Christmas with Superman

This episode is noteworthy due to the fact that it was actually written by the star of the show, Superman himself - Dean Cain. If you're unaware, Dean Cain is actually a huge Christmas lover who has appeared in over a dozen Christmas movies, so it's no surprise that he chose to devote his first writing credit to a story about Christmas. The villain of the week for this episode was of one of Superman's classic villains from the comic books, the Toyman, who in this episode created a toy that makes adults act like greedy children. The Toyman was played by a retro television icon, Sherman Hemsley, who you no doubt remember for playing George Jefferson on The Jeffersons. Even cooler for fans of The Jeffersons is the fact that his assistant was played by Isabel Sanford, making this a Jefferson reunion or sorts.

This episode was less cheerful than the one that preceded it but still enjoyable. It was a bit more serious, revolving around Superman falling victim to a Kryptonian virus and almost dying. The villain of the week, Mindy Church, a devious blonde who pretended to be much dumber than she was, was original to the series, making this the only Christmas episode of the series that did not revolve around a villain from the comic books.

As you might be able to guess from the title of this episode, it revolved around the Superman comic book villain Mxyzptlk, played here by Howie Mandel. The Mxyzptlk in this show looked quite different from his comic book counterpart but was otherwise much more faithful to the comic books than the one that would later appear on Smallville. In this episode, Mxyzptlk's evil plot involved creating a time loop to keep the world from ever seeing Christmas and thereby causing the world to lose hope as a result.