MeTV's SuperSci-Fi Saturday Night

[The Old Mixer]

^Dahr, you're right--I was getting them mixed up!

ETA: I'm just gonna edit that part out to avoid future shame and embarrassment.

 

[Saga]

So that was Lara Parker as Mrs. Banner in the prologue? I thought as much (those eyes are unmistakable). By coincidence, I wrote the jacket copy for Parker's new DARK SHADOWS novel last week, so I was binging on DS clips on YouTube just a few days before last night's HULK episode.

ooooh. i didn't know she was writing a new Dark Shadows novel. i still need to read Wolf Moon Rising.

 

[Greg Cox]

Oh, come on, the series was full of sexual innuendoes, going back to Newmar's "brush my pussywillows" at the very least.

And don't forget the line about Catwoman giving Batman "strange stirrings in my utility belt."

To Saga: Parker's next DS novel, HEIRESS OF COLLINWOOD, comes out from Tor next Fall. This one is mostly about Victoria Winters, picking up where the show left off with her.

 

[Saga]

And don't forget the line about Catwoman giving Batman "strange stirrings in my utility belt."

To Saga: Parker's next DS novel, HEIRESS OF COLLINWOOD, comes out from Tor next Fall. This one is mostly about Victoria Winters, picking up where the show left off with her.

nice. i was never happy about how the series dealt with her character after Alexandra Moltke left.

 

[JD]

Batman: "The Entrancing Dr. Cassandra": This is a weird one. A couple of middle-aged alchemists who talk like beatniks? Invisibility that "isn't really" invisibility but might as well be? Flattening the Terrific Trio? And it teases a team-up of all the arch-villains and then just gives us a bunch of non-speaking photo doubles, and the big fight is invisible/in the dark. Which is mildly amusing, but still frustrating. It just didn't really work.

The show really was taking a more fanciful tack toward the end. I wonder, if there'd been a fourth season, would we have seen more of the fantasy and sci-fi elements of the Silver Age comics? A time machine? Batman turned into Bat-Mummy or Bat-Baby or Bat-Ape? Billy Barty as Bat-Mite?

I think this is the first time we get "Special Guest Villainess" and "Extra Special Guest Villain," rather than the other way around. Nice having the female character in the lead (something we also saw in the Catwoman-Joker team-up), but the characters just didn't work that well. Ida Lupino was fairly good given the limits of her material, but Howard Duff's Cabala was just annoying. Enough with the "Doccy-Baby" all the time!

Cute meta reference with Gordon saying "A Batfight rarely takes more than 40 seconds." Batman's line about Robin undergoing "the first oncoming thrust of manhood" while Batgirl was sitting on his lap was pretty brazen innuendo -- although it would've been a bit less disturbing if they hadn't just roofied Batgirl.

Seriously, why was Batgirl so content with the idea of being kept in the dark about the Duo's secrets? Surely they'd make a more effective team if they all knew each other's identities. That's bugged me pretty much my whole life. I never got why they didn't team up fully. (In the '77 Filmation animated series that brought back West and Ward and was kind of a pseudo-sequel to this, Batman and Robin did know Batgirl's true identity, though it was ambiguous whether the reverse was true.)

I don't think I'm gonna watch Hulk tonight. Maybe I'll watch it on Netflix later and chime in.

The fight against the invisible bad guys kind of made me laugh. I guess that was one to avoid having to hire stunt people for a big fight scene.
I also have to laugh at the overly simplistic sets they ended up using for the last season. It was pretty obvious by this point just how low their budget had gotten.

There's no evidence (I've not foiund any in any of the university Dozier / Greenway papers i've seen) that "the end" was a direct reference to Gabor's butt as a joke. What is a fact is that her episode--#120--was a settled matter as the finale of the series by Greenway/ABC. The tease of "the end" was simply a one-of-a-kind acknowledgement that Batman had reached its conclusion, and nothing else. The send-off was also supported by both Dozier and Howie Horwitz appearing as two of Minerva's victims in the episode, in a more prominent way that any other cameo--as the two men who (more than any others) had brought Batman to TV and turned it into a phenomenon, so for them, it was a last chance to be a more visible part of the show's final episode.

Even if all of that evidence did not exist, if Dozier wanted to play on such "humor," he had endless opportunities to do so between episode #1 - #119, with female guest stars with more of a public sexualized identity than Gabor in that decade.. It never happened, because "the end" was not a joke.

I've got to agree with the other posters here, there is no way the placement of that wasn't a joke. I also don't see why they would be calling it "The End", if there was another episode after it. If it was just to tell people about the end of the series, wouldn't it make more sense to actually put it at the end of the series.

I used to watch The Incredible Hulk as a kid, but this was the first time I remember ever seeing the pilot. I like a lot of shows on MeTV, and Cozi just as kind of cheesy, goofy fun, but I actually really enjoyed TIH. I was kind of surprised that it took so long before the Gamma experiement and the first Hulk out, but it was interesting enough that I really didn't mind.

 

[Christopher]

By the way, Susan Sullivan (Elaina Marks) is of course known today for playing Nathan Fillion's mother on Castle, and I'm pretty sure there was an episode where they used a still or a clip from the Hulk pilot to represent something from her past acting career. I can't remember specifically what it was, though.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

"And nothing else?" The screencap you posted yourself last night clearly shows that the caption is positioned directly over Gabor's posterior, not in the center of the screen as it would be if it weren't intended as an innuendo at all. Even if it was intended as a reference to the end of the series, it clearly wasn't meant exclusively that way.

Oh, come on, the series was full of sexual innuendoes, going back to Newmar's "brush my pussywillows" at the very least.

You're conflating that with your specific, unsubstantiated claim that "the end" was about Gabor's butt, when it was not--there's no evidence to support that. "The end" appears in a teaser to the series finale, for reasons all too obvious.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

Post-McFarlane isn't my influence at all...the vast bulk of my Spidey reading is first-hand 70s and second-hand 60s. He gained confidence as time went on and shed the role of the picked-on geek, but he was still neurotic (tended to focus a lot on his woes and take actions that made situations worse) and had a social and home life that complicated his super-heroing and vice versa.

His growth made him more morose than neurotic. In the late 60s/70s, it was not uncommon for Parker to have his nice side grind against being an ill tempered side, especially when dealing with his civilian life that did not know/understand his other life's troubles.

Much like the '60s animated series, they did away with most of the supporting cast and focused on his work life at the Bugle.

Actually, the Ralph Bakshi season of the cartoon focused heavily on his college social life, showing Parker socialize with several girls, etc. That's overlooked by the "blue sky" seasons, which--as you say--focused on his Bugle life, and was usually the most remembered part of the syndication package.

The Hammond series did feature his life at college in a few episodes, and he did have a growing relationship / rivalry with actress Ellen Bry's recurring Julie Masters character, while attempting to have moments with the Judy Tyler character in the pilot, JoAnna (Filmation Isis) Cameron's Gale Hoffman ("The Deadly Dust"), and Rosalind (DS9) Chao's Emily Chan from "The Chinese Web."

 

[Greg Cox]

By the way, Susan Sullivan (Elaina Marks) is of course known today for playing Nathan Fillion's mother on Castle, and I'm pretty sure there was an episode where they used a still or a clip from the Hulk pilot to represent something from her past acting career. I can't remember specifically what it was, though.

Thanks! I was trying to remember where I knew her from.

 

[RJDiogenes]

As I recall, the color comics didn't change much to reflect the TV show: you still had Thunderbolt Ross chasing the Hulk, who was still fighting aliens and mutants and super-villains, and such. But the short-lived HULK magazine did eventually make an effort to emulate the feel of TV show, eschew alien invasions and killer robots in favor of more "grounded" TV-style stories.

Not too short lived. It actually began as part of Marvel's black-and-white line of the 70s and then changed to color when it started to emulate the TV show. But, yeah, it was going for the more real-world storylines. That was around the time that Jim Shooter wrote the bit about Banner being molested by Gay men, generating much controversy.

 

[dahj]

You're conflating that with your specific, unsubstantiated claim that "the end" was about Gabor's butt, when it was not--there's no evidence to support that.

There's a giant "THE END" written precisely over her rear end.
Dude, it's a butt joke.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

No, it is not. You have no evidence to support it--the opposite of the fact it was used in the teaser to the series finale.

 

[dahj]

^^
I must admit I am now really curious why you so adamantly refuse to believe it's a butt joke?

 

[Greg Cox]

Sounds like a butt joke to me. And, as noted, it's not as though the show hadn't indulged in "racy" humor before . ...

And it's not an either/or thing. They could be acknowledging the impending demise of the show and getting away with a slightly naughty joke. Two birds with one "End" as it were.

Heck, it sounds like the sort of thing you do as a parting shot on your way out the door. "What the hell. We're getting cancelled anyway . ..."

 

[The Old Mixer]

Regarding the controversy of "The End," I move that we put this subject behind us.

 

[dahj]

^^
We should definitely sit on it, it looks like we'll never get to the bottom of the mystery anyway.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Glad to see that my attempt at cheekiness didn't fall between the cracks.

 

[Silvercrest]

Yes, but you deserve to be the butt-monkey for any future abuse. Go to the rear of the class.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Tales of this day will live on in posterity.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

^^
I must admit I am now really curious why you so adamantly refuse to believe it's a butt joke?

For the series-based reasons already stared. If #120 was not the series finale (and behind the scenes, it was through post at a point where Greenway did not know the fate of the series), it could be argued that it was a butt joke. But that's not the case. Episode #120 was already in the can as the acknowledged final episode (and had been known for several months), and was teased as such.

Regarding the controversy of "The End," I move that we put this subject behind us.

Agreed, but you know.....