Last Saturday morning, while I was recovering from my surgery, I was parked in front of television seeing what modern entertainment had to offer. Disappointed with the current offering in cartoons and such, I drifted to TV Land and a rerun of the 2004 TV Land Awards. These are awards given out to entertainers of classic television shows, in the tradition of the award shows of yesterday, at a lovely dinner-theatre type setting with numerous categories such as “Nosiest Neighbor” and “Superist Superhero”.
The winner of the “Superise Superhero” was Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman, beating out Lou Ferrigno and Bill Bixby as the Incredible Hulk and Deidre Hall and Judy Strangis as ElectraWoman and DynaGirl.
Lynda was present at the awards ceremony and accepted the award with an unmatched amount of grace and dignity, much like they way she portrayed Wonder Woman back in the late 1970s. After her acceptance speech, an announcer boomed onto the set declaring that someone had illegally parked their invisible jet and it was to be towed.
On cue, Lynda dashed back stage and did her infamous twirl, complete with exploding ball of light and the proper musical cue, and there was Wonder Woman, played by someone else that looked a little bit like Shannen Doherty. (Lynda mentions on the latest DVD set that she has only taken her WW outfit out twice since the series ended, and both times were for ‘show and tell’ at school for her two kids.)
I was absolutely giddy, for several reasons. First of all, they used the correct music and effects for the transformation to Wonder Woman. That was way cool. But I also noticed that no one, and I mean NO ONE, can do the twirl like Lynda Carter does. I’ve seen Sarah Michelle Gellar do it on the MTV awards. I’ve seen Lynda’s stunt double do it on the WW TV series numerous times. I’ve seen my sister do it, I’ve seen drag queens do it and I’ve seen lots of gay men do it and none of them can twirl like Lynda does. I can’t even do the WW twirl right and believe me, I’ve tried to spin into Wonder Boy on several occasions throughout my life, the latest being my ‘Survivor 5’ audition tape.
I’ve always wanted to be a superhero, saving the world, making all wrongs right, in my satin tights no less. The closest I’ve come is that International Male workout outfit I bought back in 1990 that still haunts me in the basement to this day. Maybe if I added the exploding ball of light and the sound effects and then twirled really hard, it would finally happen.
Now to come up with a groovy theme song.
