Whatever Happened To...Jack Baker

Wonderbug, which anchored the Krofft Supershow for 22 episodes beginning in 1976, was a clunker of a dune buggy that seemed barely able to drive up and down the side roads. When its magic horn--that's right, I said magic horn--was sounded, the rustpot transformed into Wonderbug, a sleek crime-fighting hip ride that had cool super powers.

Teens Barry (David Levy), C.C. (Jack Baker) and Susan (Carol Anne Seflinger), who found Wonderbug rotting away in a junkyard and rejuvenated it with the (cough) magic horn, traveled with the super car, fighting crime and righting wrongs.

Along with Electra-Woman and Dyna Girl, Magic Mongo and Dr. Shrinker, Wonderbug topped off my Saturday mornings with its idealistic themes and morality based stories.

There are many legends about celebrities that took a different path after their shot ended on national TV. Most are simply urban legends, and are not true. For example: Ken Osmond, who played Eddie Haskell on Leave It To Beaver, was a Los Angeles police officer for 18 years after his show ended.

He did not--no matter how many times you are told otherwise--become a porn star.


But Jack Baker (far right) did.

He tried the mainstream route. Soon after the kid show cash stopped, Baker was seen on episodes of Happy Days, M*A*S*H and The Kentucky Fried Movie.


Mainstream projects began drying up fast.

Baker eventually starred on more than 20 adult movies, most with titles that suggest producers were targeting a [ahem] particular hard core audience. 

Sadly, he died of bladder cancer in 1994, at age 47.