Wonder Woman's first broadcast appearance in live-action television was a movie made in 1974 for ABC. Written by John D. F. Black, the TV movie resembles the Wonder Woman of the "I Ching" period. Wonder Woman (Cathy Lee Crosby) did not wear the comic-book uniform, demonstrated no apparent super-human powers, had a "secret identity" of Diana Prince that was not all that secret, and she was also depicted as blonde (differing from the black hair established in the comic books).
The pilot aired originally on March 12, 1974.[4] and was repeated on August 21 of that year.[5] Ratings were described as "respectable but not exactly wondrous".[2] ABC did not pick up the pilot, although Crosby would later claim she was offered the series that was eventually given to Lynda Carter.[3] An ABC spokesperson would later acknowledge that the decision to update the character was a mistake.[2] However, DC Comics did make this version canonical in the limited run Infinite Crisis as Wonder Woman of Earth-462.
Warner Brothers released this pilot into syndication as a stand-alone 90-minute telefilm, where it played on independent TV stations throughout the 1970s and 1980s. On December 11, 2012, Warner Brothers made the Cathy Lee Crosby pilot available as a Video On Demand purchase through their online store.
Plot
This film follows Wonder Woman, assistant to government agent Steve Trevor (Kaz Garas), as she pursues a villain named Abner Smith (Ricardo Montalbán), who has stolen a set of code books containing classified information about U.S. government field agents. Along the way, she has to outwit Smith's chief assistants: the handsome yet dangerous George (Andrew Prine) and a rogue Amazon, Ahnjayla (Anitra Ford), whom Smith has taken on as a bodyguard; a brief duel between Wonder Woman and Ahnjayla is the film's only significant action sequence, which occurs during the final third of the story.[6]
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