“Honestly, you Canadian kids.” In my previous reviews of Canadian Heritage Moment things I have mentioned that I feel the most important aspect of them is their quotability. This one is made up of nothing but awesome quotes. “With glasses, you know, a secret identity”, “That’s it, a bullet. He’s faster, no, he’s faster than a speeding bullet” “Fly no, but he can leap over tall buildings”, “See what your cousin Frank says in Toronto” and so many more! Other countries: If you ever suspect someone of being a Canadian spy, quote this and see how they react.
Anyway, this one is about young Canadian Joe Shuster in Cleveland in 1931. He’s explaining an idea he has had for a comic strip about a powerful superhuman man who, of course, turns out to be Superman himself, father of the modern superhero! I love the way the whole thing is staged. Shuster is rambling excitedly to a woman named Lois who is trying to make sure he doesn’t miss a train, but he just won’t shut up about his idea because he is so happy with it. “This guy is faster than anything, I swear!” he says it like he’s talking about a real dude. It’s just a fun setup. Wikipedia doesn’t tell me who this woman is meant to be, saying that Lois Lane of the comics was based on a woman called Joanne Carter. In all likelihood the Lois of the commercial is a fictional friend of Shuster used to help drive home the point that Superman is being created and, indeed, this exact scene probably never played out in the real world, but as a piece of country morale boosting for Canada, it just works so well.
To top it all off, we end with a bit of the Superman movie theme as we see the original Superman sketch (ostensibly we’re not meant to know who he is talking about when we first see the commercial, but my first seeing it was too long ago for me to judge it with that bit of mystery still intact). This is some solid gold kryptonite over here (only it does not remove superpowers). I’m giving it Five and a Half Pieces of PDR’s Reviewing System Cake. Quite probably this is one of the best of these commercials.
