Part 2: Superman Ratings More Powerful Than A Locomotive

A funny coincidence happened in the casting of Martha and Jonathan Kent. Recalled producer Bruce Timm, "We had cast Shelly Fabares early on and had another actor for Pa Kent. We weren't thrilled with Pa and were looking for someone to replace the voice actor. Our casting director Leslie Lamers came up with a list which included Mike Farrell. Mike said to us when he came in, 'Did you guys realize that my wife plays Ma Kent?' We honestly didn¹t know that."

Though the producers must clear some things with D.C. Comics for the animated series, they have had few problems. "They have been very hands off," said Timm. "Every time we wanted a guest star from the other comics they have said, 'Sure, go ahead.' They've been really happy with the shows they have seen so far. Thanks to our work on BATMAN they know they can trust us and that we aren't going to run totally roughshod over their characters."

Added producer/writer Paul Dini, "We really wanted to have the Phantom Zone villains and we wanted to do SUPERGIRL. We had to negotiate. We promised and swore up and down that those are the only Kryptonians who will ever show up. The Phantom Zone is closed down forever. SUPERGIRL is not technically Kryptonian. She is from a neighboring solar system. That is how we got around that."

One of the guest characters from the D.C. Universe is STEEL. First introduced in the SUPERMAN comics, he is played by Michael Dorn (Worf on STAR TREK THE NEXT GENERATION, DEEP SPACE NINE).

Noted Timm, "We were talking about STAR TREK people and I said, 'you know, you never hear Michael Dorn use his real voice.' It was kind of funny because as soon as he got to the microphone Michael started using his deep voice and we said, 'Michael, Michael, use your real voice.' He said, 'God, I don't know what my regular voice sounds like anymore."

The producers have found the Broadcast and Standards censors at WB a breeze compared to what they had to deal with at Fox on BATMAN. That isn't to say that the producers don't face any limits to violence on their series. "If anything, we police ourselves more," said Timm. "There have been a couple of times when we've sent a show to the censors and got it back with no problems. Then we looked at it again and said it was too violent, so we actually went back to tone things down."

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