Failed Wonder Woman TV Show Pilots

by Billy Ingram

  The hottest TV show in the nation in 1966 was Batman. Taken completely by surprise (it was so way-out everyone thought it would tank) the networks scrambled to find another established comic book character to capitalize on the craze.

 In 1967, Batman's producer William Dozier put writer Stanley Ralph Ross on the spec pilot - it was his job to come up with a format to bring Wonder Woman to the home screen. A brilliant and prolific TV writer/producer/actor, Dozier also served as Batman's narrator who intoned, "Same Bat-time... same Bat-channel" at the end of each episode.

Stanley Ralph Ross was quoted as saying, "Professionally what happened was that, after writing for Batman, I became more or less known as a person who knew how to write adaptation of comic books for television."

This resulted in a dreadful five-minute film for Warner Bros., a domestic sitcom entitled Wonder Woman: Who's Afraid of Diana Prince? It was the story of a typical American super-powered housewife. Think Bewitched with a tiara. Wonder Woman was played by two different people - a homely gal in the role of Diana Prince (Ellie Wood Walker of The New Interns) and a beautiful woman (Linda Harrison) after she morphed into Wonder Woman.



Read more about WONDER WOMAN ON TV at TVparty! 
and watch scenes from  the 2011 Wonder Woman pilot!

The Latin Casino Nightclub in Cherry Hill, NJ

THE LATIN CASINO

I spoke in 2011 with guitarist Chuck Anderson who's had a remarkable career playing for some of the biggest names in show business. He got his big break as the house guitarist at The Latin Casino in Cherry Hill New Jersey; I've been fascinated by this legendary Dinner Theater lately. A 3,000 seater, people dressed to the nines and came from all over the Tri-State area to see the finest entertainment outside of New York City. Frank, Dean, Hope, Rickles, all the greatest Vegas performers would do a week or two a year at the Latin which opened in 1960 after moving from Philadelphia.

It was only when Atlantic City legalized gambling and opened huge showrooms with non-compete clauses that led to the club's reinvention as a discotheque in 1978. The place suffered a serious fire in the mid-1980s and never re-opened. People who lived in Philly and Cherry Hill at the time will always remember The Latin Casino, a place, ironically, where you could not gamble.

Here Chuck Anderson talks about the club and shares behind the scenes stories about some of the biggies that played the Latin like Anthony Newley, Wayne Newton, Perry Como, and Peggy Lee who employed a one-armed drummer. Chuck Anderson has a blog here that you should check out, especially if you're a jazz lover. If you have memories of The Latin Casino I'd love to hear them!

David Cassidy's Schlong, Joan Collins Threatened Lawsuit

In the new Shirley Jones memoir she describes David Cassidy's private parts. I haven't read the book so I don't know exactly what she said but I do have some insight into that.

I dated a guy who told me, and I believed him, that he had been with both David and Shaun Cassidy (for pay). He described them as being very generously endowed, the guy I was with was freakishly big which is why I believed him. A careful reading of David Cassidy's auto-bio it's pretty clear he was bisexual.

(I also used to see Danny Bonaduce selling pot in the parking lot of The Country Club, a rock venue in Reseda in 1980.)

Just read where Joan Collins threatened to sue Shirley Jones so they took her story out of the memoir - which is weird because a celebrity can't sue for defamation unless it's a completely outrageous story, and even then... don't see how that story defames HER! (Shirley claimed Collin's husband Anthony Newley back in the late-1960s was proposing an orgy between Newley & Collins and Shirley and her husband Jack Cassidy.)

Joan Collins made a career out of being a slut - matter of fact for about 2 years after I got to LA in 1979 there was a billboard on Sunset Blvd. that had her in a bondage outfit and big letters that read 'Joan Collins is The Bitch.'

If Minimum Wage Kept Up With Inflation What Would A Big Mac Cost Today?

In 1980 the minimum wage was $3.35. A Big Mac cost $1.59. 

If wages kept up with inflation that Big Mac would cost around $7.00 today - but with a minimum wage of $17.00 (what 1980's MW would be in today's dollars) it would be much less of a bite out of a MW earner's hourly pay than it is today.