The only show from Sid and Marty Krofft Productions with two female leads, Electra Woman and Dyna Girl features two magazine reporters who are secretly superheroines. It was part of The Krofft Supershow on ABC in 1976/77. A fairly open ripoff and/or parody of Batman, the series consisted of eight stories, each divided into two 15-minute segments.
Deidre Hall and Judy Strangis play Lori and Judy, who work as writers for Newsmaker magazine, but when trouble calls, they become Electra Woman and Dyna Girl! Electra Woman and Dyna Girl use the latest in technological gadgetry, such as the CrimeScope supercomputer and their wrist-mounted ElectraComps (supplied by their resident tech-wizard Frank, played by Norman Alden), along with their bravery and wits, to solve crimes and capture the various villains they encounter, including the Sorcerer, Glitter Rock, Ali Baba, Spider Lady, the Pharaoh, and the Empress of Evil.
In 2001, The WB tried to revive Electra Woman and Dyna Girl. The show wasn't picked up, but a pilot exists with Markie Post as Electra Woman. This show takes place several years after the original and features an older, world-weary Electra Woman who's retired from the hero business after Dyna Girl ran off with her husband, but is called back on the scene by a young and idealistic fangirl who becomes the new Dyna Girl.
In 2016, a reboot happened in the form of a webseries (later released as a DVD movie), starring YouTube comediennes Grace Helbig and Hannah Hart in the titular roles. This series ditches almost everything about the original show and instead presents an Affectionate Parody of modern superhero movies. Here, Electra Woman and Dyna Girl as struggling smalltown superheroines In a World… where, after an event called "The Shadow War", there are no more supervillains and superheroes are little more than glorified celebrities.
The original series provides examples of:
- Arachnid Appearance and Attire: Spider Lady. The Empress of Evil's headpiece also has a motif that resembles a cross between a spider in its web and a bat.
- Catchphrase / Verbal Tic: Dyna Girl and her "Electra-[whatever]!"
- City with No Name
- Clark Kenting: The duo do not wear masks, but just change their hairstyles. They even wear the ElectraComps in both identities!
- Cliffhanger / Death Trap: Every episode, naturally.
- Dutch Angle: Used quite often, particularly for action scenes.
- Evil Sorcerer: The Sorcerer and Ali Baba. Not really. The former is a stage magician who relies on illusions and devices for his "magic", while the latter is just a normal criminal whose sidekick pretends to be a genie to scare people. Neither can do actual magic, though the Sorcerer does steal a magic mirror in his second appearance. To a lesser extent, the Pharaoh, who doesn't himself have magic powers but uses magic Egyptian artifacts in his schemes.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: As seen by this page, several of the villains are examples of this.
- Expository Theme Tune: "Electra Woman and Dyna Girl, fighting all evil deeds..."
- First-Name Basis: The viewer never learns Lori's and Judy's last names.
- Girlish Pigtails: Dyna Girl has very long ones.
- Large Ham: Lots of scenery-chewing on display; Judy Strangis really cuts loose when Dyna Girl is turned evil in one episode.
- Making a Spectacle of Yourself: Glitter Rock wears enormous star-shaped sunglasses.
- The Man Behind the Man: The Empress of Evil turns out to be an android, while the real villain, her inventor, pretended to be her sidekick while subtly giving her orders.
- Mind Control: Several episodes feature the heroines getting brain-zapped in one way or another.
- Mind-Control Music: Glitter Rock's schtick.
- Mirror Morality Machine: Ali Baba steals and uses one of these on Dyna Girl, among others.
- Mission Control: Professor Frank Heflin. He's an electronic genius who created all of the duo's gadgets, and often updates them with new functions. Sometimes those new functions are permanent, like the ElectraBeam, which becomes a regular part of their arsenal after being added in the first episode, "The Sorcerer's Golden Trick". However, most are just one-episode powers (often used as a Deus ex Machina in the final act) that are never seen or mentioned again, like the ElectraSplit, the Electra-X, or the ElectraStrobe.
- Nepharious Pharaoh: The Pharaoh, who called himself the last living pharaoh and a direct descendent of Ramses. This was confirmed by the narrator in his second appearance.Narrator: But the great pharaohs for whom it was so important are all gone... with one regrettable exception".
- Non-Powered Costumed Hero: Without their ElectraComps, Lori and Judy are normal (albeit athletic and quick-witted) humans. Notably, the Spider Lady's two henchmen refused to fight Electra Woman even when she had lost her powers due to CrimeScope being offline.
- Reptiles Are Abhorrent: At one point, the Pharaoh tries to do away with the heroic duo with a basket of asps.
- Spandex, Latex, or Leather: Spandex, as befitting its status as the campiest of camp.
- Super Wrist-Gadget: The ElectraComps, which they wear in both identities. You'd think someone would comment on a gigantic wrist-mounted device (with flashing lights) on a pair of magazine reporters.
- Theme Mobile: The ElectraCar.
- Tim Taylor Technology: Frank often tried to help the girls by demanding that CrimeScope send them them "more power" while frantically flipping switches.
- Transformation Sequence: The heroines switching to their costumes.
The 2001 pilot provides examples of:
- The Alcoholic: Electra Woman. It's Played for Laughs most of the time, but she very clearly has a drinking problem.
- Ascended Fangirl: The new Dyna Girl (conveniently also named Judy) was a girl who was rescued by Electra Woman and Dyna Girl when she was little. Now a freshman in college, she's the one who gets Electra Woman to come out of retirement and joins her as the new Dyna Girl.
- Broken Bird: Electra Woman, who has lost her sense of idealism from her younger days and is now cynical, bitter and washed-up. It's implied that her divorce hit her hard, and it didn't make it better that her ex-husband left her for the original Dyna Girl.
- The Cameo: Both The Flash and Aquaman make brief cameos. Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman are all mentioned but don't actually appear.
- Curse Cut Short: A very memorable one during the robbery:Robber: I'm holding a gun. Big gun.
Electra Woman: *scoffs* Oh, please, I've had bigger things than that up my —
Dyna Girl: SURRENDER! Um, EVIL-DOERS! - Darker and Edgier: The 2001 pilot, in spades. Granted, that's not really hard, since the original series wasn't even allowed to have fight scenes.
- Groin Attack: The new Dyna Girl in the 2001 pilot does this to a convenience store robber.
- Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Judy is very clearly the sweetest, most kind-hearted person in the pilot, and unlike the original Dyna Girl is blonde.
- Hotter and Sexier: The new outfits have Power Girl-like boob windows, and there are a lot of sex jokes and innuendoes. Electra Woman has shades of a Mrs. Robinson, actively going out to seduce college guys.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Electra Woman, who is portrayed as a world-weary, cynical and self-centered washout, completely uninterested in resuming her role as a superheroine... but she does end up caring about Judy and in the end gets back into the superheroics because she can't bring herself to disappoint her new Dyna Girl.
- Morality Pet: The new Dyna Girl for Electra Woman.
The 2016 reboot provides examples of:
- Age Lift: In the original, Dyna Girl was a young teen while Electra Woman was an adult woman. Here, the two are both twentysomethings who attended high school together.
- Ambiguously Gay: There are some hints that Dyna Girl might be a lesbian, but nothing's ever clarified. She has a butch style and it's hinted may feel more than platonically for her friend Electra Woman.
- Catchphrase: Electra Woman has one as a bit of a Running Gag: whenever some guy tells her something stupid or gross, she'll look at them awkwardly for a moment and then say "...okay."
- Darker and Edgier: Again, not terribly Dark and Edgy, but compared to the original show, and even the 2001 pilot, this series definitely counts as this, indulging in quite a bit of Black Comedy.
- Dumb Blonde: Sort of downplayed, but Electra Woman has traces of this — she's very driven, but she leaves a bit to be desired when it comes to logical thought. Averted with Dyna Girl, who is just as blonde but is very clearly the series' Only Sane Woman and often plays Straight Man to Electra Woman.
- Evil Is Petty: The Empress of Evil, in this continuity re-imagined as a bratty teenage girl who gets just as big a kick out of killing annoying superheroes as she does out of writing "LOSER" on their foreheads.
- Fake Ultimate Hero: Major Vaunt. He has the reputation of a great hero, but he's a total Jerkass and in the end proves less-than-effective when fighting the Empress of Evil. She kills him before he's finished posing.
- In Name Only: This reboot really doesn't have a lot to do with the original show, apart from character names and a few Shout-Out moments.
- Instant Web Hit: The reason for Electra Woman and Dyna Girl's sudden success in-universe; they post a video of themselves stopping a pair of thieves online, and in a world where superheroes only rarely actually stop crime, they become mega-celebrities overnight.
- Karmic Death: Glory hog Major Vaunt goes to take out the Empress of Evil himself, not wanting to wait for the other heroes or even listen to Dyna Girl's passionate speech about how they should work together, and blatantly mugging for the cameras so that everyone will see him take out the villain himself and see he's the greatest superhero. The Empress kills him almost immediately.
- Kick the Dog: The first time the Empress of Evil shows up, she steps up to an old homeless man, steals all the change people have given him, and tosses away the shopping cart with all his possessions in it.
- Mythology Gag: During the final confrontation with the Empress of Evil, Dyna Girl says that they're "electra-screwed," referencing her original counterpart's Catchphrase.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Bernice had not heard of the Shadow War before Electra Woman and Dyna Girl told her about it. Apparently, when she later got her superpowers, she remembered that story and decided that rather than become another run-of-the-mill superhero, she'd become the world's only supervillain.
- Only Sane Woman: Dyna Girl, with a side-order of grumpiness. She's the only person in the series who at least tries to be level-headed and realistic about, well, anything, which means she's often frustrated with everyone else.
- Sidekick: Dyna Girl tends to be referred to as Electra Woman's sidekick, no matter how many times she tries to tell people that she's Electra Woman's partner and not her sidekick.
- Spandex, Latex, or Leather: In the beginning of the series, Electra Woman and Dyna Girl wear spandex suits almost (but not completely) identical to the suits they wore in the original show. When they hit it big they upgrade to more modern-looking and practical suits of leather and latex, though Dyna Girl does comment that she liked their original look.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Dyna Girl is getting more and more disgruntled with their big-time hero job, but the last straw is being asked to star in an exploitative commercial where she's supposed to strip down to a bikini — see below.
- Stripperiffic: The commercial that Electra Woman and Dyna Girl are set to be in is clearly meant to feature sexier versions of their costumes. When we see the storyboard for the commercial, the heroines are drawn with bared midriffs and in Electra Woman's case, deep cleavage — and the commercial is meant to have them strip further down to bikinis.
- What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: Some of the superheroes in this show have less-than-impressive powers; the most obvious one being Perennial Man, who has one of the most impressive-looking costumes of them all but whose sole power is talking to plants. Not controlling plants, just being able to understand what they say. Then again, Electra Woman and Dyna Girl have no superpowers at all, and they are by far the most effective heroes in the series.
