Synopsis of TV Show

“You obviously have little regard for womanhood. You must learn respect.”

And after she dispatched that admonition, she followed it up with a mean right hook—just in case her Nazi bad guy opponent was thinking she was an all-talk-and-no-action type of gal. In the face of dastardly evil, Wonder Woman was rarely demure. And she never passed up a good fight.

Based on Charles Moulton’s 1940’s comic super-heroine, Wonder Woman first hit the live-action airwaves in a 1974 made-for-TV movie, starring Cathy Lee Crosby as the great one and Ricardo Montalban as her enemy. Another TV movie came the following year, and this time, former Miss World USA Lynda Carter did all of Ms. Wonder’s jumping and the heavy lifting. Not only was Crosby gone, the miniskirt costume she wore was scratched, too. Carter, from there on out, would fill out the sparkly, skimpy corset number we know and love today, the design of which came straight out of the comic books.

After a successful second and third TV movie, ABC launched a series called The New, Original Wonder Woman in 1976. Ratings were high, and the show’s writers diligently kept to the comic book’s 1940’s setting and tone—the bad guys were usually Nazis, and the duke-outs were usually “Bam! Boom!” comic book colorful.

According to Ms. Wonder’s comic book mythology, there was an all-woman island named Themyscira, populated by a group of Amazon lovelies who had fled there around 200 B.C. to escape male domination by ancient Greeks and Romans. There on the island, the ladies found a mineral called “Feminum,” which had magical powers. It could be mined, incorporated into metal or fiber, and then pounded—depending on your accessory whim—into things like belts or bracelets. The bracelets could deflect bullets, the tiara could be hurled like a boomerang, and when Ms. Wonder wrapped her golden lasso around someone, that someone told the absolute truth whether he wanted to or not.

During World War II, pilot Steve Trevor crash-landed on Paradise Island (so-named because it's a heck of a lot easier to say than Themyscira). After the voluptuous Amazons nursed him back to health, an athletic contest was held to see which lucky lady would usher him back to America, and thereby become a kind of ambassador for the Themysciran message of peace. Diana’s protective mother insisted she stay clear of the games, but in a blond wig disguise, Diana defied mom’s wishes and won.

Now, with a cover as an army secretary named Diana Prince, the Amazonian princess left the utopian island for the big, bad, crime-ridden, men-everywhere real world. Diana typed, filed and cooed at Steve from behind her dark-rimmed glasses, but when the situation demanded, she hastily snuck off to a private spot and did her flashy transformative spin—arms akimbo, lights flashing, and street clothes disappearing to reveal her snazzy heroine get-up. Then with super strength and her feminum-boosted accessories, she’d kick some 1940’s butt—butts that belonged to foes like Baron Paula von Gunther, Fausta, and Nazi spies too numerous to mention.

When the show moved to CBS in 1977, there were a number of changes. The setting became present-day instead of the wartime 40’s, and it was renamed The New Adventures of Wonder Woman. Lyle Waggoner was still Diana’s male counterpart, but now he played Steve Trevor, Jr.—his first character’s son. Because modern times always mean a lot of acronyms, the good guys toiled away for the IADC (the Inter-Agency Defense Command) and chatted with the computer IRA (Internal Retrieval Associative), who was the only one that knew of Diana Prince’s true identity. Wonder Woman had special outfits for swimming and motorcycle-riding, and instead of the ubiquitous Nazis, she squared off against the likes of aliens and robots, and of course, the occasional psychic disco vampire.

Whatever the time period in which she performed her heroine duties, and whomever her villains, we thank our lucky stars (like the ones that appeared all over her costume) for Paradise Island—because our lives wouldn’t be the same without a couple of all-girl utopian locales, be they fictional or not. Thank you for Paradise Island, for the Amazon beauties it begat, and most especially, for the heroine it so graciously exported.

“You’re a wonder, Wonder Woman!”

Release History of Prime Time Show

12/18/76 - 7/30/77 ABC
9/16/77 - 9/11/79 CBS

TV Sub Categories

drama
sci-fi/fantasy
action/adventure

Television Network

ABC/CBS

Television Studio

Warner Bros. TV

TV Cast

Yeoman Diana Prince/"Wonder Woman" Lynda Carter
Major Steve Trevor/Steve Trevor, Jr.* Lyle Waggoner
General Blankenship (1976-77) Richard Eastham
Etta Candy (1976-77) Beatrice Colen
Joe Atkinson (1977) Norman Burton
Eve (1977-79) Saundra Sharp
Voice of I.R.A. (1977-79) Tom Kratochzil
Drusilla/"Wonder Girl" Debra Winger

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