In the 1950s TV series The Adventures of Superman, each principal actor wore the same costume throughout each whole season in order to save production costs. The segments of each show would be shot out of sequence, where one week of production might be spent just shooting all of the scenes in a season which were set in a particular location. For example, one week would be consumed doing the scenes which took place in Editor Perry White's office at The Daily Planet for a season, the next week might be expended filming all of the scenes for the season which took place in Inspector Henderson's cubicle at police headquarters, and the week after that used for shooting all of the scenes for the season which took place at Lois Lane's desk, etc. This process sped up production, saved the costs of using multiple sets at any one time, and sometimes enabled the insertion of the same scene in different episodes, such as the standard clip of Perry White yelling on the phone for Jimmy Olsen to come to his office.
Due to the lack of continuity, the actors generally had no idea of the story lines behind any of the scenes they were shooting nor why their characters would be uttering any particular segment of dialogue. These limitations purportedly resulted in less than stellar performances. However, as part of the target audience for this program, I can assure you that I found the portrayals of Superman and his myrmidons to be authentic, witty, and riveting.
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