“Kellog’s PEP! P-E-P. That super-delicious cereal presents…The Adventures of Superman! Faster than a speeding bullet! More powerful than a locomotive! Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound! Look, up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s Superman!”
Now, if you don’t remember Kellogg’s Pep, that’s okay. I don’t, either. It was discontinued some time in the 1970s. From what I understand they tasted a bit like Wheaties. Pep was one of the first vitamin-fortified cereals, but I know it because of its close association with the Superman radio show, which ran from 1940 until 1949. I listen to the old-time radio show every single day on my way to and from work, and in fact, whenever I’m driving the car anywhere. Some time ago, I bought a 5-CD set that has literally hundreds of episodes of the show on it, and I just let it play and play. For most of its run, The Adventures of Superman was comprised of 15-minute episodes that played every afternoon, the time of day depending on locale. As a serialized story, there was a lot of repetition to keep kids who may have missed an episode up to speed. But the stories move pretty quickly, for the most part. I have a couple of the CD sets released by Radio Spirits almost 20 years ago, as well as a big cassette set featuring Superman along with Batman & Robin, who often guest-starred with the Man of Steel.
As I’ve mentioned before, much of the Superman mythos first appeared on radio. It can’t be understated how much the radio program contributed to Superman’s popularity. But I think my favorite part of the show’s portrayal of Superman is what a complete character he is. He’s no musclebound lunkhead, as he’s sometimes stereotyped to be from the comics. He’s an investigative reporter with as sharp an intellect as Batman’s. Even moreso on this show, because there are times when he makes Batman look simple by comparison. Well, I mean, it’s Superman’s show. He’s the star, right? But the number of times he nearly gives himself away when talking about himself while he’s in his Clark Kent disguise (more on that in a minute) is high. Very high.
It’s a more modern contrivance, thinking of Superman as really being Clark Kent’s disguise. This started in the 80s when John Byrne rebooted Superman. Gone was his past as Superbaby, or even Superboy. Superman simply became the public persona of the adult super-powered farmboy who didn’t even know where he came from. But back in the 1940s, Superman was his true persona, and Clark Kent was the disguise. In fact, it was in the second episode of the radio show when Superman, soon after arriving on Earth as an adult, and after rescuing a professor and his son from a runaway trolley car in Indiana, asks for their help in coming up with a human name for him to use as his disguise: “How about Clark Kent? That’s ordinary enough.” It’s also their idea for him to become a newspaper reporter, at “a great metropolitan.” That way he can learn quickly about where he’s needed.
As the radio program progresses, Superman’s cast of supporting characters solidifies. We have Lois Lane right away, of course, and “grey-haired editor, Perry White.” But when cub reporter Jimmy Olsen comes along, it was a whole new ballgame. Jimmy Olsen was just as important a character, if not moreso than Lois Lane. Jimmy didn’t just get into trouble. Jimmy provided the everyman’s perspective for Superman. He was our window into Superman’s world. He traveled the world with Clark Kent, despite being 14 years old and allegedly living with his mother. At one point I was considering compiling a list of skills that Jimmy picked up on their adventures, but it would be a towering list, only exceeding his injuries by a small margin. That kid would have been the poster child for CTE by the time he was an adult, and he’d have more scar tissue than an Alex Ross image of Batman. He was shot, stabbed, shocked, poisoned, and nearly drowned more times than I can count. He probably developed immunity to a dozen diseases, too. He was like a modern-day Rasputin.
Just like the show, I have to interrupt this blog post to talk about Kellogg’s Pep. When the show began without a sponsor in February 1940, they made dummy commercials to demonstrate what the show could be. “Brought to you by Blankareens!” But it wasn’t long before Kellogg’s Pep became the show’s sponsor for years. Kellogg’s provided premiums with their cereal, including cardboard warplanes, and mail-away walkie talkies that “look like the real thing and really work.” They came with 50 feet of cord so you could talk “clear across the playground.” There was plenty of air given to buying war bonds during World War II was well. But perhaps the best Pep prizes were the comic buttons.
Our pal Dan McCullough was constantly talking to us about our collection of 18 comic buttons that come in Kellogg’s Pep. He’d always start his pitch with, “Hey, gang!” and then he’d launch into how these comic buttons would look swell pinned to our “jacket, or dress, or cap,” and “what a thrill it was to swap duplicates with our pals. Why, they look so real, you expect them to come to life! And you don’t send any money in, not even a boxtop. And you can’t buy them anywhere. Just ask your mom to get you a package of P-E-P, Kellogg’s Pep!” Seriously, that was off the top of my head because I have heard the pitch so often!
Well, Dan had never heard of EBay, because guess what I got in the mail today. Why, Superman himself!
I have to be honest, after all these years of listening to Dan tell the gang how true-to-life these comic buttons were, I was a little disappointed that they were smaller than a nickel.
But hey, I finally have one of those swell prizes from Kellogg’s of Battle Creek!
