LizzieMaine
Bartender
- Messages
- 33,715
- Location
- Where The Tourists Meet The Sea
Unlike the TV show, the radio series rotated a number of different epigraphs over its run. "American Way" began to show up as an occasional variant around 1945 -- but the "American Way" being referred to there was not the National Association of Manufacturers' "American Way" of the fifties. Right after the war the radio program began to crusade very openly against racism, ethnic hatred, and anti-Semitism, and it was *this* "American Way," the idealized American Way of respecting everyone regardless of "race, color, or creed" that was being promoted. The addition of a rippling US flag behind the figure of Superman in the TV show opening gave the phrase a jingoistic connotation that totally shifted the meaning.