The Secrets of Isis Episode 22: "...And Now You Don't"

The miscreants who stole the "trigger mechanism" of Rick Mason's fabulous weather-making contraption are still at large, but that doesn't stop his colleague Andrea Thomas and their four sleuthing student friends (that's Rennie Carol, C.J., Ranji and Feather to you and me, Russ) from celebrating Mason's release from jail.  While the villains fiddle-fart around meteorologically and create thunder and lightning from a clear blue sky, the good people of Larkspur High poke gentle fun at Mason's recent predicament by baking him a chocolate cake full of jail-break accessories like a metal file and a shiv made from a melted Styrofoam cup and a toothbrush handle.  After all, what are friends for if not to help you bust out of the calaboose when you've been falsely accused of theft and espionage?

Just kidding about the shiv, by the way.

And so we come to the grand finale of The Secrets of Isis, "...And Now You Don't" (aired October 23, 1976), part two of a thrilling story which has already seen Mason arrested for a crime he didn't commit, a music-and-magic performance, four students risk life, limb and their own freedom to help, a kick-ass custom van, Isis calling Captain Marvel for help and a trio of crooks make off with a most dangerous device.  You couldn't ask for a more exciting way to bring a series to a close, and yet it also makes you wish they'd gone for a third season.

Which, I suppose, was the whole idea behind this sudden change in direction.  From gentle personal dramas punctuated with jeopardy to gentle crime drama punctuated with jeopardy.

This is an action-packed thirty minutes.  When the kids foolishly try to scam the thieves and capture them, but thanks to some clumsiness clambering around inside a warehouse, Feather and Ranji end up trapped inside some kind of holding pen with everything electrified (some nice animated lightning bolts complete the effect). C.J. kung fu kicks his way into the warehouse, but it takes Isis to effect the rescue; someone at Filmation must have remembered it was her show after all.  All Isis has to do is pass through the warehouse roof's molecules then whip up a rhyming spell that affects electricity and all is well.  Kind of.

Now that the true mastermind has been revealed as Mason's scientific rival, the Professor, helpful federal agents decide the kids' harebrained decoy idea isn't so harebrained after all and adapt it for themselves, using Mason as the bait.  The bad guys quickly kidnap Ranji and Mason at gunpoint, forcing them to their doom in Ranji's sweet ride.  What a way to go!

But Isis and Captain Marvel are flying in hot pursuit.  When the Professor tries to make his escape in a convenient helicopter, Mason bravely leaps into the passenger's seat.  Captain Marvel uses his fabulous strength to ground the whirlybird as C.J. engages the villains in combat.  Finally, Isis duplicates herself multiple times to trap them and it's back to the amphitheater where Ranji and Rennie admonish us to believe in magic.  A stunned Mason can't get over Isis's last trick, but Thomas pretends he must have imagined the whole thing.  Finally, she turns to us, the viewers, winks and offers her last piece of teacherly advice, "You gotta believe."

And with that, The Secrets of Isis becomes part of television history.  You couldn't ask for a better way for Isis to end, unless said way featured Cindy Lee riding to the rescue on the back of a couple of crocodiles while blowing a trumpet.

NOTES:  Wow!  A helicopter!  The fine people at Filmation went all out for the last episode of Isis, didn't they?  It's not some futuristic prototype or anything sexy like that, but I doubt rental fees, insurance and fuel didn't come cheap for this baby even in relative Isis terms.  This is the Isis equivalent of hiring Marlon Brando to play Superman's dad or Jack Nicholson as the Joker.  Only the helicopter weighs approximately 600 pounds less than mid-70s Brando.

We've touched on Joanna Cameron's acting skills just a bit during this marathon blog event but we haven't really done her justice.  In each episode, Cameron provides poise, grace, a child-friendly gravitas and just a touch of self-awareness to keep from appearing silly.  The acting in Isis varies from summer stock quality at times up all the way up to confident, slick professionalism, and Cameron holds her own at the center of Isis and contributes the most to its believability, at least to its intended audience.  Plus, she looks fantastic in the Isis costume.

It's fun to deconstruct things in an absurdist way, but Cameron consistently pulls Isis out of the realm of slick camp like the Sid and Marty Krofft oeuvre.  Probably renders it slightly boring in a way to people who love to snark and snipe, but I can appreciate the show's sincerity, and Cameron's.  Instead of psemi-psychedelic weirdness, Isis gifts viewers with some mild excitement that calls to mind the best of ABC's Afternoon Specials rather than splashier fare like Electra Woman and Dyna Girl-- except for this episode, which plays out like an extremely low budget Bionic Woman series entry.  While she's overshadowed a little in this two-parter by the Rick Mason-centric plot, the introduction of the sleuthing teen team and a guest appearance by Captain Marvel, Cameron gets to sign off on Isis knowing she never phoned it in, put her tongue too far in her cheek or sacrificed her dignity while entertaining impressionable young kids (and possibly their older siblings).  A job well done!

That's not to belittle the supporting work by Brian Cutler and Ronalda Douglas.  Cutler grounds each episode with his low-key, minimalistic approach and geniality, while Douglas adds perkiness.  We learn quite a lot about Cutler's Mason, but we're only just getting to know Douglas's Rennie Carol so the abrupt series end registers as even more disappointing.  While I had a lot more fun with Cindy Lee, she became more a Greek chorus over the course of the first season and less a participant, her job to introduce Thomas to the student of the week then bow out until required for a reaction shot or some exposition.  Rennie seems to get her hands dirtier, and offers a lot more personal info along the way in her shorter stint.  Mason remains the ideal Steve Trevor-esque sidekick to Isis.

The show really missed an opportunity by not having Joanna Pang reprise her role as Cindy Lee sometime during this season.  It would have been a lot of fun to see both her and Rennie Carol on the case together, or eating sandwiches on the lawn at Larkspur High while talking about how great Ms. Thomas is and comparing notes on Isis sightings.

Evan C. Kim busts out his Bruce Lee impression here, using the Dragon's patented high-pitched growls and yowls as he super-kicks his way into the warehouse where Feather and Ranji are about to be fried by lightning bolts.  I'm not sure what good Shao-lin kung fu is against electricity, but when your friends are in trouble, you'll try anything.  Kim would later put his Lee sounds-n-moves to work in the longest, most elaborate segment of 1977's Kentucky Fried Movie.  I'm generally in favor of any call-back-- comedic or otherwise-- to Bruce Lee, one of my personal heroes.

Ranji pulls out the stops for the show's musical climax, a reprise of the "You Gotta Believe" song we saw him rehearsing with Rennie Carol in the previous episode.  Not a microphone in sight, but he and Rennie fill that amphitheater with sound.  It reminds me of some of one of those chorus performances you'd see at amusements parks like Six Flags Over Georgia when your poor, exhausted parents wanted to get out of the sun.  You know, at the Crystal Pistol Palace.  Yeah, I hated those, too.

Ranji and Rennie Carol team up for a cute scene where he uses her in a levitation trick.  You know Rennie isn't really afraid, but she whimpers to comic effect.

Two signs this show was shot in the mid-1970s-- Mason drives a VW Thing he's equipped with a CB radio.  Thomas marvels at his high-tech device, and it comes in handy, too, when the kids pull their first boneheaded stunt.

The Professor eats an apple while discussing schemes with his minions.  Well, minions is glamorizing them a bit.  They're more like hirelings.  Is the apple symbolic of the Professor's knowledge of evil?  I'm probably reading too much into it.  He's just a guy who digs apples.  Paul Hampton, the guy who plays him, wrote songs for the likes of Elvis Presley, Sammy Davis, Jr. and Bette Midler.  Nobody major, but maybe you've heard of them.

And once again Captain Marvel puts his lonely life on display, this time just hanging out in the desert without even boulders or fallen trees as an excuse.  Maybe the guy just likes to get out there, breathe some fresh desert air and think.  Think about the poor life choices that turned him into the kind of guy who likes to wander the deserts alone while wearing a superhero costume.  The helicopter capture at the end is pretty spectacular a stunt not only by Isis standards but even by Steve "The Six Million Dollar Man" Austin standards.  Let's see Lee Majors fly and drag a helicopter out of the sky.  It's accomplished partially with a process shot with Marvel slightly out of scale and then with an altogether believable physical performance by John Davey as he mimes straining against the heavy aircraft while Brian Cutler watches from the passenger's seat.

For the second episode in a row, someone throws his or her voice.  This time it's Isis, calling to her superheroic colleague.

Isis's final trick is pretty neat, too.  Mason regales a doubting Thomas (I'm clever!) with a story of twelve Isises (Ises?), but count them for yourself.  He's off by seven, giving Mason a tendency towards exaggeration or at least over-excitement.  There's a sweet moment when Isis turns and smartly declares, "And that, Ranji, is how I do it."  Nice way of taking back some of the spotlight that's rightly hers.

You gotta believe!

The Secrets of Isis episode 3: "Fool's Dare"

Who is the greater fool, the fool or the fool who follows him?  Cindy Lee tries to find out in this turbulent episode of Isis.  It's "Fool's Dare," which first aired Saturday, September 20, 1975.  Car theft runs rampant and it's got the Larkspur High School faculty worried.  Not far from the school, Cindy handily (or foot-ily) defeats two friends in a bike race.  The sore loser dares her to spend one hour in an abandoned junk yard.  Her pride wounded, Cindy hops the fence.  Right into danger.  Can Isis rescue the injured girl from a couple of (tepidly) desperate characters?

This otherwise adequate episode could have been improved with one simple addition.  The bike race!  We only get to see its aftermath.  While Cindy's adventure behind the junkyard wall provides child-appropriate suspense, there are just too many shots of the girl limping around and between old wrecked cars.  Opening with even a short action sequence with quick-cuts of the kids speeding along on their bikes would have provided a better visual hook to lead viewers into the talky first half and they could have cut the fat down to the real meat of the junkyard sequence.

We do get some Isis staples.  Teacher Andrea Thomas as a natural-born sleuth, Rick Mason's low-key sense of humor, Dr. Barnes's calm wisdom and Tut providing forced comedic relief.  Tut the talking crow is one of the few pandering elements here, an out-of-place touch of Saturday morning juvenilia on a show that generally avoids it.  I mean, avoids it as much as a children's show can with its main conceit a crime-fighting Egyptian goddess who works magic through rhyming couplets.

And Cindy.  Perpetually chipper.  Sunny.  The girl is so positive and trusting, so confident in the people around her and their motives, she's completely caught off guard when embittered loser Ernie first accuses her of cheating.  "I didn't cut you off," she insists, laughing innocently because she has no way of judging his wounded ego or how far he'll go to salve it.  She's backed up by boy #2, who seems squirmily uncomfortable about the whole thing, and cheerfully tells Ernie, "It's just a bike race.  It's not important!"

Not to you, Cindy.  You have your sincerity and self-esteem.  Others aren't so lucky or secure in themselves.  Like Ernie, who issues his petulant challenge.  He must have felt emasculated by his loss because he first employs the gender superiority stratagem.  Cindy knows girls are every bit as capable and curious as boys.  She's stung by Ernie's foolish assertions, but not fatally.  Undaunted, Ernie goes with that tried and true favorite:  threatening Cindy with the "chicken" label.  This, Cindy finally decides, is completely unacceptable.  Plus, for our own selfish entertainment needs we must have her in jeopardy so we can call in Isis and solve the car thefts.  Cindy can't do it all by herself, but she can spy on the crooks as they paint Ms. Thomas's car yellow.

The show's view of crime and criminals is a signifier of both a simpler time and its target demographic of Saturday morning kids.  When they realize Cindy's spotted them, the two car thieves' inclination is to run away before she can call the cops.  Actually, that's a pretty smart idea as far as criminality goes.  In our darker time or on a more adult-oriented show (or a hypothetical gritty hardnosed comic book reboot), they'd grab her and either beat her or kill her.  They'd at least threaten her with injury or death.  But then they'd go from theft to violent crime and more serious penalties.  Smarter to cut your losses.  After all, this is Isis, not The Dark Knight Returns.  All it takes is our hero tossing quips, old tennis nets and tires to put an end to car thievery forever.

Notice too how Ernie realizes on his own the disservice he's done Cindy and comes back to put things right. Without a prompting from Isis he apologizes.  Cindy, being infinitely kind-hearted, instantly forgives him.  "And I realize you're a better bike rider than I am," Ernie tells her.  "Some of the time," Cindy quips.  When Ernie admits he shouldn't have dared her, Cindy accepts her share of the blame for taking him up on it.  Ms. Thomas gently reinforces what the kids have learned for themselves, and the two boys help the injured girl walk away to get medical aid or ice creams or both.  The end of an Isis episode leaves its audience with positive vibes about just about everyone in the story.  Except the car thieves, and even they're apparently good at painting cars because the next time we see Ms. Thomas's car in the series, it's still yellow.

Makes you wonder if they shouldn't have just opened a legitimate paint and body shop.  If that's not an oxymoron in itself.

Speaking of cars, Ms. Thomas has a sweet ride, doesn't she?  It's a '74 or '75 Pontiac Firebird, baby!  No wonder these guys targeted it.  The car must have strained the show's meagre budget because they display not one but two of them-- the original in red and the re-painted yellow one.  It's impressive for Isis.  Did they rent two or actually find one in need of re-painting and work things out in trade?  Maybe it belonged to a crew-member or actor and the paint was in lieu of pay.  I'm not sure it was intentional, but giving the straitlaced science teacher a hot rod hints a bit at her dual nature.  Teacher and goddess.  And yet Ms. Thomas has her own skill set that should be appreciated-- she cracks the car theft ring using ordinary high school science equipment and strong observations skills.  Even Rick Mason scores on that one.

A couple of trivia points.  Joanna Pang slips up and refers to her teacher as "Miss Andrea" while spying on the thieves.  We can probably forgive her because Cindy seems to have the privilege of referring to her teachers by their first names.  And the two boys-- we never see them on the show again-- are played by Josh Albee and Jeff Tyler, a reunion because they earlier essayed Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn in a 1973 TV adaptation of the Mark Twain classic Tom Sawyer.

Shazam! #25: Cindy Lee Loves Danger!

"She's magical... She's mysterious... She's magnificent-- and she's more exciting than any other super heroine!  Part human, part goddess, all wonderment-- with the most unusual powers anyone ever possessed!  She uses them now in a desperate race to save her friend Cindy Lee from certain doom as Andrea Thomas becomes--  ISIS... AS IN CRISIS!"

Ah, Shazam! #25 (DC Comics, September-October 1976).  This is what feel-good comics are all about.  It's also a breakthrough moment enshrined forever in comic book history.  Why?

Because even though cover artist Kurt Schaffenberger seems to have little or no idea who she is, this book marks the sizzling debut of our favorite sidekick and teacher's pet from the CBS Saturday morning live action television show Isis (also know as The Secrets of Isis), Cindy Lee.  Oh yeah, and if the introduction didn't clue you in enough, this is the first comic book appearance of Cindy's co-star Isis, too.  She's okay, too. I guess. I mean, if you're interested in such things.  But we know the real draw is Cindy Lee.  

And what a splash she makes!  Editor Julie Schwartz must have known he had something special in Cindy, because he put his varsity team on this story.  It's written by Denny O'Neil, with art by none other than Dick Giordano himself.  I do miss Giordano.  His art in this story is just so smooth, so appealing.  Rik Estrada and Wally Wood do a bang-up job on The Mighty Isis #1, but after reading this, Giordano is forever my artist pick for these characters.  And I prefer O'Neil as writer.  After all, O'Neil and Giordano are the team-- along with some guy you may have heard of named Neal Adams-- that brought to life some of the most influential and memorable Batman stories of all time.

Here's how it starts:
 

CINDY LEE?!  OH NO!  The last thing you expect to see when the wrecking ball crashes into your old high school is your star pupil in mortal danger.  This is one of those moments where you can almost see O'Neil's script showing through the drawings.  He has ten pages, needs Isis in action as soon as possible, so he puts Cindy Lee in harm's way.  She's from the TV show, right?  Stick her inside the school as it comes tumbling down, explain it later.

As you can see, science teacher Andrea Thomas and her colleague Rick Mason are a little concerned because they know damn well Cindy's parents didn't sign the school's special permission slip with the indemnity clause regarding any and all Cindy-related fatalities, including her own.  So much for their raises for the next several years.  So much for any more field trips to Egypt.  So much for the computer lab.  So much for art supplies.

The football stadium will still get its new scoreboard and the team its new uniforms, however.  And they can't cut the head coach's pay.  In fact, they can't even fire the guy without buying out his contract to the tune of four or five language, visual arts and home ec faculty members.  Fortunately for the school system, Andrea Thomas has a secret power beyond that of any two or three thousand lawyers.  She's the "dual person" known as Isis.  A quick change and some rhyming magic... 

And then this muscle-headed guy shows up all, "Uh-- er-- Well, I was about to do that, but since you already did it for me..."  Nice try, Captain Marvel.  You zoom in a few long moments after too late and try to make Isis feel less special.  Well, he does exert his male authority figure privilege to get Cindy's explanation of why she thought it would be a good idea to hang out in a building during its demolition.  And here we go...

O'Neil quickly and brilliantly seizes on the little-known fact that the future valedictorian and resident pyramid enthusiast of Larkspur High School (class of 1978) is a sensation-seeker.  Dare you doubt me?  I have proof-- in "Fool's Dare," (September 13, 1975),  the second episode of Isis, Cindy enters a dangerous junkyard in answer to some hurtful words from a classmate and tangles with car thieves wearing pitted-out shirts.



Back here in the four-color world, our secret thrill-junkie was once again doing some sleuthing of her own and followed a couple of suspicious creeps right into danger's maw.  She's so intrepid she'll chase them round Good Hope, and round the Norway Maelstrom, and round perdition's flames before she'll give them up... if that's what it takes to bring them to justice.  Whatever it was they did.  Which we don't know yet.  We'll find out later, thanks to Cindy.

There's a flashback to Isis's origin at this point in the story, too.  Boring.  And, his work finished, the Big Red Cheese soars away feeling self-satisfied at having patronized Isis.  Back to The Simply Awesome Misadventures of Cindy Lee!

 Wow!  Check that out!  She actually puts moves on Rick Mason!  Cindy Lee, bold seeker of dangerous, age-inappropriate love.  Certainly can't blame her.  In life, if you want something, you have to go right for it.  It's good Cindy understands this, and of course, we all know Rick Mason is one swell fella.  At least he's not married.  Cindy is no Tracy Flick.  However, for her well being, I really think Cindy should go for someone more in her peer group.  A student.  Like photographer/budding cryptozoologist Lee Webster.  

What a guy, that Rick Mason.  He's right to quash Cindy's romantic notions.  While it's natural for a student-- especially one we now know harbors a hell-bent streak-- to confuse admiration for an authority figure with love, as a dedicated educator Rick Mason knows even giving Cindy the slightest--- WHAT THE HELL?  Loaning her his car?  What kind of responsible teacher does something like that?  I take it all back.  Rick Mason is a mixed-signal sending bastard.

And look how nonchalantly he does it.  It's the ol' over the shoulder "I'm godlike in my lack of concern whether you live or die" keys toss.  It's not even a decent throw because Cindy has to lunge into a semi-crouch to catch them.  The least Rick Mason could have done-- since even this much is wildly beyond the bounds of proper teacher-student interaction-- is place the keys in her hand.  Once the school officials get wind of this, he's out on his guitar-strumming ass faster than you can say, "Matthew Broderick as Mr. McAllister" anyway.  Show some class while you simultaneously destroy a girl's feelings and your career.  Instead, our ostensibly nice guy teacher puts on this smug, superior act as if to tell her, "You can't have me, but take my car for a spin, you baby."

Down in the dumps, sitting on a pile of rubble that visually symbolizes her fractured heart, Cindy soon finds another adrenaline-pumping adventure.  I'm so impressed with this characterization I'd buy a Cindy Lee monthly.  No superheroics.  Just Cindy Lee and her pals getting themselves into all kinds of crazy scrapes.  You know what this comic is starting to remind me of?  A mid-70s kiddie version of David Lynch's Blue Velvet.

Now there's a thought.  In fact, Cindy prefigures Kyle MacLachlan's Jeffrey Beaumont in many ways.  He finds an ear, becomes involved with an older woman and discovers an underworld of crime and perversion in his little town, Cindy Lee sees the aftermath of a crime, wants to become involved with an older man and finds a tame young-readers version of the Lynchian paradigm right there in whatever town it is she lives in.  And much like Jeffrey, Cindy's involvement nearly results in her death.

"When the green field comes off like a lid/Revealing what was much better hid," wrote W.H. Auden in his poem "The Two."  Some things you and I-- and Cindy Lee-- are just not meant to know.  But characters like Jeffrey Beaumont and Cindy are impelled to pull off that lid and reveal the sinister, sordid things happening all around us.  There are no gas-huffing Dennis Hoppers or lip-synching, make-up wearing Dean Stockwells in Cindy's world.  Just vaguely menacing thugs in leisure jackets  Luckily for Cindy her planet orbits a sun a bit brighter and friendlier than the one in Blue Velvet.

But Cindy and pals would easily update to modern, darker storytelling.  Lynch famously described his film as "The Hardy Boys Go to Hell."  Well, apparently O'Neil's take-- which I'm guessing he based largely on "Fool's Dare"-- on Cindy Lee is she's a 21st century Nancy Drew with a knack for getting herself into trouble of the same sort.  We could build on that and have her enthusiastically investigate crimes, her optimism and incorruptible innocence contrasted with the sick, perverse things she uncovers and reveals to the world.  Meth labs, porn rings, bizarre blackmail plots, public figures who are secret degenerates.  Narrow escapes without an Isis there to bail her out, forcing Cindy to rely on her own pluck and quick wits.

Or not.  Maybe she'll always need an Isis for advice and guidance.  Cindy is smart and spunky but she is, after all, a risk taker.  She's lucky to have a friend and guardian like Isis.  Solve a crime and win Rick Mason's heart?  Oh, Cindy...

As a special bonus, here's Captain Marvel beating up a bear.