Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Lois & Clark Things I didn't get.

Just because I'm bored.

1. Why does Clark say "Thank you, I appreciate it" When Lois tells him he wouldn't be her first choice for bodyguard in Witness?

2 What do Lois say when the phone starts ringing while she drinks milk in the Prankster? It's not in the script, it sounds like "I gonna get some good chow"

3 Who is Mike, in the wedding episode?

I can't answer the first one for sure, I just always thought it was sarcasm.

As for number 2, what Lois says is "I have gotta get some control."

And number 3, I believe Mike is supposed to be a guardian angel of some sort.

Hope that helped!

I always saw it as him being ironic. He puts so much effort into making himself the 'mild-mannered', unflashy, unheroic figure so that no one notices he's the superheroic, Superman. To make sure no one sees him as extra couragous or muscular or whatever and puts two and two together.

So when Lois tells him he wouldn't be her first choice as a bodyguard - in other words that he isn't the first person to spring to her mind when she thinks of a tough guy - well, I think Clark feels it's kind of a compliment in a way to how good he's been with the deception.

And, yes, Mike is supposed to be a guardian angel. Don't get me started. :rolleyes:

LabRat

Thanks a bunch,

"I have gotta get some control"
hear it now.


2. Sarcasm, irony, Obviously. Why otherwise would Clark appreciate Lois lack of faith in his abilty to look out for her? Especially if he wan't her to be interested in him. If it was just "hey my disguise works really well" I'd expected a hint of self mocking bitterness.
I can understand that he thinks it funny under the circumstances. But then why not pretend he hurt his feelings, or some teasing comment "Perhaps you should give me a chance".

3. Mike. I thought it was some american in joke. Like the basketball player Boo. Has the actor played a guardian angel? There has been no mentioning of angels before that, so I don't see how that could be anything but bewildering to the audience.

Arawn, the actor played on the 1970's TV series, "Charlie's Angels." He was the physically-present liaison between Charlie, who never appeared, and the three women.

By the name of Mike?

So this a symbolism of marriage made in heaven? I just find it strange since religion hardly took any part in the series.

Another thing,

4. Griffin Senior with his intestinal telephone.

"I'm callin you back, get it?" I didn't. wordplay on colon?

Well, actually the actor who played Mike was called "Bosley" in the Charlie's Angel series. And *laughs* as far as I know, there's nothing religious with the name "Mike". I could be wrong of course.

So, my theory is that just picked a name at random. Mike the guardian angel might as well have been a "Bob", "Johnny" or a "Bosley".

-Cherry (Who've watched a total sum of four(!) Charlie's Angels episodes...over and over again)

Yes that was a play on the word colon but that was one terrible joke.

The Archangel Michael does come to mind.

There's an Archangel named Michael? Are you sure? I mean, err, I knew that.

The three archangels: Michael, Gabriel, Raphael. (Or, if you prefer the original Hebrew: Michoel (the "ch" is a sound that doesn't exist in English - sort of a guttural "h"), Gavriel, and Rephoel.)

That particular episode was directed by Michael Lange. So it could have been a in-joke...

James

And it's a common name. Why, almost every Tom, Dick, and Harry is named Mike!

So no one hear knows the official answer to who the Mike guy was?

I thought you were fans!

Asked and answered, Arawn! He was a guardian angel.

If you're asking why the character was included in the episode - well without the benefit of psychic ability or a crystal ball, the only people who'd know that are TPTB on the show. And unless they choose to share that info....guess we'll never know.

LabRat

Ok, so it says in the casting list. But the purpose of the part should have been something the producers have had to explain at some point.

It's just something, I would have thought FoLC's had asked about.

This was the best I could find with some google-fu.

"Mike" could be interpreted as representing the producers; he may also be thought of as a play on competition "Touched By An Angel." David Doyle, who played Mike, died in February 1997.

I just figured with all of the crazy, life threatening stuff Lois and Clark go through on a weekly basis, a guardian angel would make sense.

I think it's more that Lois & Clark are "destined", "soulmates", "fated", whatever/however you wish to put it, to be together, and that, shall we say "beings" or in this case a "being" of a higher nature (god, angel, hyper-developed alien, whatever) took steps to ensure that they would finally be together and have at least a moment of happiness.

My personal take is "Mike" is supposed to be the Archangel Michael. But for my overall thinking, see above satetment...

*grumbles*

What I don't get is why they didn't go back and save their past lives from isolation and being married to Tempus. WOE the torture!

Catherine, you need to read S6, in which Phil Atcliffe did exactly that in the episode, "Hand of Fate." There were a number of loose ends left when the series stopped, and that was one of them.

so here's my question: When Lois and Clark went back in time to save Clark as a baby, there was baby Clark and there was our Clark. When they went back to Smallville 1866, they were still Lois and Clark from the 1990s. So how come when they went back in time in "Soulmates" they were "The Fox" and "Loisette" etc?

Because that time they used the Soul-Tracker-Whatsit, instead of the Super-Duper-Time-Machine with Flux-Capacitor!

tee hee
Thanks rivka!

Ooh, here's a better one. The most blatant use of undetected Superpower by Clark Kent: in Contact when Lois walks into traffic and is about to get hit by truck, Clark literally blows her away. Are we to believe that the one hand capped around the side of his mouth was enough to keep everyone from noticing that a woman flew some 15 feet into the air and landed on the other side of the street?! Was the driver of the truck blind?! And why is it no one in that city seems to know how to use the brakes?

In a city where Superman patrols the skies, wouldn't everyone assume it was Superman at work? Just because they didn't see him didn't mean he wasn't there--performing a rescue at a nearby building, maybe, with his hands full and only able to turn his head and blow her out of the way. Why would anyone think it was Clark?

I guess that's possible, but I still don't think it's so ignorable. I mean, I could see someone seeing that and being shocked then looking around for Superman and I guess shrugging it off when they didn't actually see him all the while ignoring Clark, but no one even looked around, or came up to Lois to ask if she was alright (besides Clark, of course).

Or the scene where the brakes didn't work in the Prankster and Clark stuck out his foot with open door... and Lois asked him what he thinks he is doing. The cars behind them must have seen his foot or the people walking by.

Ah, but I have a Theory.

We know that figuring out that CK=S is a potentially fatal, and almost always harmful, conclusion to reach. (I can figure out some statistics if necessary, but even a casual review indicates that the majority of people who figure this out end up dead, maimed, or dogs.) The human subconscious is a marvellous thing, and protects us from all kinds of dangerous knowledge.

A person who is presented with evidence that could lead to the CK=S conclusion may well be protected by their subconscious (*much hand-waving, nothing to see here!*), and convince themselves (on an entirely unconscious level) that they didn't see what they thought they did.

LOL, rivka!

I think the problem is that the viewers know Clark is Superman, so all of this is seen as evidence of his super powers. But if you were on the street and saw a guy stick his foot out of the car, I guarantee your first thought wouldn't be that he was Superman slowing the car down. I know I'd be yelling, "You idiot! You wanna snap off your leg at the ankle?!" And when the car slowed down, I'd assume it was because the brakes worked, not because the guy slowed it with his foot.

I've been thinking on it and I'm not at all sure that anyone would really see much with the foot thing.

I mean there's a lot of other traffic around on the street, all fast moving. There are parked cars - no doubt lining both sides of the street.

And the biggest element of all, this is a huge city, bustling and busy. Move, move, move. I think it would suffer from the classic 'too busy to see anything' state of mind. Ask any New York cop how easy it is to get a witness to a crime. No one sees anything in a big city. They're too busy hustling on with their lives, wondering what to make for dinner that evening, if the fax machine will still be broken when they get back from lunch, ooops, they forgot the wife's birthday...and a host of other mundane things. They're enclosed in their own little self-bubble and everything else in the world passes them by.

So it doesn't strike me as especially odd that things like this would be missed.

LabRat

@sheilah wish to see Clarks face if you would say that thing to him. You made me really laugh out loud.


@Labrat I think you're right. Never seen it from this point of view.

Notice the wondrousness of the subconscious! Y'all are even disbelieving the Theory.

quick question: What do you guys think that switch for the Kryptonite cage does exactly? I mean, the cage falls over Clark, he practically laughs it off, then Lex pulls this giant lever and suddenly the cage glows green. I don't get that; I mean, it's not like Kryptonite is a light bulb you can turn on and off right?

1. Explanation 1: This is pretty dumb, but I figured the cage was painted with that handy-dandy, super-power-or-Kryptonite-blocking lead-based paint. But this was a special kind developed by LexLabs, and when an electrical current passed through it, it dissolved, revealing the kryptonite underneath.

2. Explanation 2: This isn't much better. The cage was painted with Kryptonite mixed with a lead-based paint, and application of an electrical current activated the Kryptonite so the lead-based part was no longer shielding it.

Weak and dumb, I know, but they didn't leave me a lot of wiggle room on that one.

Hmm. Thinking along those lines . . .

Let us suppose for a moment that the cage is made of an alloy -- small amounts of kryptonite blended with lead (and perhaps some magnetic metal -- lead isn't particularly). If an electric current were run through it, which would magnetize it . . .

*ponders* Well. It's been far too long since I read up on electricity and magnetism for me to make really good predictions. But if the kryptonite were bonded somehow to the magnetic metal. And the electric/magnetic field pushed those bits to the surface.

*sigh* Well. I think this goes back to the fact that the science on L&C was pretty awful.

I'll buy any and all of those explanations, actually. Thanks guys!

Here's another mystery you can probably solve for me: When Lois has to disarm the bomb (I think in "Ordinary People"?) because Clark can't move, how come Perry's shove sends him forward? I know, Perry might hurt his hand if he shoved Clark hard enough, but Clark wasn't really looking at him, so would he have known to lower his whatever-it-is enough to allow Perry to shove him in the first place? And if he did, wouldn't Perry spraining his wrist be preferable to blowing everyone up?

Well considering Clarks superenhanced senses the possibility that he could be suprised is rather small. (In fact those episodes where he is it's really corny. All his friends throws a suprise birthday party in his house, yet he fails to notice them, for someone who can hear voices on the other end of town this is rather funny.) He could probably identify Perry by smell or the sounds of his steps.
Some fics has the notion that Clark can "soften" his body whatever that means. My take is that he rolls with the impact of a force, like a boxer. He has conditioned his body to respond to things like a human reflexivly. When Lois slaps him in the Tempus Fugit she doesn't break her hand either, despite that it should have been a complete surprise to Clark.

Another thing I always thought was rather funny is in DLW when Clark tries to listen and explains to Lois that he can't hear anything when she is babbeling in his ear and that it feels like a knife in his head. Hmm... he can swallow bombs with a smile but the missus voice brings real pain.

About that slapping-Clark-without-getting-hurt -thing, I've always thought that it depends on *how* you hit. I mean, you can easily slap/hit with your palm at something made of steel (let's say a car, just for the sake of it) without getting hurt. I've done it a couple of times with all my might, when something has annoyed me. And sure, it stings *a lot*, but I don't get hurt. In the other hand, if I'd tried to punch the living daylights out of the car, then I'd probably broken my hand.

So, my bet is that it probably depends on how you hit your mark. But, Lois' hand really should have ached quite a lot after that slap...but in the other hand, she's mad and probably running on adrenaline. Both quite good at hiding pain.

I think perhaps he was surprised by the surprise party because at that moment he and Lois were, uh, otherwise *occupied*. Clark's superpowers don't seem to normally function when he is concentrating on Lois. He becomes totally absorbed by her. Same thing with 'Sex, Lies, & Videotape', why didn't he sense that photographer trying to get a picture of Superman with Lois? Maybe because he was too preoccupied. Just my take on that.

Just because Clark is immensely strong doesn't mean that he is rooted to the ground like a tree or weighs as much as a boulder and therefore can't be shoved. In fact, the only time someone should be unable to move him is when he has set himself to resist. Then, he's using his enormous strength and is truly immovable. Otherwise, he should be as easy to move as anyone else.

In this particular case, Perry could easily push Clark forward because he was already mentally leaning that way, his entire attention directed toward Lois under the table.

As far as the issue of people not being able to sneak up on Clark because of his incredible senses, I don't see why that would be any more true for him than anyone else. For example, when my children were small, I could hear them at the other end of the house (several rooms away) and immediately tell if they were doing something that would get them in trouble--just by the sound. And yet ... when I was staring at my typewriter (yes, pre-PC days), they could stand next to me and ask me a question and I wouldn't hear them at all. Did I suddenly go deaf? Not physically. But I simply stopped listening. No one was getting into trouble, so my auto-hearing didn't kick in, and I was too totally focused on my writing to notice what was going on around me.

Clark may be an alien, but in every way that counts, he is as human as the rest of us. When he is focused on Lois, he simply isn't listening for anything except her, so he doesn't hear it. His senses have to work that way or he would be driven insane by the constant cacophony of all the voices, traffic, equipment, etc. within miles around him. Other than that subconcious "listening for people in trouble" or "listening for someone approaching" when he and Lois are engaged in B&E, he pretty much hears what he listens to ... just like the rest of us.

Well that would make more sense if it was consistent. When Mayson dies he does seem to be able do scan the area an kiss Lois at the same time. I think there are other examples too.

And really, thirty people are in the same room as him. I would think even Lois should have noticed.

I agree with Sheilah on the sneaking up thing. I don't think Clark can hear absolutely everything all the time; calls for help are something he tunes in for. Like when you hear someone say your name in a whispered discussion, but don't actually know what they're saying about you.

As for him not being immovable, I understand that he's not rooted to the ground but I keep thinking about Jonathan slamming that baseball bat into his chest. Although, I suppose you're right and I can chalk it up to tension. When I'm holding myself from moving, I tense up and all of my focus is on whatever I'm trying not to move for, waiting for the second I can get to it (think of playing "Red Ligh, Green Light"). I think I'm much easier to shove then than at a normal time. Thanks for the help figuring this out guys; it actually helped explain a few more questions about Clark's attention and how that affects his powers and whatnot!

This isn't something I didn't get, but rather something silly that just always made me sad: When Jonathan does Matha's chores in Chi of Steel, he "makes" dinner and Lois says it's the best Chinese she's ever had. I was just wondering if anyone else had the same suprising indignant reaction to that as I did, b/c I was hurt before I could stop myself from being silly. I was like "What?! What about Clark's takeout from Shanghai?" lol, stupid, I know but LnC just did that to me.

Mara, that's exactly how I reacted, too, but I've since decided that Lois was using a bit of polite hyperbole.

Me too. I thought the same thing. I was like, Lois, how could you say that when Clark flew you Chinese food from halfway around the world. She had told him it was incredible.

Yay! I'm not alone! And I'm not crazy!

...unless...

...we're all crazy...

Maybe she was just trying to encourage the Jonathan's efforts.

Then again there are those people who aren't shy about using superlatives.
My mother exclaims fairly often that the present subject matter is the worst thing she ever heard. :rolleyes:
Some people are same with praise.


Hmm.. there is another thing. Clarks apartment seems to be in a basement. You go in from the street down a stair correct? But assuming he has windows shouldn't just about anyone see into the apartment? The landlord in the Pilot talks about the quietest building Metropolis and suggest he should walk around in the buff, which would imply that it's difficult look in. Then in the episode with Diana Stryde they climb UP into Clarks apartment. Is it some kind etage?

Both Lois's and Clark's apartments change to fit the storyline. For the most part, Clark's apartment has been seen on the ground floor. There's a short stair that takes you to his doorway as seen in "Church of Metropolis" when Lois peeks into Clark's apartment or in "And the Answer Is..." when Lois catches Clark in his burglar clothing.

Other times, it's on the top floor. In "All Shook Up", suddenly Clark's apartment is on the top since you can see the arch of his bedroom as the Kents take Clark out to the balcony to practice flying.

When Clark first finds his new apartment in "Neverending Battle", Lois bursts in from street level as you can see behind her. Yet in the same episode, it looks like Clark's front door is in a hallway. Most other episodes show Clark's front door accessible only from outside. In "Whine, Whine, Whine", it's clear Lois is standing outside when Clark opens the door.

Lois's apartment moved primarily because of a prop error. Originally starting off as apartment 105 (ground floor), it moved to 501 (fifth floor) after a prop person mixed up the numbers. It stayed that way. Then in "Operation Blackout", Lois was pushed out her window, falling off a skyscraper seemingly as tall as Lex Towers.

Go figure.

Thank you RL you know your way around Clark's apartment.
Glad I don't have to strain by spatial abiltity to make sense of things.

Yeah, that one always seemed weird.

I never realized she stayed at the ground floor. When Clark is flying outside her apartment in the pilot I got the impression that it was at least the second floor. Why have four locks on the door if anyone can get in through the window?

The Blackout thing was funny. Actually I didn't think she was home when she fell a hundred feet down on the flagpole.

1. Why does Clark say "Thank you, I appreciate it" When Lois tells him he wouldn't be her first choice for bodyguard in Witness?

i always assumed this was because he knew her first choice was Superman. so he said 'thankyou' because he IS superman.

I don't know. I always wondered about that one too. I sort of took it to mean that he thought maybe Lois cared about him enough that she wouldn't want to risk him being her body guard? But I'm sure he guessed it was Superman. She'd rather risk Superman then him.

Someone asked a FFQ a while back and got quite a few responses. It was a fun discussion. I found a website with lists of bloopers, the apartment thing being one of them. Here\'s my post in that thread; it's got a few interesting facts about Lois's apartment quoted from the website I mentioned.

Sara

In requiem for a superhero you have Jimmy saying that Lane and Kent sounds better then Kent and Lane

"Tradition. Abbott and Costello. Martin and Lewis. Straight man always goes first."

Could someone explain to me why Lois is more straight then Clark?

I always thought it was because Lois was much more serious at that time. She didn't joke around with the rest of the people at the Planet. That's why in HiM, everyone thought she was tracking down a story when she went to the Lexor to relax. Intense, focused, no sense of humor about her work--all of that made her the "straight man" of the pair.

I still don't get it. I could understand it as a seniority thing or the ladies first, but while Clark isn't as intense or focused as Lois he is pretty darn straight as well.

Leaping in here:
You've got the wrong defition in mind for "straight".
In comedy the guy who tells the joke is the comedian and the guy the joke is told to is the "straight man". For a joke to work, both are necessary, but the comedian gets the accolades.
An ancient example: Jack Benny was straight man to Gracie Fields.
Costello and Lewis were the comedians; Abott and Martin were their straight foils.
Hope this helps.

Artemis

Thank you Artemis. That explains why Lois didn't appreciate the metaphor.