Wednesday, June 27, 2018

THE INCREDIBLE HULK - Season One - Pilot Episode (1977)

 Tonight's Weird Wednesday Dungeon feature is the pilot episode of the TV show titled "The Incredible Hulk" that ran for five seasons, and 82 episodes from 1977 to 1982. Then of course, there were all the spin-offs like "The Trial Of The Incredible Hulk," and "The Death Of The Incredible Hulk" in the 80's and 90's!"

 The original Incredible Hulk was of course created by that master of marvels, Stan Lee, but this TV version was written by Kenneth Johnson. Kenneth also directed this first episode, and three others along the line, but the rest of the episodes were directed by 27 different people!

 Dungeon fave Bill Bixby has the role of Dr. David Bruce Banner, the man who will become The Hulk. Bill will always be remembered for the many great TV shows he was on like "My Favorite Martian," (107 episodes) and "The Courtship Of Eddies's Father!"(73 episodes) He was also in one of the original "Twilight Zone" episodes, the one called "The Thirty Fathom Grave," and don't forget he was in "Clambake" with Elvis! All that and more, and Bill only lived to be 59, another unfair victim of cancer!

 There's a whole lot of scientific gadgets and gizmos in this show!

 Stuff so high-tech that when one guy changes the settings on the gamma machine, he labels it with a piece of tape!

This is your routine run of the mill standard DNA scanner. I know it looks like a TV set, but it only gets one channel!

Maybe this is the reason they have such a small cast!

Okay, get ready, because the count down is about ready to start!

Remember that piece of tape? Dr. Banner just gave himself a dose of gamma rays three times higher than he meant to, and it's going to have eight seasons of ramifications!

Here he is, in all his glory, The Hulk! 
This looks like a cool Van Gogh painting!

Standing six foot, three and one half inches, world class body builder Big Louis Jude Ferrigno is The Hulk!

 I read that Stan Lee envisioned The Hulk as a combination of "Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde," and "Frankenstein," and this scene of The Hulk approaching this little girl by the water written by Kenneth Johnson is right out of the first "Frankenstein" movie!

Back at the lab, this indestructible chamber should keep the big guy contained!

Just have to get the power grid set corretly!

Awww Sheeeit! That didn't work worth a damn!

About 90% of this episode is dominated by the pair of Dr. Banner and his fellow scientist, Susan Sullivan as Dr. Elaina Marks! Susan is great and I do like that blouse she's wearing, but I was bothered by the fact that this is the only episode she is in, and if I want to see more of her, I have to watch a lot of programs that I'm not very interested in, like 221 episodes of "Another World," or 207 episodes of "Falcon Crest," or 119 episodes of "Dharma And Greg!"

I think this is a sophisticated Lenker Rod Mortar Hawk Hot Cut Plugging Chisel they used to extract the gamma rays !

Dr. Banner is in a lot of trouble!!!

And then he completely loses it!!

The TV series is completely different from the original comic book, but who cares? It's still an incredible story! Bill Bixby is incredible, Big Lou Ferrigno is incredible, and it's lots of fun to watch the not so jolly green giant go around destroying crap! I don't know about you, but if I ever dig myself out of "The Dead Zone," I'm going to be watching "The Incredible Hulk" for a while!

2 comments:

Robert M. Lindsey said...

We started watching these when they were on Netflix. I remembered a good number of them from when I was a kid, so it was fun to share it with my kids.

Anonymous said...

The I incredible Hulk Plot episode
1977

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