1975-11-07 • 3 Seasons • Sci-Fi & Fantasy Action & Adventure Drama
Documentary about the making of "Wonder Woman." Includes interviews with Lynda Carter, Douglas S. Cramer, Alex Ross, and Les Daniels. The interviews with Lynda Carter and Les Daniels were filmed at the DC Comics offices in New York City.
A look at the second season of Wonder Woman, when the show moved to CBS and into the 70's.
Lynda Carter and four female authors discuss the status of Wonder Woman as a feminist icon.
The first attempt to translate Wonder Woman to the small screen occurred in 1967. The success of the Batman television series led Batman producer William Dozier to commission a pilot script by Stan Hart and Larry Siegel. Batman writer Stanley Ralph Ross was then asked to perform a re-write, after Hart and Siegel's script was deemed unsuitable. A portion of the pilot, under five minutes in length, was filmed under the title Who's Afraid of Diana Prince? The piece starred Ellie Wood Walker (Robert Walker Jr.'s wife) as Diana Prince, Linda Harrison as Diana's "Wonder Woman" alter ego and Maudie Prickett as Diana's mother. This pilot episode was never broadcast and the project was taken no further. The pilot has been circulated on the Internet and is of interest to Planet of the Apes fans for the early appearance of Linda Harrison, who would later go on to play Nova in the first two films of that series.
Wonder Woman's first appearance in live-action television was a television movie made in 1974 for ABC. Written by John D. F. Black, the TV movie resembles the Wonder Woman of the "I Ching" period. Wonder Woman (Cathy Lee Crosby) did not wear the comic book costume, demonstrated no superhuman abilities, her "secret identity" of Diana Prince was not all that secret, and she was also depicted as blonde (differing from the image established in the comic books). The film follows Wonder Woman, assistant to government agent Steve Trevor (Kaz Garas) as she pursues a villain named Abner Smith (Ricardo Montalban) who has stolen a set of code books containing classified information about U.S. government field agents. The pilot aired originally on March 12, 1974 and was repeated on August 21 of that year. Ratings were described as "respectable but not exactly wondrous." ABC did not pick up the pilot, although Crosby would later claim she was offered the series that was eventually given to Lynda Carter. An ABC spokesperson would later acknowledge that the decision to update the character was a mistake and the pilot itself has been labeled one of the "hundred dumbest events in television.
