Adventures of Superman (TV Series) Money to Burn (1957) User Reviews

Wise-Cracking Hood Made For Fun Episode

[ccthemovieman-1 · 9/10 · 16 December 2006]

There's a fire in a Daily Planet warehouse and, since Clark Kent isn't around, Perry White rushes out to cover it himself. Lois asks, "Can we (her and Jimmy) come, too?" White responds, "Might as well; you can't make it any worse."

At the fire, we see a truck-stand saying "Fireman's Friend" which is really two guys robbing the safe inside of $12,000. Meanwhile, White gets blamed for the robbery because he last handled the money and how could it disappear in the middle of a fire? (We saw what happened but the police don't know.) Perry turns into a crime reporter to try to clear his name.

Along the way, we hear seven wisecracks from one of the two crooks. The jokes weren't appreciated by his partner, but I thought they were pretty funny. It helped make this a very entertaining episode.

Stupid on the One Hand......

[Hitchcoc · 7/10 · 13 February 2015]

Two crooks, one the brains of the outfit and the other a wisecracking oaf run a kind of portable lunch counter where they supply coffee and donuts to firefighters at the scenes of fires. This allows them to be inside the normal safety zone. A fire at the Daily Planet warehouse draws them and they become aware that there is a safe there with the entire payroll for the month. Why this is where money is kept is beyond me. Using a fire resistant suit, the dumb guy goes in the blaze, opens the safe, and steals the money. Perry White decides to try to solve the robbery himself, but ends up a captive. This is a real mystery and Clark/Superman feels helpless to figure it out. Sadly, for the bad guys, a statement becomes critical to the solving of the case.

Fun and above standard for a later colored episode

[sssuperman-dot-com · 7/10 · 18 August 2015]

Personally, I tend to prefer the black-and-white episodes of the show to the colored ones. I mean, in any season, this show is no stranger to constant contrivances and visible plot holes, but in the first two seasons it usually felt like there was some attempt to put intelligence and realism into it. Occasionally, there was even a bit of genuine cleverness to the mysteries. But once you get into the coloreds, it becomes sillier, goofier, and gimmickier. Don't get me wrong, SOMEtimes the goofiness can actually be rather enjoyable, but overall I prefer it when there's some effort put into at least trying to be smart and make sense.

Like most colored episodes, this one is very contrived and silly, but it does feel closer to the B&W's than most. It doesn't rely on silly gimmicks or fantasy elements, instead focusing on a comparatively grounded mystery. And honestly, that's what I like most about this show, and what I can't always find in other versions of Superman: Clark Kent solving a more theoretically "real-life" type of crime with his deductive reasoning skills, rather than just Superman punching another alien. And this episode fits the bill. What I like best is the moment where Clark seems so puzzled, but contemplates for a while and comes to the solution. That just captures what's so great about this show for me.

To be clear, the mystery and solution is far, FAR from actually being clever. But overall, it's still enjoyable. There's also some good humor, and while Lois and Jimmy don't do much in this one, Perry White gets a more active role. It's not super incredible or anything, but it's certainly a worthwhile watch, and for a colored episode seems a bit above average.

overall - very stupid

[dranthonykstevens · 4/10 · 29 January 2022]

Fireman do not know how to put out fires with superman???

A firehose has infinite length and superman fly it as far as he wants to put out a fire AND the hose creates its own water. Just too many crazy things in this episode.