark and Superman have been revealed since his death - even the name of his Krypton father (which Jerry Seinfeld uses for his ATM pin number).

So there's no super-sized Zonk with all the mentions of Superman and Clark Kent in 'Pushing Daisies'. Not once was George Reeves name invoked, nor was there any mention of a TV show, the movies or even of the comic books. Ned the Pie-Maker talked about him as if he really existed:

"Nobody gave a crap about Clark Kent. He could disappear off the face of the Daily Planet and nobody would even notice. But I bet he’d spit spandex to find someone special enough who cared about a man and not a cape. But if Lois or Mr. White or Jimmy Olsen found out that Clark and Superman were one and the same, then Clark would be more studly and cool. But on his own, he’s just a super-tall clumsy guy cramming himself into a phone booth."

And in Toobworld, he did exist.

Up, Up, and BCnU!