MeTV's SuperSci-Fi Saturday Night

[The Old Mixer]

Perry came off as the voice of reason to me in this one...Lois and Jimmy tend to get themselves caught in situations that only Superman can get them out of far too easily...they don't even try to be smart about...and Perry was calling them out on it. Compare and contrast to a recent episode in which Perry went on an investigation solo, and got himself caught by the crooks just as stupidly and easily as Lois and Jimmy.

And I thought Superman was just being good-natured and humorous.

 

[Christopher]

And I thought Superman was just being good-natured and humorous.

He was being humorous, all right, but is it good-natured to pull a prank on Jimmy while more poison gas is filling the room by the second? That seems sadistic and criminally irresponsible. His friends were dying and he was deliberately delaying their escape.

 

[The Old Mixer]

That was an odd bit of business, but there didn't seem to be any malicious intent. Superman was in control of the situation and wouldn't let them come to harm. In the worst-case scenario, he knew he could fall back on his Rewind-the-Film-Breath.

BTW, I don't remember which program it aired during (probably Trek), but did anyone else catch the Nichelle Nichols ad for Black History Month with the MLK story? I barely caught it in the background, but I was under the impression that it was MeTV-specific. So they've got Koenig and Nichols...maybe they'll get Takei to do one? Oh, my...!

 

[Christopher]

The beauty-pageant episode of Wonder Woman was pretty fun, even if it was kind of the same story as "Bionic Beauty" on The Bionic Woman. I certainly enjoy any opportunity to see Lynda Carter with a plunging neckline and out of the '40s-style bullet bra of her Wonder Woman costume. But "Diana Paradise?" That's the best she could come up with? You'd think that when she decided to go undercover, concocting a fake name would've been one of the first things she thought of, rather than being caught by surprise and having to extemporize badly.

And it was kind of blowing her cover to let Steve and Etta know she was in the contest. Steve's supposed to find Diana Prince plain and ordinary -- although for that to happen, her glasses would have to have the same hypnotic face-concealing effect that Clark Kent's glasses apparently possess. Now he knows she's beauty pageant-worthy, which, err, strips away a key element of her disguise.

You know, I saw Anne Francis's name in the credits, but totally failed to recognize her in the episode. I guess it's because I was visualizing her as some years younger. The most recent thing I recall seeing her in -- recent in my timeline -- was a Mission: Impossible episode from 7 years before this.

I love it that the villain was named Monty Burns. Is this an accidental crossover with The Simpsons? After all, Mr. Burns has indicated on occasion that he was associated with the Nazis.

And we get the debut of Wonder Woman's "kapow" transformation. I wasn't expecting that to happen so early. Also we get a bionic-style sound effect for her super-jumps. Why did '70s TV have this compulsion to give super-strong jumping its own sound effect? I suppose the idea is that it adds a sense of power to the motion somehow, but maybe I just think that because I grew up with these shows (and all the cartoons that used sound effects for jumping, falling, etc.) and am thus conditioned to make that connection. So I can't trust my own perceptions to be indicative of the reason the trope was created in the first place; they could be an effect rather than a cause.

I'm still enjoying the '40s flavor of the season, all the wartime details -- we even get General Eisenhower this time, and Dick Van Patten doing a Bob Hope pastiche that made him more entertaining to watch than usual. Although some of the beauty contestants' swimsuits and belly-dancing outfits seemed a little too modern/revealing for the period. They would've been pretty risque for the time -- but then, since this show was for GIs rather than the general public, maybe that would've been acceptable. I wish the music were a bit more suited to the '40s setting, though -- it's very '70s, with the funky guitars and such. Although it has a jazz influence that somewhat ties it to the period, I guess.

 

[Greg Cox]

The beauty-pageant episode of Wonder Woman was pretty fun, even if it was kind of the same story as "Bionic Beauty" on The Bionic Woman. I certainly enjoy any opportunity to see Lynda Carter with a plunging neckline and out of the '40s-style bullet bra of her Wonder Woman costume. But "Diana Paradise?" That's the best she could come up with? You'd think that when she decided to go undercover, concocting a fake name would've been one of the first things she thought of, rather than being caught by surprise and having to extemporize badly.
.

Heck, even XENA did a beauty-contest episode decades later. Kinda of surprising, in retrospect, that BUFFY never went there.

Wonder if Agent Carter will end up walking a boardwalk in Atlantic City at some point . . ..?

 

[Christopher]

I feel they missed an opportunity. I have a hard time believing Diana would just stand by and watch as the other contestants turned on each other. I would've expected her to make some stirring speech about sisterhood and togetherness and gotten them to make nice. It was also kind of a jerk move for Wonder Woman to accept the prize when she wasn't even (as far as anyone knew) a contestant.

What I was expecting was that when Diana saw Burns cutting the rope, she wouldn't have had time to spin-change and would've tackled Rita out of the way as Diana Paradise, and then Rita would've realized that she'd been a fool to see Diana as a rival. Instead they pretty much left the character tensions unresolved so they could focus on Wonder Woman action instead.

 

[The Old Mixer]

But "Diana Paradise?" That's the best she could come up with? You'd think that when she decided to go undercover, concocting a fake name would've been one of the first things she thought of, rather than being caught by surprise and having to extemporize badly.

I haven't been watching the show closely, but as I recall from last time around, in 1st season they tend to play Diana up as a bit more of a fish out of water, so a relative lack of guile sort of goes along with that.

You know, I saw Anne Francis's name in the credits, but totally failed to recognize her in the episode. I guess it's because I was visualizing her as some years younger. The most recent thing I recall seeing her in -- recent in my timeline -- was a Mission: Impossible episode from 7 years before this.

http://www.sitcomsonline.com/photopost/showphoto.php/photo/333814
http://www.imdb.com/media/rm3520841984/nm0551926

I can't miss her when she pops up in something. The thing that strikes me both here and in a Black Sheep Squadron appearance from about the same time is that her classic look makes her seem more period-authentic than most of the 70s actors around her.

FWIW, it looks like she's also appearing in the Route 66 that's airing in the wee hours tonight.

ETA: Oh, and she got murdered by Leonard Nimoy in last Sunday's Columbo.

 

[The Old Mixer]

"The Last Knight"
...
And now we have crooks playing at being medieval knights. Well, at least it's not just the same old hoods again.

Agreed...that the crooks had a colorful gimmick helped make this episode mildly entertaining, though they were pretty amateurish. Not much else to say about this one.

 

[Christopher]

I should've made a count of episodes that used that set with the trapdoor in the floor. I think it's up to three or four by this point, maybe more.

 

[RJDiogenes]

And I thought Superman was just being good-natured and humorous.

By itself, the part about Henderson probably would have come off as good natured, but he seemed very condescending and mocking toward the poor senile professor. And making Jimmy throw himself into the door a couple of times was just plain weird. "C'mon, boy, do it again!" Wap.

 

[Christopher]

"The Gentle Monster": Ohh, Pepperwinkle again. He's become a semi-regular by this point, and he's more annoying every time. This whole thing's pretty incoherent, though. Clark is busy investigating a munitions ring, and yet he has time to go into action as Superman in response to some crank call on the phone? He already sent Lois and Jimmy to check it out; why not just wait for their report? It's not like anyone was in imminent danger. And how come he totally failed to notice Ben Welden peering in through the front window when he arrived at the house? (Meanwhile, Prof. P. is now living in someone else's boarding house instead of running his own. Maybe the lawsuits resulting from all his past inventions cost him his house.)

And wow, that robot. It reminds me of a Halloween costume I wore once when I was a kid, made out of cardboard boxes and dryer exhaust tubing. I can still remember the smell of all that silver spray paint... (Though its face featured a gauze panel that I could see out of, unlike Mr. McTavish. And it had white cotton gloves, the easier to hold my candy bag with. Wow, I'm surprised how well I remember it.)

And I was going to say how hardcore Superman was to threaten the hoods with an active bomb, but they lampshaded that in the tag. I guess once you've pushed a nuclear blast back inside the bomb, super-nitroglycerine is easy.


Oddly, we've skipped "Superman's Wife" and gone to "Three in One." No sign of "Wife" on the schedule, unfortunately. I think this is the second time they've skipped over one.

Anyway, "Three in One" was kind of interesting, with some rather clever villains employing a clever scheme. Although the wall-scaling sequence was amusing. It's "Climbing the North Face of the Uxbridge Road!"

The plot point of crooks tricking a dimwitted European strongman into acting as a fake crooked Superman was used in the radio show once, although there he actually wore the costume and "flew" by grabbing onto a rope ladder from a hot air balloon.

Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy. All those hostage situations and deathtraps, and he still has no survival skills whatsoever. He couldn't wait to get into that straitjacket.

 

[JD]

Your post about Wonder Woman brings up something I was joking about with my mom.
It seemed like pretty much any time Diana had to do anything more complicated than walk across a room, she had to turn into Wonder Woman. There were a lot of times were she took the time to turn into WW, but there was nobody around to see her, so she could have easily just done it in her street clothes.
That robot in Superman cracked me up. It was such a stereotypical old sci-fi show robot it was just funny.
I don't know if anyone else watched the Catch "Me" If You Can shows on Sunday, but we got two back to back episodes with Trek guest stars. The Streets of San Fransisco episode had William Windom, Matt Decker from The Doomsday Machine, and it was followed by an episode of The Mod Squad where Julie, the female lead, was dating a young Robert Foxworth, Admiral Leyton from Homefront and Paradise Lost.

 

[Christopher]

It seemed like pretty much any time Diana had to do anything more complicated than walk across a room, she had to turn into Wonder Woman. There were a lot of times were she took the time to turn into WW, but there was nobody around to see her, so she could have easily just done it in her street clothes.

Like in that Superman episode about the Anti-Superstition League, where he took the time to change into Superman before shoring up a floor that was about to collapse, even though nobody could see him do it and he only had seconds.

Then again, while Clark has Superman's powers all the time, the show's conceit is that when Diana is away from Paradise Island, she only has her Amazon powers as long as she's wearing her magic belt. Assuming she isn't just wearing her WW costume under her clothes but has to summon it magically, she wouldn't have superpowers as Diana Prince. At least, that's how I seem to recall it, that she only has powers in Wonder Woman mode. If so, then it's not as arbitrary as it is for Superman.


Along similar lines, one thing that always bugged me about The Greatest American Hero was that, while Ralph did wear his supersuit under his street clothes, he always had to expose at least part of it to view before he could use its superpowers -- even if it was just to loosen his collar or pull up his sleeve cuff and show a bit of the red fabric underneath. That never made sense to me. Did it have to be exposed to light or air to activate? If so, they never said so. They just assumed we needed to be reminded that he had the suit on, that we'd somehow be unable to understand Ralph using his superpowers if we didn't get a look at the costume first.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Then again, while Clark has Superman's powers all the time, the show's conceit is that when Diana is away from Paradise Island, she only has her Amazon powers as long as she's wearing her magic belt. Assuming she isn't just wearing her WW costume under her clothes but has to summon it magically, she wouldn't have superpowers as Diana Prince. At least, that's how I seem to recall it, that she only has powers in Wonder Woman mode. If so, then it's not as arbitrary as it is for Superman.

This would go along with what I noticed as the show went on...they seemed to be playing it as if she were powerless as Diana, a la Billy Batson. This comes up more often in the 70s episodes, when Diana gets into sticky situations as an agent. One example that struck me had her tied in a spinning chair. It was only after the spinning initiated (or allowed her to initiate) her transformation into WW that she was able to break free.

 

[Christopher]

One example that struck me had her tied in a spinning chair. It was only after the spinning initiated (or allowed her to initiate) her transformation into WW that she was able to break free.

Yeah, and I remember one where she rolled down a hill and that triggered the change. They really embraced the idea that her spinning itself automatically caused her to transform, unlike the first few episodes where it seemed to be a visual shorthand for changing clothes at superspeed.

It reminds me of that episode in the Superman radio series where an amnesiac Superman didn't remember how to fly, and Batman told him to say "Up, up, and away," and saying that automatically caused Superman to take off, as though it were a magic spell. What was originally just an embellishment to the action was reinterpreted as its direct cause.

 

[The Old Mixer]

"The Magic Secret"

Thugs run into each other and get knocked senseless = Two dings in the first couple minutes!

So Superman can send his x-ray vision through a radio? The EM spectrum doesn't quite work that way.

Maybe some sort of feedback...?

And as someone who knows how a magician's levitation trick is performed, seeing Perry demonstrate it on Lois without any preparation or equipment, and without the informed participation of Lois, is rather silly.

Add amateur magician to Perry's collection of hats. As to how both he and Superman were able to perform it on the fly...maybe in that world, the magic is real...!

And as soon as I saw that deep pit in the ground

(The one that can only be approached stealthily by helicopter...because the typical helicopter is soooo stealthy....)

I guessed that the episode would climax with Perry levitating someone out of it. Although the actual payoff was even more ludicrous than I expected.

Oy, where to begin with that one? Superman's powerless...but he can still perform magic! And Lois's body is strong enough to stop the moving wall with no pain or effort.

Then Superman makes her climb out...having apparently learned nothing about chivalry in the previous episode.

So suddenly "everyone knows" about kryptonite's effect on Superman. I think that's a change from last time.

Indeed...and it's now also common knowledge that Superman is from Krypton...I wonder how/when this version of the character learned it himself.

*******

Something I neglected last time...during the hiatus between seasons, a couple of noteworthy debuts:

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nrInsANB8Q[/yt]
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5Pegd-M4p8[/yt]

 

[Christopher]

"The Brainy Burro": Ohh, man. A psychic, math-performing burro? Just the sort of thing to make me glad we're near the end. I barely even paid attention to this one.

But some things I noticed:

The hoods discussing their impending crime while Clark was in the same room. Forget super-hearing, even Lois or Jimmy could potentially have overheard them.

Jimmy is 22 now? That's unexpected. I would've thought they'd stick with the radio series's tendency to keep him a perpetual teenager. And it makes Jimmy only eight years younger than Jack Larson -- whereas Lois is evidently ten years younger than Noel Neill, judging from that Egyptian-princess episode a while back.

The prison break. That's got to be the most shoddily built prison of all time. They could've pushed their way out.

The gas-pipeline deathtrap was kind of clever, but it was pretty much ruined by the way Superman put it out just by waving vaguely in its direction.


"The Perils of Superman": This is the closest they've come to the radio practice of remaking a previous installment. We had the "lead mask gang" gimmick a few seasons back.

In that scene where all the masked men were walking around on the street, it looked to me like they just had the same two or three guys walking back and forth.

How generous of the crooks to space the deathtraps five minutes apart so Superman could free all of them. They should've set them to trigger simultaneously.

And Superman broke off the sawteeth just by looking at them? Was that meant to be his heat vision, or was he supposed to be blocking them with his body but the camera angle was wrong?

Unexpected to get a tag scene after Clark's obligatory innuendo about Superman. But those thugs were pretty dumb, having prime blackmail material on Superman/Clark and just choosing to sit on it.


Only one episode left now... and unfortunately it's a Professor Pepperwinkle story.

 

[JD]

I had to laugh when Superman was talking to Carlmelita, you could easily see that he was pulling on her bridle.

 

[Christopher]

^I wasn't even paying attention at that point.

 

[Christopher]

And now we close out the series with "All That Glitters." And... oh, dear. As soon as I heard those harps playing, I knew that the rest of the episode would be Jimmy's dream sequence. How pointless. And good grief, Lois and Superman! Jimmy passes out just minutes after sustaining a concussion and hallucinations, and they laugh it off? The guy needs immediate hospitalization!

But how did Jimmy in the dream know about the 10 grand the bad guys had given the professor?

And man, it's true -- Metropolis really is so infested with hoods that you can't even have a casual conversation without running afoul of them.

Perry's last line: "Definitely. Not!" That really is an older usage than I used to assume. They did similar things on the Superman radio show once or twice, more than a decade before this.

It's kind of morbid to watch this and realize that both George Reeves and John Hamilton were near the end of their lives. According to IMDb, this was the last screen appearance for them both. It's a shame they were both so marginalized in it.


So that's Adventures of Superman. It really did change a lot over the course of its run. It started out as essentially a direct continuation and semi-remake of the radio series, but evolved into its own entity. After its first couple of seasons, it started to grow more comical and fanciful, a transformation that reached its peak in the final year. It's a bit odd, seeing as how the radio series was always essentially a children's show. So why did the TV series need to be changed so much? Maybe it was more of a cultural shift, paralleling what went on with comics themselves in the '50s, the era of Fredric Wertham and the Comics Code Authority. Society itself became more paranoid about what our children were being exposed to, and as a result, children's entertainment grew increasingly sanitized. Now that I think about it, I realize that was going on while this show was on the air. It makes sense that the show would've been affected along with the comics. So it's a picture of an era in transition.