99 Fun Facts About Smallville

Which two writer-producers developed Smallville?

Alfred Gough and Miles Millar expected Fox to be their only taker: they pitched it and The WB on the same day, and to their surprise it was The WB that bought the show.

Smallville's famous production rule about Clark Kent was 'no tights, no' what?

Flights, like the suit, were banned from the start so the show stayed about a teenager working out who he is; its lead actor had dreaded a series that put him in tights.

Which actor played Clark Kent on Smallville?

Tom Welling was found after a search by casting directors in ten cities; the creators liked that he was a real Midwesterner who looked the way people expect Superman to look.

Michael Rosenbaum played which character on Smallville?

Lex Luthor meant a daily head shave and, at first, two and a half hours in make-up, because the actor's hair kept growing back during the day and the hairline had to be painted out.

Why is Smallville's Lex bald?

The 1989 meteor shower was the show's own invention, a change to Superman lore that its creators say they could make only because nobody much cared about the character on television in 2000.

How do Clark and Lex first meet in Smallville's pilot?

Clark pulls Lex from a sunken car after Lex's Porsche hits him and goes into the water; the rescue was filmed in a 12-foot tank and, after two panic attacks for the actor playing Lex, done in one take.

Which main Smallville character was invented for the series rather than taken from the comics?

Chloe Sullivan was written in as the outsider who would notice the town's strange events, and she outgrew the show: in 2010 DC added her to its mainstream comics.

On Smallville, what does the school paper's editor call her collage of clippings about odd local events?

The Wall of Weird 'started out as a scrapbook', its maker says, and grew because she was the one person in town tracing every freak event back to the meteor shower.

On Smallville, which codename does Chloe adopt when running support for the Justice League?

Watchtower began as her call sign on the team's first joint mission and ended up as the name of its headquarters, a Metropolis loft that she owns and runs.

Erica Durance joined Smallville in its fourth season as which character?

Lois Lane was written as a guest role for one season and became a regular the next; the actress says she had been ready to quit the business when the call to audition came.

Which city stood in for Kansas throughout Smallville's production?

Vancouver and its suburbs supplied the Kent farm, the high school and Main Street, and cameras there kept rolling on September 11, 2001, when production across the United States stopped.

Which band performed Smallville's theme song 'Save Me'?

Remy Zero also turn up on screen: the band plays the school's spring formal in the first-season finale, as the storm that ends the season closes in on the town.

Christopher Reeve guest-starred on Smallville as which character, who teaches Clark about Krypton?

Dr. Virgil Swann's scenes were filmed in New York because Reeve could not travel to the set; booked for half a day, he chose to stay and work for eight or nine hours.

Which actor provided the voice of Clark's father Jor-El on Smallville?

Terence Stamp is heard but never seen as Clark's father, a sly reversal: in the Christopher Reeve films he had played Superman's Kryptonian enemy, General Zod.

Which power does Clark first develop in season two of Smallville?

Heat vision first erupts during a record heatwave, and Clark soon works out that it flares whenever he is attracted to someone, which makes a glamorous new teacher a fire hazard.

What does red kryptonite do to Clark in Smallville?

Strips away his inhibitions: it reaches him by accident, set in the school's new class rings, and turns the town's most dutiful son into a rebel who uses his powers for himself.

On Smallville, what was Clark's vigilante alter ego in Metropolis called before he became Superman?

The Blur owes his name to a photograph: Jimmy Olsen tried to snap a mugger and caught only a smear of red and blue, the stranger who was saving Lois at super-speed.

Which family tragedy occurs in 'Reckoning', Smallville's 100th episode?

Jonathan Kent dies of a heart attack after a fight with Lionel Luthor on the night he wins a state senate seat; the script had him found already dead, but the actor insisted on playing the collapse.

Which Buffy alumnus played Brainiac, alias Milton Fine, on Smallville from season five?

James Marsters first appears as a professor who wins Clark's trust, and returns in the final season as a reformed Brainiac 5, arriving from the 31st century to help him.

Smallville's sixth season was the first to air on which newly formed network?

The CW was formed in 2006 by merging The WB, the show's home for five seasons, with its rival UPN, and it later moved Smallville to Friday nights, television's so-called death slot.

Justin Hartley played which archer superhero on Smallville?

Green Arrow arrives in season six as Oliver Queen, an old classmate of Lex's who starts courting Lois, and he proved popular enough that a series of his own was discussed.

In the Smallville episode 'Justice', which three heroes join Oliver Queen against LuthorCorp's Level 33.1?

Impulse, Aquaman and Cyborg had each met Clark in a solo episode in seasons four and five, so the team-up paid off two years of guest spots and gave the show its first Justice League.

Which two original Smallville cast members left as regulars after season seven?

Michael Rosenbaum and Kristin Kreuk both chose to go: he had already stayed a year beyond his six-year contract, and she said she did not want to live in a love triangle forever.

Which paramedic character in season eight was Smallville's version of Doomsday?

Davis Bloome has no idea what he is: the paramedic keeps blacking out during a string of killings, and slowly comes to fear that he is the one committing them.

Which DC Comics writer scripted the Smallville episodes 'Legion' and 'Absolute Justice'?

Geoff Johns brought two classic comics teams to the show: the Legion of Super-Heroes, visiting from the future, and then the Justice Society, in an 84-minute special.

Callum Blue played which Kryptonian villain in Smallville's ninth season?

Major Zod is a clone made from a scan taken years before Krypton's end, when the future general still held that rank, and he leads a whole army of cloned Kryptonians on Earth.

Which actress played Checkmate's Amanda Waller in Smallville's ninth season?

Pam Grier's Waller hires an assassin to hunt down the retired heroes of the Justice Society and then, when he is brought back to her in a cage, kills him herself.

Who was the main villain of Smallville's tenth and final season?

Darkseid is less a costumed tyrant here than a dark force in search of a human vessel: he works through three prophets and possesses people, a hero among them.

The suit Clark dons in Smallville's finale was earlier worn by which actor?

Brandon Routh in Superman Returns: the producers borrowed the 2006 film's costume, turning down the Christopher Reeve suit that DC had also offered them.

Which two DC heroes were introduced in a tenth-season Smallville episode named for one of them?

Booster Gold and Blue Beetle arrive together: a glory-hunting hero from the future steals Clark's headlines, while a teenager is trapped inside the armour of an alien scarab.

In Smallville's finale, which planet does Clark push back into space to save Earth?

Apokolips is pulled towards Earth by the symbols burned into people's skulls, and Clark, in the suit at last, shoves the whole planet back into deep space after first catching Air Force One.

In Smallville's pilot, how do the football players haze Clark?

String him up as a scarecrow: Lana's boyfriend ties Clark to a post in a cornfield, and her necklace of green meteor rock leaves him too weak to break free.

On Smallville, the Kawatche cave paintings tell the legend of Naman, a hero who does what?

Falls from the stars in a rain of fire, with the strength of ten men: Clark recognises himself in the legend, and the caves become his way into his own origins.

In what form did Smallville's story officially continue after the 2011 finale?

A comic book series, billed as Season 11 and written by one of the show's own writers, picked the story up six months later with Clark working openly as Superman.

Annette O'Toole, Smallville's Martha Kent, played which character in the 1983 film Superman III?

Lana Lang, Clark's old school friend, was her role in the film; eighteen years later she became his mother on television, cast only after the pilot had been shot with another actress.

Which future Supernatural star was runner-up for the role of Clark Kent on Smallville?

Jensen Ackles screen-tested on the same day as the eventual lead and lost out, then joined the show anyway three years later as a season-four regular, Jason Teague.

Which 'Dukes of Hazzard' star played Jonathan Kent on Smallville?

John Schneider was cast because the creators wanted younger, hands-on Kents: the show's premise was that Clark is who he is because of the parents who raised him.

Which actress played Kara Zor-El, Clark's Kryptonian cousin, on Smallville?

Laura Vandervoort's Kara was sent to Earth to watch over her baby cousin but spent eighteen years in suspended animation, so she wakes to find the baby a grown man.

Which actor played Lionel, Lex's manipulative father, on Smallville?

John Glover was hired for a single scene; the creators kept him on because Lex needed someone to talk to, and made Lionel the dark counterpart of the Kents as parents.

After Smallville's pilot aired, its creators were hired to write which superhero sequel?

Spider-Man 2 came to them during the first season: by their account, they were called to the set of the first film, whose director and star had loved the pilot, and they share the sequel's story credit.

Which 2019 Arrowverse crossover saw Smallville's Clark and Lois actors reprise their roles?

Crisis on Infinite Earths caught up with the pair almost ten years on: Clark has given up his powers and runs the Kent farm, where he and Lois are raising two daughters.

Tollin/Robbins Productions originally wanted to make a series about which young hero before Smallville?

Bruce Wayne was to have had his own teenage origin series, but it was shelved in favour of a planned Batman film, and the idea was turned around to give Clark Kent the treatment instead.

Which band supplied the songs for the Smallville episode 'Slumber'?

R.E.M. was the music team's pun: the episode is about a girl kept in a coma who pulls Clark into her dreams, and REM is the phase of sleep in which people dream.

Which composer wrote the orchestral score for Smallville's early seasons?

Mark Snow, who wrote the eerie theme of The X-Files, was asked for something quite different here: a traditional, heroic style that, by his own account, never changed while he was on the show.

Exterior shots of Smallville's Luthor Mansion were filmed at which Canadian castle?

Hatley Castle plays both sides: it is the Luthors' forbidding mansion here and Professor Xavier's school for young heroes in the X-Men films.

Which film composer's music was reused in the Smallville episode 'Rosetta'?

John Williams's music from the 1978 Superman film is heard again as that film's star, Christopher Reeve, guest-stars to tell Clark where he comes from; a creator called it a very big moment for the show.

All three of Smallville's Primetime Emmy wins came in which category?

Sound editing, not the visual effects the show was known for: the pilot was nominated for both and lost the effects award to Star Trek: Enterprise.

Justin Hartley starred as which hero in a pilot by Smallville's creators before joining the show?

Aquaman was expected on air in autumn 2006 but was dropped when its network merged with a rival, so its star joined Smallville that season instead.

Which future film superhero auditioned to play Lex Luthor on Smallville, impressing its creators but not the network?

Zachary Levi gave what one creator called an incredible first audition and then a disastrous one for the network; he went on to star as the hero of Shazam! in 2019.

Which future film Lois Lane guest-starred in Smallville's first season as a girl on a deadly diet?

Amy Adams played Jodi Melville in 'Craving', a teenager whose homemade vegetable diet turns dangerous, twelve years before she played Lois in Man of Steel.

Which former television Superman guest-starred on Smallville as the villainous Dr. Curtis Knox?

Dean Cain, the Clark of 'Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman', plays a doctor in 'Cure' who claims he can operate away the effects of kryptonite.

Which former screen Lois Lane played Lois's late mother, Ella, in Smallville's final season?

Teri Hatcher appears only on a videotape that Ella recorded before her death, urging her daughter not to let the loss hold her back.

Which friend becomes the first person Clark Kent voluntarily tells his secret on Smallville?

Pete Ross learns the truth in season two, after viewers wrote in asking the writers to give the character more to do.

How is Lois Lane related to Chloe Sullivan, whose apparent death first brings her to Smallville?

Cousins is the tie the writers used to bring Lois in: she comes to investigate Chloe's supposed death and ends up staying with the Kents.

In the flash-forward closing Smallville's finale, Lex Luthor has just won election to which office?

US President is the title a TV news broadcast gives Lex in a scene set seven years on, as the Daily Planet's staff hurry to work.

On Smallville, the three Kryptonian stones of knowledge unite to create which landmark?

Fortress of Solitude is what the stones form once Clark has gathered all three, a search Jor-El set him across the fourth season.

Which singer died while Smallville was clearing his cover song for the final scene of 'Shattered'?

Johnny Cash had recorded Nine Inch Nails' 'Hurt', and his heirs granted the rights because they felt its use in the episode would honour his memory.

Aaron Ashmore, twin of earlier guest star Shawn, joined Smallville as which Daily Planet staffer?

Jimmy Olsen became Chloe's boyfriend and later her husband, while Shawn Ashmore had played Eric Summers, a classmate who takes on Clark's powers in 'Leech'.

Smallville's ninth season moved to which night of the week, known in television as the 'death slot'?

Friday did not finish the show off: it stayed there through a tenth season and ended as North America's longest-running science fiction series.

What does the LuthorCorp plant that Lex is sent to run in Smallville's first season produce?

Fertilizer is the unglamorous business Lionel sends his son to Smallville to manage, which is how a billionaire's heir ends up living among farm families.

Cassidy Freeman played which Smallville character, Lex's chosen successor as head of LuthorCorp?

Tess Mercer was named in homage to two earlier Superman characters, Eve Teschmacher and Mercy Graves, and turns out to be Lionel's secret daughter.

Michael McKean, husband of Smallville's Annette O'Toole, played which drunken tabloid reporter?

Perry White turns up in season three chasing stories for a tabloid TV show, and by the finale he has an office of his own at the Daily Planet.

Smallville ended its run by passing which show as North America's longest-running sci-fi series?

Stargate SG-1 had also run for ten seasons, so the record came down to episode count, where the Superman prequel finished a few ahead.

What are Smallville High's sports teams called, a name the crew plastered all over a real school?

Crows logos and red-and-yellow paint covered so much of Templeton Secondary, the real school used for interiors, that it adopted those colours as its own.

What is the name of the Smallville coffee shop that Lana Lang co-owns with Lex Luthor?

The Talon's exterior was a real building, the Clova Cinema in Cloverdale, British Columbia, and the shop gave its name to the show's first soundtrack album.

What is the name of the Smallville High student newspaper that Chloe Sullivan edits?

The Torch is where Chloe chases the town's strange stories, and she later lands her dream job at the Daily Planet, starting in its basement.

Which Smallville sanitarium, where Lex is committed in season three, is a prison in DC's comics?

Belle Reve solved a writers' rule that Clark could never kill: the villains he beat each week needed somewhere to go, and Lionel has his own son committed there too.

What is Clark Kent's Kryptonian birth name, which Jor-El uses for him throughout Smallville?

Kal-El also names the persona Jor-El programs into Clark at the start of season four, one that takes to the skies to steal a Kryptonian stone.

Clark frees several criminals when he escapes which realm in Smallville's sixth-season premiere?

The Phantom Zone held Clark after he failed to stop a Kryptonian criminal's release, and hunting the escapees he let out drives much of season six.

Which future Reacher star made his acting debut as Arthur Curry in Smallville's fifth season?

Alan Ritchson's swimmer out-races Clark to rescue Lois from a lake in 'Aqua', and he kept returning as a guest right up to the tenth season.

Phil Morris played which DC hero, a lifelong secret guardian of Clark Kent, on Smallville?

Martian Manhunter goes by the human name John Jones on the show, and in 'Labyrinth' he frees Clark by pulling a mind-controlling creature out of his body.

Michael Shanks played which Justice Society hero in Smallville's feature-length 'Absolute Justice'?

Hawkman appeared in the full comic-book costume, strap-on wings and mace included, and the actor took the part doubting he would be offered many superheroes.

Brian Austin Green played which Smallville villain, a reporter rebuilt with a kryptonite heart?

Metallo begins as Daily Planet reporter John Corben, who is hit by a truck and wakes to find his body fitted with robotic parts.

Serinda Swan played which DC magician, who grants Chloe a wish to live Lois's life on Smallville?

Zatanna later sends enchanted champagne to Clark and Lois's pre-wedding party, leaving the guests acting out of character and unable to remember the night.

Which DC duo clumsily imitate Clark's heroics around Metropolis in Smallville's episode 'Idol'?

The Wonder Twins, Jayna and Zan, can turn into animals and water-based forms, and their well-meant rescues bring a district attorney down on Clark.

Which star of the 1984 film Supergirl played Lara, Clark's Kryptonian mother, on Smallville?

Helen Slater had the title role in that film, and her Lara is seen in a hologram recorded beside Jor-El moments before Krypton is destroyed.

Which former TV superheroine played Chloe Sullivan's institutionalised mother, Moira, on Smallville?

Lynda Carter, the Diana Prince of 1970s television, plays a woman who can control people changed by kryptonite, a power Lex is keen to exploit.

Which future Vampire Diaries star played Adam Knight, Lana's season-three boyfriend, on Smallville?

Ian Somerhalder's character was planned as a real romance for Lana, but the idea was dropped when the pairing's chemistry was judged not to be working.

Which WWE champion turned film star played a bone-eating alien fugitive in Smallville's 'Static'?

Dave Bautista's Aldar is tracked to Seattle by Clark, years before the wrestler found film fame as Drax in Guardians of the Galaxy.

Lana's boyfriend Whitney Fordman leaves Smallville at the end of season one to join which service?

The Marines gave the character what his actor called a hero's exit, and season two reveals that Whitney was killed in action.

Which disaster strikes Smallville in the first-season finale, 'Tempest', forcing Lana off the road?

Tornadoes, three of them, touch down just after Lana has seen her boyfriend off at the bus station, a cliffhanger picked up in season two's opener.

Which future Mean Girls actress twice played shape-shifter Tina Greer on Smallville?

Lizzy Caplan's character can morph into anyone she wants, and on her return she impersonates Lana's absent boyfriend to get close to her.

Which Beverly Hills, 90210 star played Linda Lake, a Smallville columnist who can turn into water?

Tori Spelling's gossip writer uses the trick to dig up incriminating stories, including one about Lana, Lex and Clark, in the sixth-season episode 'Hydro'.

Former teen idol Jonathan Taylor Thomas played Ian Randall, a Smallville student with which power?

Duplicating himself lets the straight-A student take extra classes and date Lana and Chloe at the same time, until Clark exposes the trick.

Which British-born star played Genevieve, a mother hunting the Kryptonian stones, on Smallville?

Jane Seymour's Genevieve works with her son Jason on the search and dies in the fourth-season finale during a struggle with a possessed Lana.

In Smallville's finale, a possessed Oliver brings a ring of which kryptonite to end Clark's powers?

Gold kryptonite is hidden in a wedding ring meant for Clark's ceremony with Lois, but Chloe realises what it is at the wedding and stops Oliver.

In the Smallville episode 'Run', what does super-fast thief Bart Allen steal from Jonathan Kent?

His wallet starts a chase Clark cannot win, since the teenage speedster is faster than he is, and Bart later turns up at the farm to make amends.

Which BBC fantasy drama about a legendary figure's youth was influenced by Smallville?

Merlin took the same approach to Arthurian legend, showing the wizard as a young warlock newly arrived in Camelot, and ran for five series on BBC One.

Which condition does Smallville's Lionel Luthor secretly recover from in season two but keep faking?

Blindness follows surgery that Lex rushes him into, and once his eyes heal Lionel says nothing so he can watch how people act around him.

Before British Columbia won out, Smallville's production was first planned for which country?

Australia lost out because the Canadian setting looked more like Middle America, could double as Metropolis and kept the same clock as Los Angeles.

Which network heard the Smallville pitch on the same day as The WB and lost the bidding war?

Fox's interest set off a bidding war for the young-Superman idea, which The WB won by committing to thirteen episodes.

Which director of Smallville's pilot talked its reluctant lead actor into reading the script?

David Nutter found the actor's picture in a photo album at the casting director's office, then had to get past a manager who feared television would hurt a film career.

Which Checkmate codename does Martha Kent turn out to be using in Smallville's ninth season?

The Red Queen is Martha's cover while she works to keep Clark off the agency's radar, and she seizes a Kryptonian book that could exile him from Earth.

Which costumed vigilante does Lois Lane invent and play herself in Smallville's eighth season?

Stiletto was Lois's scheme to win an interview with Clark's own heroic alter ego, who instead phones to tell her she need not fake stories to be a good reporter.

What name does Martha Kent give the super-strong dog Clark adopts in Smallville's fourth season?

Shelby is hit by Lois's car and brought to the farm, where he gives himself away by dragging a tractor across the lawn; he had been stolen from a LuthorCorp experiment.

In Smallville's 'Hero', a returning friend of Clark gains superpowers from which kryptonite-laced product?

Chewing gum was a promotional tie-in with the Stride brand, and the friend first uses his stretch to save Kara from a falling speaker at a concert.

Which Dukes of Hazzard star guest-starred on Smallville as Jonathan Kent's oldest friend, a senator?

Tom Wopat had been Luke Duke, on-screen partner of the actor behind Jonathan, and plays a politician caught up in a murder scandal in 'Exposed'.

Which Total Recall and Top Gun actor played Lois Lane's father, General Sam Lane, on Smallville?

Michael Ironside's general blocks Lois and Clark when they look into Chloe's apparent death, and he is back in the final season for a family Thanksgiving.

Christopher Reeve's Smallville guest scenes were shot far from the main production, in which city?

New York hosted both of Reeve's appearances, in the second and third seasons, while the rest of the show stayed in British Columbia.