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!

THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER / A G.I.B. Production - 1950

Here's a great little 39 minute British short you've probably never heard of... In the classic Poe story, a traveler arrives at the Usher mansion to visit his old friend, Roderick Usher. Upon arriving, however, he discovers that Roderick and his sister, Madeline, have been afflicted with a mysterious malady, Roderick's senses have become painfully acute, while Madeline has become nearly catatonic. That evening, Roderick tells his guest Jonathan of an old Usher family curse.. Any time there has been more than one Usher child, all of the siblings have gone insane and died horrible deaths! As the days pass, the effects of the curse reach their climax...

It stars Gwen (TASTE THE BLOOD OF DRACULA) Watford as Lady Madeline Usher, Kaye ( his only acting credit) Tendeter as Lord Roderick Usher, Irving (his only acting credit) Steen as Jonathan, Vernon (his only acting credit) Charles as Dr. Cordwell and Lucy (her only acting credit) Pavey as The Hag. Besides Gwen Watford, it seems that director Ivan Barnett used local talent for the other parts!

It begins when a book of Edgar Allan Poe short stories is chosen to be read to friends at a gentleman's club... A good old horror story!

The story has Jonathan riding through the creepy woods surrounding the Usher mansion, on his way to pay a visit to his old friend, Roderick Usher. Once there, Roderick tells Jonathan some dark secrets and the curse on the family name.

Here's Roderick's sister Madeline practicing her piano skills, the family doctor has her on medication she takes with milk.

Madeline follows Roderick and the doctor to a secret location, a place with a dark past...

The doctor tells Roderick all about the hidden rooms of torture and death! The place even comes with its own Mad Hag!

At their next visit to the dungeon, a helper comes along and steps on a bear trap!

Then, the Hag pulls a knife on Roderick and stabs him! Rod and the doc split, leaving the helpless helper there by himself!

In the meantime, Madeline runs around the countryside in this very odd garb, she's also wearing black ankle boots which looks a little goofy when she walks!

Well, it doesn't go well for the helper, er ist tot! Wow, look at that wicked blade and the creepy look on the Hag's face!!

What else, the Hag leaves the place in search of the Usher mansion. Love that background!

First thing she does after making it inside the house, is... Scare the crap outta Madeline!!

Madeline goes into a coma, everyone thinks she was scared to death, so, they seal her in a coffin! Madeline wakes up and somehow manages to push the lid open!

Roderick really flips out when he finds Madeline wandering around the house, she starts stalking him as he tries to get away from her! She follows him to the roof, it's raining like Hell, he slips and falls to his death due to a weak spot in the brick structure!

Then, of all things, lightning strikes the mansion and Jonathan barely makes it out before the place goes up in flames!!.. Wow, what a ride!!

Our reader has now finished his story, that's mall folks!! This little movie is really a sleeper and it would pay to search it out for viewing, a real gem! Got this copy off of TCM...

LIFE ON MARS From 2006 U.K. to 2008 U.S.

Tonight's Saturday Night Special isn't really a grudge match per se, it's just a simple comparison between two very similar versions of the same show called "Life On Mars!"

 The British version came out in 2006, and was a great show in my opinion! So much, that I really didn't want to try and even watch this U.S. version. "What's the point?" was what I thought, but then it got interesting! I'm thinking somebody knew this was a great show, but also knew that the U.K. version wouldn't fly in the U.S. because, for the uninitiated, you can't understand what they're talking about half the time! They could have released it in the U.S. but it would have had to have sub-titles like in "The Harder They Come," and a lot of people just won't watch movies with sub-titles, so they just remade the whole thing as close to the original as they could! It's weird! It's like a clone!



The top pictures will all be from the 2006 version, and this is a prime example of how far they went to re-create the original! They even tried to make the photos identical! That's wild! Actually, it got so confusing that while I was doing this, I mixed up these pictures myself!

 

Occasionally there is a bit of variation here and there like the location of Officer Tyler's girlfriend's bloody shirt went from a playground swing set to a merry-go-round!

The changes in technology from 2006 to 2008 are evidenced by the improvements in the mp3 player`

Some scenes are as close to exactly the same as is humanly possible!

The shot of the eight track player!

 

There are also some obvious variations that can't be avoided because it's New York City and not Manchester, England!

But whenever they could, they made it this close to the original!

I really didn't expect them to pull it off, but Jason (The Death Of Superman) O'Mara does an excellent job as Sam Tyler!

Jonathan (Animal Among Us) Murphy and Michael (The Sorpranos) Imperioli are also excellent as the Chris and Ray characters, and Harvey Keitel is equally amazing as Gene "Genie" Hunt!

Two obvious changes are Annie is now a blonde as played by Gretchen (The 13th Floor) Mol.

And Nelson is no longer a black man, but it makes sense if you think about it. A dreadlocked bartender would probably be fairly common in a 1973 England, but in a 1973 New York, it would be an Italian guy.

The new Nelson is Mike (Dumb and Dumber, Ed Wood) Starr, but I just saw that he's only in this one episode, so they must be going to deviate from the story after this first show, because the original Nelson was in many episodes!

I loved the record store scene in both movies!
I got to watch this first episode for free because I opted for Amazon Prime no rush shipping on some shampoo I ordered. I still have another 99 cent credit, so I can either watch another episode or I might just break down and buy the DVD for about $13.00. Either way, I'll be watching the rest of it one way or another! I probably won't know what year it is or where I am by the time I get through!