Now if this was a movie of the week when I was growing up, there would have been nothing to stop me from watching it. There were very few live action super-heroes to be found, so even though he wasn't from the comics, I counted Steve Austin as one of them. Pair him up with and actual Marvel hero, throw in some guest stars and that would have been a true recipe for action in my young eyes.
Love this! I would have been there, too! Throw in either Andre the Giant or Rickard Kiel as Bigfoot!
ReplyDeleteBoth series developed for television by the incredibly talented Kennth Johnson! Johnson hated names like Peter Parker and Bruce Banner, so Banner's name was changed to "David"...
@Airdave: Well, I can partially see Mr. Johnson's logic. The Hulk was often referred to, in the comics, as "The Green Goliath"! So, what more fitting first name for a slightly revised alter-ego than David?
ReplyDelete@Ross: I, too, am old enough to remember when these were weekly prime-time series on TV. THE INCREDIBLE HULK on CBS, Friday nights, and THE $6,000,000.00 MAN on ABC, Sunday nights.* So, I would gladly have tuned in for a crossover between these guys in the proverbial New Yawk minute! Although, I have to wonder who would be the mutual antagonist that brought them together in the first place? The E.T. Bigfoot more likely being just a mind-controlled pawn.
The mind-control, if I were casting director, would have been the work of the Puppet Master (played by Walter Burke) and the Mad Thinker (played by Arthur Malet). Their goal? To steal a derelict UFO recovered from the Pacific Ocean floor courtesy of...THE MAN FROM ATLANTIS.
*Those were the nights I watched them, anyway.
@Carycomic: What would bring Jamie Sommers and Jennifer Walters, together, though? A sexual harassment suit against some powerful Congressman, perhaps? One whose unscrupulous lawyer hires a hit man who goes by the alias "Sabertooth?"
ReplyDeleteThis was early in the period when TV featured several of what I called "plainclothes superheroes": The Man From Atlantis, Manimal, Misfits of Science, etc. Yes, as you can tell from the list, a lot of them weren't particularly successful, but the subgenre has persisted with shows like Heroes, Alphas, and most recently The Imperfects. While I tend to favor the traditional costumed superheroes, these shows have earned their place in superhero lore.
ReplyDeleteOn another note, Ross, when issue #4000 comes around, you may want to feature a mini-gallery of all the "gun-holders' perspective" covers you've done.
@AirDave: I've generally understood that the reason TV's Hulk wasn't named Bruce was that, at the time, the name Bruce was being associated as a generic name for a gay man (the way LeRoy was used for Black men, or Chico for Hispanic men).
@Anon@8:46: I'd just assume that Jaime and Jennifer were brought into the situation separately, in connection with Steve and David respectively (or, perhaps, the other way around).
PS: It just popped into my head: My Favorite Martian on Gilligan's Island.
ReplyDeleteCarycomic said...
ReplyDelete"@Ross: I, too, am old enough to remember when these were weekly prime-time series on TV. THE INCREDIBLE HULK on CBS, Friday nights, and THE $6,000,000.00 MAN on ABC, Sunday nights.* So, I would gladly have tuned in for a crossover between these guys in the proverbial New Yawk minute! Although, I have to wonder who would be the mutual antagonist that brought them together in the first place? The E.T. Bigfoot more likely being just a mind-controlled pawn."
In that era, and with Steve & Jamie being [IIRC] agents of the US government as well as considering some of the Hulk's earlier opponents, maybe their main opponent here was some 'Red' spymaster? I forget whether the Red Ghost was still working for the USSR or had gone independent, but if it's him then his enhanced Apes would be an interesting contrast & challenge with & challenge for the 'bionic' heroes and maybe he might also have the Abomination under his command for extra muscle.
Alternatively, the Red spymaster is secretly Xemu the Titan -- mentally projecting, as IIRC he once or twice did in the comics, an illusion of human appearance -- on one of his childnapping expeditions, who's made a children-for-American-secrets deal w ith the Soviets?? He has an "interesting" history with Shulkie, after all...
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Bob Greenwade said...
"This was early in the period when TV featured several of what I called "plainclothes superheroes": The Man From Atlantis, Manimal, Misfits of Science, etc. Yes, as you can tell from the list, a lot of them weren't particularly successful, but the subgenre has persisted with shows like Heroes, Alphas, and most recently The Imperfects. While I tend to favor the traditional costumed superheroes, these shows have earned their place in superhero lore."
Being more of a reader than a watcher, and being n this side of the pond where some of those shows might not have reached anyway, the only ones out of those you name that I saw were Manimal and (years later, on video) the origin story for the Misfits, but I agree wih you that they belong in the lore. In my opinion Knight Rider, which I also watched, belongs on the list as well... Do you agree?
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Bob Greenwade said...
"@AirDave: I've generally understood that the reason TV's Hulk wasn't named Bruce was that, at the time, the name Bruce was being associated as a generic name for a gay man (the way LeRoy was used for Black men, or Chico for Hispanic men)."
Really? Over here, its usual connotation was 'male Australian'...
Of course both Steve Austin and David Banner would make for great subjects to be investigated by Kolchak.
ReplyDeleteBanner: Don't make me angry, Mr Kolchak, you woul---
Kolchack: Make you angry? Would would I want to make you angry? No, all I want to know is...
@Death by Terror: Moonstone did a teaming of Carl and Britt Reid. fun.
ReplyDeleteThe Hulk's Jack McGee did Kolchak proud. Ross, while Oscar Goldman worked ABC and NBC as the same character when the Bionic Woman had to change networks, some comedy shows had actors playing the same character in spoofs. The actors didn't usually mind.
Having Hulk and Steve would generally have Bixby stay in the background as Steve was looking around on assignment. Steve might get hurt and David (fake name of week) might help him after being suspected of being involved with whatever was going on.
If they could have been investigating a possible alien on Earth, perhaps a Martian (Walston), that could have had so much fun. (Now if Diana Prince could have had a cameo in it that could have been way over the top.)
@DTobor, Bob, and Simreeve: Or, failing all that, David Banner meeting John Steed and Emma Peel in "The Incredible Hulk vs. The Original Avengers"!
ReplyDeleteAnony, YES. YES..and did i mention. YES!!
ReplyDeleteLol! I just noticed. The way they're posed, it looks like Col. Austin and the Hulk are doing it, Gangnam-style.
ReplyDelete@Simreeve: Yes, I believe Knight Rider would qualify here. If you're interested, The Imperfects is on Netflix, and I believe that Heroes is on Peacock and Alphas on Syfy (though I could be mistaken there).
ReplyDeleteHeck, for that matter, most of "The Defenders Saga" (the Marvel shows on Netflix) fall into the subgenre, especially Jessica Jones.
@Bob Greenwade: thanks for helping us keep up with the Joneses.
ReplyDelete;-D
Insert counter-groan here.
ReplyDelete---Carycomic
A TV Team up I'd like to see would Lou Ferrigno's Hulk teamed up with the Eric Cord character from the late 1980s TV series Werewolf. Both are very similar in that they change into a powerful and outwardly frightful form, both are pursued by someone, and both seek a cure for their condition. Could Hulk beat the big bad wolf (either Cuck Conners' Skorzany or the meh bad guy that replaced his character)? I'd love to see them confront each other.
ReplyDeleteMaybe Jack MaGee could also team up with Alamo Joe? And get bitten by a werewolf himself (explaining his absence from the last two Hulk TV movies and why David was so down in the dumps in the first part of the Daredevil movie).
Just a thought.
Or, better yet, McGee becoming a werewolf, and changing his last name to Russell, while being hunted by Carl Kolchak!
ReplyDeletere Anonymous: Well, I was implying the first part of that one myself. But I was imagining McGee finally understanding what David had been going through for so long before finally literally pleading with David (or Eric) to kill him rather than let him continue to be a werewolf himself. Also he would come to find out that he was responsible for that death he was blaming the Hulk for all along.
ReplyDelete@JT: have Eric do the mercy-killing...with a little help from Kolchak.
ReplyDeleteThat would work, but my way it would help explain why David started out so moody in The Trial of the Incredible Hulk (which chronologically took place after the Werewolf Tv series abrupted concluded with a resolution). Having to do a mercy killing would make *me* depressed, that's for damn sure.
ReplyDeleteEither way though would, as I said, explain why Jack Magee never appeared in that or the Death of TIH.
Either that, or he met the same fate as his look-alike cousin parapsychologist Dale Boyce.*
ReplyDelete*See "The Spell" (NBC, 1977).
That reference is too uber-obscure even for me.
ReplyDelete@Det. Tobor: it'd be even more fun if Ross teamed up here! The journalistic angle is already a natural connection. The gravy would be having them go up against, say, a xenomorph that hatched from one of several eggs salvaged from a derelict UFO at the bottom of Lake Michigan. Ross could even use the catchphrase: "There's a new bug in town!"
ReplyDelete@Jason Toddman: it was a made-for-TV imitation of "Carrie." With the telekinetic teenage terror being an overweight girl named Rita. With the title referring to some type of mantra, or chant, being the means by which she channeled her power. And with the late, great Mr. Colvin playing the ill-fated parapsychologist investigating an unnatural spike in t-k activity in north-central California.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I like the imitation far better than the Stephen King-base original. If only because Doney Oatman (as narcissistic gymnast Jackie Siegel) was far sexier, in 1977, than Nancy Allen. To my then-undergrad eyes, anyway. ;-)
Okay. Not big on Stephen King's work either, and I live in the same state he does!
ReplyDeleteJust imo though that introduces one crossover too many here. And the Hulk/Werewolf crossover is one I have dwelled upon in some detail almost since the latter series concluded 35 years ago now; even before the final two Hulk movies aired (minus the Jack Magee becomes a werewolf himself fighting the Hulk element; which I only thought up when Jack Colvin didn't appear in them).
@Cary and Jason: split the difference, then, guys. Make it a Kolchak/Werewolf/Hulk crossover guest-starring Peter Hooten as the 1978 Dr. Strange.
ReplyDeleteThat idea would be especially fitting as a precursor to the MCU. :-)
ReplyDeleteA Hulk/TV Spider-man crossover would have been fun too for that matter.
Given that the 1970's is when Spidey first battled werewolves in the comics (Marvel Team-Up v.1/#12 for Jack "W.B.N." Russell and Amazing Spider-man v.1/#124 for John "Man-Wolf" Jameson), it might be doubly appropriate to pit the Nicholas Hammond version up against Eric Cord's lycanthrope. Pretending that the photo-capture of the latter is Jack Colvin as Mr. McGee.
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised you didn't suggest a Man-Wolf or Werewolf by Night crossover with Eric Cord's werewolf while you were at it. or did you? I've lost track now. :-)
ReplyDeleteI don't think Jack and John have any photo-captures from the MCU (including streaming series), as yet.
ReplyDeleteJack Russell does, indeed, have one pilot film from Disney+ that might provide an image capture of his semi-lupine alter-ego. But, while there have been plenty of live-action appearances of John Jameson in various pre-MCU Spidey flicks, the Man-Wolf has so far been relegated purely to animated cartoon appearances.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if whoever created Werewolf by night thought they were being clever naming their eponymous character after a breed of dog; and a small one at that.
ReplyDeleteSmall in size, but giant-sized in courageous disposition. :-)
ReplyDeleteI didn't know that. I've never owned one nor really met one irl. They do look like nice dogs though.
ReplyDeleteWell, the story goes they were first bred by an Englishman named Parson John Russell who liked to go hunting. And most terriers were originally bred as all-around hunters.
ReplyDeleteYes, I already knew how the *dogs* got their name.
ReplyDeleteIt's Marvel's choice to name a werewolf character after them that is hilarious. I actually didn't get it for years because I'd never heard of that dog breed until after the comic book finished its original run.
Cary & Jason: The back-story for the title character is that he was born into a Romanian baronial family called "Russoff." That one of the prior barons was cursed with lycanthropy by a pro-Dracula bootlicker. That his wife fled with their children to the States; and that she Americanized the surname.
ReplyDelete