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The History of Smallville
Lana Lang  Lex Luthor  Superboy
The Kents discover the Baby  Kal-El

click for larger image Superman's original rocket ship	Rocket from the pilot episode of Smallville
The Kents	The History of Smallville seems to start way back in 1939 with this appearance of the Kents in Superman #1. They only get one page and that's it. The town Smallville is never actually mentioned. Also they are referred to as an elderly couple not the 40 something Kents we know from Smallville.
click for larger wallpaper size image The Kents discover the Rocket on the Adventures of Superman with George Reeves	Go forward to the 1950's, Superman, already having his own movie serials and cartoons, now gets his own tv show. The Adventures of Superman, starring George Reeves, starts out with the first episode, "Superman on Earth" (9/19/1952), dealing with the Kent's discovery of Superman's rocket ship, a scene from his childhood, and then straight to Metropolis. The Kents were still older and were named Eben and Sarah Kent instead of Jonathan and Martha Kent.
	The most famous version of the rocket scene was done in the Superman Movie with Glenn Ford playing Jonathan Kent and Phyllis Thaxter playing Martha Kent. The Kents here stuck to the stereotype of being older, even though the Kents of the Superboy comics were looking a lot younger than originally. Clark shows his unique powers right away in this version.
The Super Friends origin of Superman	The rocket scene would be repeated several times on television and the big screen. On the episode "Secret Origins of the Super Friends", of the Saturday morning cartoon the Superfriends, the Legion of Doom try to stop the rightful origin of Superman by sending his rocket to a planet with a red sun. Batman and Robin go back and deflect the Legion of Doom's power beam and once again the rocket ship lands in Kansas.
Pinky and the Brain discover Kal-El	In the 1990's cartoon Pinky and the Brain The Brain tracks down Superman's rocket ship and tries to raise Clark himself, with Pinky. Fortunately, the super baby turns out to be too much for the Brain, as changing diapers requires a oxygen suit, and the tiny kid of steel uses his heat vision to blast the lab rat. Baby Clark makes his way back to the field where he landed and where the Kents find him.

In the 1990's Smallville's opening rocket scene was also seen on Lois and Clark the New Adventures of Superman, and Superman the Animated Series.

One interesting fact you may not have noticed is that the truck the Kent's discover Clark in is usually red. It was red on the Superman movie, the Super Friends, and Smallville.