MeTV's SuperSci-Fi Saturday Night

[TREK_GOD_1]

"The Hulk Breaks Las Vegas"--

David is not seeking a cure in this episode.

Last seen in Denver, following his near-disastrous flight, Banner is in Las Vegas, a week into learning how to run one of the tables from the very attractive Cathy, who suggests Banner might be a lawyer or doctor, based on his demeanor.

Reporter Ed Campion has explosive information on an arm of organized crime running the casino where David is employed:

"Once that evidence is out, they are finished! Right down the line, from the fat cat politicians through to Tom Edler, and his big shot bosses from the east!"

Organized crime in Las Vegas had been a long running topic in TV and film, but this episode's idea of some investigation blowing apart mob activity and/or influence in the casinos was getting closer to the truth, as it would only be a few, short years in the 80s as endless federal investigations, high profile murder cases and casinos being bought by large corporate interests that the reign of organized crime in Vegas was (at least) cut down to a degree.

McGee thinks the voice on the phone (Banner) voice is really familiar. So, months after what was ultimately a few minutes hearing Banner speak (in the pilot), the memory is burned in Jack's mind.

Still early in season one, this is the first time Jack McGee comes close to learning the truth behind the Hulk, as he beings to change back to Banner:

"What's happening to your face? Something's changing"

...but he would not know the Hulk actually makes a transformation back to a normal man until the second season's two part "Mystery Man."

McGee even questions the Hulk with the name "Dr. David Banner," until Edler's gunshot revives the full Hulk state.

Despite any memories of McGee resting in the Hulk's mind, it is interesting to note the Hulk holds no instant animosity for the reporter at all. It is clear--from the Hulk's staring--that he recognizes Jack, but does not have a negative reaction at all, which speaks to Banner's own feelings (even while being a bit paranoid in his avoidance of McGee, as in the lunch scene), which might be the reason he pretended to not know McGee's surname, aside from not wanting to aid criminals.

TIH already had a former Land of the Giants actress--Deanna Lund--guest star ("Of Guilt, Models, and Murder"), now we have LOTG's Don Marshall ( the groundbreaking Dan Erikson on the Irwin Allen series) in the first of three TIH appearances, this time portraying mob thug Lee, when most of his career saw him playing good guys.

John Crawford (Edler) does his best to play completely sleazy, and he was successful, without resorting to the mob stereotypes that--by 1978--had moved from Edward G. Robinson / Neville Brand caricatures to James Caan or Marlon Brando knock offs.

While on the subject of Marshall and Crawford, their appearance in this episode--

--provided Star Trek fans a small reunion of guest stars from "The Galileo Seven"--

Actress Simone Griffeth (Cathy) would make another journey into an adaptation from the comic world, co-starring in the 1979 TV movie Mandrake, based on the first of Lee Falk's legendary comic strip characters (the other being The Phantom).

Charles Picerni (Charlie--the hood who tries to bury Banner) comes from a family of stuntmen. This was not his first run-in with superheroes, since he was a regular stuntman (playing henchmen) on William Dozier's Batman (TV and the movie) and The Green Hornet.

The production was all on the Universal lot, with Las Vegas exteriors cobbled from the vast library of stock footage, including a rather bad (but thankfully quick) rear projection of Ferrigno running past casinos on the Vegas strip.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

Don Marshall just doesn't seem to get on well with characters who have greenish complexions, does he?

Think of poor Charles Picerni (Charlie)--he had his butt handed to him by two green heroes--The Hulk and the Green Hornet. Unlucky color for him.

 

[The Old Mixer]

I hadn't realized that this John Crawford was also on Trek...and in the same episode as Marshall to boot!

It's also interesting that this episode features a blurry photo of the Hulk in the Register, but not the famous New York shot that they'd later use, IIRC.

 

[Christopher]

The Incredible Hulk
"The Hulk Breaks Las Vegas"
Originally aired Apr. 21, 1978

The setup here has always struck me as kind of awkward -- even given the established relationship between McGee and the other reporter, it seems odd that a disreputable tabloid reporter would get called in on a story about corruption in Vegas. And it's enormously contrived the way David is dragged into the story. Still, I do like David's dilemma, having to choose between saving McGee's life and protecting his identity. And I like it that, for essentially the first time, we see Jack McGee as a protagonist in his own right, someone we're rooting for. The climax in the quarry is particularly effective. McGee discovers for the first time that the Hulk might not be a rampaging killer after all. The Hulk saves his life, and he begins to realize he's not a danger, that he might be a person, perhaps a victim of some diabolical experiment of Banner's. He gets so close to discovering the truth, and you're not sure who to root for.

Don Marshall just doesn't seem to get on well with characters who have greenish complexions, does he?

When I saw "John Crawford" in the credits, I was hoping it would be the former Johnny Crawford from The Rifleman, but it was a different actor.

He was Commissioner Ferris in Star Trek: "The Galileo Seven." He often gets his first name misread, leading to a widespread myth that Joan Crawford was in Star Trek (and probably a number of other things he's been in).

The female guests are notable too. Julie Gregg (Wanda) was Finella in Batman: "Fine Feathered Fiends"/'The Penguin Makes the Scenes" (and was the, err, butt of the most blatant sexual innuendo in the show's history, involving a giant bellows and a suggestive camera angle), and also had a couple of notable appearances on Mission: Impossible, notably as Jim Phelps's love interest in "Decoy," one of the vanishingly few episodes that gave Jim Phelps any characterization at all. And the cute dealer Cathy is played by Simone Griffeth, the female lead in Roger Corman's Death Race 2000 (whose cast also included Martin Kove, David's boxer buddy in "Final Round").

This episode features the meatiest role for McGee yet since the pilot, and it gets a lot of mileage out of close calls and teases. One has to wonder if David would have approached McGee at the airport to save his life, had he been in time.

It's probably safe to assume that if forced to choose, David would sacrifice his secret for McGee's life instead of the reverse. He wouldn't be a '70s TV hero otherwise.

...fortunately, there wasn't heavy traffic in those stock shots of Vegas. (The screen work when McGee was driving was particularly obvious.)

Yeah, this mix of stock footage, an interior-heavy story, and schlocky rear-projection was a letdown after the location work in "Terror in Times Square." The shot of the Hulk running in front of a process shot of the Vegas Strip was particularly cheesy.

...though it's conveniently out of character for the Hulk to stay there and start changing, especially when the bad guys weren't clearly subdued.

He's not a trained tactician, after all. Hulk no see bad men anymore. Little nosy man not try to hurt Hulk. Hulk tired.

There's also the fact that this was his second Hulk-out in a single night, maybe with less than an hour between them. I don't think we've seen two Startling Metamorphoses this close together in time since "A Death in the Family." That must've taken a lot out of him.

But this also gives us our first interrupted change back.

Yeah, that is a new twist, isn't it? I don't think it's something that will happen very often, if ever again. The only other "interruption" I can think of offhand is in "Prometheus" where he was caught in mid-change.

By the way, I think this is the debut of the final version of the musical cue that accompanies the Hulk-outs for the rest of the series.

 

[The Old Mixer]

leading to a widespread myth that Joan Crawford was in Star Trek

There's a joke about 23rd-century wire hangers in there somewhere....

It's probably safe to assume that if forced to choose, David would sacrifice his secret for McGee's life instead of the reverse. He wouldn't be a '70s TV hero otherwise.

But given the opportunity, he might have come up with an alternative to approaching him directly.

Yeah, that is a new twist, isn't it? I don't think it's something that will happen very often, if ever again.

Metamorphosis interruptus.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

It's also interesting that this episode features a blurry photo of the Hulk in the Register, but not the famous New York shot that they'd later use, IIRC.

..which was the wise choice, as it plays into the Cathy character's belief that the Hulk's blurry photo is just as fake as U.F.O. photos commonly seen in tabloids. Further, it tells the audience that no matter how many individuals across the country have seen the Hulk in person, and the existence of a murder warrant, many will still write the creature off as a hoax.

 

[JD]

It was a hell of coincidence that David got dragged into a situation like this involving McGee, but it was a nice chance to get to give him a big more attention.
I was a little annoyed they never said anything about what this information that was so important was.
I do agree with Christopher that it seemed weird they would give this big scoop to what appears to be a tabloid at about a National Enquirer level. You'd think they would have got to a more trusted paper with the information.
The projection screen in the scene with the Hulk running down the street was bad.
I liked McGee's encounter with the Hulk. This was their first face to face encounter, wasn't it?

 

[The Old Mixer]

^Nope, there was the scene at the boxing ring in "The Final Round".

Did they say that the guy who was doing the expose worked for the Register? If not, maybe he worked for a more respectable paper and Jack was an old colleague. (Though looking back on the phone call to Jack, it sure seems like they're working for the same paper.) IIRC, later episodes established that McGee had once been a respected journalist and had suffered a fall from grace. Maybe the Register is full of washed up reporters who are trying to break a serious story so they can move to a better paper....

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

I was a little annoyed they never said anything about what this information that was so important was.

Ed Campion mentioned the heart of it:

I've got tapes, I've got skim slips..."

Skim slips is a real world reference to skimming--an illegal mob practice of taking profits from casinos to avoid taxes and fund mafia activities. It was one of the central crimes the U.S. government used to break the mafia's hold on the Las Vegas casinos in the 1980's. That's why I referred to the real world parallel earlier.

Did they say that the guy who was doing the expose worked for the Register?

No, Ed Campion was not a Register reporter.

If not, maybe he worked for a more respectable paper and Jack was an old colleague. (Though looking back on the phone call to Jack, it sure seems like they're working for the same paper.) IIRC, later episodes established that McGee had once been a respected journalist and had suffered a fall from grace. Maybe the Register is full of washed up reporters who are trying to break a serious story so they can move to a better paper....

..and here's another real world parallel: The National Enquirer and The Star were/are both trashy tabloids, but both have broken major stories over the past three decades, when the high and mighty press failed to do so. In this way--and as you point out, McGee was a respected journalist, but he also works for a tabloid that publishes things from categories even Banner once said (pilot) he would not fit into. All that said, we can assume Campion knew if McGee obtained his information, it might end up in the Register, and he might have been fine with that.[/quote]

 

[The Old Mixer]

OK, now I gotta ask...did they ever indicate specifically that Campion wasn't a Register reporter? Unless I missed a reference one way or the other, I thought they left it pretty vague.

 

[Christopher]

I was a little annoyed they never said anything about what this information that was so important was.

It's a Macguffin. We don't need to know the details, any more than we needed to know the details of the secret documents in North by Northwest. It was proof that John Crawford's character (Edler) was guilty of criminal activities -- probably mob-related, given the location -- and that's all we need to know. And of course it's supplemented by the tape recording of Edler overtly offering Campion a bribe to cover up certain details.

Did they say that the guy who was doing the expose worked for the Register? If not, maybe he worked for a more respectable paper and Jack was an old colleague.

It isn't specified where he worked. It does almost seem that he contacted McGee mainly because they're old friends, but there was a line during their phone call indicating that Campion and McGee had already arranged to exchange this information. It was very vague.

By the way, one thing I wanted to mention -- the first act tries to build up a surprise about the reporter's identity by not using his last name or showing his face, so that it's a big shock when David opens the paper and it says "Jack McGee," but it doesn't work at all because Jack Colvin's voice is easily recognizable over the phone. (And have we heard McGee introduce himself as Jack before this? Maybe this was the first time it was used, and maybe the voice on the phone was meant to be mixed inaudibly low, but wasn't.)

IIRC, later episodes established that McGee had once been a respected journalist and had suffered a fall from grace. Maybe the Register is full of washed up reporters who are trying to break a serious story so they can move to a better paper....

Yeah, that's the saving grace of this. It begins building the thread that McGee is a better journalist than his reputation suggests, and Campion is presumably one of the few who still believes in him.

 

[The Old Mixer]

By the way, one thing I wanted to mention -- the first act tries to build up a surprise about the reporter's identity by not using his last name or showing his face, so that it's a big shock when David opens the paper and it says "Jack McGee," but it doesn't work at all because Jack Colvin's voice is easily recognizable over the phone. (And have we heard McGee introduce himself as Jack before this? Maybe this was the first time it was used, and maybe the voice on the phone was meant to be mixed inaudibly low, but wasn't.)

Hmmm...it hadn't even occurred to me that they were trying to do this, because McGee was indeed so recognizable on the phone. I'd just taken the delayed reveal of McGee's name to David to be a bit of dramatic tension in which the audience was waiting for the other shoe to drop for him.

 

[Christopher]

Hmmm...it hadn't even occurred to me that they were trying to do this, because McGee was indeed so recognizable on the phone. I'd just taken the delayed reveal of McGee's name to David to be a bit of dramatic tension in which the audience was waiting for the other shoe to drop for him.

But if that had been the case, they'd have had no reason to avoid showing his face or stating his last name to the audience.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

OK, now I gotta ask...did they ever indicate specifically that Campion wasn't a Register reporter? Unless I missed a reference one way or the other, I thought they left it pretty vague.

No, but Campion seemed to be established in Vegas, and sought McGee as an outsider reporter who could help in his time of crisis (remember, he could not trust local law enforcement, either). Aside from that, it makes the world appear bigger that every TIH reporter not named McGee does not work for the Register.

 

[The Old Mixer]

But if that had been the case, they'd have had no reason to avoid showing his face or stating his last name to the audience.

Oh, I agree that the writer may have been going for that on paper, now that you point it out...but it definitely didn't survive execution.

 

[JD]

I think I just caught a TIH reference in the LEGO Avengers game. I had a open world mission in New York where I had to drive Lou Ferrigno (who voiced himself) around Manhattan because he cabs won't pick him up anymore. I don't remember the exact wording, but it seemed to be a reference to the Hulk out in the back of the cab in Terror in Times Square.

 

[publiusr]

Hulk no see bad men anymore. Little nosy man not try to hurt Hulk. Hulk tired.

Sam Donaldson had that soporific effect on everyone....No, that was Charles Kuralt...

There's a joke about 23rd-century wire hangers in there somewhere....

None ever--you know the routine

 

[One Lucky Red Shirt]

Hells yeah. When did the incredible hulk start coming on metv? Very cool. The old superman, 60s batman, wonder woman, incredible hulk, tos trek. Good line up. I only have an amplified indoor antenna and refuse to pay to get cable. Im sure a lot of people feel that way too. Only thing missing is old doctor who.

 

[Saga]

Hells yeah. When did the incredible hulk start coming on metv? Very cool. The old superman, 60s batman, wonder woman, incredible hulk, tos trek. Good line up. I only have an amplified indoor antenna and refuse to pay to get cable. Im sure a lot of people feel that way too. Only thing missing is old doctor who.

i feel ya. $80 a month and i was only watching a couple channels really. and most of those shows i can watch online. as for Doctor Who, check to see if you get Retro TV. they play classic Doctor Who weeknights at 11pm and 6pm on weekends.

 

[One Lucky Red Shirt]

Nah no retro tv. But down here we do get a lot of channels though. Cozi plays knightrider quantum leap and the a team.