50th Anniversary Viewing
Wonder Woman
"Wonder Woman Meets Baroness von Gunther"
Originally aired April 21, 1976
Series premiere
IMDb said:
Steve is framed for charges of treason by Nazi spies and Wonder Woman finds herself in trouble when she loses her magic lasso while trying to rescue him.
Edited Wiki said:
This episode is based on the comic book story "Wonder Woman Versus the Prison Spy Ring," originally published sans title in Wonder Woman #1, cover date Summer 1942, written by William Moulton Marston and illustrated by H. G. Peter.
General Blankenship (recast with Richard Eastham) expresses his concern to Diana regarding intelligence that the Abwehr is active in Washington again, despite Steve having put their leader, the Baroness Paula Von Gunther (Christine Belford), in prison. Diana changes to Wonder Woman via a slo-mo spin with fade but no flash-bang to find Steve, who's leading a training exercise with an anachronistically racially integrated unit to stop a truck with a blast-created rockslide. Steve tries to gain control of the truck, which ends up dangling from an incline, so WW pulls him out with her lasso, but the truck goes downhill to roll over and burst into flame...destroying a secret weapon shipment that, alongside a couple of other recent sabotage incidents involving Steve, implicates him in the eyes of the FBI, which could mean a Senate investigation. (This may have come up with the pilot movie, but Steve's said to already be a famous war hero in 1942.) An anonymous phone informant arranges a meeting with Steve at a stable near Fort Myer. When he arrives, Steve's knocked out with a pipe wrench and the place is set on fire, with an unconscious soldier also inside. The same informant calls Blankenship to tip him off that Steve set fire to an ammo stockpile at the stable.
Having followed Steve, WW loads the soldier into Steve's Jeep and drives out of the barn before the police get there; then takes him back to Diana's place. Steve and Diana proceed to visit the Fort Myer prison, where the baroness is being kept and has a man on the inside, a prison guard named Hansen (Ed Griffith). While taking with the warden (Edmund Gilbert), Steve and Diana meet his son, Tommy (Christian Juttner), a would-be detective with a Sherlock cap and magnifying glass. Sneaking around the grounds outside, Tommy follows some footprints to a concealed, vertically sliding metal door with a hidden lock that he finds the key to. Hansen takes Steve and Diana to the well-decorated cell of the baroness, who claims to have put the Abwehr behind her and to be embracing democracy. Steve takes interest in a large metal key she wears as a pendant. Seeing Tommy in trouble climbing an unsturdy ladder out the window, Diana slips out and rescues him as WW, rappelling them down the side of the building with her lasso; which she afterward exposits a little about. Having to slip out before Steve sees her, she asks Tommy to retrieve her lasso and keep it for her. Steve leaves believing that the baroness is hiding what she knows. Needing to send a message to a contact named Thor, Hansen borrows the baroness's key to the secret tunnel, having lost his.
By night, Tommy sees a man prowling on the tower he was trying to get up to and exchanging flashlight signals with an accomplice on the ground. The baroness is escorted through the tunnel out to a car for a meeting with Thor (Bradford Dillman) to discuss the efforts to implicate Steve, Trevor's investigation, and Wonder Woman's involvement. They plot to kill him during their next rocket shipment sabotage and make it look like he was involved. Back on prison grounds, the baroness pretends to be a friend of WW's to chat up Tommy, and he Chekhovs the lasso expo, then goes to check on its tree house hiding spot while Hansen tails him.
In an effort to prove his innocence, Steve has a meeting with a steel magnate who for some reason is the bigwig behind the investigation of Steve, Arthur Deal III (Bradford Dillman). Steve tells Deal all about his suspicion that the baroness is using her special key to access a tunnel that allows her to leave the prison at will. Then the baroness pops out of hiding with plainclothes Hansen to take him prisoner. While Steve's cosmetically bound and gagged, Deal phones the general about how he's more convinced of Trevor's guilt than ever. He and the baroness then persuade Steve to sign a confession to being a defecting Nazi spy by producing the lasso and claiming to have WW as a hostage; and promptly send the document to Blankenship. Looking into things, WW learns that her lasso is missing. She uses her freaky voice-imitating power to pose as Blankenship while making a call that traces the baroness's getaway car to Deal. At Deal manor, WW finds Steve only for the baroness to surprise her with a sleeping gas spray. She then produces special German chains capable of holding an elephant.
At the prison, the baroness is found to have escaped, and while the warden won't listen to his son about the tunnel, Hansen shows more interest, taking the boy to Deal Manor to be tied up alongside WW and Steve. After Tommy's found to be missing, the warden finds his detective notebook, which has the key tucked in its pages and leads the warden and his guards to the tunnel. At Deal Manor, the baroness shares her plan to have WW's body found alongside Steve's at the wharf after the shipment is blown up, while she makes a U-boat getaway. After Steve is untied, WW busts out of her chains and goes into action, with Steve following her lead. He takes down Deal, while WW, after retrieving her lasso, pursues the baroness outside, where they cattily roll down a hill and WW lasso-twirls the baroness into a pool.
In the coda, Steve is exonerated while the baroness, Deal, and Hansen are in custody awaiting trial. Diana shares her belief that anyone can be reformed.
The episode introduces Beatrice Colen as Etta Candy.
Photos:
NBC's Saturday Night
Season 1, episode 18
Originally aired April 24, 1976
Host: Raquel Welch
Guests: Phoebe Snow; John Sebastian
Chevy reads the nominees for Best Performance by an Actor in a Political Campaign, poking fun at various political figures. He gets upset and breaks character when he receives a couple of notes to get to the fall. He ultimately walks offstage to trip over some chairs and deliver the line.
Raquel sings the Bonnie Bramlett/Leon Russell song "Superstar" (best known for the Carpenters' version) to find herself accompanied by John's Joe Cocker, who spends much of his time writhing on the floor.
Chevy as the Pied Piper sells Rat Chow to a tenement couple (Gilda and Garrett).
Dan plays an official who explains the ten-letter metric alphabet.
In the only Gorch sketch written by Jim Henson, Ploobis and Scred meet and come onto Raquel, who calls them out on not existing below the waist before Chevy informs them that they're not scheduled to be on this week. Raquel then introduces the first repeat musical guest, Phoebe Snow, who sings "All Over," which sounds substantially different from
its studio version.
Chevy and Jane cover the Claudine Longet Invitational, in which skiers are shot (utilizing footage of skiers taking falls).
John and Jane play each other while doing a Polaroid spot.
Great Moments in Herstory has Raquel as Jane Russell auditioning with Howard Hughes (Dan) for a role in
The Outlaw. While ranting about wartimete innovations, Hughes demonstrates a metal bra with propellers.
Jane announces the next episode's host and musical guest, Madeline Kahn and Carly Simon.
Weekend Update covers Ford being criticized for appearing on the show and Timothy Leary being released from prison. Other subjects include Rockefeller, Carter, George Wallace, Franco becoming a jockey as he's down to racing weight, and Kissinger criticizing Woodward & Bernstein's
The Final Days. Laraine covers the strong "don't know" faction of SN viewers who were polled about the election. Gilda makes her first appearance as Baba Wawa as Garrett interviews her about leaving NBC. Raquel does a Bisexual Minute as Gore Vidal in a cowboy hat and bikini. Meteorologist John criticizes misinformation in songs about the weather, building into a frenzy and collapsing while on a rant about
The Wizard of Oz.
Raquel introduces John Sebastian, who performs "Welcome Back" on acoustic guitar, breaking down in his first take. Once he's going, John's Cocker comes out to hold a harmonica up to his mouth.
Lorne talks into the camera to make his famous $3,000 pitch to the Beatles, showing off the check. "You divide it any way you want. If you wanna give Ringo less, that's up to you."
One Flew Over the Hornet's Nest features Bees in an asylum with Raquel as Nurse Ratched; John doing Nicholson as Randle, trying to motivate the other patients to vote for watching the Oscars; and Chevy as the Chief, doing an Eastern Indian accent. Randle and the Chief improv their own Oscars, announcing Louise Fletcher as the winner. Ratched rubs it in that Jack didn't win and he loses control, then goes right into a vegetative state.
In Gilda's Equal Time, she uses the pretense of standing up for Raquel to defend her own femininity, then introduces a Gary Weis film of Raquel dancing.
Phoebe plugs a benefit show for the NY Public Library with Paul Simon, Jimmy Cliff, and the Becker Brothers before performing
"Two-Fisted Love". Raquel then torch-sings "It Ain't Necessarily So".
Ploobis and Scred sneak around a storage area to find the Mighty Favog in cobwebs, and inform him that the Gorch scenery has been burned. Reinforcing the earlier assertion that they're only puppets, he advises that they give in and get in the truck where the other characters already are--Peuta getting a speaking role.
Before the final bow, Chevy reads a request from a terminal vet that Raquel take off her shirt. She complies, revealing a blue halter top onto which footage of a rocket blowing up on the launch pad and a battleship are composited.
Guess he wasn't the Boss on Elvis's property.
Happy 50th anniversary of your 15th birthday, dude! 
Ray Charles!
