The comics of the sixties and seventies, particularly the Curt Swan years, portrayed Clark Kent as a weak stomached, timid individual who fell prey to the pranks of Steve Lombard constantly. The portrayal was consistent with the comics of the time. The movies portrayal may have been slightly more exaggerated for comic relief and further delineation between Kent and Superman.
The sixties cartoon of Superman also portrayed Kent as pretty wimpy as well.
I agree with you that Cain was more of a Superboy than Superman.
I picked up S1 & S2 when both were on sale but haven't watched a single episode yet. I hope I like it. I'm not very picky tho so I have a feeling I will.
I always loved Lois and Clark and I think Teri Hatcher was the first girl on tv who I liked
The stories are on the cheesy side, but the Superman stuff is done decently, I sort of liked John Shea as Lex Luthor, despite the fact he had hair. Shea played him as a suave-sadistic mofo. Very full of himself, there was one episode early on where he's doing all this monologuing, and I think he's doing it to a reflection of himself, that's how vain he is.
I do like Dean Cain and thought his portrayal of Clark was decent, though I like Tom Welling more (in fact Tom is probably my favorite Clark with Reeve being my favorite Superman). This seemed to be the first Superman show where Martha Kent was more of the free spirited, techy, cool kind of mom. Jonathan was just a side character more than anything. Though there's a fun episode where he finds a nude painting of Martha and thinks she's having an affair on him.
Finally closing in on finishing the viewing of the series on DVD. I'm about halfway thru S4. I bought all of the sets at release but took a long vacation from viewing the series after Lois & Clark got married in S3 of the show. So far, I love the S4 episodes.