 This is the SF Productions podcast network and so did 24 hours The 60s in the 70s dwelling place of the lost generation We who grew up in this era had no real heroes Our role models came from the imaginations of others our meager lives were formed by and revolved around Weekly installments of our favorite TV programs Welcome to a place that your parents didn't understand A place that exists somewhere between the forefront of Recollectible memory and the edge of everyday thought Welcome to the vast wasteland Welcome home. Welcome to another exciting episode of vast wasteland. I'm your host Mark Schminbauer along with Wilbert Neal and Marty Wiley Here to talk about 60s and 70s television and today It's so close. That's right. It's a live-action super heroes we've seen throughout the 60s and 70s and We're including stuff like the old adventures of Superman series, which really didn't get to its height of syndication until the 60s and We're by the way We're excluding the Batman series because we did a special episode just about them We may mention them in turn, but we're not really gonna spend any time on them We're spending time on everybody else and let's go right out to Wilbert or this this guy over here Decado with our Kato Hornet Kato Hornet with our First point of the evening Anyway faster than a speeding bullet more powerful than a locomotive able to lead tall Billings Basically Our first that we would have come in contact with was Superman. Yeah, yeah That would have been our first show our first big one adventures Superman I've even got a better. Let's see. Well, what do you got? Oh, you got a good picture, but I Oh, yeah, oh, it's his name George Reeves. Yeah, this is George Reeves. Anybody besides me ever noticed that his glasses never had any glass We got we got stills aplenty here, so anyways Yeah, the the Superman series George Reeves, of course man who unfortunately committed suicide at the least The the legend all the reports. Yeah, the legend says that he killed himself thinking he was Superman He jumped out a window or something. No, he was actually shot It was that's now it's come through that he was shot and they're thinking that it was he was actually shot by somebody else because the Angle of the trajectory of the bullet the way it entered Whatever it looked like he would have had to have been standing upside down Yeah, and he would have had to have held the gun out there, which would have been impossible by the way because there's a big That's the big second thing. You know, you know, there's no Courage there were no burns on his hand, you know He would have been our first superhero on TV for people of our age. That's right Let me say the Superman show was produced from July of 1951 to November of 1957 That's a hundred and four big episodes boys and girls, but it wasn't shown till like two years after it They started tight taping them unless I'm a sailor filming them. That's I'm a second. That's that's quite possible. Yeah, that's so so they basically the people who were producing the show decided that it was They looked ahead some something almost nobody else was doing this it eventually we're gonna have color and So they went ahead and taped all the episodes in color, right? Or just part of them quite a few of them We're in black-and-white long before anyone even had color to show they started filming in color because it didn't cost them all that much more and And they figured it would make a more money in the long run which it did of course in the old In the old black-and-white episodes a Couple things people don't a lot of people don't know is the fact that Superman's costume in the in the black-and-white episodes was like brown and gray Yeah, because red and blue the real actual red and blue Costume didn't look right in black-and-white films, so they didn't use it They found the closest thing that looked like red and blue was brown and gray And we're like a leather or something wool. It was wool with leather accrutiments That that would have to be fun to spend a day every day Okay, well, let's see it says now here though the first batch of 26 Superman films were made in 51 series did not reach local stations until late 52 and then from 53 to 57 additional groups of films were made Syndicated right? Yeah, it was never sent to the network. It was not on a network syndicated and Network daytime, but Well, of course I wasn't around so I don't Yeah, everything was soaps in my memories you turned on the TV and it was the soap opera every afternoon And then probably next came along Well, it seemed like there was one year 65 or 66 where Captain nice and There you go, but they did not actually come out until after Batman did really yeah Oh, yeah, so was because it that was their big theory It was like they they saw the they saw kind of like the get smart satire type thing And they saw the Batman campy hero type thing. They said well to like based on people One of them was was one almost written by Buck Henry, right? I'm captain nice captain nice nice. Yeah, my buck Henry So they said well, it's kind of going to that thing and both of them flopped miserably and Let's see here, let me let me run down some things here I'm captain nice and from January 9 1967 to April 28th of 67 So that's basically a whole season. Oh half of a season. Yep, right and hey captain nice was played by William Daniels Who later went on to be the voice of Elsewhere That's fun, and then a mr. Terrific ran from oh my golly January 9 1967 1967 what a coincidence One was on together. Well captain mr. Mr. Terrific was on CBS. Yeah, nice was on NBC We're they all the same night or something. They were both on the same night. They're both on Monday Mr. Terrific was on from 8 to 8 30 captain nice was on from 8 39 o'clock That's how I got to watch both I don't even recognize any names here except for Well dick Godier and Paul Smith if it's the same Paul Smith that I'm thinking about Paul Smith who later went on to become Pluto and This is the I would I would bet I think that's the same possum and big dope dick Godier Of course, we know dick Godier. Hi me Ronald McDonald Yes, he was Things around but he was one of the first well he won the first Ronald McDonald on the commercials But he was a Ronald McDonald Okay, and then um well by golly we've got from the the great Success of sue of Batman also there was the green hornet It's on channel 8 channel 8 is I guess for those of you Unfortunately, if you have a CTV you have cable and hence you can't get well rarely can get I have discovered yeah to get channel 8 you have to have a Like a white television with about a what's a tiny screen about 12 inch screen? Yeah, and It has to be at least 10 years old you have to set it in your kitchen on your stove You'll get channel 8. I think it only come in the kitchen because um we have a well I haven't able to get it up in my bedroom We have a small color TV in the kitchen and it can pick up channel 8 also picks it up well, too Yeah, but you cannot you cannot get channel 8 if you've got cable. Yeah, you got cable on the same TV It's a low power station, and it's not supposed and cable stations aren't supposed to pick it up Yeah, but that's where you can watch Importantly they show quite a few great shows Showed up on Batman one time well. He showed up in the episode where they were up against Colonel gum Yeah, that was this time recently on the on family channel, and then they were on another episode too Where they just pop through the window one time, and yeah, what are you doing here? Oh, what are you doing here? You know that's one of those but then it was a few episodes later that of course green hornet was different from a lot of them where in in that He the public considered him a bad guy well He presented himself as a an underworld figure He was actually a hero right but he presented himself as an underworld figure to get in with the bad guys to find out their Operations and bust them up from the inside right and then leave before anybody before the police showed up or anybody? Basically because the police were always on on the look out for no one ever figured out who it was because I But but he was always Kate. I mean he didn't need it and get to be like, you know He didn't have it No, whatever car you thought someone with car and and all these guys he sent to jail You would have thought they would have said something Well, there's some interesting things about the green hornet that like people don't well There's there's the fact that if you go all the way back to the radio show of green hornet That they made a big they made a big thing in fact the Kato was Japanese until The time of World War two and then all of a sudden Kato was like from the Philippines. Yeah, like think oh, he's not Japanese No, he's not a bad guy. He's Filipino. He's from the Philippines So but they um in the brief they've done of they are doing a green hornet comic book now They started at late last year and they go through and they actually retrace everything and bring it all up to date And so now there's like in the comic book. There's a new green hornet now, which is like the grandson No, it's like a grand-nephew The original one from the from the radio show right because they go through and they actually did they look at the TV one in there, too And then um, yes, they Related to the load rage. Yes, it is related to the long range read was was is the great great grandson or something like that John Reed the lone ranger. He's the lone ranger's nephew They were both actually created by the same guy George Trindle created the great And he couldn't think of any other names in the range you also so he wanted he didn't family intentional Okay Another name other than read. I'll just use it again. He did he was intentionally done Okay, so in the radio show like Brett Reed worked for the Daily Sentinel newspaper in the TV show He worked not only he did not only have the newspaper, but he had a TV station as well Well, no, I can figure out who Bruce Wayne was it was the same thing You never seem to see them together Glasses In that one episode the Colonel gum Batman episode where they Live the Colonel gum said there said well, wait a minute now He's here and these here so that means that the Green Hornet must be Bruce Wayne Brett Reed, yeah, they were convinced that was the case and then they showed up and No After the Green Hornet Batman and everything faded it was sort of a dry spell for a few years Well, because it died so quickly that everyone was afraid of it, but they didn't actually die They went to cartoons and yeah, right, so but we're not going to talk about that now So what's going on next about well, that's kind of we got into the who was first Um, let's see actually well, I technically would be Wonder Woman because because you got to go back to the first to the first pilot of Production company you have to count it Kathy Lee Crosby is Wonder Woman. We can deny it's existed. Well, it exists unfortunately Horrible thing was the Kathy Lee Crosby completely blew off most of the of the the whole war and the whole All the details and basically said oh, she's just Really strong gal, you know, and that was about it And they didn't get to see the invisible plane But they mentioned it and he didn't get really get to see them the right costume and the golden rope until later She pulled it out of her. Yeah, it's like yeah Batman. We'll pull the rope out of her And I just basically didn't work and they and so they said oh, this isn't working that was like 74 Probably it's not in here. Must I think this book would probably Okay, sadly that pops up on TV once in a while. Yeah, I'm sorry guys. We can't watch that. That's all bad guys Yeah, don't bad guys on the floor. Let me see where we're looking they come along and find Linda Carter who well Let's see the Wonder Woman's first telecast was in December of 76 and the last one was in September of 79 in that though. She went through several different incarnations, right? because they started off in the 40s or so Yeah, where she was during it was during World War 2 World War 2 thing and she worked for major Steve Trevor and all and And then by golly she pops up again thing and it's the 70s And it's like Steve Trevor son Because the the the thing they said was well Wonder Woman's like practically immortal So so like she hardly ever changed and and she went back We assumed a paradise island for like 30 years and came back and it's Steve Trevor son and She works for that Quasi CIA type organization. I a DC. There you go the inter-agency defense command What? No, I found the probably work better than a real thing. I found the thing here at the Catholic Crosby thing and it's Basically hardly anybody is it and it was 1974 March 12th, 1974. We could like mark it out Nope never with special guests, but but special guest villain Ricardo model by yes It's post-con pre-con. Yeah Pretty much this cons the all-american way anyway Yeah, the so the whole Wonder Woman thing changed because well what happened was it was on ABC and they and It went for a while and then ABC said well We like the show, but we don't want to show it right now We want to wait like a year or two or ten or so and then we'll show it again And the production company said well you guys obviously don't really want to show Because they went to CBS and but CBS said well We like the show, but we don't think it should be in 1940s because that's costing us too much money to be in period So we could make it a lot cheaper of its current time And so they just just change the series and all of a sudden it's current time, but uh, what? Well, I'm just saying because it was just moved to the current time. Hey, I can't find spider-man in here It must be in here somewhere. We know it's in here So so you had so you had the Wonder Woman series and about the same time the Hulk developed, didn't it? I think so well the whole Yeah, he was and then spider-man came out after that they tried spider-man after the hook was already successful the hook dr. David Banner Nuclear scientist wants to try something different. He wants to try to accelerate What was he actually trying to do Answer some sort of deal, but he hooked himself up into this big chair and it kind of just messed all up Well, it doesn't really say what he was trying to do but by going well he was playing with stuff He shouldn't have gotten into he was working there with nuclear stuff and he turned into a big green guy Great big ol green guy Oh, I'm gonna get a good picture of that interesting enough has kept coming back every once in a while Well after the series went off. Yeah here just lately they He's had a couple specials They did do a few incursions where they the big difference was I mean a lot of the other shows were pretty campy and And the new the new movies of the Incredible Hulk are pretty campy They had some at the time it they were really trying to do this very you know, it's like This is dramatic for dr. Banner. This is dramatic. You know, we're doing something completely here. We go. Here's a nice Oh, hey, there's a picture of Lou Frigno and I don't know if we can zoom in on this or not, but This is Lou Frigno Bill's got the white contacts in yeah, I don't know if we can zoom in on that or not There we go. Oh there it is and there's a Say right there. Yes, sir is it black and white? And that's of course Vixby's got the the weirdo contacts in that old There was the last step before he becomes where he goes green Okay, it says let's say David Banner was a research scientist who had been experimenting with various means of determining the effects of Stress on physical strength in a freak accident in his laboratory David was exposed to a massive dosage of radiation that had a dramatic effect on his physiology Normally a quiet peaceful man. David now found that every time he became angered He turned into the incredible Hulk a huge greenish man like monster with a minstrip and primitive passions Not that they got into those really right basically He just became a big green guy Okay, so From there by golly there. Well, you had amazing spider-man which I found the reference to My favorite thing was climbing up the wall. There's spider-man That's a spider-man Nicholas Hammond and there's there's a name. We haven't heard since the series pretty much or they Just basically never never really kept caught on they tried it way They tried it over and over yeah, CBS was just convinced so And they they they tried a lot of stuff and it just never seemed to catch on for some reason And they let me see they didn't they he was Still Peter Parker, but they had him in college and that kind of that was kind of a little different and Jay Jonah Jansen wasn't as mean in the series as he was in the comic book. So They just basically didn't work There was no Mary Jane either. I don't think they had a Mary Jane Parker in this Nope There was Julie Masters a rival freelance photographer. Yeah I always thought the guy that played spider-man seemed kind of tall to be playing. I Don't know. I mean I thought spider-man will be more of a compact kind of guy to be going up the walls and stuff And this guy was seemed so tall and long-legged like like a grass He just really didn't fit. Yeah, he just didn't fit the idea By golly, that's that's um, okay So that's a well basically the the comic book heroes as far as comic book heroes go, but then there were some others I mean, they're still um Well, the man from Atlantis. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, let's let's not forget the man That's a fun guy. That was a wonderful show it inspired us all to go out to the pool and try to swim like that Yeah, you find it really just didn't just plain didn't work Well by golly, you know the man from Atlantis Look it. Oh, hey, there's a nice picture of Wonder Woman. Oh Lifting the car up. No She's living up the back of a tarino it could have been start seeing But you're looking at the man from Atlantis here He's um, just he just one day popped up here on the shore Mark Harris He walked up after a storm and he was found by his doctor the pre Dallas days. Yep. Yeah, we got this great show for you Pat we You got to wear this web stuff and And you're in the water most of the time Learn how to swim Doesn't surprise me. They had to go out like real swimming teacher for him Did you know like contacts or something because they had weird eyes? Well, I think you're more like contacts. They possibly did because he did have his eyes open a lot under water Mm-hmm, but maybe it's just all that Actually kind of relates back to an Irwin Allen show city beneath the sea where they had this one character that was down there Played by bird a bedding His name was a gila a gila swam like that and then these years later They got the man from Atlantis So I'm just wondering if there isn't some connection in there We don't know and then even bird a bedding made an appearance on the man from Atlantis one time They were like two other they were basically were aliens. Oh, okay. They were from well aliens from another planet. Hey, that's Not an idea. Anyway, I'm aliens from down the street. We've got them and then um, should we look at the Bionic man and well, really that was pretty comic book Steve Austin and Summers and let's not forget The bionic dog there Well that was later well true, but he didn't make an appearance in the series. He wasn't actually in the series Yeah, okay somewhere in there. Okay. They had them both Steve was an astronaut and he's going up. He's testing this new I think it was a space shuttle on it Yeah, something like that some kind of a sit one man space shuttle and it goes up and it blows up it goes up It blows up He can't hold it. It's breaking up. It's breaking up and it blows up and then we see all these weirdo diagram He's bringing back in Oscar goldman. He's in there. He's well. We got so much. We've got so much money invested in this guy We're working on these bionic parts. We don't have anybody to put them on Yeah, let's put them on him. Yeah Yeah, and so that's it's like a Nuclear technology to go into these bionics and they make him run faster jump higher and see better. Yeah Red ball jets on you know faster and jump higher. Yeah, that's true a thing for our vision And he he could break things open with one arm at least I always got the feeling wasn't he like Unbalanced, you know, it's like I've got this biotic leg and I've got a regular leg. Yeah Both legs were by but but his arm. Yeah, it's like what no she had the ear didn't yeah Yeah, she had an ear. I mean I'd be going constantly You think like you know you get up in the morning and he'd stretch like Like what if you're gonna do one arm just take the other arm off and make them We need to test both arms that would be so That's such a mess. Yeah, that's wonderful such other wonderful characters in there like bigfoot bigfoot who was played once by Ted Cassidy and the Andre the giant also. Yeah, Andre the giant. That was that whole alien technology People show up and it turns out old Sasquatch is yet another bionic Being and it's like an alien bionic being and all this It was like a there's another storyline that is like the day the earth stood still kind of thing a Clat who tied a character who comes back and comes earth and tries to get people to get rid of their weapons And he's got this amazing sonic whistle that he does. It was funny lots of great stuff on these on these Bionic people shows Bionic things enough. Oh, they were just wonderful see them running around in circles Actually, and the greatest thing about them was when they brought we're running fast That we have to slow it down In the pilot movie and let's see the the whole series was based on I cyborg Martin Caden. Yes, okay in the in the original pilot. He did run fast. He was he was moving across that desert. Yeah Then they put him in the cryo sleep at the end of it and said we'll just thought about when we need it We'll wake him up as needed. Yeah, and then there was another one that had a John Saxon Who's another great one from we and in series that don't last at all. He played a he played a He played a bionic guy. He was totally bionic, too Yeah, so he wasn't bionic. He's just playing robot. Yeah That's right. Well, well bionic guys are cyborgs. Right. This guy was a total total cyborg Or human and of course, there's there's something they've they've tried to resuscitate the whole bionic thing last couple years with the the bionic gal and the bionic son and the Just what the heck they tried to bring back Rudy walls was just like oh what the heck we got some money. Let's spend it They just wanted a whole team of bionic people that do undercover stuff like the impossible people But it just they haven't done any further with that. So hey stay tuned. They might right. Oh, I'm sure there'll be some more bionic movies There's no question. Let's oh, yeah, this is a fall guy reunion or something coming Oh Well, okay, looks like we've we've run into yet another end of an episode hard to believe and by God We didn't even get to touch on Shazam or Shazam. Oh, oh my God In the life, but I wonder girl whatever we're we're gonna be we're gonna be off for a little while We're applying for series status and hopefully you'll be seeing us in July at a regular time So you won't have to look all over the place for us. So for all of us here at Vaz wasteland. We'll see you. Hopefully in July Goodbye everybody. Good night