Throwback Thursday: When Wonder Woman Met The Brady Bunch

The 1970s were a wacky time for cartoon crossovers. The highlight of this phenomenon was The New Scooby Doo Movies series in which the Mystery Incorporated gang encountered everyone from Don Knotts to Mama Cass. But long before Shaggy hung out with Batman, another DC Comics icon got animated for an installment of the 1972/73 Filmation toon The Brady Kids. In the episode “It’s All Greek to Me,” Diana Prince (who, spoiler alert, is actually Wonder Woman) works at the college that Jan and Marcia attend. Before you can say “contrivance,” she gets sucked into a debate between the pair about the benefits of intellect vs. brute strength when the girls, Diana, and the rest of the young Brady crew are magically transported back to the first Olympics by their magical mynah bird Marlon.

Yeah, it’s probably best to just accept this as one of those things that probably made sense at the time — or in this case, didn’t — and go with it.

Anyway, the requisite antics ensue, with our heroes eventually be transported back to the present and Diana solving Marcia and Jan’s feud by revealing that “healthy mind plus healthy body equals success.” (Cue Depeche Mode’s “Get the Balance Right”). What is most memorable about this episode is that it marks the first time an Wonder Woman appeared on television…predating her regular role on the Super Friends cartoon series as well as the failed 1974 Wonder Woman pilot movie starring Cathy Lee Crosby as well as the subsequent Lynda Carter series. The Brady Kids episode is an interesting footnote in the character’s history, although one I can’t help but think could have been vastly improved upon had the series allowed Wonder Woman to sing “Time to Change.” Such oversights are the things that keep me up at night.

Previously on MovieFanFare: Sunshine Daze: The Weird World of “The Brady Kids” Cartoon

(This article originally ran in 2017 and is being reprinted as this week’s Throwback Thursday post).