One of the most popular TV shows in the early days of television was The Adventures of Superman in the 1950s. Then as now, Hollywood was always looking for a way to extend a lucrative franchise and the Superman producers hit upon the idea of launching a spin-off/spoof called The Adventures of Superpup.

Essentially, the idea was to make a Superman TV show, except that all of the characters would be portrayed by animals (Clark Kent/Superman became “Bark Bent”/”Superpup”, Lois Lane became “Pamela Poodle”, and so on). A pilot was commissioned and  shot on the cheap using the same sets as the original George Reeves show with the characters portrayed by actors in full body dog suits and a puppet or two.

The series never took off (pardon the pun), but the concept was eventually recycled as the premise for a cartoon show called Krypto The Superdog on Cartoon Network in the U.S. a few years ago.