IN CONSIDERING BOTH the length and tone of this (super) short film, one would certainly ask; why, just why would producer William Dozier bring us this? True, it was 1967 and what was arguably the most original, refreshing and invigorating series was his baby in the prior year.
YEAH SCHULTZ, YOU guessed it. The series of which we speak is, of course, BATMAN and it was by far the best and certainly most memorable of a group of series that were rushed up to the network by ABC In January of 1966. The thought was to shore up badly slumping ratings at the midpoint of the 1966-67 season. Although there may have been some mild successes in the other series, all failed to be on the schedule come September; all except for BATMAN.*
SO BECAUSE OF the so called "Camp Humor" approach to the comic book adaption had met with such a high degree of success, the natural inclination was to follow it up with even more of the same. So, Mr. Dozier's Greenway Productions shopped around and came up with some other pet projects**; with this WONDER WOMAN short being among them.
BUT, WHEREAS THE success on the BATMAN show was carefully crafted, understated and relied more on the exaggerated visual and written idioms of the Comics pages being translated to the medium, of film, it never really went out of its way to be totally farcical. This is particularly true of the first season's product. The same could not e said for this DIANA PRINCE WONDER WOMAN Promo (which is what is was).
IN THIS MINUS 5 minute production, it starts out with Diana Prince's being portrayed as a total klutz. (Or is it the feminine, "Klutzess?") It is painfully obvious just where this is going, right from the start. She is nagged by her mother, she can't hold the daily newspaper without its falling apart, she has natty looking hair and is completely indecisive about going out as WW. It was raining and storming, you see.
THE LOOK OF this 'production', such as it was, appears much more like an afternoon Soap than it does a filmed series. Adding to this obvious attempt to look obvious is the narration provided by Producer Dozier. He did the voice over narration on the BATMAN Series, but this time he went the extra mile in trying to amuse by being super corny and purposely overly dramatic.
BEYOND OUR COMPARISON to the look of a Soap Opera, there is one other analogy which we feel is proper and highly defend-able as am assertion. That would be that the whole thing has the subtlety and comedy level of a spoof that one would see on NBC's Saturday NIGHT LIVE. The length of this "skit's" duration, the rapid fire delivery of the dialog and the lampooning subject matter are all evidence in our favor.
THE ONLY THING lacking is some audience laughter; being technically augmented or not. That was another pitfall that Dozier and company had toyed with in bringing us BATMAN.
TO THIS WE can only say, "Thank you Mr. William Dozier!"***
NOTE: * Among the other components of "ABC's Second Season" were THE DOUBLE LIFE OF HENRY FIFE (spy spoof sitcom with Red Buttons), THE COUNT (????) and BLUE LIGHT (a World War II double agent drama with Robert Goulet).
NOTE: **Other series in consideration by ABC and Dozier/Greenway were a DICK TRACY live action half-hour (starring Dr. Martin), which did actually did achieve the stage of a Pilot; and THE GREEN HORNET Series (with Van Williams and Bruce Lee) which was on for the 1966-67 season.
NOTE:***The only other "film" that had any resemblance to this in either length or content was that insipid RIVERDALE: THE ARCHIE ANDREWS TRAILER(2011)monstrosity of several years ago.
