I recently found out about the existence of this archival picture, and I'm now obsessed with it. See if you can blame me:
That would be Superman, one of the REAL Supermans (Reeves of the George variety) serving what appears to be a huge portion of mashed potatoes to excited, hairbowed lunch ladies with paper collars. Yeah. Look at his expression, he's so congenial, isn't he? So not seeming like the kind of guy who would kill himself. And I love the hand reaching in from the front from an off-camera woman who apparently doesn't care so much about being starstuck as getting her lunch in a side dish already, dammit.

The women are obviously workers at Hess's, which was an old Grand Dame department store which existed until 1994. My memories of it are from its last days, but pretty much anyone from the Allentown area will instantly recognize the logo on those scalloped collars instantly.

From what I can tell, George Reeves made two appearances at Hess's, once in March of 1955 and once in August of 1956. This would have probably been the flagship store in Allentown, as it was the only location at the time. He was on a publicity spree at the height of the show's popularity. Whoever planned his outings relied heavily on the shopping locations, but it was one of his sprees at Hess's that ended with him posing for pictures for a promotional article which appeared in People Today.
I'm not sure if the mashed potato picture is from this same visit, but it has its own fabulous pictures, and a delightfully fifties style write-up to go with. Apparently, in addition to selling shoes, they made him heft around piles of empty boxes in a show of faux strength, and push racks of clothing really fast. He's described as wearing "super clothes" and his appearance is said to have "enchanted mothers and moppets alike". Cue your favorite episode of Mad Men to see the type who came up with that line read.

Then, to really mess with the minds of the public, they had him do the deliveries for the day, fulfilling both the necessities of degrading publicity work and cheap manual labor for a while.
The day apparently ended suddenly when "Supe" (yes, they actually call him Supe) trips over a tricycle and skins his knee. If you know Allentown I'm not surprised its Superman was brought down by mere children's toys..