Shazam! (1981)

First episode title: Who's Who at the Zoo

How familiar with the show am I?: I was aware of the franchise in general.

The whole Shazam / Captain Marvel situation is a little bit confusing so I'll start with the brief timeline overview:

You've seen the page title - this show is from 1981, so we are in the "I am not Shazam" era. Let's meet Captain Marvel!

Shazam! title card

We start with shots of a zoo (heh, we've had two zoos in a row) as an announcer tells us that Billy Batson of Wizz TV is there to report about the new shipment of animals the zoo has just had. The young man starts to do a report to camera. We see his companions - a young woman, a boy with a crutch, and an older man. The girl starts blowing raspberries and waving at Billy to mess with him, causing him to introduce himself as "Batsy Billion", and also causing his boss to yell at him. The episode isn't going to bother properly introducing these people to us so I'll do it - the girl is Billy's sister Mary Batson, the boy with the crutch is Freddy Freeman, and the older man is their guardian Uncle Dudley, who has a really wheezy voice.

Billy's family watch him at work

This is apparently a rehearsal so Billy's slip-up doesn't matter for now. He says he's interviewing one of the zoo's directors, Mr Tawny, and what I really wasn't expecting is that Mr Tawny is an anthropomorphic tiger in a suit. No-one seems to find it odd - at this point, no-one even mentions it, but he does growl after every line he says. I made some incorrect assumptions about Tawny at first. I initially thought he was being voiced by Peter Cullen because he sounds so much like Optimus Prime, but it's actually Alan Oppenheimer, best known as Skeletor from He-Man. My other mistaken assumption was that he's a one-episode character created for this show, when he's actually a major recurring character who's been appearing in the comics since the 1940s!

Billy interviews Mr Tawny

Tawny explains about the gorillas they've just brought in - a couple of them were hard to catch, but a particular one named "Big Boy" with white sideburns seemed to come willingly. Billy seems to think Big Boy looks familiar, but Big Boy engages in some typical ape behaviour and Billy shakes off his concerns. Of course, as soon as Billy stops paying attention to him, he starts talking to himself for the benefit of the audience, saying he'll need to make sure something else distracts Billy before Billy can realise who he is. I've commented before on cartoons with weird distinctions between anthro and non-anthro animals, and there's definitely something of that sort going on here, where a talking gorilla can pretend to be an ordinary non-talking gorilla to blend in at a zoo owned by a talking tiger.

Big Boy's eyes glow red and a random zoo worker is hypnotised into walking up to a lion cage and unlocking it! Now we get the first acknowledgement that Tawny is a tiger, because Billy wraps up his interview by saying that it's "always a pleasure" to talk to an animal, and then he sees the two rampaging lions and takes it back! Billy, Mary, and Freddy gather, saying that it's time for "the Marvels".

Billy and Mary transform into their alter egos, Captain Marvel and Mary Marvel, by shouting "Shazam!", and Freddy transforms into Captain Marvel Jr by shouting "Captain Marvel!" This distinction is one of those things that looks like it makes sense if you know the comic book lore behind it, but on its own it's just weird. Lightning bolts come down from the sky and change their forms, Billy in particular noticeably changing from teenager to fully grown man in the process. All of them wear typical superhero outfits with capes and lightning bolt logos. But of course, they're part of the reason such an outfit is typical. Freddy's crutch also vanishes when he transforms - Captain Marvel Jr can walk unaided.

Billy, Mary, and Freddy transform

All three of them can fly and have super strength. Junior shields a mother and her baby from the lions, and Captain Marvel and Mary each pick one of the lions up and put them into a locked cage. It seems as though Big Boy's plan has had the opposite effect from what was intended, because now Captain Marvel is wondering how those lions could have got out. Meanwhile, in his cage, Big Boy is putting on a lab coat and commenting to himself that it's time for "Dr Allirog" to have his revenge. Yes, Allirog. Just look at it. What's also funny is that the two ordinary gorillas that share his cage look really confused at what's happening!

Dr Allirog says that he will have his vengeance

So the next scene is in the evening at the Marvels' house. Tawny is making dinner - when I watched it on the assumption he was a one-episode character, I thought he was just grateful for their help earlier, but perhaps it's quite usual to see him at their house. Dudley is complaining about the song Tawny is singing as he cooks, and wishes they had asked Billy to pick up pizza instead. Dudley is playing draughts against Mary - oh hey, another thing in common with the Rude Dog episode - and Mary easily beats him. But that's not relevant.

Apparently the Marvels did suspect Big Boy was Dr Allirog after all, since Mary casually mentions it here, wondering if they should do something or if he's still locked up after the last time they beat him, but Freddy reminds her Billy told them to stay at home until he gets back from the TV station. I have to assume that their previous encounter with Allirog is an off-screen adventure and that this cartoon isn't referencing something that happened in some other medium.

Then Mary and Freddy hear a noise from outside, and they go out the front door to investigate. There's a funny bit where Mary is saying it must have been the wind while the viewer can see there are two gorillas - the non-speaking ones from before - just out of their view.

Mary tells Freddy it must have been the wind, not seeing two gorillas around the corner

The gorillas capture the kids, and Dudley and Tawny, not knowing this, go to investigate where the kids are. Tawny says that he can smell gorilla. Dudley jokes that it's probably Tawny's cooking that he's smelling, but Tawny sniffs the ground more closely and says it was the same gorillas they have at the zoo. That's some amazing nasal power he has. Tawny wonders if they should wait for Billy to get home before doing anything, but Dudley says that "Uncle Marvel" can handle anything. Tawny rolls his eyes. I like the relationship between these two.

So Dudley and Tawny are going around the zoo at night - Tawny goes on ahead and tells Dudley to stay put. At one point Dudley tries stroking a little fox cub, gets bitten, and backs into the enclosure of a seal, who plays with him like a ball! He decides it's best to keep clear of the cages, but then a snake coils itself around him, enabling one of the gorillas to capture him. So Allirog has got a snake to work for him too?

A seal spins Dudley around on its nose

Now we get to further explore the difference between the speaking and non-speaking animals in this show. Tawny asks a tiger in a cage what's going on, the tiger responds in growls, and Tawny learns Allirog's goals from this! His plan is to release all the animals in the zoo and put the humans into cages. It seems like Tawny wouldn't have had long to wait to learn this anyway - Allirog approaches at this moment and tells Tawny to get out of his suit. I guess he means this in a "stop acting like a human" way, but it's a bit hypocritical seeing as Allirog wears a lab coat himself. Tawny maliciously complies by jumping out of his clothes and fleeing the scene, presumably finding his tiger body more manoeuvreable without clothes.

He rushes into the Wizz TV office building, presumably looking for Billy. Of course, now he just looks like a tiger, and the guard at the security desk is very surprised to see him go by!

Guard: I knew I shouldn't have eaten them pickles.

As if to corroborate his line, there is a visible jar of pickles on his desk too. I never thought of pickles as something that would give you hallucinations, though. They could've used blue cheese or something.

An elevator operator is also surprised to see Tawny, and this leads to one of the most bizarre animation errors I've ever seen. The man sees the tiger, rushes into the lift, and the entire outside of the lift sinks into the ground, leaving a blank wall! That is not how lifts work! The thing that really convinces me it's a mistake rather than a visual gag is that Tawny continues to act as if the doors are there - he bangs on the wall where the doors should be, yelling at the operator to open up. I normally try not to focus too much on animation errors, but this is the only time so far in Debutniverse where I've felt compelled to make a gif out of one.

An elevator operator runs into a lift and the entire thing descends, doors and all, as Tawny approaches

The next location we see must be Allirog's lair. He's got a machine set up that looks like some kind of Rube Goldberg contraption made of a mix of things, including a giant shoe and boxing glove, and Allirog comments that it'll have to do. He's got Freddy, Mary, and Dudley tied up. A nice little bit of attention to detail: he or his minions have gagged Mary and Freddy but haven't bothered with Dudley, because he's the only one of the three humans there who can't transform by saying a magic phrase! Conveniently that means that he and Allirog can talk to each other. Dudley asks what he's up to, and Allirog shows him - he brings up a video feed of a harbour on a nearby monitor, pulls a lever on the machine, and a vine emerges from the water, ensnaring a boat and smashing it in half.

A vine comes out of the water and crushes a boat

Allirog: When the entire world is a jungle, the human race will become my slaves! My jungle machine will make it much more... livable. For animals, that is!

The "..." I wrote before "livable" is downplaying it - there's a ridiculously long pause there for some reason. Then Allirog says that he's turning the machine to full power and pulls the lever again...

Allirog pulls a lever and his machine starts up

Tawny has now reunited with Billy. They're outside the Wizz TV building and Tawny somehow has his suit back on. Billy is surprised to hear from Tawny that even Dudley has been captured. I am too, because Tawny shouldn't know that - he last saw Dudley when he told him to wait for him! As far as he should know, he's still waiting for him! Billy at least knows Allirog's motivation from his previous encounter with him, so he's able to explain that part. But then they see that the city is turning into a jungle around them, so Billy "Shazam"s into Captain Marvel and flies away, saying he needs to get to the zoo quickly.

A big red question mark fills the sky

Then there's a really old-fashioned film-serial cliffhanger bit where the announcer asks whether Captain Marvel will be able to stop Allirog, and a big question mark appears on the screen. We then fade back in from the ad break and the announcer gives us a totally unnecessary recap of what's going on. In between all this, the producers hope you forget that Captain Marvel's priority right now was supposed to be to get to the zoo, because he pauses to get back down to ground level and deal with some of the vines taking over the city. There's too much for him to make much of an impact, and then a big crowd of varied animals shows up to menace him!

Marvel lets an elephant charge towards him, waiting patiently until it's within reach, then picks it up and tosses it away. What, you thought that would be a problem for Captain Marvel? Then there's a shot of two women with prams, and the elephant has landed in one pram, almost crushing it. Logically, her baby should be dead now, but this part is obviously just meant to be a random joke because the woman proceeds to get out a giant milk bottle and feed the elephant like a baby! Captain Marvel catches all the other animals off-screen and lugs them back into the zoo, locked in cages. If that elephant was anything to go by, this kind of thing is trivial for him.

An elephant charges at Captain Marvel and he tosses it away

In Allirog's lair, the situation is subtly different from earlier. Dudley is gagged now - perhaps Allirog got sick of his wheezy voice - and Allirog has a futuristic-looking gun. A monkey shows up, makes monkey noises, and now Allirog knows that Captain Marvel is here. Whether there was any plan for Allirog to have time to do something with that information I don't know, because Marvel shows up in the room immediately after. He orders Allirog to untie his friends, but Allirog refuses. He calls Marvel "Red Cheese", which is apparently a common insulting nickname for him, and informs us how his last encounter with Marvel ended - after they ended his evil plan, they sealed him in a cave with enough food to last his whole life. Allirog's only complaint about it seems to be that it was boring in there!

Marvel makes to attack Allirog, but Allirog shoots him with the gun. A ray of light envelops him. Marvel thinks it hasn't had any effect, but he steps forward and goes right through the floor!

Captain Marvel: That ray has made me too powerful!

Interesting tactic, to make your opponent's powers stronger, but it seems to be working. Marvel flies out of the hole, resulting in him smashing out through the ceiling and all the way into outer space! He says that the ray has increased his powers a "billion" times, but I think that's an exaggeration. I'm sure if you increased the power of even a normal human's footstep a billion times it would do more than go through the floor! Marvel finds himself unable to slow himself down, but luckily he hits a satellite, spins around on it, and gets sent flying back down to Earth.

Captain Marvel flies into space

He crashes back into Allirog's lair and then out the side of it, leaving a head-and-hands shaped hole in the wall, and almost gets run down by a steamroller outside, but somehow he's finally able to hold up his cape like a sail and use that to brake. By the logic of his increased strength, that should really tear the fabric of the cape, but oh well. He gets up and his hand makes another hole in the ground just from pushing himself to his feet, so they have thought some of this through.

Captain Marvel has a great idea here though - what effect would the ray's changes have on Billy Batson himself? Marvel "Shazam"s back into Billy, and Billy finds that, even though he can't fly like Captain Marvel, one jump takes him all the way back into the lair! In other words, the ray still has the effect "enhance existing abilities" even when the existing abilities of the target have changed. You know what I mean.

So with Billy back in the lair, Allirog orders his snake to attack, but Billy easily ties it in a knot and then ties up Allirog with it, telling him that he underestimated humans. Mary, Freddy, and Dudley get free, not visibly with the help of Billy but you would assume so. Mary and Freddy transform, and Freddy in Captain Marvel Jr form crushes Allirog's gun. It doesn't really seem necessary for them to have transformed with Billy holding all the cards (and with less than a minute left in the episode!). Even more unnecessarily, Billy changes back into Captain Marvel. Are we to assume that destroying the gun ends the ray's effects? It wouldn't make much sense, but in this show...

Captain Marvel Jr crushes a ray gun

Captain Marvel demands to know why Allirog does the evil things he does, and Allirog says he wanted to be "the first gorilla in Who's Who" (a series of biographies of notable people), and Marvel says he'll have a "Who's Who at the Zoo" printed up for him. So that's why the episode was called that... Allirog calls Marvel a Big Red Cheese again and the whole Marvel family laugh in response.

The Marvel family laugh

This show was definitely fun, although the animation flaws were obvious, even apart from the specifics I've highlighted here. Also, this episode suffered from a lack of Captain Marvel himself - the gap between saving people from the lions and Tawny's reunion with Billy is over a third of the episode's running time, during which he doesn't appear at all. Still, I'd watch more of this show - it's nice when superhero franchises let themselves be silly.