THE GREAT TV HEROES

by Kirk Hastings

#8: “CAPTAIN MARVEL”

On September 7, 1974 something new and exciting came to Saturday morning TV. After the nighttime popularity of the Batman TV series early in 1966, that Fall animated super-heroes began to rule on Saturday mornings. But in the Fall of 1974, Filmation (who had previously produced the Superman animated cartoon series) decided to take a different tack: they wanted to try a half-hour live super-hero series made just for Saturday mornings. Not only that, but they decided that the subject of the series would be a comic book super-hero who had only recently been revived after not having been seen on newsstands since 1953 – the original Captain Marvel, created back in 1939 by artist C. C. Beck and writer Bill Parker. The TV series starred newcomer Jackson Bostwick as the mighty Captain, 24-year-old Michael Gray as his youthful alter-ego Billy Batson, and Les Tremayne as Billy’s friend Mentor. The character’s back story was changed slightly for the TV version: this time Billy gained his magic powers from the six Immortals whose names made up the letters of the magic word that transformed Billy into Captain Marvel – Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles and Mercury. (These characters were rendered in standard animation/cartoon form.) Along with his companion Mentor, Billy traveled the country in an RV looking for ways in which he could use his alter-ego to help people in need. Those people almost always tended to be teenagers, and each episode carried a moral message that either the good Captain or Billy would elaborate on after the story was over. The series became an immediate success, and even spawned a spin-off series in 1975: The Secrets Of Isis (see previous article). 

INTERVIEW WITH JACKSON BOSTWICK—July, 2010

KH: Can you give us any detail as to what will be in your forthcoming book on the Shazam! series, and when it will be released?

JB: The text of the book is finished and the photos pretty much selected. I originally was waiting for the movie to come out, but if the producers keep on the same track as they have been following, I’ll be old enough to play the ancient wizard, Shazam. However, I hope to have it out in the near future. It’s a great read.

KH: If the proposed remake movie ever gets released, how would you like to see it treat the Captain Marvel character?

JB: I would like to see an unknown play the role and bring it to life as C.C. Beck and the gang at Fawcett originally intended: heroic, accessible, America loving, not too serious, and bashful with the girls.

KH: How did you get along with your co-stars, Les Tremayne and Michael Gray?

JB: We had a great professional relationship. Of course, I was never in a scene with Michael, but Les and I worked well together. Sadly, however, I found out later that Les was down on me (and that’s putting it mildly) personally. (KH: Jackson explains more about this in his forthcoming book.)

KH: Do you have a favorite episode?

JB: I liked them all, and I enjoyed the stunts in “The Boy Who Said No.”

KH: Are you familiar with the 1941 movie serial The Adventures of Captain Marvel, starring Tom Tyler? If so, what is your opinion of it? Did Tom Tyler's performance inspire yours at all?

JB: I remember seeing this serial in a local theater on Saturday mornings when I was growing up. I was blown away with the flying sequences and gags and thought Tom Tyler was great as the Good Captain. He didn’t inspire me in my playing the role as much as Clayton Moore did as the Lone Ranger, but he certainly was one of my all time favorite portrayals as a superhero.

KH: Have you ever read any of the Captain Marvel comic books? If so, what did you think of them?

JB: Ironically, Captain Marvel was my favorite comic as a youngster. I had a huge collection of them, along with many, many other comics of the Golden Age, that my dear sweet Mom threw out when I went to college. She said that they were for kids. Sigh ... God love ya Mom.

KH: Any opinion of the 1950s TV series The Adventures of Superman, starring George Reeves?

JB: One of my favorites. Great portrayal of the characters by all. I’ve done personal appearances with Noel Neill, and she is a gem.

KH: One of your "lift-offs" in Shazam! caused you an eye injury that led to a major misunderstanding between you and the show’s producers that ended in you being replaced by John Davey. Could you please explain exactly how you did those take-offs? George Reeves in the 1950s Superman TV series used to run and jump on a springboard, which would propel him up and over the camera, where he would do a backflip and land on a mattress. It seems like you did something similar.

JB: Pretty close to George’s except that I used a mini-tramp, and did a dive over the camera onto some stunt boxes. (KH: Jackson’s forthcoming book explains how the corner of one of the stunt boxes cut his eye, requiring him to leave the set for treatment. The show’s producers somehow got the idea that he had left because he was pressuring them for more money, which Jackson says was not the case.)

KH: Did you ever get to meet Joanna Cameron? What did you think of her role as Isis?

JB: Joanna played ISIS in great form (both physically and acting wise). I once met Joanna on the set after my firing and did one personal appearance with her in Texas where we did a standing-room-only Q &A. She was very affable and all woman.

KH: Do you have any idea when the Shazam! TV series might come out professionally on DVD?

JB: I hope in this lifetime.

NEXT: Special Feature -- “8^th Man”!

August 2010

July 2010

THE GREAT TV HEROES

by Kirk Hastings

#6: “THE INCREDIBLE HULK”

“After spending the last few years as a consistent detractor of television adaptations of comic book heroes, I finally have discovered one that I like a lot. It’s irresistible to kids, yet dramatically engrossing enough to appeal to millions of adults as well.”

-- Gary Deeb, prominent television critic, 1978

"The Hulk is not a comic book character. We attempt to surround him with mature stories and realistic people. ... He really is, in a sense, the champion of the common man.”

--Tony Barr, an executive in the program department of CBS-TV, 1978

“The Incredible Hulk has become one of the better dramatic shows on the air.”

-- Daily Variety, October 12, 1978

The Incredible Hulk, an original two-hour pilot movie produced by Universal Studios, aired on Friday, November 4^th, 1977, on CBS. An unusually touching sci-fi film, it was written, directed and produced by Kenneth Johnson, who had recently worked on The Six Million Dollar Man and created The Bionic Woman. An impressive cast was headed by Bill Bixby as Dr. David Banner, a scientist trying to “tap into the hidden strengths that all humans have” after his wife is killed in an auto accident. Lou Ferrigno, a gigantic body-builder who had appeared in the 1977 film “Pumping Iron” (with Arnold Schwarzenegger), played the role of the Hulk. Thanks to his 6-foot 5-inch 275-pound incredibly ripped body, some facial prosthetics, and green skin coloring, Ferrigno looked about as close to the comic book character as a real live actor would be able to get. The cast was rounded out by Jack Colvin as investigative reporter Jack McGee, and Susan Sullivan as Elaina Marks, Banner’s fellow scientist, who is secretly in love with him. Banner, after being accidentally overexposed to gamma rays and metamorphosizing into a huge green monster whenever he is angered, is supposedly killed in the pilot movie, as is Marks, and the Hulk is believed to have killed them both. So Banner must then wander the country incognito, searching for a cure for the curse that has inflicted him, while tabloid reporter McGee follows close behind, determined to prove that The Hulk really exists. It was a premise that, like The Fugitive before it, made for some compelling TV.

Premiering to excellent ratings and critical acclaim, the pilot movie was quickly followed by a second two-hour movie, “A Death In The Family”, on Monday, November 28^th, 1977. Another compelling adventure, this movie was well received too, and proved that the Hulk could carry a regular series.

So on Friday, March 10^th, 1978, The Incredible Hulk joined CBS-TV’s regular nighttime schedule as an hour-long drama. “Terror In Times Square”, an early episode, aired on March 31, 1978. It was shot on location in New York City, and featured Lou Ferrigno in full makeup running through the snow-covered streets of Times Square, to the unscripted consternation of many innocent passers-by who had no idea what kind of creature had invaded their city.

The Hulk’s second season on CBS began on September 22, 1978, with still another excellent two-hour TV-movie entitled “Married”. This episode guest-starred actress Mariette Hartley as Dr. Caroline Fields, a woman slowly dying of cancer. Before the end of the episode she and David marry, but their happiness is short-lived, as Caroline ends up dying in the Hulk’s arms. Hartley’s performance was so compelling that she ended up winning an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series for it.

During its subsequent seasons, The Incredible Hulk continued to explore highly dramatic and realistic situations. “A Child In Need” (aired October 20^th, 1978) dealt with the problem of child abuse, David becoming involved with a young boy who is a battered child. In the two-part “Mystery Man” (aired March 2, 1979), Jack McGee finally finds out how the Hulk is able to disappear so easily – he changes back into a normal man between appearances. On October 5, 1979, during The Hulk’s third season, another affecting tale, “Brain Child”, was spun about Banner encountering a young girl genius who is kept under lock and key in a government think tank, but desperately wants to find her mother who had abandoned her years before. “Homecoming” was a special Thanksgiving episode aired on November 30, 1979, about Banner reuniting with his sister and elderly father for the first time since his “accident” two years before.

More classic shows followed. Bixby’s wife at the time, actress Brenda Benet, appeared in “The Psychic”, a moving episode which depicts Banner on the verge of suicide in order to do away with the Hulk. The show’s fourth season opened with an epic two-part adventure entitled “Prometheus”, aired on November 7^th and 14^th, 1980, where Banner is exposed to radiation from a meteorite and is trapped in mid-transformation between Banner and the Hulk. Government operatives then capture him, mistaking the Hulk for an extraterrestrial. On December 5^th, 1980, Banner injected himself with what he hoped was a cure for the Creature, but instead brought out his “Dark Side”, transforming the Hulk into a truly murderous, thoughtless beast. A professional hit man tries to kill the Hulk with a bazooka in “Bring Me The Head Of The Hulk” (aired January 9, 1981), and in March of 1981 another outstanding two-part episode aired called “The First”, explaining that David Banner was not the first person to be turned into a raging green creature by excessive gamma ray exposure. Dick Durock, of “Swamp Thing” fame, played the original “Hulk” creature.

Unfortunately, as often happens in network TV land, studio politics, brainless executives, and tight budget numbers combined to bring the series to a premature end in June of 1982, even though its ratings were still impressive. But even CBS couldn’t keep the mighty Hulk down. Beginning in May of 1988, NBC brought the Green Goliath back, in a series of made-for-TV movies.

But that’s another story!

NEXT: Joanna Cameron as “Isis”!

June 2010

THE GREAT TV HEROES

by Kirk Hastings

#5: “SPIDER-MAN”

Mention “Spider-Man” today, and almost everyone will immediately think of actor Tobey Maguire.

But once, a long time ago, “Spider-Man” was, believe it or not, a network television program—and everyone knew his Hollywood alter-ego as a young man named Nicholas Hammond, whose previous claim to fame had been co-starring as one of the young children in “The Sound of Music” (1965).

That’s right—Spider-Man was actually an hour-long network television program that ran on CBS-TV, from 1977 to 1979. Unfortunately, despite decent ratings, the network never ended up committing to the show as a regular weekly series. It ran on an irregular schedule, bouncing all over the nighttime TV schedule, until it finally gave up the ghost in July of 1979, after producing a total of only 13 episodes (including three 2-hour episodes).

The Amazing Spider-Man originally premiered on Wednesday, September 14, 1977, on CBS as a two-hour origin/pilot episode. The show stuck fairly close to the comic book character’s origin—except that in the TV-movie Peter Parker was in college instead of being a high school student; the entire subplot featuring the death of his Uncle Ben was excised; the character of Mary Jane Watson was never used; and a new character was introduced: Michael Pataki as tough-as-nails Police Captain Barbera. But both Aunt May and J. Jonah Jameson survived intact from the comics. The villain was an extortionist named Byron (played by Thayer David, an actor very familiar to fans of the popular occultic TV soap opera Dark Shadows), who had the power to hypnotize otherwise innocent people into doing his illegal bidding. Afterwards they would remember nothing of what they had done!

Nicholas Hammond made a convincing and likable Peter Parker, capturing the shy and somewhat confused essence of the Marvel comic book hero. He acquired his powers from the requisite radioactive spider, and—like the comic book character—never quite seemed to figure out how to handle them (or the way they affected his personal life). Departing somewhat from the comics, Peter’s web-slinging ability in the TV-movie did change slightly: instead of acquiring a natural ability to shoot webs from his hands, Peter, a science student, came up with a web-shooting device that attached to his right wrist. A belt that he wore over his costume contained extra cartridges of web fluid.

Of course, in the 1970s the Spider-Man TV show had no access to the CGI special effects of the modern Spider-Man movies—but, nevertheless, the series managed to convince us fairly well of Spider-Man’s unique super powers. Veteran Hollywood stuntman Fred Waugh, who did most of Spider-Man’s stunts in the series, came up with some new stunt innovations in the process of portraying the famous wall-crawler. One of them was a helmet camera device, which he wore when climbing the sides of buildings, in order to give the viewer a sample of what Spider-Man himself would see as he crawled around. Spider-Man was able to climb up and down the sides of those buildings through the use of a clever cable and pulley system, which was used in such a way as to (usually) render it unnoticeable by the viewing audience.

In April of 1978 Spider-Man returned with a two-part episode entitled “The Deadly Dust”, an absorbing tale of three college students who steal plutonium from a university lab in order to make a home-made atomic bomb, to demonstrate how easily it could be done. But the students end up being poisoned by the dirty radiation emitted by the device, and the bomb is then stolen by hoods who threaten to explode it if the city doesn’t pay a huge ransom. This episode co-starred Joanna Cameron, who had recently starred as “Isis” on Saturday mornings for the same network.

In an amazingly contemporary episode aired on September 5, 1978 (“The Captive Tower”), a gang of terrorists hold a skyscraper’s inhabitants hostage. This show also featured the first appearance of two new characters to the series: Rita Conway as Chip Fields, J. Jonah Jameson’s beleaguered secretary, and Ellen Bry as Julie Masters, a free-lance photographer who was a professional rival -- and possible love interest—for Peter Parker.

In the next episode, “A Matter of State”, Spider-Man (courtesy of Fred Waugh) is shown climbing up the outside of the Empire State Building! No computer-generated effects here: Waugh actually climbed up—in full costume!—from the 72^nd to the 80^th floor of the real building in this TV episode.

The final Spider-Man episode, a two-hour entry entitled “The Chinese Web”, was one of the most impressive of the entire series, indicating the “heights” to which the series might have soared if it had continued on the network. Aired on July 6, 1979, most of the adventure is shot on location in exotic Hong Kong—and in one unforgettable sequence Fred Waugh, as the wall-crawling superhero, climbs up the sheer side of one of Hong Kong’s tallest buildings in an amazingly spectacular scene. The characterizations in the series are also carried to a new level in this episode, as Peter Parker anguishes over the fact that an attractive young Oriental woman thinks he’s a coward because he disappeared right before her uncle was shot by gangsters. Of course, what she doesn’t realize is that Parker disappeared so that he could return moments later as Spider-Man, in order to save her uncle’s life. By the end of the episode Parker reveals his secret identity to her, and a budding romance is suggested. Unfortunately, the series was never able to pursue this plotline, as the show ended with this segment.

Though Nicholas Hammond has lived in Australia since the mid-1980s, and now writes and directs for Australian TV, he says that to this day he is still often recognized by fans as Peter Parker and his costumed alter-ego – despite the fact that Tobey Maguire seems to get most of the wall-climbing glory!

NEXT: Lou Ferrigno as “The Incredible Hulk”!

COMING IN FUTURE COLUMNS: Joanna Cameron as “Isis”; Jackson Bostwick as “Captain Marvel”; Gerard Christopher as “Superboy”; and Satoshi Furuya as “Ultraman”!

May 2010

THE GREAT TV HEROES

by Kirk Hastings

#4: “WONDER WOMAN”

Wonder Woman was the very first comic book super-heroine ever portrayed on network television!

Sort of.

The very first Wonder Woman TV-movie aired on ABC-TV on March 12, 1974, and starred blonde ex-tennis player Cathy Lee Crosby in the title role. Produced by John G. Stephens, the character, though somewhat based on the DC Comics character created way back in 1941, was altered (i.e., “updated”) quite a bit from its original inspiration. She was given a new costume, a new job (that of a secret agent), and possessed no superhuman powers. As a result the movie, though a pilot for a possible series, achieved only barely passable ratings, and ended up going nowhere.

Then, in September of 1975, a Saturday morning live action series called Isis, starring Joanna Cameron, debuted on CBS-TV. This show starred an original super-powered heroine that was created especially for TV, and not based on a previously existing comic book character. Nevertheless, the show was quite successful. So, technically, this made Isis the very first super-powered heroine on network TV. [For more information, see a future installment of this series!]

However, in November of that same year, ABC-TV premiered The New, Original Wonder Woman, another TV-movie that was based much more closely on the original comic book character created by psychologist Dr. William Moulton Marston in All Star Comics #8 (December 1941). This time, produced by Douglas S. Cramer, they got it right, and the film spawned a regular series for the character that eventually ran on two different networks. The movie starred statuesque actress Lynda Carter in the title role, and Carter’s portrayal ended up becoming a pop culture icon that endures to this day.

The New, Original Wonder Woman retained the comic book character’s origin and costume from the comic books. The TV-movie pilot was even set during World War II (like the early comic books), and pitted the super-powered Amazon against Nazi spies who were trying to destroy the prototype of a new American bombsight. The movie co-starred Lyle Waggoner as Major Steve Trevor, Wonder Woman’s male “sidekick” from the comic books. Though some camp elements crept into the production (particularly Cloris Leachman’s performance as the Queen Mother of Paradise Island, where Wonder Woman hailed from), overall the show was played straight, and garnered respectable ratings. This led to a series of hour-long Wonder Woman specials that began the following April (1976). Though these specials reaped good ratings, for some inexplicable reason ABC refused to commit to the series on a weekly basis. Nevertheless, thirteen more episodes appeared on the network on an irregular basis between April of 1976 and February of 1977, and were well-received by viewers and critics. Well-known guest stars included Anne Francis, John Saxon, Robert Loggia, Robert Reed, Tim O’Connor, Roy Rogers, and Carolyn Jones. A young Debra Winger also made an appearance in three episodes, playing Wonder Woman’s younger sister Drusilla.

The burgeoning feminist movement even adopted the character as its figurehead—though the TV character’s only nod to the movement was the line “fighting for her rights!” in the show’s theme song. In the episodes themselves, Wonder Woman never made any distinction between fighting for the “rights” of either men or women. She was the super champion of all.

Six-foot-tall blue-eyed brunette Lynda (originally Linda) Jean Carter was born in Phoenix, Arizona, and performed on and off as a singer before she won the Miss World USA title in 1972 (representing Arizona). After taking some acting classes in New York, she appeared in small roles in a few different network TV programs, and then made one film, Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw, in 1976. She was about to give up her less-than-successful acting career and return to Arizona when she won the part of Diana Prince/Wonder Woman.

Disappointed that the show wasn’t being run on a regular weekly basis on ABC, the producers of Wonder Woman eventually took the show to CBS in the summer of 1977. The show’s new network premiered it with still another 90-minute TV-movie on September 16, 1977, called “The New Adventures of Wonder Woman”. The Wonder Woman character was once again updated. Some slight changes were made to her costume, and this time the ageless Amazon was brought forward to the present day (1977). Lyle Waggoner remained, but this time he played Steve Trevor’s lookalike son, still working for the government. The CBS series ran for two more years on CBS, remaining popular until it finally came to an end in the fall of 1979.

But Lynda Carter would forever after be known as Wonder Woman. Her incredible physical beauty, combined with the earnest innocence with which she portrayed the character, endeared her to a large fan base that continues to this day. Married to Robert Altman (a businessman, not the late Hollywood director) on January 29, 1984, she has since made her home in Washington, D.C., and has two grown children, James and Jessica. She still occasionally manages to keep a hand in show business though. As recently as 2005 she appeared in the West End London production of the play Chicago, and in 2007 she toured the U.S. with her one woman musical cabaret show, “An Evening with Lynda Carter”. She has also played at such prestigious venues as the Lincoln Center in New York and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. She released an album of jazz music in 2009 entitled “At Last”, which reached #6 on Billboard’s Jazz Albums Chart.

She remains very proud of her stint as Wonder Woman, and still believes in the goodness and compassion of the character—though she has always hated being ogled by men who are only interested in her (considerable) physical attributes!

But now, thanks to DVD releases of all three seasons of the Wonder Woman TV series, her memorable portrayal of the ageless Amazon will live on forever.

NEXT: Nicholas Hammond as “Spider-Man”!

April 2010

THE GREAT TV HEROES

By Kirk Hastings

#3: “THE FLASH”

Most comic book fans date the beginning of the “Silver Age” of comic books (re: the resurgence in popularity of super heroes during the mid-1950s) as beginning with issue number 4 of Showcase Comics in October of 1956. The featured story was “The Mystery of the Human Thunderbolt!”, written by Robert Kanigher, illustrated by Carmine Infantino and Joe Kubert, and edited by Julius Schwartz. The story was an updated, modernized version of “The Flash”, a super hero character that had first been created back in 1940 by Gardner Fox and Harry Lampert.

The “new” Flash was an instant hit, and spawned a number of similar super hero imitators in comic books during the following decade. But on September 20, 1990, this “modern” version of The Flash became an hour-long network television series on CBS. The show, stylistically similar to the dark, brooding Batman films recently done by Tim Burton (The Flash even had a catchy theme song written by Danny Elfman, who had also scored the Batman films), featured the classic Barry Allen character that had appeared in the Silver Age DC comic books. For the most part the TV adaptation stuck fairly close to the comic book original, depicting Allen as a police forensic scientist who was accidentally struck by a lightning bolt while working with a batch of volatile chemicals, and gaining superhuman speed as a result. Even the TV version’s Flash costume was almost an exact replica of the one found in the comics.

Budgeted at $1.6 million per episode, The Flash was the most expensive TV series ever made up to that time. And most of the money showed up on-screen. The dark, film noir-style settings of the show (a strange mixture of contemporary 1990s and retro 1940s), the special effects, and The Flash’s suit all looked very expensive. And they were!

The Flash’s remarkable outfit on the show (a character in and of itself, referred to as “The Suit” by the TV show’s production personnel) was a special effect unto itself. Costing $25,000 apiece to make, the 8 different suits used in the series were comprised of a mixture of spandex, foam rubber muscles, and a flexible outer sealant, giving the suit an unusual texture and a very macho, sinister appearance. This was no simple bodysuit; it looked more like a suit of armor than just a pair of form-fitting tights. And that was exactly the look the producers wanted. Overall there were two suits made for Shipp, two suits for the show’s stuntmen, two for photo doubles, and two for close-ups.

John Wesley Shipp, a young, square-jawed, good-looking young actor who had recently played on afternoon TV soap operas such as Guiding Light, As The World Turns, and Santa Barbara (winning a pair of Daytime Emmys for the latter two), made a likable, yet sometimes very intense, superhero. One minute he would be joking around with his dreadlocked, off-the-wall partner in the police crime lab, Julio Mendez (Alex Desert), and the next he would be racing around the streets of Central City in his bright red body armor, questioning whether he was doing the right thing or not by interfering with the law like a masked vigilante. The female interest in the show was provided by Tina McGee (Amanda Pays), an attractive fellow scientist working at the nearby Star Labs research facility, who knew Allen’s secret and helped him out whenever he might get injured or run out of steam (which happened fairly often with his super-high-speed metabolism). Other memorable characters in the show included the tough-as-nails police chief (Lt. Warren Garfield, played by scar-faced Mike Genovese), and two colorful Central City police officers named Murphy (Biff Manard) and Bellows (Vito D’Ambrosio). There was no campy Biff-Bam-Pow in this show; an atmosphere of gritty realism permeated the entire production, and it worked quite well. Watching it you could really believe that a man could “fly” at supersonic speeds!

There were also a number of memorable villains during the shows regrettably short 22-episode 1-season run: motorcycle renegade and ex-cop Nicholas Pike (Michael Nader); 1960s radical and drug lord Beauregard Lesko (Jimmie F. Skaggs); 1950s leftover The Ghost (Anthony Starke); the psychopathic Trickster (Mark Hamill, of Star Wars fame, and a great comic book aficionado himself); merciless hologram expert the Mirror Master (David Cassidy, formerly the teen heart-throb of The Partridge Family in the 1970s); and the pink-eyed, white-haired albino hit man Captain Cold (Michael Champion). Other impressive characters that appeared in the series were Joyce Hyser as pushy female detective Megan Lockhart, Jason Bernard as the cloaked superhero Nightshade (another leftover from 1950s Central City), and Shipp playing a double role as Barry Allen and a simple-minded clone of himself (in a blue Flash suit!) named Pollux.

From the very beginning the show faced an uphill battle for ratings, at first airing opposite such established mega-hits as The Cosby Show and The Simpsons. Despite the fact that it miraculously managed to hold its own against such stiff competition, CBS inexplicably chose to move the show all over the nighttime schedule during the remainder of the 1990-91 season, and soon its ratings began to decline. That, plus its enormous budget, finally sunk the show after only one season. But it is still well-remembered by its many fans.

“The Flash was one of the most physically grueling experiences I have ever been through,” remembers Shipp. “To get 22 episodes, we shot from the third week in August to the second week in May, with only fours days off for Christmas. It was the most expensive show that Warner Brothers ever did, which was one reason for its untimely demise. ... It’s a huge success overseas. I think the production values were very good. I can honestly watch it now and be very proud of it.”

NEXT: Lynda Carter as “Wonder Woman”!

March 2010

THE GREAT TV HEROES

by Kirk Hastings

#2: “THE GREEN HORNET”

There have, so far, been three live-action depictions on film of the famous radio character “The Green Hornet”, created in 1936 by George W. Trendle and Fran Striker (yes, the same men that created “The Lone Ranger”). The first two were black-and-white Universal movie serials: The Green Hornet (1940), starring Gordon Jones and Keye Luke, and The Green Hornet Strikes Again (1941), starring Warren Hull and Keye Luke.

The third live-action version is the one best remembered by most people: the color half-hour ABC-TV series from 1966-67, starring Van Williams and Bruce Lee.

Interestingly enough, a new big budget feature film featuring The Hornet is due out later this year (December 22, 2010), starring Seth Rogan and Jay Chou, and judging from advance photos released from the still in-progress film, they look exactly like clones of Van Williams and Bruce Lee. Even the Black Beauty looks the same as the TV version! (The original TV car was made from a customized 1966 Chrysler Crown Imperial; the movie car is reportedly made from the exact same car model.)

The Van Williams/Bruce Lee TV series only produced 26 episodes, and was not even on for a complete season (it premiered in September of 1966, but went off in July of 1967). Yet its influence and popularity has extended far beyond its original network run.

Even at the time the show was a fairly rare commodity for TV: a well-produced superhero series that was quite faithful to its original source material (the radio show), and featured fine actors and (for the most part) believable, realistic plots. An attempt by Executive Producer William Dozier was made to update the concept a bit, so that it wouldn’t seem completely out of place in the swinging sixties -- but otherwise the series kept pretty close to its famous 1930s inspiration.

The Hornet himself was played to perfection by handsome young actor Van Williams, whose claim to fame up to that point had been playing a young detective named Ken Madison in two (yes, two!) Warner Brothers series, Bourbon Street Beat (1959-60) and SurfSide 6 (1960-62). His two-fisted, no-nonsense interpretation of the Hornet character was right on target, and he made a very classy-looking hero in his green suit, tie, fedora and Chesterfield overcoat.

His sidekick Kato was played by newcomer Bruce Lee in his first major film role. Of course, practically everyone now knows Lee as the undisputed “King of Kung Fu”, from his popular chop-socky movies of the early 1970s (before his untimely death at 33, in 1973, from cerebral edema, brought on by a prescription pain killer).

The third star of The Green Hornet TV series was the gadget-equipped black limousine driven by the title character (christened the “Black Beauty” because in the original radio series it had been assembled in an old stable). The actual car, designed and built by custom car maker Dean Jeffries, is today considered part of a small group of “classic movie cars” that continues to capture the imagination of the public. The two main vehicles used in filming the TV series still exist—one is in the Peterson Automotive Museum in  Los Angeles; the other is in the possession of a private owner.

Many of the gadgets on the car actually worked. Included were front and rear rocket launchers, front and rear smoke guns, a rear oil gun, headlights that changed from regular lenses to green-tinted lenses, a flying deployable scanner device with a closed circuit TV monitor inside, a revolving license plate, a deployable broom in the rear to erase tire tracks, etc. Its interior included power windows, a column-mounted automatic transmission, electric door locks, a secret compartment to hide clothes and weapons, a telephone, a TV monitor, and a fold-out desktop.

The Hornet’s personal arsenal also included the Hornet Gun, which fired a green gas that could put people to sleep, and the ultrasonic Hornet Sting, which emitted a high-pitched sound that could knock down doors. Both props caused Williams problems on set. Williams wore a bottle-and-hose rig that ran up one sleeve to make the Hornet Gun work. “For some reason, the thing never did work right,” he once recalled. “They had a heck of a problem trying to show the gas coming out. They finally came up with a blowing powder. I had a bottle and it had a trigger. It had green face powder in a pocket and the gas blew across the top of it. If you didn’t hold it just right, it would whoom out like crazy and completely cover the guy.”

The Hornet Sting had its problems too. In early episodes of the series, Williams would squeeze a trigger on it, and the telescoping barrel was supposed to spring out to its full length. “It was a spring clip,” Williams once explained. “If it had too much power, the thing would just come apart, fly off and stick in a wall. Those finally broke to the point where I would either flick it out or pull it out.”

Why did the show go off the air after only one season? Surprisingly, ratings weren’t the reason; it consistently won its time period. But both Dozier and Williams felt the half-hour format didn’t allow enough time for character development, and they both wanted the show to go to an hour for the second season. Williams felt that they should explore the relationship between Reid and Kato more, and that Reid should have a love interest – probably his secretary, “Casey” Case (played by actress Wende Wagner). He also wanted the Hornet to be more of an international adventurer, fighting bigger criminal game than local hoods and mobsters, ala James Bond. But the network brass would not go along with these suggestions, and the show was cancelled.

Yet, to this day, the show’s loyal fans manage to keep its memory very much alive.

NEXT: John Wesley Shipp as “The Flash”!

February 2010

Presenting: A New Continuing Column! ...

THE GREAT TV HEROES

by Kirk Hastings

#1: “SUPERMAN”

The Adventures of Superman was produced from 1951 to 1957, and was the first filmed adventure series with special effects ever attempted for TV. The two major forces behind the series were a pair of very remarkable, creative men -- producer Robert Maxwell, and actor George Reeves. Maxwell had produced the Superman radio series in the 1940s. For the TV series he wanted something more adult and more dramatic than the recent Columbia movie serials with Kirk Alyn, and something more realistic than the previous cartoon or comic book renditions. He wanted an evening time slot for his series, and in order to achieve that he knew he must make his Superman appeal to adults, as well as to children.

The Superman that Robert Maxwell brought to television was tough, realistic, and totally committed to the all-out obliteration of crime, organized or otherwise. By the time he reached the screen there were no reminders whatsoever (except perhaps for his costume) that the character's roots lay in cartoons and comic magazines. Realized by classically-trained actor George Reeves, Maxwell’s flesh-and-blood Superman was a determined crime-buster who lived in the real world, got involved with real people, and fought real criminals. Some people complain that Reeves’s Superman bears little resemblance to the comic book character. But Maxwell knew the difference between the comic pages and film, and that characters and stories that might work well on the comic page simply wouldn't translate successfully to the more realistic medium of film. Maxwell knew the limits of what a 1950s adult TV audience would tolerate. So, realism and a heightened sense of drama permeated every aspect of his Superman.

Maxwell's unique concept of the character resembled a hard-boiled 1940s gangster movie more than a comic book superhero story. Many early episodes of the series were representative of the tough, realistic style that comprised Maxwell's vision: both "The Monkey Mystery" and "Double Trouble" featured Nazis left over from World War II as the heavies. "A Night of Terror" featured Frank Richards as a ruthless, squinty-eyed, scar-faced hoodlum right out of a 1930s film noir gangster film. "Mystery In Wax" resembles an old Universal horror movie, with its wax museum setting and the museum's insane proprietor (realized in spine-chilling fashion by actress Myra McKinney). "Crime Wave" is a non-stop collage of Superman flying, fighting, punching and strong-arming crooks in his attempt to aid the police in rounding up the ten most wanted crime bosses in Metropolis. And who can ever forget those marvelous brawls that took place practically every other episode, where Superman would forcefully fight off anywhere from 3 to 6 hoods at one time, littering the set with inert, unconscious bodies?

True to the original character as conceived by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, Maxwell's Superman was incredibly strong, but not unbelievably so. He could support a small, two-seater airplane on his back (as in the episode "The Mind Machine"), but he had to noticeably strain to do it. Such limitations in his powers served to make him more believable to adult viewers. And it created more drama as well. Maxwell's Superman had to work harder in order to achieve his purposes. But this just made us admire him all the more!

And Maxwell's TV dialogue fairly crackled. Can any viewer of the Superman movies imagine Christopher Reeve's Superman delivering a line like: "Tell me where they are or I'll break every bone in your body!"? (George Reeves did, in the TV episode "The Evil Three" -- and we believed he meant it!) Or can anyone picture Dean Cain (of Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman) delivering a response like: "I'm going to make you eat those words, doctor!" after being threatened by a law-breaking Nazi physician? (Again, Reeves did – convincingly -- in the episode "Double Trouble".) This guy was serious! He meant business. God help any evildoer that got on his hit list. But isn't that just the type of guy we'd all like to have around when we're in a jam?

Maxwell's "rugged" approach was also evident in the other characters in the series. His Lois Lane, as personified by Phyllis Coates, was tough, realistic and daring. She could give any hardened bruiser in the series as good as she got -- and often did.

Likewise, Maxwell/Reeves's Clark Kent is no timid soul – he’s cut from the same dynamic cloth as any of the other "crusading journalist" characters of the 1940s and 50s. Some critics charge that George Reeves's portrayal of Clark Kent is too close to his Superman; that there isn't enough contrast between the two. But after all, they are the same person! Would anyone in the real world be able to act like a completely different person for half the day and then be himself the rest of the time? That kind of Jekyll/Hyde behavior would get old awful fast. Both Maxwell and Reeves knew that their Clark Kent had to be as realistic as any of the other characters in the TV program, or he just wouldn't be accepted by the audience (especially adults) on a weekly basis.

Robert Maxwell and George Reeves studiously tried to avoid a "comic book" come to life. They wanted to create something that was completely different in tone and style to what had come before. They wanted to take a flat "cartoon" character that appealed mainly to children out of the realm of the two-dimensional comic book page and totally recreate him in three-dimensional flesh and blood -- and in the process subject him to the same laws of traditional drama and adult realism that any other filmed adventure character would be answerable to. And they succeeded. Yes, The Adventures of Superman operated on a ridiculously low budget, even for a 1950s TV series. But Robert Maxwell made the most out of every single penny he was allowed to spend, and it showed in the performances. "Our TV work looked alive!" veteran film director Tommy Carr (who worked on the series) once said. Phyllis Coates echoed his sentiment: "We brought life to the character. You have to agree with that."

Did Maxwell and Reeves come up with something truly compelling in their unique interpretation of the Superman character? The fact that The Adventures of Superman still has a large and very loyal fan following after more than 60 years should certainly answer that question!

NEXT: Van Williams as “The Green Hornet”!

January 2010