Electra Woman and Dyna Girl From The Krofft Supershow: TV's Original Fourth-Best Super Ladies 

In 1976, the original Electra Woman and Dyna Girl of the Krofft Supershow made their debut. Like most entertainment created by Sid and Marty Krofft, Electra Woman and Dyna Girl was colorful and campy. The plots were easy to grasp, and the special effects were primitive. But Sid and Marty Krofft were experts at this stuff, and the kids loved it. Do you remember Electra Woman and Dyna Girl?

With the original Electra Woman and Dyna Girl, the Krofft Supershow bought into the biggest TV trend of the day. But had the trend jumped the shark? In September 1975, TV got its first-ever series centered on a female superhero when Isis (later called The Secrets of Isis) joined CBS's Saturday Morning lineup. Wonder Woman followed soon after, as did the Six Million Dollar Man spinoff The Bionic Woman. Clearly, the real spirit of '76 was girl power, and Sid and Marty Krofft weren't going to miss out. When The Krofft Supershow debuted on September 11, 1976, one of its four 15-minute regular segments was a series about costumed female crime fighters. In their public life, they were co-workers Lori and Judy, but when villainy reared its ugly head, the pair donned fabulous form-fitting outfits and became Electra Woman and Dyna Girl.

Electra Woman and Dyna Girl were spandex-wearing, crime-fighting superheroes, played by Deidre Hall and Judy Strangis. In the show, the two women were reporters at a news magazine, giving them access to breaking crime news. When any one of several costumed villains struck in the city, the mild-mannered reporters quickly became Electra Woman and Dyna Girl and set off to fight the criminals using technologically advanced tools and gadgets. 

Electra Woman and Dyna Girl didn’t work alone. They were aided by a brilliant scientist and inventor, Frank Heflin, played by Norman Alden, who created all the electrical-based gadgets and gizmos that the duo used to thwarts the bad guys. The eccentric inventor was a bit of a hermit. He preferred to stay in the confines of the “ElectraBase” and did all his work on his state-of-the-art computers. 

Frank Heflin gave Electra Woman and Dyna Girl bulky, square wristwatch-looking gadgets, called ElectraComs. The ElectraComs seem like a '70s prototype of today’s Apple Smart Watches. They could communicate with others, either by voice or video. They had GPS navigation. The wearer could adjust the temperature in the room using the ElectraComs. With the ElectraComs, the crime fighters could tap into a network of information from Heflin's “CrimeScope” computer. Too bad today’s smart watches can’t make us run 10,000 times faster, levitate objects, or change our clothes really, really fast. 

It is hard to deny the similarities between these two heroines and the better-known caped crusaders Batman and Robin. Both pairs keep their civilian identities secret, both are helped by stay-at-home old men, both have a plethora of gadgets at their disposal, and both drive around in souped up crime-fighting cars. Dyna Girl even tossed out witty interjections, such as "Electra Yikes!" and "Electra Wow!," reminiscent of Robin’s "Holy ____" quips on the '60s Batman series.

The "Electra Woman and Dyna Girl" segment only aired for 16 episodes; in the second season of The Krofft Supershow, it and Dr. Shrinker were replaced by "Bigfoot and Wildboy" and "Magic Mongo." But before the final episode of "Electra Woman" aired, Deidre Hall had already moved on, landing the role of Dr. Marlena Evans on the soap opera Days of Our Lives. Hall has been playing this character ever since -- more than forty years, in fact. In typical soap opera fashion, Hall’s character has been killed and revived several times, had amnesia, been kidnapped and brainwashed, and married and divorced. Hall has won numerous awards from the soap opera press and fans, and had been nominated for three daytime Emmys. 

During the 1970s, Sid and Marty Krofft were the kings of Saturday morning children’s television. They created and produced several memorable live-action TV shows that gave animated cartoons, then the staple of Saturday morning children’s shows, a run for their money. Krofft successes prior to the Krofft Supershow include The Banana Splits, H.R. Pufnstuf, The Bugaloos, Lidsville, Sigmund and the Sea Monsters, Land of the Lost, and The Lost Saucer. 

In 2016, two YouTube celebrities, Grace Helbig and Hannah Hart, appeared in a Web series reboot of "Electra Woman and Dyna Girl" that ran for eight 11-minute episodes.