During the Golden Age of comic books, Superman's greatest adversary
wasn't Lex Luthor or any of his other colorful rogues gallery, but
competing caped crimefighter Captain Marvel, whose four-color mags
frequently outsold those of the Man of Steel. By 1974, though, both
heroes were owned by DC Comics, and while Superman was on track for
silver screen glory a few years later, the World's Mightiest Mortal
became a Saturday morning TV star with Filmation's live-action
Shazam!, which aired every weekend on CBS.
The opening narration explained the premise:
"Chosen
from among all others by the immortal elders - Solomon, Hercules,
Atlas, Zeus, Achilles, Mercury - Billy Batson and his mentor travel the
highways and byways of the land on a never ending mission: to right
wrongs, to develop understanding, and to seek justice for all! In time
of dire need, young Billy has been granted the power by the immortals to
summon awesome forces at the utterance of a single word! SHAZAM!"
The
series ran for three seasons - a significant run for 70s Saturday
morning kidvid - accumulating a total of 28 half-hour episodes. Teenage
Billy Batson was portrayed by the shaggy-haired
Michael Gray, while
veteran Hollywood character actor, radio star and cartoon voice artist
Les Tremayne was his elderly
traveling companion, Mentor. For the first 17 episodes, Billy's
super-powered alter ego Captain Marvel was portrayed by the athletic and
earnest
Jackson Bostwick. Unfortunately (reportedly
due to a misunderstanding), he was fired a few episodes into the second
season and replaced by stocky
John Davey. Both men did creditable work
as the soft-spoken superhuman, but as a kid watching the show, I never
quite accepted Davey in the role. Bostwick was the "real" Captain Marvel
for this 10 year-old.
Most stories started with Billy
& Mentor having a picnic on the beach or driving down some Southern
California back road when the Elders would telepathically contact Billy
and give him some cryptic advice. Fortunately, that advice would begin
to make sense once Billy & Mentor encountered the troubled teen of
the week. After putting said kid back on the righteous path - which
usually involved a last minute super-heroic feat by the good Captain -
Billy & Mentor would hit the road again in their custom RV... until
the following week.
The show was simplistic, non-violent, moralistic and
cheap-looking, with special
effects hardly more advanced than those used on the 1950's
The Adventures Of Superman television series, but the writing was often pretty serious,
and surprisingly, not sugar-coated. In a few episodes, Captain Marvel
even battled real criminals like drug dealers, who were exploiting kids
for their own purposes.
Production values were pretty
minimal. Shot as cheaply as possible on 16mm film and almost entirely
outdoors in natural light, the show certainly doesn't
look very
impressive. But the acting was solid, with the weekly casts filled out
by lots of familiar TV actors of the era. Notable guest stars include
Danny Bonaduce,
Space Academy's
Pamelyn Ferdin &
Ty Henderson,
Lance Kerwin,
Butch Patrick, and
Jackie Earle Haley. TV's Batman,
Adam West, provided the voice of Hercules.
Because
Shazam! shared the same network, studio and timeslot as
The Secrets Of Isis, the lovely
JoAnna Cameron made appearances as the superheroine Isis in three episodes, as well. (And the noble Captain returned the favor, guesting on an episode or two of
Isis the same season.)
The
new 3-disc, Manufactured-On-Demand
Shazam! - The Complete Live Action Series from Warner Archive includes all 28 episodes, presented in their
original 4x3, 1.33:1 "standard" TV aspect ratio. Picture quality is
generally pretty good for a nearly 40 year-old, low-budget show shot on
cheap film stock. Given the source material, the image is grainy and
overall a bit soft, with occasionally faded colors. Some episodes look
better than others, but there is no significant print damage or other
distracting age-related artifacts. Audio is a serviceable Dolby Digital
Mono.
The only "bonus feature" is the option to play all
episodes with the original 30 second "morals" re-instated into the
episodes. These short segments appeared at the end of the episodes and
featured Captain Marvel or Billy talking directly to the camera and
bluntly explaining the ethical lesson the episode dramatized. As these
segments were removed after the original airings, Warner Archive has had
to hunt down the footage from various sources (including old
videotapes), so picture quality on these is often pretty poor. Still,
I'm grateful that they went to the effort and expense to include them,
for completion's sake.
If you grew up with the show,
there's no denying the nostalgic appeal. The effects and production
values may be "cheesy" by today's standards - and the moralistic stories
may lack subtlety - but they're highly entertaining. Warner Archive has
done a very decent job putting this set together, and if you're a fan
of the show, it's definitely worth picking up. Highly recommended.
Buy it now from Amazon:
Shazam!
The Complete Live-Action Series
