LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION! (A FOLC guide to Metropolis)

1. Metropolis Museum of Art; where Lois, Clark, Perry and Jimmy are attending a 20th Century Art Retrospective; where Lois receives the first in a series of gifts from a secret admirer; and where a valuable diamond is stolen
2. Daily Planet, newsroom
3. Loomis mansion, front entry
4. Jewelry and Gems, a jewelry store, where Lane and Kent take a diamond ring for appraisal
5. Prankster’s hideout, where a powerful weapon is assembled and tested, and where Lois is taken after being kidnapped
6. Downtown Street, where the Prankster stages a multi car accident
7. Lois’s Jeep, in which she and Clark encounter the accident scene
8. the Riverfront Industrial Area, where the Prankster stages a bomb scare as a diversion, and makes a robbery, and where several high tech businesses are located, including:
9. ChemTrex, the business where the bomb is planted, and…
10. … Whitmore Laboratories, where the Prankster make calls to the TV stations about the bomb, and where he steals 4 lbs. of titanium alloy and cesium
11. Rundown hotel room, where a source meets Lane and Kent with information on who the Secret Admirer is
12. Lois’ apartment, where a phone call from the Prankster further ruffles her already frayed nerves
13. Clark’s apartment, where Lois goes after the phone call and where she spends the night after Clark insists
14. Toy store, which belongs to the Prankster’s (Kyle Griffin’s) father
15. The Lunar Industrial Park, a place mentioned by Griffin, Sr. where red clay can be found
16. Toxic Depository, a place mentioned by Clark where plutonium is found
17. Heavy Metals Processing Plant out on Highway 9, mentioned by Griffin, Sr.
18. Stanton Electronics- a business in Metropolis

POWERS USED AS SUPERMAN

1. Strength- stops an out of control SUV from hitting Lois
2. Vision- dries a liquid substance on a street
3. Invulnerability- stops the ‘gas plasma beam’ from decimating the Daily Planet building

POWERS USED AS CLARK

1. Strength- stops Lois’ out of control Jeep, breaks a ring to remove it from Lois’ finger
2. Vision- uses heat vision to stop music box noise, spots a speck of red clay on a floor from several feet away, scans a ring box quickly, later sees that Lois’ ring is covered with a chemical causing an itch
3. Invulnerability- doesn’t get hurt stopping the Jeep by dragging his foot
4. Breath- keeps a basketball airborne while playing with it

HINT, HINT! (for the galactically stupid)

Lois’ jeep goes into a skid and as her attention is focused on steering to avoid crashing, Clark opens the passenger side door and drags his foot to slow the jeep and bring it safely to a stop. Lois doesn’t see this, only sees his closing of the door after she stops the jeep. She accuses him of watching the Flintstones too much if he thought he could use his foot to stop the car.

CLARK’S LAME/NOT SO LAME EXCUSES

1. Lois can’t get a ring off her finger, so Clark reaches for it and breaks it to remove it. He guesses it must be a cheap setting.
2. At the processing plant Clark and Jimmy find the employees beginning to overcome the laughing gas and can now tell them what happened. Plutonium is missing. As Jimmy takes pictures, Clark finds a clue using his vision. It is a speck of red clay. Jimmy is impressed. Clark tells him his glasses are a strong prescription.

PERRY-ISMS

Hey, wait a minute. You know, if you tilt your head to the right and squint your eyes a little bit, you can just about make out Elvis' profile…Between these two hubcaps here and that upside down speedometer. – Perry White to Lois, Clark and Jimmy in front of a display of modern art called “Mother, Daughter”

SHAMELESS SELF PROMOTION

Nothing of note in this episode

DEVICES

1. a music box out of which pops the likeness of famous opera tenor Luciano Pavarotti. The head begins to sing but soon starts to emit a high pitched sound that shatters glass and causes everyone to cover their ears- except for a waiter serving drinks and the delivery man.
2. a bomb has been placed at one of the city’s scientific laboratories in the riverfront industrial area.
3. unknown device: an informant gets a phone call and is electrocuted. As he’s talking a static noise bursts over the phone and he falls down dead.
4. a gas plasma beam weapon that will vaporize whatever it hits
5. various odd toys at Mr. Griffin Sr.’s toy store

BEEN THERE (Clark’s travels)

Nothing of note in this episode

SAY WHAT? (Clark’s Languages)

Nothing of note in this episode

NAME THAT TUNE (the L&C theme and other tunes)

The song "Stormy Monday," written by T-Bone Walker (performer unknown), is  playing on the radio in the scene where Victor is working on the street sweeper.

HISTORY, HOBBIES, ALL CHARACTERS

CLARK KENT/SUPERMAN

1. uses his heat vision to discreetly cause the singing of Lois’ music box to stop.
2. begins teasing Lois about being a senior journalist after visiting the Loomis mansion
3. gives his card to the jeweler before he and Lois leave the shop
4. offers to accompany Lois home after discovering the secret admirer’s identity, she refuses
5. asks Jimmy to call Griffin’s parole officer to learn his address, before he leaves for home
6. watches a basketball game on TV while playing with a basketball
7. answers a knock at his door and finds it is Lois with an armload of pizzas and all three (at the time) "Lethal Weapon" movies, which are favorites of theirs
8. The following morning, he calls Jimmy and learns Griffin’s parole officer tells the DP the only known address for Kyle Griffin is his father’s toy store.
9. grabs a cold pizza slice from Lois’ hand and offers to buy her something more appropriate for breakfast
10. teases Lois by agreeing to stop by her apartment so she can change clothes by saying he understands “you senior journalists have an image to uphold”
11. deciding to split up, he goes to the depository while Lois goes to the processing plant
12. says he will go for help after stopping Lois’ Jeep, and Lois angrily gets out to follow him, but she slips in the liquid on the street and falls flat on her back- just as an out of control SUV skids right toward her…
13. …Superman drops from the sky and stops the SUV. He checks on the driver and then helps Lois to her feet amid applause and cheering from bystanders.
14. Superman then dries the slippery chemical with his heat vision.
15. Superman, later, spots the gas plasma beam easily and shields the DP building with his body, stopping the beam and diffusing it harmlessly away.
16. teases Lois about enjoying having her name in lights when he catches her reading the news room crawl with the headline of her capture of Griffin.
17. watches helplessly as Lois throws away the flowers he has sent her before he can say they are from him

LOIS LANE

1. receives a gift of a music box while at the museum art show
2. nearly admits she can’t think of anyone who likes her enough to send her a present!
3. finds another note from the secret admirer and a small box on her desk
4. leery of it, she doesn’t know what to do until Clark offers to open it for her, then opens it herself to find a ring with a large diamond setting
5. with Clark, takes the ring for an appraisal at a nearby jeweler’s store
6. Is reminded of a college classmate, Randall Loomis- a nerd who followed her around for a year and who gave her a hideous piece of jewelry he signed "from your secret admirer."
7. thinking the ring and the music box might be from him, she and Clark check him out, but he is not the current secret admirer
8. the following day she arrives at work to chants of her name from the staffers.
9. learns a message for her appeared on the big screen at the baseball game the previous day and stopped game play for half an hour before it could be removed from the computer.
10. discovers the secret admirer is Kyle Griffin, after meeting with an informant who dies
11. her first big sting was an expose on an illegal arms business and the FBI arrested 12 people, and one of the 12, Kyle Griffin, was released recently
12. goes home and enters her apartment expecting something to happen at every turn.
13. Perry calls to check up on her and invite her again to stay with him and Alice but the call is cut off, and when it rings again, it is Griffin calling to tell her he is going to ruin her reputation and make her life miserable for sending him to prison.
14. she goes to Clark’s apartment and spends the night on his sofa
15. immediately falls victim to the laughing gas incapacitating everyone at the processing plant where she is following a lead and is helpless to defend herself when kidnapped by the Prankster
16. isn’t entirely receptive to Victor’s admiration of her legs, but she does get an idea
17. defends herself admirably, later, by taking out both Griffin, when he tries to smother her, and Victor, using her martial arts prowess to kick them into submission
18. tells a subdued Victor he was right, she does have great legs
19. when caught admiring the news crawl of her single handed capture of the Prankster, she denies it and says she was thinking about her next story
20. receives a bouquet of flowers from a ‘special friend’ and immediately tosses them in the trash and drowns them in coffee

PERRY WHITE

1. accused of thinking dogs playing poker is art, he agrees and says he loves that kind of painting- especially the one of the two dogs at the bar throwing darts.
2. tells Lane and Kent he’s learned the police can tell nothing from the box or the music box gift itself.
3. tells Lois the secret admirer doesn’t work for the newspaper because he knows the salaries of everyone and no one can afford a ring with a stone that big.
4. asks Lois if she wants to stay with him and Alice in their spare bedroom after they learn Kyle Griffin is the secret admirer

JIMMY OLSEN

1. wonders why he can’t think analytically like Lois (because if it was easy everyone would do it, says Perry)
2. has a worthwhile realization concerning the case - puzzled about something, he has been thinking and thinks he knows how the Prankster knew Lois was going to be at the processing plant. Only Griffin’s father knew where she was going and Jimmy thinks the older man must have called Griffin and told him. Lane, Kent and White all agree he‘s probably right and Perry leads him away, telling him he will let him call the police and tell them himself.

KYLE GRIFFIN, THE PRANKSTER

1. freely admits he is not a nice person
2. frequently threatens Victor, his henchman, but stops short of actual violence
3. poses as a waiter at the museum
4. has just gotten out of jail after waiting five years to get even with Lois
5. is planning a series of robberies to get the items he needs to build and then to sell a super weapon to terrorists
6. tells Lois he is going to use it to decimate the Daily Planet as a demonstration for the terrorists interested in buying his weapon
7. brings traffic to a standstill by dumping a slippery substance from a street sweeper onto a downtown street
8. steals computer chips from one of the vehicles brought to a halt
9. steals cesium and 4 pounds of titanium alloy from Whitmore Laboratories
10. calls a bomb threat into the local media to create a diversion for the Whitmore theft
11. kidnaps Lois from the processing plant on Highway 9
12. he tests the weapon by firing it at the street sweeper and disintegrating it
13. is distracted enough by Superman stopping his demonstration of the weapon to get too close to Lois, allowing her to take him down with a well placed kick

VICTOR, Griffin’s henchman

1. has a master’s degree in engineering- a genius in some ways but not in others
2. poses as a deliveryman at the museum, giving the music box gift to Lois
3. admires Lois’ legs and compares them "two perfectly formed carrots
4. openly flirts with a bound Lois, telling her that intelligent men are leg men, and that only boobs like…
5. is annoyed when Griffin tells him he’s wasting his time trying to impress her because she is going to die

PETE

1. an older sports writer who is annoyed with Lois for being the reason a ball game was interrupted for over half an hour, but reveals the press is calling her secret admirer "The Prankster."
2. gets a message that a source knows who the secret admirer is and passes it on to Lane and Kent.

RANDALL LOOMIS

1. former college classmate of Lois’ who once gave her a “hideous piece of jewelry” and signed an accompanying note "from a secret admirer."
2. has done well from himself since being a college nerd and now lives in a gated mansion
3. at first, he barely remembers Lois.
4. he tells Lane and Kent he is retiring after selling his company and he and his wife will be traveling around the world.
5. obviously, he is not the secret admirer they are looking for
6. tells Clark he remembers Lois being always on the prowl in college- never quite hooking up with the right guy.

Donna LOOMIS

1. a tall, beautiful blond who answers the door at the Loomis mansion and calls for Randall
2. according to Lois, her nails are “obviously press on” (stated with heavy sarcasm)

MICK BARROWS

1. a recent parolee staying in room 210 of a seedy hotel
2. asks for money for the information he claims to have about the secret admirer - $10,000.
3. receives a phone call and steps away, and as he’s talking a noise bursts over the phone and he falls down dead
4. is discovered to have served his time in prison with one Kyle Griffin
5. got out of prison one month previously, 5/20/94, after serving 18 years at San Quentin for armed robbery (according to the M.I.D. Database- Copyright APD-Incorporated 1992.)

EDWIN GRIFFIN

1. a retired nuclear physicist, he is now in the toy business
2. tells Lois and Clark, when they visit him that red clay can be obtained at the nearby Lunar Industrial Park
3. after hearing a list of the items that have been stolen so far, he suggests they might be used to construct a weapon of some kind, but plutonium would be needed too
4. when Clark says the only source of plutonium is the toxic depository, he says no, they also have some at the heavy metals processing plant out on Highway 9
5. after they leave, he calls Kyle Griffin and tells him Lois will be at the processing plant in fifteen minutes

JEWELER (store owner)

1. owner of "Jewelry and Gems," where Lane and Kent take the broken ring to be evaluated.
2. takes one look and declares it didn’t come from his store
3. takes it to the back to look at it more closely.
4. asks to keep the ring for a closer examination and accepts Clark business card to get in touch later

DIANE, FEMALE REPORTER

1. brings Lois a bouquet of yellow roses in the newsroom
2. doesn’t know what the color means when asked
3. sighs that men don’t give her anything but directions to where they live

NAME THAT TUNE (theme song)

There is a song playing while Victor is working under the truck. It seems to mention Georgia, but I can't make it out. The Pavarotti jack-in-the-box is singing an aria, but I'm unfamiliar with opera, sorry.

LIFE GOES ON (Other News Headlines)

"Scoreboard Hijacks Disrupt Game"
"Fruit Fly Spraying"

THE PRANKSTER’S NOTES TO LOIS

1. "Dear Lois, Please forgive me but my feelings for you run deep and I’m too shy to tell you in person, but I want the world to know that whenever I think of you my heart sings. Your Secret Admirer"
2. "Dear Lois, Please accept the gift on your desk as an apology for last night. I’m itching to be yours. Your Secret Admirer."
3. "Lois Lane let me be your designated hitter. Your Secret Admirer"
4. "If you're wondering how come I'm pulling this loony prank all I can say is I'm an incurable romantic, and I just want to show the world the explosive nature of my love for Lois Lane." -explaining the bomb threat

NOT SO SUPERMAN

Superman arrives at the Prankster’s hideout mere seconds too late- Lois has already incapacitated both bad guys using her martial arts skills.
Superman: Well, I guess you don’t need me.
Lois: Not this time…but don’t leave town.


MISCELLANEOUS

1. As they wait at the jewelry store, Lois is reminded of a college classmate, Randall Loomis- a nerd who followed her around for a year and who gave her a hideous piece of jewelry he signed "from your secret admirer." She thinks the ring and the music box might be from him.
2. A Stanton Electronics truck is one of the vehicles that nearly crashes during the Prankster’s staged scene. While everyone is distracted by the accidents, Griffin and Victor break into the back of the security truck and steal computer chips for "Fort Truman" and "Stadium," and others. Each chip is worth over $100,000.
3. Other chips in the truck: naval base, fire dept, stealth, NATO, (an unnamed) college, ChemTrex
4. Police say two chips were taken from the truck at the accident- which was a diversion – just as the music box incident was a diversion at the museum. The museum is now reporting the 50 carat Regent Diamond is missing, and the jeweler who examined Lois’ ring says the stone was cut from the stolen diamond. Lois has already guessed the latter.
5. While Clark is at home watching a basketball game on TV, he idly plays with a basketball, spinning it on his fingertip, and then using his breath to keep it airborne as he spins it around. There is a knock at the door and he playfully sends the ball ricocheting off wall, furniture and banisters to land perfectly in a trash can across the room. "Nothing but net!" he mutters to himself as he gets up and goes to answer the door. It is Lois with an armload of pizzas and all three (at the time) "Lethal Weapon" movies, which are favorites of theirs. They sit down to watch the first one and Lois is very nervous and fidgety. After a few minutes, she finally admits to Clark that Griffin called her and threatened her. Clark insists that she stay the night with him and she is relieved. Sitting next to him, she leans against him and immediately falls asleep.
6. A blonde staffer named Diane brings Lois a bouquet of flowers that have just come for Lois. They are yellow roses and neither woman knows what they mean. Clark tells her they mean friendship. The card with them says they are from "a special friend." Lois immediately throws them into her trash can and dumps a cup of coffee on them…They were from Clark.