One change which was later to become synonymous with the show was the twirling transformation which dissolved Diana Prince into Wonder Woman.

And, on a minor note, Steve Trevor was no longer blonde, but dark haired. The ancient myths and legends which informed many of the early Wonder Woman comic book stories were lost too, in favour of more conventional stories involving Nazis. The character of Etta Candy was no longer an obese member of Holliday College (the Holliday Girls never featured in the show), but a mature work colleague of Diana Prince.

He had also been one of the leading candidates to play Batman a decade earlier.Īlthough the pilot followed the original comic book closely, in particular the aspect of Wonder Woman joining the military under the assumed name, Diana Prince, a number of elements were dropped, presumably for practical reasons.

For the key role of Steve Trevor, the producers chose Lyle Waggoner, who at the time was better known as a comedic actor after several years co-starring in The Carol Burnett Show. Some of these effects, such as the expensive full sized invisible plane prop and the stunt bracelets were then able to be carried forward into the series proper.Īfter an intensive talent search, former beauty pageant winner from Arizona Lynda Carter was chosen to play the lead role. Thanks to a generous budget and more relaxed shooting schedule, the feature length pilot was able to attain a level of polish and special effects beyond that of regular episodic television at the time. On the DVD version, however, the 1975 pilot movie title is changed to simply 'Wonder Woman,' and the bullet-deflecting animated sequence is replaced by the lasso toss in the animated introduction and the rest of the television series.Ĭramer and Baumes gave scripting duties to Stanley Ralph Ross, who had worked on Greenway-Greenlawn Productions's unbroadcast Wonder Woman pilot reel, but this time, he was instructed to be more faithful to the comic book and to create a subtle 'high comedy.' Ross set the pilot in World War II, the era in which the original comic book began. This version is also the one shown on reruns. This pilot is available in its original length on the first season DVD, instead of the re-edited version of it which runs 60 mins and was featured as the pilot when the series debuted a year later. Keen to distinguish their work from Black's pilot, Cramer and Baumes gave their pilot the rather paradoxical title 'The New Original Wonder Woman'. Cramer and Wilford Lloyd Baumes were given the assignment to produce it. Though not successful at the first attempt, ABC still felt a Wonder Woman series had potential, and within a year another pilot was in production. In 1974, John Black had written and produced a TV movie starring Cathy Lee Crosby, which described the character as essentially a contemporary version of the female spy Modesty Blaise.

Wonder woman season 1 steve trevor