WONDER WOMAN (1974) TV Pilot Movie

From March of 1974, here's the TV Guide advertisement for the first (underwhelming) attempt to bring DC Comics' premiere superheroine, Wonder Woman, to network TV. Basing their interpretation of the character on recent issues of the comic book where Diana Prince (portrayed by blonde tennis player Cathy Lee Crosby in the telefilm) had lost her powers and was acting more as a secret agent than a super-hero, the unsuccessful pilot pitted the less than amazing Amazon against a masterspy named "Abner Smith" (portrayed by none other than Khan himself, Ricardo Montalban), his sleazy henchman, George (Andrew Prine), and a renegade Amazon from Paradise Island, Ahnjayla (played by the sexy starlet Anitra Ford).

Diana never dons her familiar star-spangled comic book costume in the film, but does wear a uniform of sorts near the end of the film. It's far less revealing than the comic's classic togs, but at least it keeps the patriotic color scheme. Sadly, it's not just the costume that disappoints - the movie is extremely boring, and Crosby, while pretty, is fairly bland and uninteresting in the role. She was much more charsimatic a few years later as one of the hosts of the proto-reality series, That's Incredible!

As far as I can remember, nobody much liked the movie, but the ratings were pretty decent, and ABC was still interested in the property. A year or so later, Warner Brothers and ABC unveiled (The New Adventures of) Wonder Woman, starring lovely Lynda Carter in the classic comic book uniform.

Still, the 1974 telefilm showed up pretty frequently in syndication during the late Seventies and throughout the Eighties on independent channels and basic cable "superstations" like USA Network, TNT and TBS. I also know that the Sci-Fi Channel showed it at least once in the mid-90s.

Being the 70s genre TV fanatic I am, and even though I remember this version of Wonder Woman being deadly dull, I would still like to see Warner Archive put it out on DVD, if only for the sake of completeness. It'd be cool to have it on my DVD shelf next to the Lynda Carter series.