Plot summary: Superman finds himself locked in a seemingly-never ending game with the diminutive but omnipotent Mr. Mxyzptlk.

1. Notes and Trivia
2. Recap
3. Best Performance
4. Episode Ranking
5. Rogues Roundup

Notes and Trivia

Episode: 21(S2.E8)

Original Air Date: September 20th, 1997

Directed: Dan Riba (7)

Written: Paul Dini (6)

Animation: Koko Enterprise Co., LTD & Dong Yang Animation Co., LTD. (14)

Music: Harvey R. Cohen (4)

Paul Dini is obsessed with Mr. Mxyzptlk, so naturally this is his favourite episode of the show.

The Kents’ cat, Streaky, is named for Streaky the Supercat, who had the tiniest of cameos as one of Karl Rossum’s creations in BTAS.

Clark’s first attempt  to pronounce Mxyzptlk is a reference to how it was (incorrectly) pronounced throughout 1973’s Super Friends.

Mr. Mxyzptlk briefly turns Jimmy Olsen into a turtle. Believe it or not Turtle Boy was once an alternate identity for Jimmy. Comics rule.

Recap

Clark is plagued by a bizarre little magical man named Mxyzptlk, first causing a traffic incident before vanishing, and then emerging from a newspaper cartoon strip to taunt our hero before disappearing again.

He causes even more commotion at a museum opening, yelling at a statue until it comes to life and attacks Superman, who defends himself… only everything fades away and the crowd are horrified at Supes’ act of unprompted vandalism.

Consulting his parents, Clark’s grip on sanity loosens even more as Ma and Pa begin speaking gibberish and then turn into various birds and then weird alien monsters as Mxyzptlk yucks it up.

Clark pacifies his parents and then demands his tormentor restore them, but he instead turns them into American Gothic and confirms he’s from the 5^th Dimension and seeking a worthy opponent.

Mxyzptlk accepts Clark’s challenge to set proper rules. If Supes can get him into saying his name backwards, he’ll reverse everything and go away… which Clark manages to trick him into doing almost instantly.

Three months later Mxyzptlk returns for a rematch… only to AGAIN be bested in seconds. This happens twice more, taking us to one year and three months since the start of the episode and nothing but quick victories for Supes.

At his wit’s end, Mxyzptlk resorts to turning everyone at the Daily Planet into animals and demands Superman make him say his name backwards twice in a row in exchange for permanent victory.

Instead Clark quits and flies away, disinterested. Mxyzptlk gives chase, turning himself into a Kryptonite rocket and knocks Supes out of the sky… not noticing Clark got him to sky-write his name backwards… twice!

Best Performance

This is probably Tim Daly’s finest work to date, smugly wiping the floor with his nigh-omnipotent  opponent in a battle of wits while never sounding cocky himself. He’s also great at selling the resignation during Clark’s fake out at the end, and not bad at all when it comes to starting to go mad near the start.

But knowing how to effectively weaponise Gilbert Gottfried’s incredible capacity to be annoying as fuck is a great skill. This script lets him ham it up to 1000 and taps into his one of one persona. Even if you find him irritating, that’s the whole point! You’re meant to hate this little twerp, so you really can’t win. There simply cannot be another option.

Episode Ranking

I know this is an animated series, but this episode is 100% a cartoon. That may sound insane, but we’re in pure Loony Toons territory here, with Mxyzptlk trying to troll Superman to death, while Clark employs pure Bugs Bunny/Roadrunner one-upmanship, constantly besting him with ease. It’s kind of the same thing over and over again, and your mileage may depend entirely on how you feel about the featured vocal performance, but there’s a tonne of fun to be had either way.

The episode was likely a real treat for the art team, as Mxyzptlk facilitates all manner of unusual things they wouldn’t normally get to draw and animate, from the various animals, to the comic strips come to life, to Mxyzptlk’s little apartment in the 5^th Dimension. They put a surprising amount of effort into dressing up Gsptlsnz in various outfits to try and arouse her husband’s interest, and I think it just about manages to end up on the right side of the camp/creepy line. Also having Superman shave with a mirror and his own Heat Vision is such a quirky little thing to toss into an episode, but where better than one so led by weird visuals?

I like that Batman’s entire deal is how smart he is to make up for his lack of superpowers, but Superman is low-key pretty damn clever in his own right. We’ve seen him think fast to resolve a number of difficult situations throughout the show already, and this episode threatens to become a montage of such feats as he repeatedly bamboozles Mxyzptlk. From just asking him to confirm what it is he has to get him to say, to writing an article with typos that spell out the name, to the always fun ‘off-screen’ version, Superman comes up with these solutions in 10 seconds flat each time. Even if you want to argue he has 3 months to prepare, the rules change sometimes, so he really is just that quick on his feet. Dini also gets to have his cake and eat it too to an extent as he wraps the entire thing up with the classic ‘the only way to win is to not play at all’ trope… only to then reveal the most convoluted ploy yet. It’s all very cute.

But cute can only get you so far, and for me there’s certainly a ceiling on this whole schtick, so I’m going to slot him in just below another annoying cartoonish guest star, Lobo.

1. Livewire
2. Fun and Games
3. The Last Son of Krypton
4. Stolen Memories
5. The Prometheon
6. Tools of the Trade
7. The Main Man
8. Mxyzpixilated (NEW ENTRY)
9. Blasts from the Past
10. Target
11. The Way of All Flesh
12. My Girl
13. A Little Piece of Home
14. Feeding Time
15. Speed Demons
16. Two’s a Crowd
17. Identity Crisis

Rogues Roundup

Mr. Mxyzptlk (Gilbert Gottfried) (first appearance)

Listen, not to get horny for a cartoon or anything but Mxyzptlk’s biggest crime is ignoring Gsptlsnz, his smoke-show of a wife while she enacts the ‘Babe please have sex with me, I’m so horny’ meme.

Anyway, he’s a little imp man that causes chaos but ultimately not a single person gets hurt and he honours the rules of each engagement, so his level of evil isn’t actually that high. He briefly makes Superman think he’s going legitimately insane, but once it becomes a winnable game it’s lights out.

But he’s certainly a very different type of antagonist for our hero, simultaneously unspeakably powerful beyond the wildest dreams of Darkseid, Brainiac or Parasite, while also posing zero physical threat. He probably COULD go blow for blow with the Man of Steel, but he hails from an entirely different plane of existence and his methods are entirely different. He’s a fun addition to Supes’ pantheon of foes.

I’m going to invert the dynamic from the episode ranking and slot him one spot above Lobo.

1. Livewire
2. Toyman
3. Lex Luthor
4. Brainiac
5. Metallo
6. Mr. Mxyzptlk (NEW ENTRY)
7. Lobo
8. The Preserver
9. Parasite
10. Bruno Mannheim (and Intergang!)
11. Kanto
12. Mala & Jax-Ur
13. The Prometheon
14. Bizarro
15. Earl Garver
16. Edward Lytener
17. Mercy Graves
18. Darkseid
19. Detective Bowman
20. Weather Wizard