MovieChat Forums > Wonder Woman (1975) Discussion > The Pied Piper episode

The Pied Piper episode

posted 8 years ago by hypestyle
5 replies | jump to latest

unintentionally hilarious episode. Good, cheesy, fun, basically.

For one thing, Martin Mull plays "Hamlin Rule", a pun on the pied piper of Hamlin. If you're familiar with Mr. Mull's career of portraying different comedic characters over the years, it's worth some laughs to see him portraying a kind of disco-era "rocker" though the music he plays seems closer to the Andy Gibb side of things rather than hard rock.

Apparently, he has access to a high-tech flute that, when combined with his concert amplifiers, is able to hypnotize people and leave them vulnerable to his suggestions.

The Brady Bunch's Eve Plumb (Jan) here plays Emily, the daughter of one of the IADC's administrators, Joe. Emily is a college senior majoring in Business Administration. She's fascinated with Hamlin Rule, and she's having a rocky relationship with her father.

Strangely, Many of Hamlin Rule's concerts have faced robbery in recent months. The box office would be broken into in the middle of the concert, and all the proceeds stolen from the promoter.

Diana Prince offers to investigate, as the next major concert of Hamlin Rule is in the Los Angeles area near UCLA campus.

Part of Hamlin Rule's gimmick is that he picks a single woman to be "the snake charmer" and make an appearance at his show. He holds an "audition" at his home and picks one woman, the rest get to hang out for a while and get autographed photos.

The conflicts here often have a campy context, especially when Wonder Woman fights Hamlin's main henchman.

Hamlin has a group of women brainwashed to be cat burglars, and they have a special gadget that can destroy small locks and reduce them to dust.

Lots of the dialogue is snappy as delivered by Mull, his character is revealed to be a cliche' cynical rock star who doesn't really believe in the songs about love that give him thousands of female fans.

Depending on the depth of your awareness of comic book lore, the Hamlin Rule character is somewhat similar to the Hypno Hustler, a minor Spider-Man villain from the Marvel Comics stable.

"With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility"
Stan Lee, 1962

[–] FlyboyLA 8 years ago

I found this episode to be the absolute worst episode in the entire series. It was boring, hokey and just ludicrous. I like Martin Mull a lot, but this didn't do anything for his career. I'm also bothered by the fact that this was the first episode that began to dwindle Lyle Waggoner's Steve Trevor role in the show. It was great to see Atkinson get beefed up for an episode, but for what? Two episodes later, you never see the man again. Lynda appears frequently as Wonder Woman in this episode, but other than the fight with Rule's henchman, she could've handled the whole case without relying on Wonder Woman.

My score: 4/10

[–] DrakeStraw 8 years ago

There was also a huge factual error in Diana's statement about the original Pied Piper. He was anything but a protector of the children which were never seen again. Later versions give it a happy ending, but the original has the Piper leading them into a mountain and closing them in.

DrakeStraw
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[–] jefgg 8 years ago

I didn't really care for Martin Mull as a flute playing rock star Hamlin Rule. But I loved Eve Plumb as Joe Atkinson's unhappy daughter Elena. Accomplished character actor Denny Miller played Hamlin's goon Carl Schwartz. The entire episode was on youtube but was removed.

Was Steve Trevor really necessary for every episode? He was just a clueless Ken doll who Wonder Woman was constantly rescuing. In the "Pied Piper" episode she saved someone else from the bad guys.

I thought the ending was a little corny. Hamlin would have been facing serious jail time for armed robbery.

[–] engle_james 8 years ago

Poor Lyle Waggoner... he did a great job as Steve Trevor but this is the episode where the writers reduced his role to 2-3 scenes per episode, and usually limited to telephone calls with Diana. Not the actors fault, it's just that someone's ego got a little big and they felt they didn't need a co-star.

[–] jefgg 7 years ago

Lynda Carter got to play a rock singer in the "Amazon Hot Wax" episode. Please click on
http://www.avclub.com/article/brief-adventures-wonder-woman-rock-star-222467