Happy 75th Birthday, Superman

While it is common knowledge that Superman has been played in tv and in film by the likes of Dean Cain, Brandon Routh, the late Christopher Reeve and the late George Reeves, it is not commonly known that he was also played by the late Turkish actor Tayfun Demir  (pictured here) in the 1979 rip-off film "Superman Donuyor/The Return of Superman").

Superman first appeared in Action Comics #1 on April 18, 1938, and according to the Overstreet Comic Book Guide, it is worth (in mint condition) a staggering $1.75 million.

One can find considerably newer "Superman" comic books at places like Acme Comics in Greensboro, NC, or Chapel Hill Comics, which is just down I-40 in Chapel Hill, NC.

One famous quote from "Superman" comic books comes in Justice League or America #4, where Superman tells Wonder Woman: "I can only tell you what I believe, Diana: humankind has to be allowed to climb to its own destiny. We can't carry them there."

SIDEBAR: There is yet another tragic development from the Boston Marathon bombing incident on Monday as a third person Lingzi Lu, a Chinese national who was a student at Boston University, died from injuries sustained in the blast.

Another Chinese student from the school Danling Zhou, who was with Lu near the finish line, was seriously injured. The Boston University web site reported that Robert Hill, the dean of Marsh Chapel at BU, visited Zhou and said that she was successfully recovering from surgery at the Boston Medical Center.

Our thoughts go out to all the victims of this horrible act of terrorism.

http://www.acmecomics.com

http://www.chapelhillcomics.com

http://www.bu.edu

The Rabbit Ears Quiz (1 of 12)_ Wonder Woman

Today, we start our very first installment of "The Rabbit Ears Quiz" in which I will ask you the blog-viewer in the remote mountaintops of Bhutan various questions pertaining to television shows which I watched either during my childhood or early adolescence. In some cases, such as "Star Trek" or "Underdog," these shows may have actually before I was born.

But, that is not the case with "The New Adventures of Wonder Woman," which starred Lynda Carter, now age 60, who resides in suburban Maryland with her husband and family.

The show, which my sister and I watched a lot in reruns on those boring weekday afternoons when we were home from school in the late 1970s/early 1980s, originally aired on Nov. 7th of which of the following years?:

A) 1974
B) 1975
C) 1976
D) 1977
E) 1978

The answer actually surprised me a bit.

Carter is originally from Phoenix, and she is part-Mexican! According to Wikipedia, she told "US" magazine that she was disappointed that the show turned her into a sexual object.

The show that us kids just called "Wonder Woman" was based on the DC Comics Character of the same name (well, I think you knew that!). It aired for four years on two networks. The show was also very expensive to produce for its time and it lasted for 59 episodes, some of which you can apparently now watch for free on the Internet.

NBC apparently wanted to make a new Wonder Woman series, but they decided not to go through with production in May of this year. Ironically, NBC was the only one of the big three networks (at the time) which did not air the original series.

SIDEBAR: In an answer to our Road Trips Quiz, we believe (I alas misplaced the answer) that it takes B) 7 hours and 40 minutes to get from Lincoln, Nebr., to Madison, Wisc.

There is a great article entitled "The Shandy" by Akash Kapur in the current edition of "The New Yorker" which made me realize that a cow in India may not really be any luckier than a cow in Nebraska!

UPDATE: Oh good! It appears the image of Wonder Woman is back up; we have had technical difficulties with this entry!