Aug 06, 2004  |  By: MATTHEW FORKE  | COMMENTS     

Clad in her satin tights and red high-heel boots, Wonder Woman leapt from the pages of DC Comics to join “Police Woman” and “Charlie’s Angels” in the elite sorority of TV crime-fighting babes with brawn when her sublimely campy ABC series debuted in 1976. Evildoers beware!

Faithful to its comic book roots, “Wonder Woman: The Complete First Season” — now available on DVD — begins on the all-female Paradise Island where its inhabitants dress in frilly, flowing nightgowns and enjoy a life “free of men and their barbaric masculine behavior.”

That is, until a hunky WWII pilot (Lyle Waggoner as Major Steve Trevor) washes ashore following an unexpected crash-landing. Shortly thereafter, the island’s Princess Diana, a.k.a. Wonder Woman (former Miss USA Lynda Carter), discovers the injured officer and vows to protect this vulnerable, yet strangely alluring creature.

Defying her mother (the humorously regal Cloris Leachman as Queen Hippolyta), Wonder Woman spins into her famous American Flag costume and returns Major Trevor to his home in Washington, D.C., accompanied by fruity tropical music piping through her Invisible Jet.

Upon her arrival, though, Wonder Woman realizes that blending into 1940s America isn’t as easy as an Amazon Princess might think. Disguised as Yeoman Diana Prince, she accepts a position as Major Trevor’s prim secretary at the U.S. War Department, telling her ice cream slurping kid sister Drusilla (Debra Winger as Wonder Girl) the job “allows me to know immediately where I’m most needed.”

Which, obviously, is anywhere near the incompetent Major Trevor as she repeatedly rescues him from Nazi spies, saboteurs and generally reprehensible guest stars intent on “keeling Vunder Vooman” and “ruling zee Vorld!”

And furthering the audience’s amazement of his survival up to this point, Major Trevor offers Wonder Woman gracious platitudes such as, “If they gave merit badges for being terrific, you’d be an Eagle Scout after that!” Wonder Woman, you’re a wonder indeed.

Warner Home Video’s three-disc collector’s set includes all 13 first season episodes along with the original 90-minute pilot “The New Original Wonder Woman” — effectively voiding out the less-successful Cathy Lee Crosby version two years prior and an unaired pilot for a Wonder Woman show made in the ’60s, I suppose.

Also, this shouldn’t be confused with the CBS version of the two-season show that aired from 1978-79, still with Carter and Waggoner. Wonder Woman became a sexy, modern secret agent, the Nazis and period costumes apparently done in decades ago.

Viewers may recognize a small army of familiar faces, and among them are Red Buttons, Fannie Flagg, Dick Van Patten, John Saxon, Carolyn Jones (Cloris Leachman’s replacement as Queen Hippolyta) Robert Reed, Robert Hays and Henry Gibson. Gay actor Robert Reed, who played Mike Brady on “The Brady Bunch and died in 1992, plays a Nazi spy.

Best of all, though, is watching Wonder Woman beat the daylights out of Nazi spy Stella Stevens in the original pilot episode.

Which brings us to Carter, the D.C. area resident and longtime face of Maybelline cosmetics. Is there anyone else so closely identified with the role of Wonder Woman?

Perfectly embodying the strong, statuesque and scorchingly beautiful comic book legend, Carter effortlessly projects goodness and warmth, yet without any overt sexuality that could deem the show inappropriate for young children. She proved to be as dead-on casting as Christopher Reeve in “Superman: The Movie,” and that’s no small feat.

Special features include a new 20-minute documentary titled “Beauty, Brawn and Bulletproof Bracelets: A Wonder Woman Retrospective” featuring Carter and Executive Producer Douglas Cramer (of the “Batman” television series), along with an optional pilot episode commentary track.

But for me, though, simply getting beyond Charles Fox’s catchy opening-credits theme song was near impossible. Never taking itself too seriously, “Wonder Woman” is a heroic and colorful highlight of late-’70s television.