The Super Friends present: The Witch's Arcade
Air date: October 31, 1981.
While visiting "an average boardwalk," the Wonder Twins happen upon this seemingly normal-looking arcade. Note that when the Wonder Twins are off duty, sometimes they cruise around the boardwalk in the form of an ostrich riding a skateboard with a giant frozen windsail and a space monkey on their back. Somehow I feel like this is one of the more normal things one might see on the boardwalk.
The old woman/fortune teller running the arcade is actually an evil witch. In a bit of vague foreshadowing, the fortune she delivers to the Wonder Twins says "BEWARE OF GAMES! THEY CAN TURN AGAINST YOU!"
The Wonder Twins tell Gleek to "ignore that old witch!" and go inside anyway. They decide to play pinball and 10 seconds later get zapped by the evil machine. The witch says, "it's time to play, and my kind of play is nasty!" Which, gross.
The Wonder Twins have been shrunk and find themselves inside the pinball machine running for their lives. Moments later, Gleek is also zapped and does a lot of dumb monkey things inside the machine like running around on top of the pinball and bouncing off of bumpers. Good ol' Gleek! Eventually the three of them fall down a hole inside the machine and while standing next to a bunch of gears and a belt/pulley system (?) they decide that now's a good time to call Wonder Woman for some backup.
The Wonder Twins transform themselves into a tiny woodpecker and a tiny ice trapeze, and peck a perfectly round hole in the side of the machine that allows the three of them to escape. I could have sat here all day and brainstormed ways to get out of a pinball machine and having a woodpecker peck a hole while sitting on a frozen trapeze would not have made my list. Also note that Wonder Woman has now flown halfway across the country to rescue these two dummies, who just rescued themselves.
Wonder Woman arrives just in time to talk to the dummies who are still in the form of a tiny woodpecker and a tiny ice trapeze. Oh, and a tiny space monkey. Note that this thing behind Wonder Woman is what some artist thought an arcade machine looked like. Someone thought arcade machines were six feet wide and eight feet tall and orange with control panels that looked like the radar console on a Navy battleship.
While our heroes aren't paying attention, the witch appears on the monitor behind her, shrinks Wonder Woman, and zaps her into the machine. As you can see, Wonder Woman has been pulled into some sort of Space Invaders type game, I guess. The UFO is zapping the green people and it looks like Wonder Woman is about to get the business.
Wonder Woman bounces the incoming lasers back at the UFO, destroying it. She then uses her magic lasso to swing out of the machine like Tarzan on a vine through the coin slot. If I were to brainstorm a list of ways to exit an arcade machine, I feel like this would be number one. Mentally I guess I align more with Wonder Woman than the doofy twins.
Our heroes spend some time running around the arcade avoiding the witches shrink rays. I guess the same artist that drew that orange cabinet came up with this monstrosity called "STAY ON THE ROAD" which may be the most on the nose arcade machine title of all time. This game looks pretty hard to play with an awkwardly located steering wheel, four gauges to monitor, and what looks like driving manuals to study up on the main control panel. At least it's only a quarter!
The witch manages to zap everyone and soon they're all inside STAY ON THE ROAD, in which a car that stays on the road chases everyone. It seems like the easiest way to avoid getting run over would be to, you know, get off the road. The car stays on the road, it's right there in the title. But instead the Wonder Twins turn into an ice ramp and an alligator and manage to whack the car away. Does it seem it like the Wonder Twins were on crack to anyone else?
Wonder Woman and the Wonder Twins escape the machine (again through the coin slot) and circle back to the booth where the evil witch is operating from. It is here the witch reveals her evil plan which is to get more people inside her games. That's it. Witches didn't need a lot of motivation back in the early 80s. Just, you know, I invested a huge amount of time and money building this innocent looking arcade on the boardwalk for the sole purpose of randomly shrinking people and putting them inside the machines for no real gain. I feel like this business model has some serious holes. Inside the booth we learn the witch has built another control panel that does everything. She doesn't even need witchy magic, it seems. She's just pressing buttons. The witch insults Wonder Woman by calling her "Teeny-Weenie Wonder Woman" which is a real scorcher.
In this shot we can see which button fires the laser because it's pretty clearly marked. I guess when the witch was building this control panel she thought that was pretty important and so she special ordered some letters only for the laser button and slapped them right there. The other buttons aren't that important I guess.
The witch fires her lasers at Wonder Woman, who reflects them using her magic bracelets back into the machine causing the equipment to self-destruct and Wonder Woman to return to normal size. I feel like this is a plot twist Snoop Dogg might come up with around 3 in the morning.
The witch calls everyone fools and threatens to run off and rebuild her devices, but Wonder Woman puts a stop to that using her magic lasso. She then tells the witch she'll be taking her "to the authorities." Man I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall during that booking process. "So, uh... a tiny woodpecker?"
