User Reviews

I thought this was such a great episode when I was a kid, so it was fun to see it again. Of course, it is so full of ridiculous plot holes and impossibilities that one shouldn't even begin there. A scientist and his wife have gone to the Amazon to try to find a miracle medicinal substance (which bears well with modern research). In the process, the wife can't keep her hands off the eye of an idol, an enormous diamond, the native people worship (mostly white actors in black face). She is surprised and drops it in some quicksand. This is the one thing that can't be forgiven. They are now being held awaiting the sentence of the medicine man. The Daily Planet dispatches Clark and Lois to investigate their disappearance (Jimmy stows away in the cargo hold). They have engine trouble and the bush pilot, who is flying a commercial plane that is much bigger on the outside than on the inside, needs to land in a clearing when one of the engines goes haywire. Of course, the three reporters are captured and held to the same fate as the other people. The natives make a deal. If one of them agrees to sacrifice himself/herself, they will let the others go. Clark cheats and gets chosen. He is taken to a clearing and will apparently be burned at the stake. During some pyrotechnics, he morphs into Superman and fights the Jungle Devil, a huge white gorilla. He wins, drives the thing away, and becomes a hero, saying it was only a wayward, cowardly ape. But the jewel is an issue and they will be banned, never to return. Clark hears from the scientist that a lump of coal, under pressure for thousands of years, will turn into a diamond. Clark squeezes a lump of coal, and you know the rest. The interesting thing is it isn't just diamond; it is cut to perfection to match the one in the idol. Oh well, if Superman loses his job, he always has another profession.

ALTHOUGH THIS PARTICULAR episode would seem like it is a typical 'Jungle Drums' & Safari epic, it has a somewhat minor twist in plot. Instead of Darkest Africa or the Sub-continent of India, the locale is here, in the Western Hemisphere.

THE STORY HAS the Daily Planet Troubleshooting Trio of Lois, Jimmy & Clark sent off to some fictitious South American wilderness in search of some lost exploratory scientific expedition. (It would appear that Boss man, Perry White, has a very high expense account for his scribes and will go to the extreme of doing the job of official agencies in order to procure the "scoop"!*)

IN THE COURSE of rescuing the missing party from unfriendly & highly hostile natives, Kent/Superman must resort to two here to for untested maneuvers, previously unseen on the series.

FIRST OF ALL, Clark Kent reveals his identity to some others. In combating a "Jungle Devil", he changes into Superman, right before the eyes of the natives; which was the equivalent of not revealing it at all! The tribal people cannot relate to what they witnessed and couldn't possibly tell anyone else what they didn't understand!

THE Primitive TRIBE'S "Jungle Devil" turns out to be a rather elderly Gorilla; who Superman does a very gentle battle against in earning the respect and adulation of the formerly antagonistic captors. Upon return to the camp and the rest of the Americans, the tribal warriors proclaimed Kent to be "a Mighty Warrior!"

THE PRESENCE OF the rather gentle Gorilla (an animal indigenous to Sub Saharan Africa) in the South American jungle was explained that he had escaped from a traveling circus!

THE SECOND AREA of new exposition for TV's Superman was his compressing a lump of coal into a crystallized carbon mass, being a diamond! It was done by Clark clandestinely in order to make up for the insult made by the expedition when they lost the diamond (dropping it into a pool of conveniently located quicksand).

AFTER THE SCIENTIFIC leader of the lost expedition explained that the pieces of coal abundantly disposed around the campground was carbon and if only enough pressure could be brought to bear on one piece, it would be transformed into a diamond. Reaching down into the quicksand, Kent 'found' the now newly formed jewel (replete with cut points) and saved the day!

IF THERE WAS any morale to the story, it is a need for understanding of other cultures. And that, my dear Schultz, is a two way street!