Friday, November 10, 2006

Wonder Woman & Fausta!












To a guy like me, the picture above is one of the best ever. To quote an old song, "It's the stuff that dreams are made of."

I remember as if it were yesterday. A winter Sunday morning in 1983, a UHF(!) station out of Baltimore that I could just barely pick up in Washington, static, and a whole lot of snow on the 14" screen. And there it was. The scene unfolded before my eyes. A masked WW picking up a barbell and lifting it with 2 hands. The the real Wonder Woman comes out and is about to lift it with only one hand when suddenly a trap door opens and she disappears! The reception was terrible and I could barely see. There was a commotion going on under there stage. WW is chloroformed and dazed. Her magic lasso of truth wrapped around her body, forced to reveal the source of her super powers. Her belt is removed and the mighty Wonder Woman is helpless!!! She's knocked out by another whiff of chloroform and her lifeless body is carried to a waiting car.

HOLY SMOKES!!!

Caught of guard, never imagining that this could be possible, my mind was racing. What? Where? When? How? Wait a minute! I want to see more. I want to see it again. I want to see it clearly!!! And then it was gone. Over. But wait! I don't want to see the commercial on TV, I want to see that scene again. Aaaargghhhh!!!!

To put some perspective on this, it was before VCRs were popular, before all the information was available on the Internet, and I had no way of knowing if I would ever see it again. I missed the first run of the show on ABC & CBS, but had managed to see just a couple of reruns. I loved it, of course, but it lacked the peril I oh so desired, obviously, because it was a network show. So just like reading the comics, it served as a catalyst for a vivid imagination. Images that would later be incorporated into erotic fantasy plots being played out in my head. But this? This was different. This was the real thing. This was amazing!!! And there it was. It came and went without warning in under two minutes. But these weren't just any two minutes. These were two minutes that were burned into my psyche despite the poor reception and small screen.

Fast forward to the late 80's and a comic book convention in NYC. I stumble upon a booth that sells bootleg WW videos from the TV show. Eureka! I described the details I remembered from that one brief viewing many years before and the vendor knew exactly what I was talking about. "Fausta," he said. "Fausta the Nazi Wonder Woman." My eyes lit up. Validated at last. He didn't have a copy to sell there, but it doesn't take a genius to have figured out by now that I got his information and contacted him after the show.

Two weeks later, it arrived! The elevator ride from the lobby to the fifth floor lasted forever that day as I clutched the tape in my hand and couldn't wait to get into my apartment and see it.

The rest is history. The tape I received was lousy quality, but it was priceless! The TV show went into syndication and I finally had the chance to make a first generation tape for myself. The Internet came into being and I discovered that there were many out there who shared my fantasies. By the mid to late 90's, fetish video producers were putting out WW inspired material. One of my favorite wrestling performers of all time, former GLOW girl Hollywood even got into it and boy did she look hot!!! Then the DVD came out. Uncut, crystal clear! Bringing this up to a brand new level. I have probably captured every single frame of that scene in still pictures, and they are great quality!

To this day, the Fausta episode remains one of the most popular ever. That chloroform scene etched into the minds of thousands of people like me.
It's amazing how far this has progressed in the 23 years since I had first seen it. I wonder what will be available for fans like me in 23 years from now!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes, a good episode. I especially like when WW admitted that a woman had captured her, and then when WW was tied down on that bondage device, before winning the little tussle (the wrong ending!).

Even better was the Formicida episode, in which WW actually lost the fight to the insect-lady villain.

anthony0358 said...

That episode was simply priceless
I think I saw it during its original airing back in 1977
Amazing!

Thanks for bringing back those great memories!