Cool Videos: Suffering Sappho! Wonder Woman's original failed '60s pilot

Cool Videos: Suffering Sappho! Wonder Woman’s original failed ’60s pilot

June 1st 2017, 3:22pm

Last Updated on July 31, 2021

I can’t wait to see the new WONDER WOMAN film – especially after seeing it’s still resting at 92% on Rotten Tomatoes with almost 150 critics, as of this writing. And, seriously, both DC and female heroes in general need a win right now.

This is especially true of female heroes, since they have definitely had a rough go of it (the last big-budget female superhero film was probably Halle Berry‘s CATWOMAN, and even that’s a stretch). This extends to Wonder Woman herself, who despite having a relatively successful career in television thanks to the ’70s Lynda Carter series, has had more ups than downs. This includes a disastrous failed 1974 pilot where she was a secretary with no powers who spent half the runtime chasing a donkey; another failed pilot in 2011 from David E. Kelley, where Diana was a CEO at a company and had a “will-they-won’t-they” with Steve Trevor; and countless other film projects (including one from Joss Whedon, and another where Diana Prince dies at the beginning and the rest of the script followed Wonder Girl instead). So…ugh.

However, the worst offender might be this failed 1967 TV pilot (well, more of a short screen test) from the producers of the ’60s Adam West BATMAN series. As a purposely campy take, some of the jokes land (even if the gender politics are beyond dated), and actress Ellie Wood Walker is affable as the Amazon warrior. However, this leads to Diana preening in front a mirror for almost half the run time, and honestly everything in it – from the sets, to the costume, to the flying effects – just look cheap and half-assed. Even worse, if this had been picked up, this would’ve been the first live-action iteration of the character, potentially coloring the perception of her from the strong warrior Carter portrayed to…whatever this is.

Anyway, you can see it for yourself below: