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Season 3, Episode 3, Smallville TV show reference?

posted 14 years ago by arkhangelsk77
9 replies | jump to latest

Apologies in advance if this has been discussed before.

But in season 3 episode 3 "New Kids In Town", as Lana and Clark are seemingly about to kiss and make up, Martha drags Jonathan away by telling him that there must be a Dukes of Hazard episode playing on tv right now.

My first reaction was that, since this episode takes place in Smallville during Clark Kent's formative years, Superman TAS was winking at Smallville (TV)'s casting of John Schneider, Dukes of Hazard's Bo Duke, as Jonathan Kent. Pretty clever, I thought.

But then I started to do the math, and checked my facts here and, well, this is impossible.

New Kids In Town originally aired October 31st 1998. Smallville's episode 1 originally aired May 16th 2001.

Even assuming NKIT had an exceptionally short turnaround time from script to air, and Smallville an exceptionally long turnaround time from casting to air, the dates can never match up.

So what. Were Stan Berkowitz and Rich Fogel able to predict the future (and spilled the beans about their time-travelling powers in an episode about time travel)? Or were Alfred Gough and Miles Millar (and/or whoever was handling the casting) consciously or subconsciously influenced by this throwaway line?

I don't believe in coincidences and this is bugging me.

[–] Laughngboy 14 years ago

Most likely it was a subliminal message that worked when they made a live action superman type show.

[–] PreachCaleb 14 years ago

Coincidence.

See you in another life, brother.

[–] 14 years ago

[deleted]

[–] kingaliencracker 14 years ago

Complete coincidence, but a funny one.

[–] perrywhyte50 14 years ago

Very cool coincidence

[–] Canon_108 13 years ago

it's possible...

[–] grendelkhan 13 years ago

It's a coincidence that is brought on by the fact tha Dukes had strong rural appeal and fit the timeline of Clark's youth in the animated series, and by John Schneider's casting in Smallville, which was no doubt influenced by his having appeared in the show and his work for charity, which seems to embody Jonathan Kent, in certain ways.

Smallville was originally pitched as a Bruce Wayne series, depicting his training with various mentors over the years, in preparation for ultimately becoming Batman. The pitch was rejected and Millar and Gough were asked to try to conceive something similar for Superman.

"Fortunately, Ah keep mah feathers numbered for just such an emergency!"

[–] Tjanssen411 12 years ago

Really Cool Coincidence which just becomes Funnier in Hindsight

The easier wink would have been to Cite MASH as Mike Farrel the Voice of Pa Kent was on that series... although that would have cemented the setting as Pre 1983

somethings to consider
-- as a rule (unless specifically stated otherwise) Most shows are set when they air, even an animated Fantasy show like S:TAS wouldn't be more than 5 years ahead of reality...
-- if Supeman is his traditional 26 when he arrived, he'd be about 28 by 1998 that'd put his teen years as the 1980's
-- Dukes of Hazzard ran from 1979-1985... and as I recall at the top of the ratings for much of that... and even when it wasn't huge a case could be made that it'd still be popular in the demographic that includes Pa Kent

My guess is that they did similar 'Rough math' and deciced DoH was the best TV show to scream "hey kids this episode is set in the 1980s" and still be something the Kents would be expected to watch

[–] Qwertzful 12 years ago

I doubt they already knew what they were going to do a couple of years later but maybe they thought about him when doing the castings for Smallville. I mean, not only for movies do they approach certain actors but they also do it for tv-shows. If thats not it then it most likely was just coincidence