John Bahler -- Wonder Woman/Kaoru Yumi -- Ai no Boukensha（愛の冒険者）

 

I believe I mentioned that I finally caught Zack Snyder's very long take on "Justice League" recently, and I was a lot more satisfied with that than with the version that I had caught some years previously at the theatre. Most notably, I was really happy with the scene involving Wonder Woman as played by Gal Gadot taking on those psychos in London early in the movie. Once I heard that warrior theme by Rupert Gregson-Williams, I knew I was going to witness some massive ass-kicking by Diana of Themyscira. 

One day, the Snyderverse take showed up on the local sci-fi channel and that same scene popped up when I turned on the channel. My mother who has never understood or liked any form of superhero media surprised me when she verbally identified Wonder Woman. But then again, she had seen Diana many moons ago.

That's right. There was a time in the mid-1970s when my brother and I saw the weekly TV series "Wonder Woman" with Lynda Carter. So, we got to see the indestructible bracelets, the Lasso of Truth and the spinning around each episode. 

Yes, I still remember when a pre-"An Officer and a Gentleman" Debra Winger guested as Diana's little sister, aka Wonder Girl. In fact, I think I prefer the first season when the show had been set during World War II instead of the more contemporary setting for the last couple of seasons. 

At the time, I was also confused when I was watching the opening credits which paid homage to the original comic book from decades ago, and yet, the theme song was decidedly cheesy disco boogie.  I mean, nowadays it all comes to me as very nostalgic but at the time, I thought it was pretty progressive to hear a superhero theme song that sounded like something one would dance to in the clubs.

I never knew who was behind the theme song for "Wonder Woman" the 1975 series. As it turns out, it was John Bahler of the Ron Hicklin Singers on the main vocals, Marti McCall, Carolyn Willis of the R&B group Honey Cone, and Julia Waters of the R&B group The Waters according to Wikipedia. Charles Fox and Normal Gimbel made up the songwriting team.

November 7th 1975 was the date when "Wonder Woman" premiered. Well, what was hitting the Oricon charts a few days earlier on the 3rd? We have Nos. 3 and 6.

3. Kenji Sawada -- Toki no Sugi Yuku Mama ni （時の過ぎゆくままに）

6. Hiromi Iwasaki -- Romance （ロマンス）

But as the informercial announcer says...Wait! There's more!

"Wonder Woman" did make its way to Japan sometime down the line and though the Bahler theme song was played for that first season, the subsequent seasons had actress/singer Kaoru Yumi（由美かおる）provide a Japanese theme tune in the form of "Ai no Boukensha" (Adventurer of Love) which was specifically for the series; Machiko Ryu's（竜真知子）lyrics give a blatant shoutout to Wonder Woman. Meanwhile, the melody by Ken Sato（佐藤健）and arrangement by Akira Inoue（井上鑑）also follow a disco line but more on the AOR side of things.

This is Yumi's first time on the blog. From what I remember of her, she had a recurring role in the legendary jidaigeki series "Mito Komon"（水戸黄門）as quite a warrior herself. She was also famous in that show for her bathing scenes which you can see being parodied in the commercial below.