100th Blog! Superhero Week: Shazam

Hidey ho all!  This will be my 100th blog and I really wished I picked something better but such is life.  Back again for day 4 of Superhero Week and just capping on Isis having a similar male counterpart only he has been granted aspects or certain powers of the gods if you will and similar to the Marvel Comics characters there has been more than a few liberties taken of the character to fit the TV version so sit back with a smoothie, think happy happy thoughts.  This is Shazam.

Fly proudly with rump in the air!

SPOILERS!!!

Young Billy Batson (Michael Grey of Bobby Jo and the Good Time Band, The Brian Keith Show and The Brady Bunch) who and let’s be fair about this, looks like a 20 something rather than the teenager he is supposed to be travels around the country in a sweet Winnebago with his legal guardian known only as Mentor (Les Tremayne of The Whistler, Forbidden Planet, the Monolith Monsters, The Further Adventures of Ellery Queen, Wagon Train and Girl Happy) get roughed up by organized crime, crooked politicians, and the red commies!   Sorry got caught up in the silly there.  Shazam is actually acronym of his powers. S stands for the Wisdom of Solomon, H the strength of Hercules, A the stamina of Atlas, Z the power of Zeus, A the courage of Achilles and M the speed of Mercury.   Was that tidbit exciting?

This man needs a Shatner rug STAT.

Shazam a.k.a. Captain Marvel (Jackson Bostwick of Evel Knievel, Pink Angels, The Psychopath, The Hughes Mystery, The Killings at Outpost Zeta, Escape from DS-3, TRON and My Science Project) a shining beacon of all that is good and noble.  I think he may actually have more teeth than the entire Osmond family.  Think the Alien Queen.  So as previously mentioned the lad of only one t-shirt and his Mentor of the worse comb over I have ever seen. This show was referred with Isis as the Shazam and Isis Power Hour.   The flying effects were less refined compared to Isis with the harness setup and blue screen.  Next season Captain Marvel is replaced with an equally bland man (John Davey of The Rookies, S.W.A.T., Cannon, Isis and The Rockford Files) Each Captain Marvel looked pretty plain and average build for a character that is supposed to be as bulky as Superman.  George Reeves looked in better shape by comparison given he was pretty barrel chested.  Captain Marvel of course also didn’t get to fight any of his comic book based villains which was a bit of a letdown given its cartoon version managed to and kept it to the comic book origins. 

Now while these story lines were pretty simplistic and typical of the writing of its era they also attempted to drive a moral lesson of the day if you will. A tad ironic in a time period of the nation’s collective hedonism but hey don’t let that bother you. Neither Shazam nor his normal counterpart felt the need to break the fourth wall as Andrea/Isis did but come to think of it that could have been an improvement overall.   

Behold the teeth of Osmond!

 So this particular show held next to no meaning to me because the teen Batson was totally unlikeable, Mentor seemed to be over acting and Shazam is so sugary goodness he could kill diabetics in a 50 mile radius.   Feel free to skip on or dare to go investigate yourselves.