Mere months after Tim Burton’s Batman dominated not just the box office, but American cultural consciousness, ABC responded with Chameleons, a pilot movie for a new superhero series directly influenced by the Dynamic Duo. Just swap out Batman for one Captain Chameleon, replace Robin with the Paraclete of Justice, trade in the Batmobile for the Car-meleon and, well, there’s a reason you’ve never heard of this. 

Dozens, actually — only one of which has the nation wondering what a goddamn Paraclete is. 

In his last feature, swashbuckling legend Stewart Granger (1950’s King Solomon’s Mines) plays elderly publishing magnate Jason Carr, who moonlights as the Paraclete of Justice … but not for long, as black-robed, computer-voiced cult members kill him, staging his death as a heart attack “in bed with a sleazy hooker.” 

Carr’s sanitarium-patient granddaughter, Shelly (Crystal Bernard, Slumber Party Massacre II), investigates with the occasional help of Captain Chameleon (Marcus Gilbert, Army of Darkness). To justify his name, CC dons an invisibility cape and changes his costume’s color with the turn of a belt buckle that looks like a Trivial Pursuit piece with all six wedges filled. Presumably unrelated to lizard camouflage, he also ziplines to jaunty harpsichord music. Meanwhile, Shelly conducts undercover work posing as a prostitute. 

From prolific TV creator Glen A. Larson (Battlestar Galactica, Knight Rider, The Fall Guy, et al.), Chameleons is woefully out of touch. It’s like Larson’s knowledge of superheroes began and ended with Archie Comics’ Pureheart the Powerful. Bernard’s Shelly is all curls and homespun homilies, like a proto-Reba. 

As a result, no one cared; a series did not follow. Karma, Chameleons. —Rod Lott