Designer Double-Dip: "Wonder"-ful Recycling

As you may be aware, we try to cover a wide berth of topics here in The Underworld. Sometimes we stumble on a costume conundrum (as we did here) and share it with readers who find such things fascinating. Thus, today we're taking a look at another instance in the double-dipping of duds. In 1974, the world was treated to a TV-movie called Wonder Woman. Former tennis pro Cathy Lee Crosby was cast as the famed super-heroine, who first made her debut in a 1942 issue of Sensation Comics.

The character (who everyone is aware of unless he or she has been under a rock for seventy years) had undergone a trans- formation in the comics in 1968, temporarily losing her powers and giving up her trademark costume. Instead, she wore a succession of mod outfits (later all-white) and utilized martial arts (with a mentor called I-Ching) in order to beat the bad guys.

Even though the character's powers and costume were restored by 1973, the television pilot Wonder Woman stayed rather grounded in the previous realm, its only concession being that the character's clothing featured red, white & blue (and gold) instead of all-white. More jarring than anything, however, was that Crosby was blonde and nothing, via dye or a wig, was done to alter that! The broadcast brought in mediocre ratings.

I can recall rejecting this outright at the time as I was only familiar with the traditional Wonder Woman and, as a matter of fact, was enamored of, if not obsessed with, the rendition that came soon after in 1975 called The New Original Wonder Woman (new and original at once??) and starring Lynda Carter. THIS was a far more authentic presentation and was an instant hit, resulting in a series that ran for three seasons. To this day I have trouble accepting anyone other than Carter as the character.

But I digress. The Crosby version of the super-heroine did include several aspects that were traditional including being depicted in Amazon-wear on Paradise Island as well as in contemporary garb for her secret identity disguise of Diana Prince. Her crime-fighting gear, however, consisted primarily of a belted, zip-up jacket (almost like a skirted tracksuit top) paired with navy blue tights and dark boots. It wasn't a particularly becoming ensemble.

In 1980, a serio-comic TV show aired, hoping to claim some of the success of M*A*S*H. It concerned a news broadcast presented by the Armed Forces Vietnam Network (AFVN.) While audiences were ready to laugh (and occasionally cry) at the Korean War setting of M*A*S*H, they were far less eager to do so with the Vietnam War locale of Six O' Clock Follies! The highly-polarizing war had only been brought to a devastatingly late-in-coming conclusion only five years before. The series was cancelled within six episodes and has scarcely been seen again.

Starring in the show were A.C. Weary, a bit part actor suddenly elevated to lead, and Larry Fishburne, a daytime soap actor who would later make a mark in movies as Laurence Fishburne! Weary proceeded to work on the 1982 series Q.E.D. (an Edwardian detective show that was also cancelled after six episodes) and is also known as the wife of Guiding Light actress Kim Zimmer. Fishburne, of course, went on to great success in What's Love Got to Do With It (1993), The Matrix (1999), Mystic River (2003) and many other movies. (For What's Love, he even landed an Oscar nomination, but it went to Tom Hanks for Philadelphia.)

Also co-starring in Six O' Clock Follies as the weather girl was Aarika Wells. It ought to be readily apparent why I am pointing her out! The costumer for this sitcom grabbed the All-American jacket used by Ms. Crosby in Wonder Woman, slapped a U.S. flag across the front in order to cover the gold eagle, and - Presto! - the armed forces weather girl now has a sexy get-up!

In this (I'm sorry, blurry) shot, you can see that Wells opted out of wearing tights, dark boots, the belt and the golden wristbands that marked the outfit when Crosby sported it and now chooses only some white boots and little else to round out the look.

Wells even strikes a Wonder Womanly pose here. If you aren't familiar with her, she was a sort of series "bad luck charm" in the late-'70s. First came the expensive, disastrous failure Supertrain in 1979, which featured her as a aerobics instructor for the first five (of only nine) episodes, then this. She proceeded to play a variety of bimbos and hookers until landing the role of a judge (!) on a few eps of Knots Landing before drifting away around 1990.

We "wonder" if this was the last appearance that this distinctive jacket-dress ever made on TV. If you ever see it again, you'll have to alert me! Till next time, Poseidon.