January 1967: The Banality of Good

The runaway success of ABC’s Batman show in January 1966 prompted CBS and NBC to scramble for ideas for January of 1967. Both were superhero sitcoms.

The notion of parodying superheroes was pretty obvious, and Batman had already plowed that ground anyway.

Somewhat ironically, in an era obsessed with drug abuse, both superheroes acquired their time-limited super powers through wonder drugs. 

On CBS, Stephen Strimpell played a gas station attendant who gained the strength of a thousand men and the ability to fly as Mr. Terrific. Yawn.

But NBC had something fresh from the mind that had dreamed up Get Smart. Buck Henry, in creating his clever and largely unappreciated superhero sitcom Captain Nice, anticipated with comic effect something that might happen in real life if some masked, super-strong fellow were to fly around doing good deeds.

We imagine helpless, grateful citizens being overawed, and look-up-in-the-sky-ing, but very, very quickly we’d get used to him, just as we get used to every impossible thing that happens — men landing on the moon, nuclear reactors poisoning the Pacific, walking around with Star Trek communicators in our hands, and so forth.

I recall an episode in which a highway bridge, ruined by corrupt contractors, collapses during its dedication ceremony. Luckily police chemist Carter Nash (William Daniels) is on hand as Captain Nice to catch the bridge. 

The mayor wonders if he wouldn’t mind just standing there to support the bridge permanently.

Alice Ghostley co-starred as Nash’s mother and Ann Prentiss played policewoman Candy Kane. The character’s superhero name came from his spur-of-the-moment attempt to explain away his monogrammed belt buckle. His unfortunate costume was something his mother made him wear.

“Well, it had Buck Henry, and he would take a script, go into a room, and make it funny,” recalled Daniels. “But I can’t say as I remember too much about it except that once they flew me into the wall of the studio, and I banged my head!”