WONDERLAND • The Ultimate Wonder Woman Site

USA 1976-9 1 x 90m 45 x 45m ABC/CBS. Warner Bros Television / Douglas S. Cramer Co. UK b: 1978-80 BBC1. exec pr Douglas S. Cramer. pr Wilfred Lloyd Baumes. or Various, including Alan Crosland, Michael Caffey, Seymour Bobbie. wr Various, including Stephen Kandel, Anne Collins, Alan Brennert, Bruce Shelley. mus Charles Fox. cast Wonder Woman / Yeoman Diana Prince Lynda Carter Maj Steve Trevor / Steve Trevor Jr Lyle Waggoner Gen Blankenship Richard Eastham Corp Etta Candy Beatrice Colen Joe Atkinson Normann Burton Eve Saundra Sharp Voice of IRA (IADC Computer) Tom Kratochzil.

Wonder Woman was pure comic strip - as indeed it should have been, based as it was on Charles Moulon's 1940s comic-book superheroine. Wonder Woman hailed from a 'lost' island peopled by a band of Amaxzon women who had fled there in the year 200 BC to escape male domination. On Paradise Island they found Feminum - a magic substance which when moulded into a golden belt or bracelets gave them superhuman strength and deflected bullets.

The superheroine's first TV outing was as The New Original Wonderwoman (ABC, 1976-7), aka Diana Prince, bespectacled secretary to handsome Major Steve Trevor of the US Army Major Trevor had crash-landed on the island during World War II and Prince had fallen in love and returned with him. Major Trevor however was unaware that, when trouble threatened, his love disappeared, twirled and transformed into Wonder Woman with the help of knee-length zip-up boots, tights and star-spangled bodice and tiara. Her red white and blue costume signalled her commitment to freedom and democracy and the heroine's superpowers were engaged to help America in its fight against the Nazis.

In 1977 the series moved to CBS where it was retitled The New Adventures of Wonder Woman and updated to the seventies where the Amazon was given gutsy speeches to fit the times and won the backing of women's groups. (in one scene a woman confided 'I've learned my lesson; I'll rely on myself, not on a man' and Wonder Woman replied approvingly 'Don't forget that'). Nowadays the heroine was required to fight terrorists and subversive elements for undercover organisation Inter-Agency Defense Command (IADC). Working closely with her was Steve Trevor Jr, the son of Major Trevor. Since Wonder Woman had not aged at all (residents of Paradise Island lived for centuries) and Steve Trevor Jr bore an uncanny resemblance to his departed father (as well he might since he was played by the same actor) the couple were to all intents and purposes unchanged. Eve filled the now vacant post of Steve's secretary.

New adversaries included a rock musician who hypnotised young women into stealing for him ('The Pied Piper') and Roddy McDowall as a crazy scientist who used a laser weapon to create volcanic eruptions across the globe ('The Man Who Made Volcanoes').

In this clean, all-action, all-American series former Miss World and 1973 Miss USA Lynda Carter was well fitted to the title role. Not six feet tall as claimed by over-eager publicists, but five feet ten inches, athletic and pneumatic in true comic-strip style, she was ideally equipped to fight evil and champion all that was good.

Wonder Woman made its debut as a made-for-TV movie, with Cathy Lee Crosby in the lead role. Low ratings led to the recast, a second TV movie starring Carter and the two television series. From 1976, Diana's younger sister Drusilla, Wonder Girl, played by Debra Winger (star of film An Officer and a Gentleman, 1981), occasionally aided the superheroine in her efforts.