1940 - 1950


SUPERMAN 1940 - 1950 Radio Show
Mutual Broadcasting System


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"Boys and girls, your attention please! Presenting a new exciting radio program featuring the thrilling adventures of an amazing and incredible personality! Faster than an airplane, more powerful than a locomotive, impervious to bullets! Up in the sky, look! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's Superman! And now... Superman!
A being no larger than an ordinary man but possessed of powers and abilities never before realized on Earth. Able to leap into the air an eighth of a mile at a single bound, hurdle a 20 story building with ease, race a high powered bullet to it's target, lift tremendous weights and bend solid steel in his bare hands as though it were paper. Superman! The strange visitor from a distant planet! Champion of the oppressed! Physical marvel extraordinary... who has sworn to devote his existence on Earth to helping those in need!"

- From the first broadcast.

From the 1940 World's Fair uniform worn by Ray Middleton.


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On February 12, 1940 producers Bob Maxwell and Frank Chase aired the first episode of the classic radio program 'Superman' and hired a reluctant Clayton 'Bud' Collyer as its lead actor. In the beginning Collyer tried to turn the role down. "The whole idea embarrassed me, so I said no!" recalled Collyer in 1966. After the so called 'audition' recording hit the air Bob Maxwell told the weary Collyer, "You're Superman!" When Collyer tried to leave the studio Maxwell tricked him into doing a second one which featured the first on air appearance of Superman. Collyer was now the first actor to portray Superman!

Born Clayton J. Heermance, Jr., in 1908, in Manhattan, Clayton was the younger brother of Hollywood actress June Collyer. Rather than choosing a show business carrier as his mother, grandfather, brother and sister had, Clayton chose the legal life while working his way through law school by performing on radio as a singer and actor. After earning a law degree from Fordham in 1933, Collyer worked for two years as a law clerk but suddenly realized that he could earn as much in a month on radio as he could in a year in law. Collyer made the decision to take his mother's maiden name and by age 32 was earning more than $50,000 a year!

The radio shows lasted with Collyer until 1950. On March 1, 1950, baritone voiced actor Michael Fitzmaurice (see Michael Fitzmaurice) took over as the Man of Tomorrow but he, unfortunately, was no match for Bud's ability to create distinctively different voices for the dual role. The curtains closed on the radio show on June 5, 1950 after an incredible 10 year run!