Smallville, the longest running Superman show
Smallville aired its last episode on May 13th 2011 and with it, a phenomenon came to an end. The show ran for 10 years, on two different networks, bringing fans a new twist on the origin of Clark Kent/Kal El/Superman.
With a show that ran for 10 years, there are likely some facts that fans may or may not know about the show. With Tom Welling and Michael Rosenbaum appearing at Fandemic Houston this weekend, we thought it would be fun to share some of these facts about the show.
The show was originally supposed to be about Bruce Wayne
Gotham is a hit for Fox and tells the story of a young Bruce Wayne and Jim Gordon as they grow into the characters we know from the comics.
Before Gotham, there were actually plans to develop a show about the early years of Bruce Wayne. The story would have followed the same structure as Smallville in that we would not have seen young Bruce in costume in the show.
Warner Bros. put the stop to this because plans to bring Batman back to the big screen was underway. The show was re-imagined as Smallville and the rest was history. Batman Begins hit the big screen 4 years later.
Oliver Queen’s part in the show was originally supposed to be Bruce Wayne
The plans to have Bruce Wayne on the show continued. The producers wanted to introduce many fan favorite characters to the world of Smallville. They felt that Bruce was probably the most logical choice but Warner Bros. stepped in once again and stated no.
Producers decided to include Oliver Queen to the show as a replacement for Bruce Wayne. Many fans noticed the similarity of Queen’s Green Arrow to Wayne’s Batman. Oliver Queen was introduced in season 6 and remained on the show until the finale.
Batman was finally introduced to the Smallville universe during the Smallville Season 11 comic run that came out in 2012.
Tom Welling and Allison Mack were the only cast members that appeared in all 10 seasons
When a show is created, one would just assume that the cast would remain for the entirety of the series. For many shows, this doesn’t happen for whatever reason, but in the case of Smallville… yeah it didn’t happen either. There are two actors that were in all ten seasons.
The series started with several key characters like Lex Luthor, Lana Lang, Pete Ross, as well as Martha and Jonathan Kent. Each of those characters left at various points during the show’s 10 year run. Characters were cycled in when old characters left. We got Lois Lane, Oliver Queen, and Jimmy Olsen to name just a few.
Tom Welling’s Clark Kent and Alison Mack’s Chloe Sullivan were the only two characters to appear every season. Welling however, holds the record for most appeared in episodes of Smallville as he was in all 217 episodes of the series. That is crazy!
The No Tights, No Flights rule was something that Tom Welling supported
The show runners had a simple rule for the show, No Tights, No Flights. They believed that the story should focus on the character of Clark Kent and not his alter ego, Superman. Now they cheated he and there by having Clark fly at different points during the run, but the rule was followed for the most part.
As Clark left Smallville and started to embrace his Kryptonian side, fans had hoped that they would have the chance to see Tom Welling in costume. What they ended up with was a new incarnation of the Superboy character named ‘The Blur’.
Welling was against the idea of wearing the costume during the finale. He felt that the story was the journey to becoming Superman. Entertainment Weekly ran an article about Welling in 2017. They asked him about the choice of not wearing the costume and he responded “Our finale was supposed to be, in the first act, Clark puts on the suit and flies around, saves Lois on a plane, and does this other stuff. It was a call that I had with Peter Roth, who is the head of WB Television, who’s a good friend of mine and we have a great relationship. I said, ‘That’s not our show.’ He’s like, ‘No, it’s going to be great,” and I go, ‘Yeah, but just think about what we’ve been doing. If we just jump into that, we haven’t earned it.’”
There were plans to have Tom Welling on Supernatural
Jenson Ackles was the runner up to Clark Kent behind Tom Welling. Even though he didn’t get the part, he ended up on the show in Season 3 and remained until Season 4. He left the show and became one of the leads in the CW’s hit show Supernatural.
Did you know that Supernatural was going to feature an episode where the Winchester boys investigate the Superman curse that kills every actor that plays the character. They have to save Tom Welling from the curse as he was the last to play the character on Smallville.
There was a post from Entertainment Weekly where they talk to Jackson Stewart about the unused plot. He stated “They had an episode where they really wanted to do a Superman curse that was about every actor who plays Superman ends up getting killed. So they find out that Tom Welling from Smallville is next and have to save him. I thought that was one of the funniest ideas that I’d heard.” That episode would have been a fun episode to see!
Meet Tom Welling and Michael Rosenbaum this weekend
Those are the five interesting facts that you may or may not know. You can meet Tom Welling, Michael Rosenbaum, John Schneider, and James Marsters this weekend at Fandemic Houston. You can get your tickets by heading to fandemictour.com now. There are still VIP, Photo-Op and autograph options available.
