Wonder Woman Extra: “Wonder Woman,” the Cathy Lee Crosby TV Movie (1974)

Lynda Carter’s Wonder Woman was not the first time our awesome Amazon graced the TV airwaves in the 70’s; in 1974, about a year and a half before the TV series pilot, Cathy Lee Crosby donned the… well, a suit, and foiled a villainous plot wearing the ol’ red, white, and blue as WW. And the results? Not exactly gangbuster ratings, and so the idea for a series was put the shelf for a while. The folks at Warner Archives have just released this hidden treasure on DVD, and so I figured it’s worth having a look-see for completion’s sake.

The setting: America, present day (nope, no Nazis as villains here), and Steve Trevor, evidently a head CIA agent, has learned of the

coordinated theft of a set of code books containing secret information about a group of field agents, which puts all their lives at risk. (Hey, wasn’t this the plot of Skyfall?) He discusses the incident with his assistant, Diana Prince, after

briefing his men on the crisis, and, through his inquiry of which country’s “dentist” she’ll be seeing on her break, it’s clear he knows the identity of her alter-ego.  Correctly suspecting that the culprit is wealthy European magnate Abner Smith (Ricardo Montalban), she tramps to France and faces off against head henchman George Calvin (Andrew Prine, who looks like a cross between Keith Carradine and Police drummer Stewart Copeland). Of course, her face offs with men seem to resemble flirty pick-up lines at cocktail parties, so the formula appears to be: a) Diana and (bad guy) drink wine and have a coy tet-e-tete; b) Diana is left alone for a brief interlude; c) Diana’s life is immediately threatened either by speeding car, rattlesnake, or the good-old-fashioned attack by leather-clad thugs.

At about the halfway point, Diana dons her superhero threads, technically becoming Wonder Woman, although her actions now don’t seem much different from when she was Diana. Perhaps it’s because she’s closing in on the villian’s fortress, somewhere near the Grand Canyon. Steve had gotten a message to pay 15 million dollars in ransom money to retrieve the stolen code books, and to load the money on a burro to be abandoned in some ghost town that looks like the leftover set from Gunsmoke. Following the mule prints, WW finds Abner in his secret lair, and, after overcoming a series of traps (including a weird, trippy wall of dripping, tri-color sludge), confronts him, at which time we finally see his heretofore obscured face. After some more flirty dialogue, Abner allows WW to take the code books but absconds with the money. He tries to make a getaway on an inflatable raft but WW swims up and simply tells him he’s through. The henchman have all killed each other so only Abner is arrested; as he is driven away in a police car he gleams at WW and moons, “Wonder Woman, I love you.”

With no real special powers, skills or transformation scenes from one persona to another, Crosby’s WW is “more superspy than superhero,” according to the write-up on the DVD case, which seems a bit like a disclaimer. Nevertheless, this incarnation of the DC heroine is solidly diverting entertainment. Smack dab in the middle of the disco and polyester suit decade, this movie bears all the marks of a delightfully dated era, replete with freeze frames, acid trip commercial break bumpers, syntho-funk score, and more polyester than you can shake a stick at. The pacing and plotting is at a clip, so there’s no real time to mock the dated production values. And though Cathy Lee Crosby can never claim to be the “real” Wonder Woman, her combination of doe-eyed beauty and proto-feminist moxie is well able to sustain the film’s 90-minute running time (presaging Charlie’s Angels in many ways).

Some good supporting characters round out the cast, but the most interesting is probably Ahnjayla, one of Wonder Woman’s Paradise Island sisters, played by Anitra Ford. A turncoat, she joins George Calvin in fighting WW, but loses. Her life spared, she vows to repay her debt to WW, who only asks of Abner’s whereabouts.

PETA endorsed: Wonder Woman defeats a venomous snake by calling room service for a saucer of milk so the snake can feed while she escapes. You gotta respect such a humane, if not exactly action-packed, solution, at the expense of a good 3 minutes of airtime! 

Cheers 3.4: “Fairy Tales Can Come True”

Airdate: 10/25/84

It’s Halloween at Cheers! Frasier can’t keep his date with Diane to see the Boston Pops, so he suggests Sam as his replacement, with the usual Sam/Diane insecurities keeping this from being a smooth transfer. But the big story around seems to be a sprouting romance with Cliff; dressed as Ponce de Leon, he starts up a conversation with a woman at the bar dressed as Tinkerbell, and they dance the night away in oblivious bliss. The next day, as himself again, Cliff gets a bad case of the jitters, and it takes Norm’s coaching, and Sam’s (literal) prodding, to get his gumption up again. After waiting hours, it looks like the lovelorn letter-carrier has been stood up, until “Tinkerbell” calls to reveal how equally nervous she is. Slowly, ever-so-slowly, she creeps down the stairs to meet her conquistador in shining armour, and the two dance to the strains of “Moon River” like they did the night before.

Beautifully written and charmingly acted, this one demonstrates how expert the Cheers writers are at exploring character insecurities with a deft, delicate touch. Shades of Marty echo in this sweetly-brewed “tale” – and the finale is guaranteed to warm the cockles of your heart. Even the Carla’s among us will be charmed!

Great work by guest player Bernadette Berkett as “Tinker Bell,” whose tongue-tied introduction in the last scene rivals even Ratzenberg’s awkwardness.

Cold open: The Cheers gang trades scary ghost stories: Frasier regales with “The Raven,” while Coach conjures up a classic Casper episode. But the scariest of all is Norm’s empty beer glass!

Norm’s opener: Norm’s already at the bar.

Waltons 7.15: “The Parting”

Airdate: 1/18/79

Livy misses her husband terribly, now that is working hard as head of a co-op and must be away for long stretches of time. On Jason’s advice, John invites his wife to come with on his next trip to Virginia Beach, and she obliges, so long as she can stop and see her Aunt Kay… and get him to see a doctor. The prognosis for him is simply to take it easy; for Olivia, not so great: she is in the early stages of tuberculosis, and must stay at a sanitarium for an indeterminate amount of time.

With her eye on starring in the pilot for the 1980 CBS series Nurse, and “exhausted after doing this show 12 hours a day, five days a week for seven years,” actress Michael Learned essentially exits the series at this point (although she would make guest appearances in the last two seasons and star in the reunion movies)– the latest in a long string of cast changes in the Waltons’ later years. This, perhaps, is the biggest shakeup of them all; even People magazine devoted a cover story to it, calling her “the last bulwark of a closely bound cast.” Henceforth, the show’s writers will introduce new characters and start to focus more on town life (as set up in “The Boosters”). It also didn’t help ratings much when ABC slated HUGE hit Mork and Mindy against The Waltons at the top of this season.

As drama, this is a sad and touching episode, but it does sort of come from out of nowhere. To be fair, when Learned asked the writers to write her out of the series, what could they do – have her enlist in the army? A smart, and credible, move, and it does cast some light on the sorrow and separation caused by such a frightful disease, up until they developed a vaccination for it in the 1940s.

Subplot: Jim Bob practices the accordion, and sucks at it – but he does pull off a sweet goodbye song for Olivia.

Waltons 7.14: “The Obstacle”

Airdate: 1/11/79

John-Boy’s college buddy, Mike Paxton, returns from the war a paraplegic. The Waltons take him in, and despite encouragement to move on with his life (especially from nurse Mary Ellen), he feels defeated and prefers to wallow in self-pity. Erin attempts to get him a job as a supervisor at J.D. Pickett’s plant; when J.D refuses hire because he’s handicapped, Mike’s resolve is only strengthened and he summons the fortitude to drive himself to work and climb the stairs with his crutches… to his new job. Meanwhile Ike and Ben try a little soft shoe to audition for a USO show.

48 years before the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Waltons were ahead of their time in rallying to the support of Mike. You might remember him from Waltons 3.2, “The First Day,” as John-Boy’s comrade in arms on his traumatic first day at Boatwright College. His character, as played by Dennis Redfield, is a bit mannered and mopey, and even though I know that’s the point it also makes him oversimplified and slightly unlikeable. A rousing, if somewhat predictable, conclusion. Ike and Ben’s rendition of “In the Mood” makes it worth the price of admission.

Time check: Spring, 1942.

Wonder Woman 1.6: Wonder Woman Vs. Gargantua!

Airdate: 12/18/76

A dastardly Nazi doctor, Erica Belgard (Gretchrn Corbett), has found a way to control a huge, powerful ape named Gargantua, and uses it to secretly capture a turncoat defector (John Hillerman) from the Americans. She and her cohorts, including Hans Eichker (Robet Loggia), decide to use their quarry as bait so that can nab the real prize: Wonder Woman. Back at the War Department, Steve and Diana enlist the help of an expert on animal behavior to determine whom they’re up against – with this discovery WW tracks down the Nazis and gets thrown into a cage with the brown behemoth, but her feminine wiles calms the monster and winds up deprogramming him. The angry Nazis make one more attempt to go after their escaped prey, but their cruel electroshock reprogramming doesn’t work, allowing WW and the Americans to swoop in and destroy the culprits of crimes against humanity – and animality.

A fun entry, with shades of King Kong adding a compassionate element to both the show and its title character – who knew she was both a feminist and ahead-of-her-time animal rights activist? Gargantia is all too obviously a man in a monkey suit, but I was surprised at how quickly I accepted it and just went along for the ride. I think it owes, in part at least, to WW’s increasingly straightforward tone and heavy and fast plotting. There’s no time to mock its production values!

Sci-fi fans may be reminded of the Incredible Hulk episode “The Beast Within,” in which the climax of the show is also a faceoff with a behemoth gorilla. You can pretty much expect the same outcome, minus the setting free of he ape at the end.

Good supporting work here, from Robert Loggia, whom we’ve seen in so many films and shows from the 70s and 80s, and Gretchrn Corbett, whose face you may recognize, particularly from her work on Family, Cheers, and Magnum P.I., and her recurring role on The Rockford Files.

Love the “Invisible Plane Theme”! (Prick up your ears for it next time, and tell me you don’t love that sultry sax.)