Mei Man: I drew Superman during the Great Depression

Chapter 203 Advertising
"There is no need to worry about this, Fisher only needs to be responsible for the production of Lego."

Colin seemed prepared for the concern expressed by Herman Fischer.

Sure enough, at [-] o'clock that night, the vast majority of listeners, including Herman, in the popular radio drama "Superman's Adventure" on CBS Radio learned the news of the sale of Lego blocks from the radio.

Announcer: "Has an unbelievable adventurous character, faster than a flying bullet, stronger than a locomotive, and even an exploding bomb cannot penetrate his hard skin."

Passerby A: "Look at the sky!"

……

"It's Superman!"

Since the first episode of "Baby from Krypton", the radio drama "Superman Adventure" has always occupied the number one listening rate in the same period, and the listening rate is still growing, especially as the popularity of the radio drama surpasses the competition in the same period When it came to the NBC show, it made CBS even more excited.

According to Wells, who is in charge of dubbing, CBS already has plans to serialize "The Adventures of Superman".

The purpose is to use the momentum of the radio drama to suppress other radio programs of NBC at the same time.

Of course, Colin doesn't have any opinion on this. For him, the more popular radio dramas are, the more [faith] he gets.

From a certain point of view, he is naturally happy to see the long-term and serialized development of "Superman Adventures".

If he remembers correctly, the Superman radio drama was continuously broadcast on the TV station for 11 years.

Suffice to say that Superman's popularity in the broadcast market.

That night, the sixth episode of "The Adventures of Superman" was broadcast on the radio, still written by Colin.

Originally in the plot of this episode, he planned to arrange for Luthor to appear in a normal way, but considering the situation of Lego bricks, he deliberately changed the plot content of this episode.The order of appearance was replaced, and the latest alien villain, Brainiac, who just appeared in the comics not long ago, was replaced.

Therefore, the name of the sixth episode of the radio series has also changed from "Evil Genius Luthor" to "The Shrinking City of Candor".

The content of the plot is basically the same as that in the comics.

However, because it was a radio drama, Colin deliberately lengthened the development of the plot, and made a suggestion on the dubbing, thinking that Brainiac, as an alien, should not speak in the tone of a normal earthling.

Wells listened to his advice and specially arranged for an actress from the Mercury Theater to be responsible for the dubbing of Brainiac in the dubbing, and deliberately changed the tone of speech.

This also led to the fact that in the later broadcasts, the listeners in front of the radio heard Brainiac's voice, often with a strange tone, which made people feel the difference in the other party.

And at this point, it was also continued in the later "Superman" works. Afterwards, whether in the production of animation or movies, the creators always tried their best to make Brainiac's voice fit the voice of the original radio drama. design.

Although most of the plots of the radio drama "The Shrinking City of Candor" are consistent with the comics, Colin deliberately spent more time describing the part of the city of Candor, and these descriptions were also described later. In the broadcast dubbing, it was faithfully presented by Welles.

Announcer: "Kandor City, the city in a bottle, what an incredible city, it was the capital of Krypton and the largest core city before Krypton was destroyed.

Announcer: "At a certain time, Brainiac came to Krypton and took a fancy to Candor City. He shrunk the city and put it in a bottle to become his collection. At that time, Candor City had more than 700 million residents. , and then live in this shrinking city in a bottle.”

Announcer: "After Candor City was put into bottles, the residents of Candor City created artificial red suns and artificial intelligence robots to help them live and farm to maintain their survival. Under the leadership of Kryptonian scientists, Superman, Seeing these robots working in the fields, I looked up and found the artificial sun hanging high near the mouth of the bottle."

Superman: "That's pretty amazing, how did you guys do it?"

Kryptonian scientist Professor Jinda: "Kandor City has always been the most cutting-edge city in Kryptonian research. Before being shrunk down, we were researching on replacing Krypton's declining energy with artificial suns. In fact, we were close to succeeding at that time. , Unfortunately, at the last minute, the city was shrunk by Brainiac."

Kryptonian scientist: "However, fortunately, we used this technology in the bottle to ensure that the citizens of Candor City can live normally..."

In the description of the radio play, the audience vaguely sketched a shrunken image of Kandor City in their minds.

The appearance of Candor City also means that the plot of the four-and-ten-minute radio drama has entered the end. The city of Kandor returns to Earth.

Immediately afterwards, the radio sounded the concluding remarks amidst the unsatisfactory expressions of the audience.

Passerby A: "Look at the sky!"

……

Passerby Ding: "That's Superman! (That's - Superman!)"

Announcer: ""Superman" is a work protected by copyright. It is serialized in newspapers and magazines published by the Courier Newspaper. In addition, the same Lego toy in Candor City will be released today. Buyers have the opportunity to get Superman author Colin A copy of the map of Candor City created by Luper himself, those who are interested can go to major toy stores in New York to buy."

At the end of the broadcast, accompanied by Superman's iconic slogan, the announcer Orson Wells informed the sales of Lego toys at the end and played an advertisement for Colin.

As a screenwriter for radio scripts, Colin naturally enjoys the privilege.

Now that CBS radio station is working closely with him, it is natural that they will not refuse Colin's request to advertise through the "Superman Adventures" radio drama.

"Kandor City Lego."

In front of the radio, Stanley couldn't help showing yearning when he heard the final announcement of the radio drama.

He had read the serial plot of Candor City in the newspaper bought by his classmates, and he was very impressed with this shrunken city in a bottle in the comics.

But, he turned his head and glanced at the father who was cutting clothes on the folding couch and the mother who was sewing buttons in the living room.

The sensible Stanley knows very well that with the current difficult livelihood situation at home, it is obviously impossible to have spare money for himself to buy this so-called Candor City Lego toy.

Therefore, Stanley can only keep this expectation in his heart silently, imagining that when he grows up, he can buy toys as he likes.

……

【Faith (42850/100000)】

The broadcast of the "Superman Adventure" radio drama not only increased the popularity of the comics, but also gained a lot of "faith" for Colin.

And this is just part of Ke Lin's preparation. At the same time as the radio drama was broadcast, the quarterly magazine of "Superman" was also released simultaneously.

And in this latest issue of the quarterly, Colin described the story of Candor City in a more detailed way, and even on one of the pages, it described that Superman had met in Candor City before meeting scientists. When he arrived at his uncle, he learned from them that he also had a cousin named Carla Zor-El.

Superman thought that his cousin had died in the destruction of Krypton, and told his uncle's family the sad news.

But in fact, on the last page of the "Superman" quarterly, Colin deliberately drew a caricature of space, heralding the message that Kara Zor-El is not dead.

This Kara Zo-El is actually the famous Superwoman, the cousin of Superman.

In the original original setting, when Krypton was destroyed, part of the city where the scientist Zo-El lived was thrown into space, because there was enough air to cover it, so the residents in the city survived.

Only without the protection of the planet, this city floating in the universe will eventually be destroyed, so at the last moment, the Zo-El couple sent their 15-year-old daughter Kara to a planet where they found that there was a Kryptonian living there. planet - Earth.

This is also the original origin setting of Supergirl.

In the "Superman" quarterly, Colin changed this setting so that Supergirl's parents survived, and also drew on some later Supergirl settings, that is, when Krypton was destroyed, Kara's spaceship followed closely. After Karl's spaceship, but a meteorite hit her spaceship when Krypton exploded, so it deviated from the established orbit, causing her to enter a long-term dormancy.

It wasn't until decades later that when Superman grew up, he met his uncle's family who were shrunk down and lived in Candor City. After learning about Kara, he used this to extend the foreshadowing of Superwoman's debut.

Of course, all of this is just Colin's arrangement, and it will take a long time before Superwoman really debuts.

At least, so far, the villains of Superman are enough for him to create plots, and many superhero concepts and abilities have not been fully unlocked. Even the role of Batman is just a taste of the mysterious person in the Superman story. , to leave some impressions on the readers.

The description of Kandor City in the radio drama and in the "Superman" quarterly issue is obviously a foreshadowing of the upcoming Lego toys.

In order to allow the public to accept the concept of Lego as much as possible, Colin has worked hard.

Not only did he advertise on the radio and the "Superman" quarterly magazine, but he also spent a lot of time on the Lego box. For this reason, he specially created the cover of the box, with the Lego form of Candor City as the background. Both ends are matched with the battle images of Superman and Brainiac, telling everyone clearly the relationship between this Lego toy and Superman.

Fortunately, the copyright of Superman is in the hands of Colin, and he does not need to authorize it.

Otherwise, just putting Superman on the box would be a huge expense.

At the same time, inside the toy, Colin also put an instruction manual called Candor City Drawings, which described in detail some of the landmarks of Candor City with Superman as the background.

That's right, partly.

Because the batch of Lego toys manufactured in Kelin are sold in a split way, which means that each box of Lego represents a landmark building in Candor City.If you want to assemble a completed reduced Kandor City, you must purchase at least five landmark buildings and put the blueprints together.

And through this assembled drawing, the purchaser can obtain a Lego Superman model made by Fisher at the specified location, which can be matched in Candor City to reproduce the scene of the comics.

Although this method of splitting sales is criticized.

But to some extent, it has greatly stimulated the desire of fans to buy. This sense of accomplishment of restoring the scenes described in comic radio dramas in reality will greatly stimulate readers or listeners to participate in Lego toys. of purchases.

And the factual result was just as Colin expected.

After his repeated promotions, Candor City LEGO toys received a huge welcome once they were released.

According to Herman Fischer, the Candor City Lego bricks in the toy store were snapped up as soon as they were released, and many fans even queued up in front of the store early in the morning.

Many stores have already sold out their inventory in one morning. Obviously, Ke Lin's combination of Lego toys and Superman has been greatly sought after by the market.

"Superman sparks a toy boom!"

"Lego bricks, new age toys."

At the same time, Kelin's "Messenger Daily" also reported related news during this period, indirectly stimulating people's desire to buy.

However, this crazy situation changed a little on the second day.

"what happened?"

In the Fisher Toy Factory, Colin learned bad news from Herman Fisher.

"It's about the material of Lego building blocks. People don't seem to accept the new plastic toys as they seem. Many consumers choose to return the Lego toys in Candor City the next day. It is known that some toy stores The return rate has reached one-fifth, and some toy merchants have expressed their willingness to stop purchasing.”

Consumers' reluctance to Lego made of new materials is somewhat beyond Colin's expectations.

After all, in his time, plastic toys were already a mature industry, while wooden and metal toys became a minority.

It's just that all this seems to have the opposite trend during the Great Depression. After decades of toy history, the public has accepted heavy toys made of wood and metal.

Nowadays, unpacking and picking up the lightweight Lego has become impossible to start with.

Is this light and flimsy thing really a toy they are familiar with?

In this regard, Herman Fisher and others also feel a little at a loss. As toy manufacturers, they have a very prescient foreboding that plastic toys will replace traditional toys in the future, but they ignore that this replacement will eventually require a transition Time, not a process that can be easily crossed overnight.

(End of this chapter)