Superman flew onto the radio airwaves beginning Monday, 12 February 1940. The new series was developed by DC's press agent Allen Ducovny and Robert Joffe Maxwell, a former pulp fiction author who had been assigned the job of licensing the subsidiary merchandising rights to DC's popular comic book character for toys and commercial products. The duo was quick to realize that the vast radio audience could be used to extend Superman's popularity.

In 1939, Maxwell and Ducovny prepared several sample audition disks to sell the idea to prospective sponsors and co-wrote the first version of Superman's famous opening signature.

"We had a lot of fun writing that opening," Ducovny recalls, "It was a typical radio action piece that fully utilized sound effects."