PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological*
As mediocre as the original live-action 1976 superhero show was, this fifteen-minute spoof of the series outdoes it. Despite a few cute poses like the one above, 2001 DYNA doesn't even offer decent cheesecake.
A prologue shows the popular superheroine Electra Woman (with no Dyna Girl in sight) saving a little girl from peril at a carnival. Twenty years later, Electra Woman (Markie Post) has disappeared from public scrutiny. But the little girl has grown into college-age Judy Pope (Anne Stedman), and she idolizes the absent heroine. Judy tracks down her idol, and finds her living in a trailer, smoking and drinking and awash with pity because the original Dyna Girl ran off with EW's husband.
But Judy won't abandon her dream of superhero love. Somehow she talks Electra Dipstick into making a public appearance in costume, while Judy herself dresses up like Dyna Girl. A couple of holdup artists rob a store, and somehow Judy cheers EW into fighting the armed hoodlums, even though EW's old Electra-com is on the fritz. Unlike the original EW, this one actually does a little hand to hand fighting, albeit in a slapstick fashion, and Judy gets in a shot to one evildoer's unmentionables. The quick wrap-up establishes that somehow the unlikely duo will go on to fight crime, but that winsome Judy will have to ride herd on EW's bad habits.
The best thing I can say is that Post and Stedman play their limited roles with conviction. The marvelous phenomenality stems not just from the senior heroine's crapped-out gimmick, but from very brief spoof-appearances of Aquaman and The Flash. If this had become a series I assume the producers would have claimed they were invoking "fair use" through satire.
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