Posts Tagged ‘bill bixby’
New Incredible Hulk TV show has us asking why
There will be a new Incredible Hulk TV show. The question is, why?
This is live-action, not animated.
I loved the old show when I was a kid. But, as I explained to my son when I showed it to him and he looked at me like I was asking him to ingest a weasel on a bun, this was back when we only had three or four channels. And very few of those channels featured super-heroes on a regular basis.
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOXpKUu6pUg]
I watched the pilot of the old Bixby/Ferigno Hulk recently. It was fun, although the series is very much of it’s time, which is the 70’s. BIG pants. BIG hair. And for Ferigno as Hulk, BIG eyebrows.
One observation worth noting is that having a real person playing the Hulk makes it feel more real. Sure, you can do more with CGI. But Ferigno, as silly as he looked in that green body paint, managed to convey the idea that he was an actual living thing struggling to figure out what the hell to do in a world that hates and fears him.
That’s significantly more thought than I ever gave the show when it was actually on the air, however. Mostly I wanted to see something, ANYTHING that had to do with super-heroes.
In retrospect, the old Hulk TV show was only slightly related to the comic book. Yes, he turns into the Hulk. But this Hulk doesn’t talk. There’s no Betty, at least not that I can remember. There’s no Rick Jones. (Although there’s no Rick in either of the two movies. Why TV people not like Rick? Rick Hulk’s friend! Hulk smash people who cut Rick Jones out of Hulk storyline!)
Something else I noticed when I saw the show recently: with limited special effects and no supervillians, they had to rely on, you know, dialogue and stuff. Remember why David Banner (not Bruce, his name in the comics) got hit with too much gamma radiation? Because some technician in the office was tinkering with the equipment, and he didn’t mark the dial correctly. In other words, Banner thought the machine went to 11, but it really went to 11,000. (Puny Banner. Thinks he smart. He not smart. He stupid. Hulk smash puny Banner!)
It should be noted that I will absolutely be watching this new Hulk TV show, should it ever actually see the light of day. Hopefully it will be at least good enough for me to watch with the kids. Even if it’s not, we’ll probably stick it out for a few episodes. Why? Because it’s the Hulk, dammit.
Frankly, it can’t be worse than The Incredible Hulk Returns, which featured Thor and Daredevil.
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYZs7jHf97w]
Well, it shouldn’t be worse than that. In theory.
