"Electra Woman and Dyna Girl" (TV Pilot, 2001)

WE HAVE ALREADY SEEN:

 HOT DISHES IN SPANDEX!

THE OLD GUY WHO LIVES IN THEIR BASEMENT!

HOLY DERIVATIVE!

GOTH BATGIRL!

THAT LADY FROM KINGDOM OF THE SPIDERS! 

UHH...THIS GUY!

BUT WAIT! THE WILDEST IS YET TO COME!

Franchise reboots are tricky. The rules are essentially the same as remaking a movie - get it right and your work will be identified as "this generation's so-and-so"; get it wrong, and if you're lucky it will be forever compared to the original, and never in a positive light. Sadly, while some find their own success, many reboots fall into the latter of these two, either because its showrunners make too many changes to the source material or simply because the fans have such fond memories of the original.

The science fiction genre is no stranger to reboots. Battlestar Galactica got one, Flash Gordon got one, Doctor Who got one, Star Trek had several throughout the '90s... even Star Wars got a fresh set of movies (and I know "fresh" is stretching things a bit) back in 1999, plus we've started seeing teasers for a seventh installment.

Sid and Marty Krofft caught the reboot bug back in 1991 when they re-imagined their most popular '70s green screen puppet show Land of the Lost, which ran for two seasons on ABC Saturday morning and was co-produced by the people who brought you Killer Klowns from Outer Space.

Then in 2001 they tried again, and what with the popularity of Buffy and the Gilmore Girls, this time they chose to revive a series they felt would fit in perfectly. One that managed to grow from a meager one-season run as a "show within a show" to become one of their most popular Saturday morning offerings.

That's right - we're doing the failed pilot episode of the 2001 attempted relaunch of the bicentennial seventh-grader's answer to Adam West's Batman, Electra Woman and Dyna Girl.

Conceived for the WB Network and never aired on television, today this TV pilot exists only in the realm of bootleg video and preserved for posterity deep in the bowels of YouTube's servers. And the best part is, it's only fifteen minutes long, so this review won't take as long to read as most of the others.

So we begin at an amusement park, where a little girl running around unsupervised decides to take a ride on a Ferris wheel. Suddenly the cable on her car snaps and overturns, leaving her hanging precariously over imminent doom! But luckily for her, a lady in a familiar-looking costume with an oversized wristwatch in on the scene--it's Electra Woman, who climbs onto the wheel to rescue the poor girl and bring her down.

Dyna Girl rounds out the cast.

"You should know better than to wander off by yourself. Remember what happened to that kid on Lidsville?"

Fast-forward a few years, and that little girl is now a young Anne Stedman who is still crazy obsessed about Electra Woman. In fact, as it happens, her fancy-pants pretty-people-only college which I assume is some Professor Xavier-type academy for superheroes or something (which would explain all the cameos) is having a homecoming parade in which they have invited a number of superhero graduates to participate in some kind of thank-you float or something, and she's insisting that her long time idol participate in the proceedings.

Her name's Judy, by the way.

Sadly, since that episode, her rescuer has since disappeared from the public eye and is now an estranged middle-aged divorcee played by Markie Post from Night Court living in a trailer park and smelling of cigarettes and booze. Seems the original Dyna Girl ran off with her husband and since then her self-worth has hit an all-time low. She doesn't even think of herself as a superhero anymore - not compared to Superman being an alien, Batman having that goth thing going for him, and Wonder Woman having bigger--

Wait...divorce? Sex? Bosom envy? Wasn't this based off a kids' show? That was made during a time when you weren't allowed to punch people on a kids' show?

Oh, that is sad. Supergirl SHOULD have gotten that sequel.

Judy can't help but notice that Electra Woman's invitation went return-to-sender on her, not that anyone planning the parade cares since Judy's not even on the planning committee and EW was a drop-out, and pays her a visit to find out what the dilly-o. She discovers Laurie's--I'm guessing that's her name--sad state of affairs just in time for the two of them to tumble out of the back of the trailer as it's being towed away while they were still inside it, which I must admit was pretty funny.

So the main gist is that Judy now aims to bring her childhood hero back into the spotlight by hiding her booze, booking her publicity gigs, and risking bringing up one of the worst traumas of her life by digging out the original Dyna Girl costume and putting it on.

Uhh, Judy...when you get home after Laurie throws you out of her hotel room, find a dictionary and look up the word "tact."

Judy books the two of then an appearance at a local pawn shop, where nobody shows up, Laurie isn't exacly crazy about the idea, and Judy loudly announces that her leotard is "creeping into her secret places." Her words, not mine. Fortunately, nothing quite breaks up the monotony in a pawn shop quite like a pair of armed robbers who quite cartoonishly knock out the guy behind the counter and start pointing rifles at things. Judy has to goad Laurie into foiling this heist as the security guard rather ineffectually clutches his inhaler and after a moment's disillusionment, Laurie reluctantly gets involved.

Thus follows one of the most bizarre dialogue exhanges within fifteen minutes of anything.

BANK ROBBER A:
I'm holding a GUN. A BIG GUN.

ELECTRA WOMAN:
Oh please. I've had bigger things than that up my--

WHOA!!! Too much information.

At the very least, it sets off something you NEVER saw in the original TV show - a fight scene.

Which also includes something ELSE you never saw in the original TV show - Dyna Girl kicking a bad guy in his Bugaloos.

Conclusive evidence.

And as luck would have it, a news van drives up right outside just as the bad guys are beaten into submission.

So Electra Woman and Dyna Girl are officially back in the public eye, Judy celebrates by immediately leaking her new secret identity to her horny boyfriend, and Laurie celebrates by--

OH GOOD LORD SHE'S A COUGAR!! OH I'M HAVING SUPERGIRL FLASHBACKS!!

Yeah...she's decided to move in with Judy and finish her degree. And she's already made herself right at home.

Chest windows? This MUST be the 21st century!

Okayyyyyyyy...good points:

Well, compared to what we were given in the original series, the writing felt more mature. Obviously it wasn't 1976 anymore, and this was made to attract older primetime audiences, so taking it in a more adult direction was a given, which honestly is not a direction normally taken in a Sid and Marty Krofft production--not even in any of their variety shows. We even got a fight scene. And a crotch kick. And at least this aborted continuity goes out of its way to explain Laurie and Judy's living arrangements. If this had actually gotten past the pilot stage, it might have been interesting to see this expanded upon.

And who was Laurie's ex-husband? Frank Heflin?

Euggghh...no. Not if Dyna Girl stole him away.

Which leads us to the bad points: the writing is a little TOO mature. There were way too many sex and female anatomy jokes in it, and whoever wrote this went a little overboard in making Electra Woman 2.0's life miserable. In fact, she kinda comes off as a sleazy, sex-starved old lady, and a lot of that made me quite uncomfortable. You wouldn't think the people who gave you something like H.R. Pufnstuf could pull off a superhero costume with a chest window.

When all is said and done, based on this pilot, I think I would probably have prefered the original. At least I had fun with its camp nature and low production values, and I would rather cringe at the writing quality than at superheroines making rapid-fire vagina jokes.

Why so serious?

"It's a Bird...It's a Plane...It's Superman" (1975)

I hate Superman. The big showoff. I like monogrammed shirts as well as the next guy, but that big red 'S'? Superman? Heh. Anyone without a last name has gotta be a little weird.
--Max Mencken

The 1960s Batman TV series, it seems, is having a resurgence in popularity as of late. Not only did DC Comics launch a new Batman series last year that's based on the show as well as a new line of action figures and toys, but it looks as though after all these years it will finally be coming out on DVD sometime later this year.

For fans of the show, the comic, or just lovers of "adventure, escapism, unadulterated entertainment, the ridiculous and the bizarre", that is very good news indeed. Adam West's Batman will always hold a special place in American pop culture, not only for its continuing influence on present Batman incarnations, but also as being the gold standard in superhero camp. From its eccentric supervillains to its Batclimb cameos to its Bat-gadgets to its Bat-fights and everything else in between, it's a silly, lighthearted superhero romp that's still fun to watch almost fifty years on.

And though many since then have tried to mimic its charm, most have not even come close. Not even the Man of Steel himself.

This TV special is based off the Broadway flop It's a Bird...It's a Plane...It's Superman, penned by Charles Strouse and Lee Adams It first debuted at the Alvin Theater on March 29, 1966 and closed  three and a half months later despite positive reviews and three Tony Award nominations, but since then it has been revived in theaters across the country, including an updated version performed in Dallas in 2010.

As for the TV special, it aired on ABC's Wide World of Entertainment on February 1, 1975 as an attempt to make back the money it lost on Broadway, but not without some changes to the original script - the show was edited to run in the time allotted, some of the villains were changed from Chinese acrobats to Mafia men, and the musical numbers were updated to sound more 70s-like. Par for the course for most of the TV specials I've reviewed, it has only aired once and has not been rerun since.

I haven't seen the musical myself, but if it's anything remotely like this, then I'm not so sure I want to now.

We begin by meeting our principal cast and learning where they stand on this whole Superman issue:

Kenneth Mars a.k.a. King Triton plays Max Mencken, Daily Planet columnist and smug egomaniac who is decidedly anti-Superman, likely because comparing himself to the Man of Steel makes his penis shrivel.

Lesley Ann Warren a.k.a. Miss Scarlett a.k.a. Cinderella plays Lois Lane, who is (obviously) pro-Superman to the point where she gets all giddy just talking about him.

She is also perpetually high.

Loretta Swit a.k.a. "Hot Lips" as the luscious Sydney Carlton, another reporter who is Max's girl Friday and madly in love with him. She's sort of a Superman-centrist.

David Wayne a.k.a. The Mad Hatter as Dr. Abner Sedgwick, professor at the Metropolis Institute of Technology, mad scientist and part of a fringe group of anti-Superman radicals who sees the Man of Steel as a roadblock on his path to world domination.

I'm guessing Lex Luthor was busy.

And finally David Wilson, who will probably never work in Hollywood again, as Clark Kent, mild-mannered reporter for the Daily Planet (and a COLOSSAL mega-dork) who is quite pro-Superman, since...well...he IS Superman.

Oh, yeah, and the unmistakable voice of Gary Owens narrates.

The plot of this special is divided up into chapters, so we'll analyze it in the same manner:

Chapter 1:
WHO HE IS AND HOW HE CAME TO BE

Not much to this part, really. It covers Superman's origin--infant survivor of the destruction of his home planet Krypton, flown on a rocket to Earth, lands in the heart of the clearly labeled "Good Old U.S.A.", found inside a rocketship in the middle of the Kansas wastelands by the couple from the American Gothic painting, develops superpowers, and finally grows into manhood and becomes the legendary SUPERMAN!!

FASTER THAN A PLASTIC SPEEDING BULLET ON A WIRE!

MORE POWERFUL THAN A DRAWING OF A LOCOMOTIVE!

ABLE TO LEAP TALL SUPERIMPOSED BUILDINGS IN A SINGLE FRAME!

Then we get a song about how the people of Metropolis say they need him because he saves their babies from a fire, saves their relatives from muggers, gives the orphans Christmas turkey and flies the policeman's asthmatic son to Albuquerque for no other reason than that the song needed a word that rhymes with "turkey."

Looks like Gerber baby foods learned their lesson after that one marketing fiasco.

Chapter 2:
MERCHANT OF DOOM

Clark Kent settles in at his job as reporter at the Planet and is ignored by everyone around him, including Lois who sits in the desk across from him. And it seems that all the paper ever prints is news about Superman--if it's not Lois writing headlines about him (and singing about how he never tells her he loves her and just saves her all the time in something rejected from Grease) it's Max writing some Fox News-style smear column about him (this time it's about how he disrupts commercial airline flight paths).

Meanwhile, at the Deserted Warehouse deserted warehouse, a convention of Italian mobster stereotypes (three of whom are the nefarious Batman villain False Face, notorious movie biker Eric Von Zipper and...Al from Happy Days) discuss "rubbing out" Superman. Then they sing about how America is such a great place to be a mobster in and how it would be a better one if Superman were dead.

Wow. We've only had three songs so far and already I hate this.

Are they reciting the Pledge of Allegiance or pulling out their guns all at once? The answer isn't worth knowing.

Dr. Sedgwick visits the Daily Planet to quite casually inform them that a death ray he has created at the university has gone crazy and Metropolis is, in fact, doomed. With his superhearing, Clark Kent learns of this, transforms into Superman and heads out to destroy the device, with Sedgwick anticipating he will fail and die in the attempt."Will Superman make it in time?" asks Gary Owens.

Chapter 3:
SUPERMAN MAKES IT!

(Dude! Spoilers!)

Superman...uhh...makes it. The death ray is destroyed and the city is saved. Who makes a friggin death ray, and WHY?

Sedgwick rues this setback, and monologues to the audience why he wants to get rid of Superman: to rule the world. And why does he want to rule the world? Because he want to obliterate Sweden. And WHY does he want to obliterate Sweden? Because he has been snubbed for the Nobel Prize for ten straight years and is a bit of a sore loser, vowing revenge on the entire Nobel Prize committee. In fact, he even sings about it.

Just before his song ends, Gary cuts in and asks "What is the one terrible thing that Dr. Sedgwick will have before he dies?" (What do you think he's been singing about?)

Chapter 4:
SEDGWICK'S REVENGE

(Is this for real?)

Sedgwick finishes his song, which Max overhears, and the two of them decide to team up and destroy him. Then Max takes advantage of the Daily Planet's criminally lenient sexual harassment policy and tries to musically hit on Lois after blowing off another date with Sydney, but Lois rightly brushes him aside to continue brooding over Superman.

"Wanna see how much faster than a speeding bullet I can be?"

Chapter 5:
THE NET TIGHTENS

The mobsters continue discussing rubbing out Superman, making unfunny jokes, mimicking bad Three Stooges visual gags, and finally decide to visit Sedgwick for advice on how to rub out Superman, while he and his new friend Max scheme to make Superman destroy himself.

Meanwhile, Sydney musically hits on Clark, with the musical's most popular song "You've Got Possibilities", which is the least worst song in the whole special and perhaps the only thing that has survived this special.

"Will Clark Kent find happiness with a new love?" asks Gary Owens.

Chapter 6:
CLARK KENT FINDS HAPPINESS

(If you're not gonna take this seriously, why should I bother?)

Clark is happy.

Sedgwick decides to give Superman a chance to disgrace himself at a thank-you-for-trashing-our-death-ray ceremony by staging a calamity. Then they both sing a song about being partners with romantic overtones. I'll say no more about it.

Then the mobsters bust in and ask Sedgwick to rub out Superman. How convenient. Henchmen.

The Three Stooge-fathers.

Chapter 7:
OH CLARK, HAVE YOU BEEN THERE ALL ALONG?

The above chapter title has been a running gag throughout this musical so far. It's what Lois keeps asking Clark whenever he speaks to her.

Anyway, it turns out Clark and Sydney weren't compatible after all, but at least Sydney's little song gave Clark the self-confidence to talk to Lois. Though Lois is slightly disappointed that it's Clark falling for her and not Superman.

In song.

Apparently they had to CUT SOME SONGS OUT to make this special run in the time allotted.

"Wanna see how much faster than a speeding bullet I can be?"

Anyway, while Clark Kent is ironically sent out to cover Superman's big ceremony, Sedgwick, Max and the thugs plot to plant a huge cartoon-sized bomb at city hall to go off during it.

"Will Superman fall into this dastardly trap?"

Chapter 8:
SUPERMAN...TRAPPED!

Superman's big ceremony arrives, and Sedgwick is there to heap false praise on him to a crowd of energetic students. It turns out he's having a laundry named after him. That's gratitude for ya. You'd think he'd get a statue or a plaque or something, but a LAUNDROMAT? Wow.

While he's there, a news bulletin somehow interrupts something that's not on television to report that Metropolis City Hall has blown up. Max is on hand in the newsroom to angrily blame Superman and generally heap abuse on him for not being there to stop it. Needless to say, the crowd instantly get word of this and turn on their hero pretty quickly.

"Think of me the next time you want to clean skid marks off your tighty whities!"

Chapter 9:
GET LOST, SUPERMAN

As Max gloats about the Man of Steel's downfall as if his manhood grew an inch or three--

Okay...Max...can you bend steel bars? Do you have X-ray vision? Super hearing? Can you even FLY? What makes you think you could possibly compete with Superman? I mean, what's YOUR superpower? Smarminess? Obnoxiousness? Having an ego the size of Krypton?

Anyway, as Sydney sings another song of unrequited love, the mafia clones sneak in, kidnap him and steal him back to MIT, where Sedgwick reveals that he has a computer that can deduce the true identity of Superman. After some comic misunderstanding where Sedgwick is convinced that it's Max, eventually they all come to realize that it is, in fact, Clark Kent.

Chapter 10:
CURTAINS FOR SUPERMAN

Cut to Clark Kent's apartment where Superman is...depressed. He sings a sad little song about how depressed he is while somewhere in Germany, Friedrich Nietzsche proceeds to turn over in his grave.

"And none of the other kids would play with me, and...once I accidentally used my X-ray vision on my fifth-grade teacher..."

Sedgwick pays him a surprise visit, sits Superman down and plays psychiatrist with him, i.e. emotionally kicks him when he's down by saying his X-ray vision makes him a pervert, claiming all the good he does covers up guilt for leaving Krypton to explode by being a baby in a rocketship at the time, and finishing up by saying that all his superpowers make him a unloved freak. Supes by this time is too depressed to even wonder how he figured out where his alter ego lives when he and Max invite Lois over to drive the final nail in the coffin by saying she's in love with Clark Kent before getting kidnapped by the mafia clowns.

The next scene has Superman in red cape and blue tights clutching an anchor and proceeding to jump off a bridge.

Some Übermensch YOU turned out to be.

"Is this finally the end of Superman?"

Chapter 11:
SUPERMAN TRIUMPHANT

(Uhh...a guy is attempting suicide here, this is no time for spoilerific chapter title jokes, however weak)

Superman's suicide attempt fails ("super-lungs"...ha ha) and he just pulls himself out of the river when he is greeted a pair of students from the laundry ceremony who teach him that there's nothing wrong with being a freak, and some of history's greatest figures were freaks, like Michelangelo, Christopher Columbus and...Abraham Lincoln.

Yes, they're actually calling Abraham Lincoln a freak. For his Emancipation Proclamation. Because in their words, "freeing the brothers was the freakiest thing of the 1800s". They actually say that.

Also, I guess it's worth mentioning that these kids are named Jerry and Joe, an obvious nod to Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the creators of the Superman comic.

"Why are we taking hostages again?"
"I dunno, boss--we started with the dame and then I guess we got carried away..."

Segdwick and Max celebrate Superman's self-destruction by strapping Lois to a chair with a bomb for no reason. Well, actually, the bomb is there to destroy any incriminating evidence against Sedgwick for driving Superman to suicide; as to why they dragged Lois in and tied her to it, your guess is a good as mine.

Then Sedgwick double-crosses Max and ties HIM to a chair which somehow detonates the bomb under Lois' chair from so much as a sneeze.

Then Sedgwick gets double-crossed himself when the mafia guys tie HIM to a chair as well.
 
Anyway, to finally put an end to this farce, Superman busts into Sedgwick's lab, engages the mafia guys in a lame, one-sided onomatopoeia-laden Batfight while singing a song about regaining his self-confidence, rescues Lois and leaves the remaining two malcontents to their apparent deaths when Max hiccups and blows the lab sky-high. Don't worry--in the next scene it turns out the explosion just turned them into good guys and even made them forget Superman's true identity and everything goes back to normal.

"I'm a good guy now. This is my good guy face. I love being a good guy."

Wow. This...is...stupid. Really, really stupid. Not even on the same level as Electra Woman and Dyna Girl, where it's stupid but watchable. Or the Flash Gordon movie, where it's stupid but at least has Brian Blessed and Queen and everyone's at least enjoying themselves.

I think one of the reasons that Batman '66 works well is that it's a show with energy. It's a lighthearted superhero romp that keeps its foot firmly on the gas pedal right up until the final Bat-punch. Every time the Joker comes on screen or the Penguin whips out a gas-spraying umbrella or the Riddler starts giggling maniacally, it adds to the whimsy.

This Superman special doesn't have the same energy. In fact, it doesn't have any energy at all. I wasn't really expecting anything from Alan Moore, but from its Roy Lichtenstein knockoff sets to its bottom-of-the-barrel production values to its lackluster writing, it isn't really all that exciting or compelling or even entertaining. Plus, none of the jokes are funny, most of the characters are annoying, including Superman and ESPECIALLY Max, and as for the songs...well, okay, that "possibilities" song was all right, but the rest of them are pretty forgettable.

In summary, if you think Adam West's Batman is too silly, too ridiculous and too corny for your taste, watch this special and see everything that Batman COULD have been...and thankfully wasn't.

Where's General Zod when you need him?

Supergirl (1984)

I've come here to search for the Omegahedron. A power source vital to Argo City. You see, that's where I live.
--Kara Zor-El

In 1978, Mexican film producer Alexander Salkind and American film director Richard Donner brought Detective Comics' Superman to the big screen in his first feature-length movie. Starring Christopher Reeve as the Man of Steel, Margot Kidder as Lois Lane, and the preacher from The Poseidon Adventure as Lex Luthor, the film made $300 million at the box office, paved the way for three sequels and earned Salkind a place in comic book lore.

Alexander disappeared from the franchise after Superman III, being replaced for the fourth movie by Golan-Globus, the people who brought you a plethora of Chuck Norris shoot-em-ups and Alien from L.A., but between III and IV, Salkind and his son Ilya had a go with another DC superhero.

Supergirl was an attempt to jump start another DC comic movie franchise with another hero from their catalog. Directing duties were handed to Jaws 2's Jeannot Szwarc, whose name I'm not even going to attempt to pronounce. Actresses such as Jane Fonda, Goldie Hawn and Dolly Parton were considered for the role of the villainess to be named later, which eventually went to Faye Dunaway. Younger actresses such as Melanie Griffith and Brooke Shields were considered for the title role, but Alexander and Jeannot wanted an unknown actress for the part, which eventually went to Hollywood newcomer Helen Slater. The music of John Williams, the man who composed the famous Superman theme...was not used in this movie, as Jerry Goldsmith was brought in instead.

The movie was a flop in theaters, didn't fare well with critics and audiences and never got its franchise, although Slater was nominated for a Saturn Award (the Oscar of sci-fi movies) for her performance as Supergirl.

The film tells the story of Kal-El's cousin Kara Zor-El (Slater), a young Kryptonian girl living with other Kryptonians in Argo City, a giant crystal in the middle of innerspace with flood lights spinning around it...which sort of begs the question of where this film fits in the DC canon. I know that Kara is supposed to be the only other survivor of the destruction of the planet Krypton, but what about everyone else? Superman is referred to during this scene, so we know it takes place AFTER Krypton went, but is this supposed to be some kind of distant colonization? Some kind of Noah's Ark which left the planet shortly before it blew up? Do they even KNOW that their ancestral home planet is gone?

Aren't you a little old to be showing her your ball and stick?

Anyway, one day she pays her...teacher? Mentor? Godfather? Err...one day she pays her friend Zaltar (Peter O'Toole) a visit, and he shows her some magical items: some kind of wand he uses to make something that looks like a tree (he's very fascinated with Earth culture) and also an orb called an Omegahedron, a very powerful item which powers the city and is not to be taken without permission of city government. Kara plays around with the wand a bit and then accidentally makes something which pokes a hole in Argo City's outer wall and sucks the Omegahedron out with it. Zaltar is very apologetic about the whole thing and offers to send himself to the Phantom Zone as punishment, while despite the protests of her parents (Simon Ward and Mia Farrow in brief appearances) Kara sits in this hovering...onion blossom...pod thing on a nearby table and sets off after the Omegahedron...

...which falls to the planet Earth and is found by a flamboyant sorceress named Selena (Dunaway), who like most villains hungers for world domination. Her current boyfriend Nigel (Peter Cook, the Elmer Fudd priest from The Princess Bride) is boring her, so once she finds the thing and discovers its power she and her personal assistant/suckup Bianca (Brenda Vaccaro) ditch him.

At least it's not some freak in a green jumpsuit and matching afro.

Following the creationist theory of superheroes suddenly coming into being fully formed, Kara emerges from inner space through a lake in the mountains and suddenly realizes that she's wearing a blue suit and cape just like that other super guy! And she has super strength and heat vision and can fly now too, as she discovers when she crushes a rock with her bare hands, makes a flower bloom with her heat vision, and kicks a horny trucker in the gonads, sending him flying into a fence.

Oh yeah, and she's also wearing this bracelet which...I don't know, blinks at her...whenever the...Omegahedron is nearby? I don't know...they didn't really explain that.

During her search, she infiltrates an all-girl private school posing as a transfer student named Linda Lee, a cousin of Clark Kent in Metropolis (which isn't that far from the truth when you think about it) and moves into the student dorms with a girl named Lucy Lane (Maureen Teefy), Lois' younger sister.

Wow, what a coincidence! ...Both of their initials are L.L.! What are the odds?

Sorry, boys, no peeking down her costume. Who do you think she is, Power Girl?

Nigel, who also teaches at the school, informs Selena of Supergirl's presence, and vows to keep an eye on her, while Selena pays a visit to the school and notices a hunky, half-naked gardener named Ethan (Hart Bochner) doing some grounds-keeping and--

Oh no, don't tell me...

Ugggggh.

Great. I come in expecting a superhero adventure and I end up watching a chick flick.

So basically the rest of the story is a love triangle where Selena lures Ethan to her hideout and slips him a potion which will make him fall in love with her, but then gets distracted by a visit from Nigel while Ethan wanders off out of her lair and into traffic in a drug-induced haze, forcing Selena to take control of an excavator to chase him through the streets of Midvale and bring him back. Lots of property destruction, cars careening every which way and a gas station almost goes up in flames when Linda changes into Supergirl to rescue Ethan and save the town, and then changes back again just in time for Ethan to fall in love with HER, while Selena watches the whole thing from...I don't know, a magical camera or something and suddenly wants to kill herself a private school student.

"Aww man, what did I SMOKE last night?"

With the exception of an action scene where Selena sends an invisible creature to the dorms to kill Linda and Supergirl fights him off with an electrified lamppost, not much happens from there. Supergirl and Selena just continue to battle each other until Selena finally teleports Ethan to her lair, conjures up a castle atop a huge mountain in the middle of the city, takes over the town, captures Lucy, Nigel and young reporter Jimmy Olsen (yes, THAT Jimmy Olsen played by THAT Marc McClure) and uses her new love slave as bait in a trap for Supergirl to send her straight to the Phantom Zone. She even uses the same spinning mirror effect from the Superman films.

I know what you're thinking--where's Superman in all of this? Well, any viewer with sharp ears would have heard a snippet over Nigel's car radio in an earlier scene stating that Superman is on a peacekeeping mission to a distant galaxy, which is a quaint way of saying that Christopher Reeve opted out of a cameo appearance.

"You will bow down before me, Selena! Both you and one day your heirs!"

Stripped of her superpowers, Supergirl wanders through the Phantom Zone (hey, we actually get to SEE the Phantom Zone this time, so that can't be bad, right?) and is rescued from an oily swamp by a disconsolate Zaltar, who really DID send himself to the Phantom Zone for losing the Omegahedron. Zaltar, glutton for punishment as he turned out to be, is convinced that there is no way out, but Supergirl suggests a rift which serves as a gateway between the Phantom Zone and wherever it leads out to. Let's say Earth for plot convenience.

So they both climb up this very deep hole while trying to avoid getting sucked into the Phantom Vortex, a red tornado that looks like something out of a Twizzlers commercial producing very strong winds and making it difficult for the two of them to grab onto the rock. Selena happens to notice this from her magic mirror and starts firing things at her to make her go away, and Zaltar continues to push Supergirl upward before he loses his grip and is sucked into the Vortex. Supergirl eventually makes it out and with her powers restored flies out through Selena's mirror for the final battle. Selena early on has the upper hand with the help of another interdimensional monster and some cheap video squashing and stretching effects, but one telepathic speech from Zaltar a la postmortem Obi Wan Kenobi and she frees herself of the monster's grip and then flies around Selena in circles really fast, creating another tornado which sends Selena, Bianca and the monster into the magic mirror through to the Phantom Zone.

I guess.

So the magic mountain disappears, Lucy and Jimmy get together, I suppose, Ethan SOMEHOW figures out that Linda and Supergirl were the same person all along, and Supergirl returns the Omegahedron to Argo City, which lights up again in all its celestial splendor and then starts machine-gunning the audience with end credits.

"I PROBABLY DESERVE THIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIS..."

You all remember the first Superman movie, don't you? The story was a little basic and Lex's comeuppance was kind of anticlimactic, but it was still an impressive and exciting film. And Superman II was even better...remember General Zod and his cronies and Lois inadvertently finding out Clark's secret which would eventually put the entire world at risk?

Well, compared to those two movies, Supergirl is a bit of a disappointment. The special effects and visuals are on par with them, no denying that, and I'd take Supergirl's acting over Dyna Girl's acting any day, but once Ethan shows up the love triangle subplot takes precedence over everything else and it all goes south from there. The character Selena was also a letdown. Nothing against Faye Dunaway's performance, she plays the villain quite well, but an all-powerful sorceress who can conjure up otherworldly beasts, magically remote control heavy machinery and can pretty much bend the world to her will, and she uses her magic to attract one beefy barrel-chested gardener who's about half her age?

THIS is our villainess? A man-starved COUGAR?! THIS is the plot to our feminist Superman movie? A two-hour equivalent of a trashy romance novel? I mean, sure Superman II had a romantic angle as well, but at least Lois and Clark were about the same age! Here it just makes me uncomfortable. And that's on top of the numerous plot holes or, as many comic fans would question, I don't know, I'm not one of them, the use of magical powers in a superhero movie.

I welcome more movies with female protagonists--considering how many of them have all been about dudes with women playing eye candy token chicks, stories with strong leading ladies are a nice change of pace. But with writing like this, I'm not surprised Wonder Woman still doesn't have her own movie.

"Will I get a sequel?" (shakes Omegahedron) "'VERY DOUBTFUL'?!?" (throws it to the ground)

"Electra Woman and Dyna Girl" (1976)

The one thing you couldn't possibly have in your utility belt, Batman...a woman's intuition.
--Yvonne Craig as Batgirl

Few shows on television are stranger than those on the resumes of Sid and Marty Krofft.

Back in the 70s, these two brothers were the kings of schlocky television. Their first major TV job was designing the sets and the puppets for the live-action segments of Hanna-Barbera's Banana Splits Adventure Hour before finally breaking out on the Saturday morning scene in 1969 with the landmark series H.R. Pufnstuf, which would be the first of many low-budget puppet shows and special-effects-heavy spectacles over the next decade. Many people claim that the Krofft brothers were quite literally "puf'n stuf" when they came up with it, but despite what that Mr. Show sketch would have you believe, they both firmly deny any drug influence.

They are also known for producing a number of celebrity-based prime-time variety shows which were mostly hit-or-miss. While they did produce song-and-dance extravaganzas for Donny and Marie and Barbara Mandrell and her sisters with some success, they were also responsible for turning The Brady Bunch into a variety show. Then in 1980 they took NBC president Fred Silverman's newest favorite non-English speaking pop duo from Japan and produced Pink Lady and Jeff, a program that TV experts and viewers unanimously agree is one of the worst shows ever made.

I'm too young to remember watching these when they first came out, but I did watch a lot of Nick at Nite growing up, and I have come across one or more of them on several occasions. I cannot possibly think of very many things outside of the Internet that are crazier or cheesier or more fun to laugh at than a Sid and Marty Krofft production. One show of theirs I actually do have respect for is the original Land of the Lost, which comparatively speaking is very well written with an interesting premise and good use of continuity, but apart from that, they have made some of the outright CAMPIEST televisual offerings in human history.

Case in point:

In 1976, ABC Saturday morning launched The Krofft Supershow, which consisted of three Krofft series hosted by Kaptain Kool and the Kongs, a band headlined by a guy who thought it was cool to put glitter in his hair and talk like Fonzie. One of the motives behind it appeared to be to promote the new "World of Sid and Marty Krofft" indoor theme park that just opened in Atlanta (which, not unlike most Sid and Marty Krofft creations, didn't last long--it closed after six months). It was the usual Krofft fare for the time--kids running from some crazy scientist bad guy, kids who befriend genies and anthropomorphic cars, Billy Barty...I think Bigfoot was on it at one point.

If you were just entering puberty at the time, perhaps the thing you remember most was a corny little superhero saga titled Electra Woman and Dyna Girl. It only lasted for one season of the Supershow's two-season run, but out of everything that was featured on it, including the Kongs themselves, this show is perhaps the most remembered. Matter of fact, not unlike what they did with Land of the Lost in 1991, they tried to revive it with a pilot episode in 2001 which never got off the ground.

The premise is very simple: soap opera actress Dierdre Hall and average Josephine teenager Judy Strangis star as ace reporters Lori and Judy for Newsmaker magazine who wrote stories on...pretty much anything going on in town. But whenever trouble strikes, any time, anywhere in...wherever this show takes place, they hurry down to the Electrabase deep below...wherever they live and become super crimefighters Electra Woman and Dyna Girl! With the assistance of some guy named Frank Heflin (veteran actor Norman Alden) manning the highly-advanced computerized Crimescope, and since this was the era of the Parents' Television Council when you couldn't punch somebody in front of somebody else's kids, our heroines use their over-sized calculator watches--err, all-purpose Electro-Comps to thwart crime and stop the forces of evil!!

...that's pretty much it.

I bet a lot of seventh-grade boys grew up on this...in more ways than one.

You know what this show is, he asked between fits of stifled laughter? This show is an exact carbon copy of the 1966 Adam West Batman TV series. I MEAN that. It has EVERYTHING down. There's a "stately Wayne manor", there's an Alfred character, there's a Batcave, there's a Batmobile, there's a Bat-this, Bat-that, Bat-everything, there are the ridiculously costumed bad guys, there's the seemingly inescapable death trap cliffhangers...hell, the sidekicks even have catch phrases (Dyna Girl shouts "Electra _____!" at random points in each episode, similar to Robin's "Holy _____!"). The only differences between these two shows are a few cheesy video effects, a third of Batman's budget, nowhere-near-as-competent writing, and on this show, the villains's costumes are twice as ridiculous.

Seriously, you think 1960s Batman villains looked comical? Check out this show's rogues' gallery.

Meet Glitter Rock, a green-afroed evildoer who controls his victims subliminally through his rock music:

Gene Simmons had more dignity than this guy.

The Spider Lady, master of disguise:

So that's how Tiffany Bolling got her role in Kingdom of the Spiders.

And finally, the Empress of Evil, who...is...just evil.

Must have been while Barbara Gordon was going through her "goth" phase.

Apart from their questionable taste in costumes, the bad guys are pretty generic. The show only had a handful of episodes during its one-season run, so we don't get much in the villainy department between them outside of the generic "try-to-take-over-the-world" plot. Par for the course for a Krofft show, the acting is far from Shakespearean standards--Dyna Girl in particular sounds so unbelievably perky it's almost annoying. At least it's an action show, so they spare us the usual canned laughter for every non-joke.

I could pick from dozens of other things to nitpick about this show. For instance, why are Lori and Judy wearing their Electra-Comps, an IMPORTANT PIECE OF THEIR SUPERHERO COSTUMES, in broad daylight? That's like Bruce Wayne wearing Batman's utility belt in public! Anybody could glance at it and say "hey, that guy's wearing the same utility belt as Batman! You don't think..." What's the point of a secret identity if you wear part of your alter ego's costume WHERE EVERYONE CAN SEE IT!!! Also, what's the deal with Frank? The only time we ever see him is when he's manning Crimescope at the Electra-Base or showing off his latest Electra-Comp attachment which will become conveniently useful for our heroines in today's escapade. Is he supposed to be their butler? Does he LIVE down there or something? Also, we all know that Dick Grayson was Bruce Wayne's ward--how did Lori and Judy come to live together? Are they mother and daughter? Aunt and niece? Did Lori adopt Judy after her parents died? I WANT ANSWERS DAMMIT!!

Sorry, I'm rambling here. When you see as many Krofft shows as I have, you tend to ask a lot of questions.

Looks like Deep 13 before the Mads moved in.

Electra Woman and Dyna Girl tries so hard to be the women's lib version of Batman and manages to out-camp it in EVERY conceivable fashion. No big feat, considering the shoestring budget and slipshod writing with plot holes you could sail an aircraft carrier through. It's no stranger to the 1970s mentality that you could throw any child-safe idea on the screen no matter how corny and kids would park their keisters in front of the tube every Saturday morning and eat it up, commercials and all.

However, not unlike the original superhero show that's ten years its senior, it is so incredibly corny that it manages to be a lot of fun to watch and poke fun at. Anyone who thinks Adam West and Burt Ward running around with their underwear on the outside looks stupid, dig this show up and see how much worse it could have been. Have a laugh or two at it along the way.

In any case, at least it's not Lidsville. *cringe* That show will take you to some strange places.

How does a show that only lasted eight episodes get a cult following?
Well, it helps if the main characters look good in spandex.

Batman (1966)

FOR THE FIRST TIME ON THE MOTION PICTURE SCREEN IN COLOR! Adam West as Batman and Burt Ward as Robin together with all their fantastic derring-do and their dastardly villains, too!

The Caped Crusader. The Dark Knight. The Dynamic Duo whenever he's paired up with Robin. He has been given a number of titles, but everybody always refers to him by one name:

Since his debut in DC Comics in 1939, Batman has gradually worked his way into the pop culture psyche. Generations of children, comic nerds and TV and movie patrons alike have seen the many exploits of the vigilante alter ego of Gotham City's millionaire playboy Bruce Wayne in everything from comics to movies to cartoons.
Currently the Batman we know lurks in the shadows and talks like Don LaFontaine with a chest cold, but before he was all dark and moody and Christian Bale, he was lighthearted and frivolous and Adam West. This Batman could be seen every week on his self-titled TV series which debuted on ABC in 1966. This being the Caped Crusader's very first foray into television, it was a very straightlaced interpretation of the original comic book serials, including hokey dialogue, saturated colors, tilted camera angles and the trademark fight scenes with comic-style onomatopoeia splashed onto the screen. It also featured a wide variety of famous or soon-to-be-famous guest stars--Burgess Meredith, Art Carney, Liberace, Vincent Price, Roddy McDowall, Eartha Kitt, future Bond girl Jill St. John, and even Bruce Lee have all appeared on the show, and those are just some of the ones who didn't pop out of a window while the Dynamic Duo were "climbing their Bat-ropes".

The original Batman and Robin.

Many fans of the more recent moodier Batman have disowned this series for its light-hearted, campy tone without taking into account that it was a more important part of the DC Comic character's history than they realize. Sales of the comic were slumping in the mid-sixties to the point where DC was considering canceling it altogether, until the show's success temporarily made the character popular again, so suffice to say we might not have had Batman TODAY if not for this show. Other notable changes this show made to the Batman canon were: the villain Mr. Zero changing his name to Mr. Freeze, the Riddler going from a minor bad guy to a regular member of the "rogue's gallery", and Alfred the butler becoming a permanent fixture after he was killed off in the comic prior to the show's debut.

The show was quite popular back in the day--popular enough to last 120 episodes in just three years, and in fact so popular that as logic dictates, they just had to make a movie out of it. Originally, series producer William Dozier wanted to make the movie first to hype the TV show, but 20th Century Fox abstained, citing that the movie would be no guarantee that the show would be enough of a hit to cover the budget costs, so the movie wasn't greenlit until after the show's first season. The film wasn't a major box office success, but became profitable on matinee screenings, television and home video markets for decades to come.

The movie starts out with an SOS sent to Batman and Robin (played by West and Burt Ward, respectively) from a yacht in the middle of the ocean belonging to British inventor Commodore Schmidlapp (Reginald Denny in his final film role). They head out to the sea in the Batcopter, with policemen saluting and a rooftop aerobics class cheering them on as they fly by, but when Batman descends a rope ladder hanging over the yacht to rescue the Commodore, the yacht disappears and he is attacked by a shark! Robin comes down the ladder to hand Batman some "shark repellant bat-spray", even though there's no one else flying the Batcopter, which helps him to shake off the shark before it explodes.

Yes, you did read that correctly. The shark explodes.

We next see Batman and Robin at Commissioner Gordon's (Neil Hamilton's) office, where after a brief press conference, they deduce that the "ship" was a decoy to kill Batman while the real yacht and everyone on board was abducted someplace else, undoubtedly by one or more of Gotham City's four most dangerous criminals: the Penguin (Burgess Meredith), the Joker (Cesar Romero), the Riddler (Frank Gorshin) and Catwoman (Lee Meriwether substituting for Julie Newmar from the TV show). They return to the scene of the "disappearance" where they find an illegal buoy carrying a secret projector with a high-powered lens, but before they know it, Penguin, Joker and Riddler, standing by in a war surplus penguin-patterned submarine (which the Pentagon sold to a Mr. "P. N. Gwynn"--no relation, I'm sure) activate a high-powered magnet inside the buoy, trapping the Dynamic Duo by the metallic objects in their utility belts and leaving them open to a bombardment of torpedoes! Batman is able to deter two of them by using his Bat-radio to reverse the polarity and send out energy waves, but when a third one comes--CONFOUND IT, THE BATTERIES ARE DEAD!

Luckily they manage a last-minute escape thanks to the off-screen arrival and noble sacrifice of a passing porpoise, but just then the Riddler launches a Polaris missile which leaves a pair of riddles written in the sky, which confirm Gotham City's worst fears: all four super-criminals have come together to form the United Underworld, a ghastly organization out for nothing less than global conquest.

A superstitious, cowardly lot.

Their next plan to kill Batman and Robin involves using Catwoman's incognito identity--Miss Kitka, a reporter from the Moscow Bugle who attended the press conference--to lure an unsuspecting billionaire to be used as bait in a trap which will catapult the Caped Crusader into the arms of an exploding octopus (What is it with the exploding sea creatures?). Billionaire Bruce Wayne is snared after he and Kitka enjoy a romantic rendezvous, but they're left wondering why Batman hasn't shown up yet. Luckily Bruce manages to escape, and now knowing of the criminals' hideout returns as Batman to round up the gang, but all that he finds is a comically sized cartoon bomb waiting for him. This leads to one of the funniest moments of the entire movie, as Batman runs throughout the pier trying to throw the bomb someplace safe but keeps running into things he'd rather not see blow up, like nuns, a woman with a baby carriage, an oompah band, some butane tanks, and even DUCKS off the side of a pier.

*sigh* Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb.

Poor Batman. No one will play Hot Potato with him.

He eventually does gets rid of the bomb while ducking behind some iron pipes. Just then the Penguin appears disguised as Commodore Schmidlapp in a new scheme of his: using the Commodore's latest invention, a dehydrator, he changes five guinea pig henchmen into dust and smuggles them into the Batcave to rehydrate them and kill Batman or ransack the place or something. Batman and Robin, aware of his ruse, play along and take him to the Batcave, but the Penguin's plan fails when he accidentally re-hydrates the guinea pigs using heavy water from the Batcave's water dispenser, which turns them to antimatter at the slightest touch! (Can that really happen? I'm not an expert on it or anything.) After this, the Dynamic Duo continue to pretend to be duped and allow him to steal the Batmobile so they can follow him in the Batcopter to his new hideout. Another of Riddler's skywriting missiles accidentally shoots them down onto a display at a conveniently located foam rubber wholesalers' convention, forcing them to continue the chase on foot to stop the villainous foursome from carrying out their ultimate plan: to dehydrate the nine members of the United Nations United World Organization's security council and hold them for ransom!

Gee, thanks. Never would have known they were guinea pigs.

Our heroes arrive at the UN UWO building, but they're already too late--the meeting room is empty, the entire security council has already been dehydrated, and their captors have made their escape in Penguin's submarine! Batman and Robin give chase in the Batboat, and after evading the Riddler's surface homing missile, use the Batcharge launcher to fire sonic charges at the submarine and bring it to the surface. Once it comes about, another onomatopoeia-laden fistfight ensues, during which the entire gang is rounded up and Catwoman's ruse as Miss Kitka is exposed to a heartbroken Batman/Bruce. The Dynamic Duo are just about to call it a day when Commodore Schmidlapp, who had been traveling in the sub the whole time, stumbles in, trips and accidentally shatters the glass vials holding the nine dehydrated security council members!

Batman may be in "tip-top condition", but Robin looks like he's about to pass a kidney stone.

The whole world is on pins and needles as Batman and Robin work tirelessly to filter the council members' powdered forms into individual vials. Robin comments that it might be in the world's best interests to try and alter the dust samples to make them better people once they are re-hydrated, but Batman rebukes that it wouldn't be right, using the Penguin's dehydrated guinea pigs from earlier in the film as an example of what might happen. With the President and the entire world watching, Batman and Robin successfully rehydrate the council members back in the meeting room--well, not quite successfully, as they all seem to be speaking languages completely different from their native tongues. Batman remarks that this "mixing of minds" might do the world some good, and with that he and Robin climb down their Bat-ropes out of a window as Commissioner Gordon and everyone else in the room ogles in bewilderment.

Well, any landing you can walk away from...

Right after the series was canceled, DC Comics quickly revamped Batman to distance him from the show's nature and return him to his roots as an avenger in the shadows. Circulation was down through the 70s and much of the 80s before Tim Burton's 1989 movie and Warner Bros.' 1992 animated series came along and helped shape him into the Batman we know today, despite a brief return to camp with Joel Schumacher's much-reviled Batman and Robin in 1997.

So maybe Adam West's Batman isn't as cool as Michael Keaton's or Christian Bale's or even George Clooney's--well, okay, maybe George Clooney's--but it was the sixties. Back then you had sitcoms about witches and genies and Martians and cavemen and Hollywood movie monsters living in suburban American homes and rednecks moving to Beverly Hills and millionaires, movie stars and professors stranded on deserted islands. Much of the media at the time was grounded in wild and fantastical ideas, and as a result the Batman of its time was brightly-colored and flamboyant. Naturally this exuberance is reflected in the movie, which acts as an expanded episode of the show with bigger production values.

Am I defending this movie? ...Yes. Yes I am, and also the TV show from whence it spawned. They may be ridiculously camp, the acting may be a little over the top and there might not have been very large budgets attached to them, but that's what makes them FUN. You don't need barely lit sound stages and actors who sound like they've been smoking cigarettes since grade school to make a fun movie. The performances are very enjoyable to watch, particularly Frank Gorshin's Riddler, my favorite villain from the series, and the story and art design is just so over the top that it allows you to just turn your brain off and soak in the silliness.

The opening credits include a dedication to "lovers of adventure, lovers of pure escapism, lovers of unadulterated entertainment, lovers of the ridiculous and the bizarre...to fun lovers everywhere", and anyone who goes into this movie should just treat it as such and roll with it. Both the film and the series are recommended to any non-discriminating Batman fan who just likes to watch something fun.

After all, it's not who he is underneath, but what he does that defines him.

I want me one of those umbrella jets.