In
this first season episode of the 1970s Filmation live-action series, Shazam,
Mentor (Les Tremayne) and Billy (Michael Gray) see a fishing trip derailed when
two irresponsible high school athletes intentionally spook a horse and its
rider, Kellie.
It
turns out that these athletes are attempting to keep Kellie Owens (Stephanie Steele) off the all-boys
track team…and are willing to do so by intimidation or even physical
threat. Later, the two boys frame Kellie
for cheating on a school exam, an infraction which could also jeopardize a
college scholarship.
Mentor
and Billy intervene, and one of the athletes reveals the truth…just in time.
Kellie goes on to win the scholarship, and a slot on the track-and-field
running team.
This
is another relatively undistinguished, small-potatoes episode of Shazam,
made memorable almost exclusively by the fact that the “bad” athlete, Jack, is
played by a teenage Butch Patrick, the cult-TV star of The Munsters (1964 –
1966) and Lidsville (1971).
Otherwise,
“The Athlete” bucks the series format by featuring a first-act appearance of
Captain Marvel (Jackson Bostwick), one which precedes the weekly tete-a-tete
with Elders. In this case, Captain
Marvel saves Kellie and her runaway horse.
He also appears later in the episode, when Kellie nearly rides her
motorcycle into a tractor on a dirt road.
As
is par for the course, there’s an After-School Special vibe to the
proceedings, although this week the Elders offer a nugget of wisdom that is
indeed true, and describes the great sweep of Civil Rights in America:
“Even when change
is right and just, there are those who through their attitudes resist it.”
Truer
words may never have been spoken…at least on a Saturday morning superhero
program.
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