You guys have burst the safe bubble that I inhabited for 35 years pretending that show never existed....
MeTV's SuperSci-Fi Saturday Night
- Thread starter JD
- Start date
Embrace it...
Are you best buds with the Unbeing or something? Can you set me up? I've got a list of things I want to forget, starting with Melvin Belli and his shower curtain, Lazarus (and anti-Lazarus!), most of The Super Friends, and Herbie the Robot.
Whoa. If he had the Thing Ding-A-Ling Ring, he'd have to punch himself in the.... let's just drop this line of reasoning.
See now, you guys have gone and perverted a perfectly bad kids' cartoon....
I knew there was a reason that I stopped reading new comics....
The Incredible Hulk
"The Final Round"
Originally aired Mar. 10, 1978
So...a boxing story about a fighter named Rocky...but maybe the lack of originality was deliberate given that the guy who was calling himself that wasn't the brightest bulb in whatever room he happened to be in.
The Hulk hits Delaware. While there's plenty of time since the previous installment for him to have gotten there, it makes me wonder if anything in particular brought David across the country. He mentions at the end that he has business in Pittsburgh...we'll see if that actually ties in with the next episode.
This week's alias: David Benson. Only three aliases in and he's nearly repeating himself...that's only one letter nudge away from being his main alias from the previous episode.
David gets to put his medical background to work again. Dropping that specific detail about the 104th Light Infantry Division outside of Da Nang made me wonder if David really did serve in 'Nam...or if maybe he picked up that detail from the vet that he interviewed in the pilot, such that I went back and looked. There was mention of Da Nang, but the vet's unit wasn't specified onscreen.
"Double our pleasure"--a period-specific commercial reference!
At least this time the cheesy bad voiceover during action sequences had some genuine humor in it--"C'mon, let's get the big dude," just as they turn away from David starting to change.
And now begins our weekly Hulk-Out Timer. Because of the apparent limitations of the Netflix timer, it'll be in time remaining rather than elapsed time. First Hulk-Out: -32:10. Hmm...when you factor in time for original broadcast commercials, that actually seems just a bit earlier than usual, but I guess we'll see.
I like the early Hulk makeup here, with the big brows--I'm pretty sure they changed it as the series progressed...and it looks better than the pilot version did to me, assuming there was some tweaking since then.
On the subject of how well-known the Hulk is--when he was talking to McGee, Rocky seemed to know that the creature he'd seen was the Hulk from the National Register.
Convenient how David gets knocked out cold for once, without changing.
Did I miss an explanation for why McGee was at the fight? He certainly didn't seem interested in it.
Second Hulk-Out: -6:20.
Colvin's expression when the Hulk's right in front of him looks more amused than anything...I can see why McGee would be feeling some satisfaction in that moment, but you'd think it would be mixed with a little fright/anger/something. He looks like a stripper just popped out of the cake at his surprise party.
And there's another awkwardly slow goodbye while McGee seems to be within easy spotting distance. It's not just David who needs to get a little better at this, it's the writers and directors. Fortunately they do, as I recall.
"The Final Round"
Originally aired Mar. 10, 1978
So...a boxing story about a fighter named Rocky...but maybe the lack of originality was deliberate given that the guy who was calling himself that wasn't the brightest bulb in whatever room he happened to be in.
The Hulk hits Delaware. While there's plenty of time since the previous installment for him to have gotten there, it makes me wonder if anything in particular brought David across the country. He mentions at the end that he has business in Pittsburgh...we'll see if that actually ties in with the next episode.
This week's alias: David Benson. Only three aliases in and he's nearly repeating himself...that's only one letter nudge away from being his main alias from the previous episode.
David gets to put his medical background to work again. Dropping that specific detail about the 104th Light Infantry Division outside of Da Nang made me wonder if David really did serve in 'Nam...or if maybe he picked up that detail from the vet that he interviewed in the pilot, such that I went back and looked. There was mention of Da Nang, but the vet's unit wasn't specified onscreen.
"Double our pleasure"--a period-specific commercial reference!
At least this time the cheesy bad voiceover during action sequences had some genuine humor in it--"C'mon, let's get the big dude," just as they turn away from David starting to change.
And now begins our weekly Hulk-Out Timer. Because of the apparent limitations of the Netflix timer, it'll be in time remaining rather than elapsed time. First Hulk-Out: -32:10. Hmm...when you factor in time for original broadcast commercials, that actually seems just a bit earlier than usual, but I guess we'll see.
I like the early Hulk makeup here, with the big brows--I'm pretty sure they changed it as the series progressed...and it looks better than the pilot version did to me, assuming there was some tweaking since then.
On the subject of how well-known the Hulk is--when he was talking to McGee, Rocky seemed to know that the creature he'd seen was the Hulk from the National Register.
Convenient how David gets knocked out cold for once, without changing.
Did I miss an explanation for why McGee was at the fight? He certainly didn't seem interested in it.
Second Hulk-Out: -6:20.
Colvin's expression when the Hulk's right in front of him looks more amused than anything...I can see why McGee would be feeling some satisfaction in that moment, but you'd think it would be mixed with a little fright/anger/something. He looks like a stripper just popped out of the cake at his surprise party.
And there's another awkwardly slow goodbye while McGee seems to be within easy spotting distance. It's not just David who needs to get a little better at this, it's the writers and directors. Fortunately they do, as I recall.
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Even in 1978 I thought the use of "Rocky" was too much. Struggling boxer archetypes were all over American television since its early days (with a few famous stories along the way), so its not as though TIH producers had to use Stallone's breakout character (then two years old) in order to sell the struggling fighter character.
Hmm. Before his first Hulk-out (in this episode), did he mention or imply he was still seeking a cure? If so, that means he leaned the treatment from the conclusion of "Death in the Family" failed (obviously), but i'm not sure if Pittsburgh offers another kind of treatment.
I think the Vietnam reference was to suggest Banner was a Baby Boomer--or "younger" to be more appealing.
Yeah, I remember that...and now, the reference flies right over the heads of many viewers.
The make-up went through several changes before the more familiar look (used in the famous publicity photos with or without Bixby). In the pilot the brow was thicker, with very bushy hair; in the 2nd TV movie, the hair was shorter, and his teeth appliance did not seem so pronounced--or cave man-like.
This thread is my resume for Adult Swim.
This almost makes me want to start again. She even says, "Right on!"
So many absurd elements, I love that the Thing exoskeleton forms a male thing body with trunks and then has a force field bubble protecting the head.
Speaking of absurd if anyone can last until the end of that Spider-Woman episode posted above the final solution and implementation is an amazing example of 70s cartoon logic.
It wasn't specified, since he didn't have a confidant in this episode. But that does raise the question of whether he'd suffered an offscreen Hulk-out since the second pilot, or was this episode the first time he'd Hulked out since that unsuccessful treatment? A specific reaction from David to the effect of the latter was more than we could expect from episodic TV of the period, I suppose.
Hmm...I never got the impression that David was supposed to be any younger than Bixby (born 1934), so not a baby boomer...though I imagine he was still young enough to have served in 'Nam in a medical capacity. If David was Bixby's age, he likely had his M.D. by the time it became a bona fide shooting war for American troops.
I'll have to keep my ears perked for similar references. The idea that David might have served in wartime is an intriguing bit of potential background detail, assuming he wasn't just lying his stretchy pants off.
Regarding McGee (your response was formatted as a quote, so I couldn't quote it here)...they'd already shown him snooping around the gym while Rocky was training. Not sure why he specifically attended the fight in-story...other than to be there for the Hulk's dramatic appearance. I would have thought he was covering it, but he seemed so annoyed when the James Doohan lookalike next to him would jostle his attention away from trying to read his paper.
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Hey, that was one of my favorite cartoon series back in the day. Spider-Woman was a big superheroine crush for me. I also collected her comics.
The first regular episode, and a classic example of '60s/'70s pseudo-anthology storytelling, with the bulk of the focus on the guest stars while the lead character is in a somewhat peripheral role, mainly just serving to keep the guest protagonist alive long enough to work out his own issues. It's basically Kenneth Johnson's take on Requiem for a Heavyweight, though with nods to Rocky (obviously) and maybe On the Waterfront (with all the talk about being a contender). Not bad, but it does paint with a rather heavy brush in establishing Henry/Rocky's extreme nice-guyness in the first act. Well, I guess he's saved from being flawless by his naivete and his misguided belief that he has a future in boxing. Although it's good that he's not too naive, that he sees through his manager's scheme and plays along toward his own ends.
This is probably the first place I saw Martin Kove, but I didn't remember it when I became aware of him later as the star of Hard Time on Planet Earth in 1989. I also know him from Rambo: First Blood Part II and Death Race 2000. And no doubt various other things; he gets around. The young Kove here was surprisingly Travolta-esque at times.
I noticed that the shot of the Hulk pulling his shirt off in the first Hulk-out was shot against a black background, probably so they could reuse it as stock. I'm not sure if they did reuse it, though, since the Hulk's makeup was still evolving. But I'm sure the opening shot of David crossing the street was reused as stock at the end of some later episode.
Watching the Hulk-out scenes here gave me an idea about the Hulk's thought process: "Why do I keep waking up covered in these darn torn rags?"
More seriously, I often wonder about David's though process in situations like these. We know he fears the metamorphosis and the harm he could cause, and it's probably a very unpleasant process to go through; but in situations where his or someone else's life is on the line if he doesn't break free of captivity, I wonder if he ever deliberately works himself up to a Hulk-out. I did note that this was the first time he didn't ask if the Hulk had harmed anyone. Maybe he's getting more confident that the Hulk isn't a killer. The show never actually portrayed him deliberately triggering a transformation or considering it an asset (never a "Maybe I can aim it" moment like in the '08 movie), but I do wonder if sometimes he was grateful for it or welcomed it in the heat of the moment.
Certainly it was a deliberate reference, reflecting his aspirations. He actually said that he wanted to be like "all those other Rockys." Stallone's Rocky Balboa himself was inspired (both in reality and in-story) by real-life 1950s boxing champion Rocky Marciano. There have probably been countless aspiring boxers who've called themselves Rocky in homage to Marciano.
And we saw him hesitating as he tried to make up an alias on the spot, or remember what he'd planned to go by. No wonder he fell back on something so similar to his previous alias.
And the good part is, since David metamorphosizes into the Hulk, it doesn't have to be considered a continuity error. Maybe his mutation is still unstable. Heck, the comics Hulk certainly went through a lot of early changes.
That sounded to me like there might've been a cut line or two of McGee explaining the Hulk to Rocky, since Rocky didn't seem to recognize the Hulk when he was talking to David after the incident.
Well, he was knocked out by a professional boxer, so it makes sense.
Not explicitly, but I can guess. Rocky was more interested in talking to McGee about his career than about the Hulk, and there was a barely-audible line from Rocky about how maybe McGee would get two stories out of this. So I figure McGee realized the only way he could get Rocky to talk about the Hulk was to humor him first by covering his match, or at least showing up and pretending to cover it.
He's a reporter pursuing an elusive story, and his story literally dropped from the sky right in front of him. It's the closest look he's had at the Hulk yet. Naturally he'd be excited -- especially in contrast to the boredom he'd been experiencing at what was starting to look like a cold lead. That excitement probably overrode his fear. Imagine the expression on Ahab's face when he finally faced Moby Dick.
No, this time there was plenty of distance between them. David was already walking away toward one aisle when McGee appeared at the top of the opposite aisle. McGee would've had to have incredible eyesight to recognize David under those conditions.
I was always under the impression that he wanted to change in the climax of "The First" when Frye's creature destroyed his cure (IIRC). There's also the episode in which David temporarily became evil, FWIW.
"David, uh...Benson...yeah, Benson...that's the ticket!"
Good thing Rocky was too busy between working on his brain hemorrhage and getting poisoned to notice that McGee was reading the paper....
Actually, watching the episode got me thinking how justified his fear of the Hulk hurting someone seriously is. Think about it: it isn't just that the Hulk hasn't killed and might never kill. The Hulk tends to operate on fixed ideas, based on David's overarching goals at the time. That time, there were only three: "Get Free", "Save Rocky", "Stop Bad Men." He followed those directives almost to the letter, whether he realized it consciously or not.
My thinking is David's colleague from the pilot was right on: The Hulk won't kill because David won't. In fact, David would probably have to be thinking "Kill kill kill!" during the transformation to make the Hulk do it.
Yes. The Hulk is David's raw emotional side. He instinctively attacks whoever or whatever David feels anger or fear toward and instinctively protects whoever David cares about.
I doubt even that would do it, because he'd still have a deeper, inbuilt revulsion to taking life. Again, the Hulk is David's pure emotion divorced from his intellect. So trying to will himself into killing wouldn't work because that would be an attempt to get his intellect to override his emotion. The only way I could see it happening was if someone made him genuinely, deeply hate them. Say, if they murdered someone David loved as he watched. That might enrage him enough to make him willing to kill, and without his intellect to hold back that rage, the Hulk might kill them. But that situation never arose. He lost a few loved ones, but due to accident or acts of nature rather than human villainy.
