Venganza Media Gazette

Incredible Hulk Season 2 Episode 9 – Stop the Presses

The ABCs of tabloid reporting spell trouble when a newspaper story on the Hulk includes a photograph that could expose David.

Stop the Presses
Season:	2
Episode:	9
Air Date:	November 24, 1978
Director:	Jeffrey Hayden
Writer:	Karen Harris, Jill Sherman Donner
David’s Alias:	Unknown
Hulk-Outs:	2
	• Beaten up by a cameraman, his face shoved in a pizza. • Gets coat caught in a printing press

For many episodes I’ve commented on the dour nature of The Incredible Hulk‘s second season.  I have repeatedly called Hulk an action series, but truthfully for most episodes the tone has felt far more in line with Little House on the Prairie than contemporaries like Charlie’s Angels.

Remember the old adage “Be careful what you wish for, you may get it”?  I get it in Stop the Presses.

We open with establishing shots of San Diego and the “happy” theme music we’ve heard in several previous episodes. Not only is David (Bill Bixby) in America’s finest city, San Diego also houses the headquarters of the National Register tabloid newspaper.  A shot of the newspaper’s office building shows that it was established in 1969, by no means a long-standing bastion of information.  Plus there is a sculpture on the outside (likely not done by Ricky) that looks like a Picasso with long arms, pert breasts, and a hole in its head.  Really the more I look at the sculpture the more foul it appears.

This one shot gives me more information on the Register than I’ve had in the other 20 episodes combined!   For instance, we now know that Hulk-obsessed reporter Jack McGee (series regular Jack Colvin) is working for a newer newspaper.  The writers of previous episodes have been unclear about the Register, sometimes making it sound like The Enquirer with its tales of Bigfoot and Farrah Fosset, but then other times the Register is out covering real news like nuclear reactors and legitimate sporting events.  Plus there’s the Disco Dude competition.

But as we cut inside, we see McGee is bringing some of the hard-hitting journalistic ethics to his role as he refuses to use photos taken by Charlie (played by Art Metrano who would go on to play Mauser in the Police Academy series), a freelance paparazzi in a loud striped jacket.  Charlie works for Joe Arnold (former Bionic Woman regular Sam Chew Jr.), a Register reporter with questionable ethics who “turns local filler into big story.”  While currently covering a triple murder, Arnold’s primary stories are exposées on restaurants with unclean conditions.  As McGee’s editor Mark puts it, “Our readers like to see us as the guardian angels of the restaurant eaters.”

But the real reason Mark is darkening McGee’s desk is to take him to task over his weekly creature report.  The Hulk hunt is too expensive with plane tickets, wrecked cars, and the ten-thousand dollar reward with nothing new to show for it.  Jack is given an assignment to cover a fortune tellers’ convention and to drop the Hulk story until he has something more than an out of focus photo.

Now given that the Hulk (Lou Ferrigno) has been anything but subtle, running down the field of a televised football playoff game with 75,000 attendees, storming through a crowded race track, interrupting a heavily attended demolition derby, and other such major events I think there must be some great footage of Hulk out there.  Especially from the football game, the sports reporters with their long lenses should have glamour shots of Hulk lining their walls.  To think that the Hulk is considered a myth like Bigfoot and Bat-Boy after being seen by literally hundreds of thousands of people is a stretch, and that McGee is the only reporter in the country trying to get the story a bigger stretch still.

But when McGee sees the cover story of that day’s Register is of a gorilla brought down by a tranquilizer gun McGee gets a thoughtful look that can only mean a new plot to find Hulk.

Meanwhile down at the studio backlot David is working at Bruno’s pizza joint as a dish washer–and he’s not very good as owners Jill Norton (Julie Cobb, who would go on to play the mom on Charles in Charge) and Karen Weiss (Mary Frann, who would go on to play Bob Newhart’s wife on Newhart) tell each other, and us.  But while not much of a dishwasher David has his benefits, getting the restaurant’s liquor license straightened out and helping Jill do the books.  And it’s also implied that Jill hired David out of an attraction to the kind drifter–an attraction that Karen shares, flirting openly with the dishwasher.

We quickly realize this is a “wacky restaurant'” as Karen is taking photos of their customers and the restaurant for their “wall of fame”, and one owner is telling their pizza chef Fred (Happy Days’ Pat Morita) that he is using too much garlic while another owner claims there is not enough.

Morita is a bit of stunt casting for Hulk.  He had been running an all-American burger joint on ABC for years, so I suppose having him as a chef at a pizzeria is typecasting.  But Morita does not play Fred like Arnold, the delivery and mannerisms are completely different.  Of course Morita’s eventual claim to fame will be as Mr. Miyagi in The Karate Kid but here we see his trademark humor as he delivers great reaction shots to the two women flirting with David.  He also gets great lines, saying that with them both interested in David “They’ll be flinging ravioli at each other before this is over.”  This episode already has the tone of a sitcom, and Morita’s comic timing suits it perfectly.

But the novelty of this sitcom setting is actually working for me early on.  It’s fun to see Bixby in this Jack Tripper-esque role.  Bixby rarely is allowed to lighten up as David, and here, playing off Morita and the target of the two attractive women’s affections, Bixby is all charm and smiles.  It’s too rare we get to see some of his comedic roots in Hulk and it’s a welcome sight.

We also find that Jill used to be a reporter for the Times but never made much of herself with the small-time stories she was assigned so she opened her own restaurant.  This is important as later in the episode we need someone to provide exposition for the audiences about newspaper printing practices, and here she is!

But Jill is about to get more of the press than she can handle as Charlie and Arnold have Bruno’s set in their sights for their next story.  Their restaurant cleanliness stories that Mark bragged so much about are all faked by the two unscrupulous journalists.  They pick joints that cannot afford lawyers as targets, and newly opened Bruno’s is next on their list.  Charlie sets a fire in Bruno’s dumpster, then the two put rancid meat and other garbage around Bruno’s kitchen.  Fred and David come in and catch the two “reporters” getting their story, and Arnold snaps some very clear pictures of David before running off.

Fred thinks that Arnold’s story is the end of Bruno’s.  It will take years and insane lawyer fees to prove Arnold faked the story, and by then the customers will have been run off by the supposed  “health hazard”.  But David’s concerns are deeper as the shots of him will surely be seen by Jack McGee and many others who believe David Banner to be dead.  His concern causes Jill to wonder if David is a fugitive but they have the more immediate concern of keeping their restaurant open.

The two women go down to the Register to try to talk Joe Arnold into having the story killed but the reporter is less than receptive.  The two women make a scene but are unsuccessful in convincing Arnold or his editor to not run the story, so David takes matters into his own hands.

That night David goes to the Register after hours as the fortune teller’s convention arrive to be interviewed by Jack.  David integrates himself in the group, pointing at a random name on the list, but soon finds himself on a crowded elevator with McGee.  It’s a well framed shot with David clearly visible to the camera though surrounded by the fortune tellers, and David covering his face with his hand as McGee enters.

But while I enjoy that bit, this is the first of many places where I think the episode strays too far into sitcom territory.  Harnell’s silly musical score during this scene seems more fitting of an episode of Bewitched than Hulk.  The writers also introduce a recurring gag about a fortune-teller who repeatedly incorrectly guesses people’s astrological signs and when she’s corrected she shouts “I knew it!”  This comedy is a bit broad my tastes and while it may have fit in with the sitcoms of the 70s humor is very timely and often does not age well.

Plus the scene is only there for the humor it provides, it does not advance the narrative one iota.  It does introduce Sam, the Register’s security guard, but the sight of McGee chases David away before the dishwasher can abscond with the pictures.

The next day Arnold’s story exposing Bruno’s dirtiness is in the paper, but David is lucky–the photo used of him is the one where he had covered his face.  But it’s not over yet as Karen and Jill lament that “next week there will be another story and more pictures.”  I doubt that even a tabloid like the Register could turn a dirty pizzeria story into weeks of coverage, but it’s enough for David to worry that the next picture printed will show his face.

At the Register the next day we see Arnold having a meeting with Geller from the Health Department.  Geller is giving Arnold an “unofficial warning” about his continuing to write that the Health Department is slacking off.  Arnold shows Geller some of the staged photos and Geller replies “A little garbage, some moldy cheese.  Your readers may not have anything better to worry about but we do.  Come see us when you bust some real offenders.  Maggots, cockroaches, real filth, that’s when we get involved.”  Personally I’d like to think the Department of Health would prevent me from eating moldy cheese as well as maggot-laden meat, but I guess not.

Geller’s speech gave Arnold some new ideas and he and Charlie head back to Bruno’s, this time with a jar full of cockroaches.  Sneaking into the kitchen they start to stage their photos, but are seen by David.  David slyly takes Arnold’s camera and snaps pics of the reporters planting the evidence.  Charlie and Arnold give chase and Charlie, a former wrestler, starts to beat up David, slamming him into walls, and finally shoving his face into a pizza.

Fred must have again used too much garlic as David’s eyes go white.

Hulk-Out #1 Charlie throws David under a table and, hoisting up his plaid pants, ignores the dishwasher, never seeing his clothes rip or his skin turn green.  But soon Hulk is there in the kitchen roaring at the two reporters.  Charlie says “I ain’t gonna wrestle this guy” and tries to run, but Hulk slides a large freezer in front of the paparazzi to trip him, then Hulk throws the former wrestler through a screen door, never to be seen again.  Arnold snaps some pics of Hulk and runs away, as Hulk also runs down the alley

Later at the Register Arnold is confronting McGee about the Hulk pictures snapped at Bruno’s.  McGee had taken the photos from the file cabinet in the hopes “the brass” would be impressed by the pictures and allow him to resume his weekly Hulk report, but it did not.

McGee then confronts Arnold over his journalistic ethics.  Arnold reveals his motives saying, “There’s only a handful of reporters in this country that make big money, and I intend to be one of them” and “you want me to do it straight the way you do and end up with nothing?”  But McGee is a hard-boiled, ethical tabloid reporter and doesn’t take to Arnold’s cheap shots.

Back at Bruno’s we see Karen, Jill, and David trying to move the freezer back in place.  Pat Morita is not helping as, sadly, Fred has called in his resignation.  I’m a bit upset as I liked the energy Morita was putting into his small role, but his time on set must have been limited as he never returns to give more patrons bad breath.

As David tries to clean up the kitchen, Jack McGee comes in to talk to the girls about the Hulk.  The girls try to do a quid pro quo–McGee gets Arnold’s faked photos and they’ll give McGee their Hulk story, but McGee says “Those photographs are logged and dated.  I’d have to steal them.  It’s a violation of ethics.”  Technically, Jack, even if they weren’t logged I’d think stealing them could be an ethical violation; that said, letting photos you know to be fake destroy a small business may not be entirely ethical either.  Jill asks what anyone working at the Register would know about ethics, and McGee looks stung but not shocked by their statement.

At an impasse he leaves saying “I honestly wish I could have helped.”

David meanwhile has found some of Jill’s photos that had been developed, including one shot of Arnold making a pizza in the kitchen.  After McGee leaves, David makes a big show of the photos, saying “Those photos were taken on Monday, the same day Joe Arnold showed up.”  Now, while these photos are 3.5″ x 5″ pictures, David is able to make out the time on the wall clock and read the headline of the newspaper Fred had hung in the kitchen, all supposedly proving the picture was taken of a perfectly clean kitchen less than an hour before Arnold’s fake photos.  Never mind that the newspaper could have been saved and hung and the picture taken later–according to Karen the receipt for the pictures being developed “proves” the photos’ authenticity.

These photos could force the Register to print a retraction, but they’d need a copy of the Register‘s photo log.  Karen says “We can’t just walk in there and take it,” then, sitcom style, her face breaks into a large smile as she  realizes what she said and adds, “can we?”  I smell a heist afoot!

Meanwhile McGee has tracked down the big game hunter from the Register’s front page.  Remember that minor subplot?  I probably wouldn’t have either.  McGee is interviewing the hunter, asking about the tranquilizer darts used for big game, ensuring there are no ill effects of the tranquilizer dart.  The game hunter with his proper British accent is happy to show off his new rifle and darts that could put an elephant to sleep.

All these various plot lines come together that night when David, Karen, and Jill go to the Register.  Jill enters the lobby wearing a very sexy dress bearing cleavage to get security guard Sam’s attention.  She says she’s there to see the publisher, Robert Steinhauer, and walks around the far side of the guard’s desk keeping the guard’s eyes while David and Karen sneak past and up the stairs.  The amusing part is the guard doesn’t want to hit on Jill, as was their plan, but instead adopts a paternal attitude, offering the girl some of his wife’s hot soup from a plaid Thermos.

David and Karen call down, pretending to be Steinhauer, asking Jill to be sent up.  The elderly guard gives Jill a talk about how the publisher may be a big shot but the guard wouldn’t let his daughter date the newspaper mogul.  Jill smiles and rejoins her partners in crime.   The three then start to rifle through the Register’s photo logs (kept in a filing cabinet that has a lock but, typically, isn’t locked) finding the shots of Bruno’s that are timed and dated.

They are ready to leave but Jill notices the run sheet on the wall shows the Bruno’s story is the front page of the next edition, which has already gone to press.  Jill, with her journalistic background, knows all about the press and tells Karen and David the photos chosen are already imprinted on the plates, and the only way to stop the story is to steal the plates.  David looks at the photos and sees the shot of his face is circled for use, so the three go off for the plates.

We then see McGee at his desk late, with the large rifle he got from the hunter by his side.  Sam is making his rounds and offers Jack some soup (God, Sam, enough with the soup already!  I’m sure your wife makes great soup but what will you eat if you give soup to everyone around?)  McGee is putting pins in a map trying to determine where Hulk will appear next, and I’m thinking McGee would have as much luck consulting the fortune tellers he interviewed the night before.

David sends the two girls down telling Jill “You look lovely but you’re not dressed for fast getaways,” plus if only one person goes into the print shop only one person will get caught.  I think to myself that if only one person goes in no one will see that one person Hulk-out as well.

David sneaks into the printing presses, which is either a location shoot or the most elaborate set I’ve seen on this show in a long while.  David cuts the power in a shot that is imaginatively lit, a single light on David’s face after the lights go out.  As the workers and Sam the guard, go to investigate the circuit breaker David sneaks into the press to grab the plate.  David doesn’t know where the plate is, but he has plenty of time–he locked the door to the circuit breaker and bumbling, old Sam has dozens of keys to try.

This scene reminds me of a video game, as looped lines urge Sam to hurry up and find the key.  There’s a few seconds pause, then another looped line trying to urge Sam along.  It’s uncanny that such a trope would be used in a media other than a game, as it’s rare in media that there are long enough pauses in the action for such an event, but it provided me with a smile here.

Finally David finds the plate and starts to pry it from the drum.  Just as he removes the plate, careful to not make any sound, Sam unlocked the doors and the workers turn the power back on.  David tries to get out but in his attempt to be stealthy he doesn’t notice his jacket is dangling precariously close to the spinning press (don’t worry, it’s not his trademark tan jacket about to meet its untimely demise, it’s a new denim one).  The coat gets caught and pulls David toward the press.  Fighting with the coat his hand gets caught in the press and the pain is too much.

Hulk-Out #2:  Hulk is able to easily extract his hand from the drums, moving the rollers backwards in doing so.  He roars loudly over the sound of the machines, then smashes the machine, stopping the presses.  He pulls out a heavy drum, and also happens to step on the plate David was trying to steal, denting it.  Hulk throws the drum and knocks over shelves of printing ink.

But coming to stop the hulk is Jack McGee!  The reporter was talking to Sam when Hulk revealed himself, and McGee ran down with the rifle.  He shoots Hulk in the leg, but Hulk isn’t stopped.  He runs at McGee and pushes the gun down, causing McGee to shoot himself in the calf with a dart.  Hulk then crushes the gun and runs away as McGee, drugged, tries to follow but can barely make it down the stairs.

Hulk is lost and reaches a dead end of 500lb spools of unprinted news paper.  Hulk’s vision is getting blurry and he is getting weak from the dart, but he musters enough strength to push down the rolls and run past.

Finally Hulk finds a quiet place to sit and the reverse transformation occurs.  We see a face from Ferrigno to Bixby in the silly large eyebrows, to Bixby just in the contact lenses, but the green glow is gone so, while rudimentary, it’s less cheesy than previous transformations.

Human again, David pulls the dart from his leg.  Then finds himself face-to-face with Jack McGee!

But McGee is drugged, his vision so blurred he cannot see any details.  Saying “Who are you?  Help me.” McGee passes out and David escapes.

And in the coda we are back at Bruno’s.  Jill and Karen are there, but David is not.  On the wall is a news headline that reads “Restaurant Stories Exposed – National Register Seeks Help” and the women say they are back in the black.  But Jill says “The place sure has lost a lot of its magic since he left.  I mean men like David just don’t come into a girl’s life very often.  David was so special.”  Karen says if she ever sees him again she’ll give him a piece of her mind for leaving without notice, but Jill has David’s number:  “We’ll never see him again.  Another town, another name.  Wasn’t he wonderful?” and Karen replies “he was perfect”.

The whole time the two girls are holding a photo of David as they reminisce, but then we get the punchline–the picture is of David’s back, and there’s no way to make out his face.

And we end, as we always do, with David walking down the highway (hey, where’s the tan coat?  Maybe in the bag) as The Lonely Man theme plays on.

Thus ends The Incredible Hulk: Three’s Company edition where a misunderstanding causes two girls to go on a wacky adventure with a guy who’s not all he claims to be.  With amusing characters scattered around like Sam the guard and Fred the cook, this is a drastic change of pace for Hulk.  While I am very appreciative for an episode that is not morose, I do feel the pendulum has swung a bit too far the other way.  The comedy in Stop the Presses is too broad, too wacky, and in this episode I was hoping for some great McGee/David cat-and-mouse like we got in The Hulk Breaks Las Vegas.  Instead there is virtually no suspense, just jokes.

Still, while not every joke hit, the episode was an amusing diversion aided by fantastic performances.  As Karen and Jill, Frann and Cobb exhibit amazing chemistry and timing, the type it usually takes actors years to establish.  I wish the characters were a bit more different (I got confused who was Jill and who was Karen halfway through the episode) but they were a joy to watch on-screen and could easily have led a Laverne and Shirley type spin-off.  Morita is underutilized in this episode, I wish they’d filmed one scene of Fred returning to his job at the end, but also provides a great energy and timing.  All of this gives Bixby a chance to show his comedic chops, and while this episode may have too much garlic I still give it a solid recommend.

Read my other Incredible Hulk Series Reviews

March 20, 2012 Posted by Arnie C | Comic Books, Movies, Reviews, Television, The Incredible Hulk TV Series Reviews | 1970s, 1980s, Bill Bixby, CBS, Comics, Hulk, Incredible Hulk, Lou Ferrigno, Marvel, Now Playing, Review, Television, TV series | 1 Comment

Incredible Hulk Season 2 Episode 8 – Killer Instinct

It’s not all fun and games for David when he becomes an assistant football trainer, because the team’s physician is studying aggressive behavior.

Killer Instinct
Season:	2
Episode:	8
Air Date:	November 10, 1978
Director:	Ray Danton
Writer:	William Whitehead, Joel Don Humphreys
David’s Alias:	David Burnett
Hulk-Outs:	2
	• Locked in a steam room after having towels snapped at him • Hit in the back with a metal bowl after being locked in a holding pen

By this point in Season 2 of The Incredible Hulk I was still enjoying each episode, but I found myself growing weary of the unsubtle life lessons the stories had been built around.  Season 1’s pattern of often inserting Hulk into a different hit movie was obvious but a usually resulted in a fun mash-up.  The more serious tone of Season 2 had weighted down the episodes and while they were still enjoyable they simply were not as fun as I had expected.  As such, when I saw the preview and read the DVD description posted above for Killer Instinct I felt I was in for another episode that felt like an After School Special, this one against steroid use in sports.  I was ready to call out the irony of having a series starring a bodybuilder damn steroids, but I was sure the footballer’s aggressive behavior would be the result of a chemical administered by the mentioned physician, or perhaps the coach.

I am very happy to report that is not the case.  This episode of The incredible Hulk is a simple adventure story that fits in with the action series of the time such as The Bionic Man and The Dukes of Hazzard.  That said, it’s an episode that still lacks quite a bit of fun, treating the story of a football player with anger management issues as a serious melodrama.

When the episode begins we see a football team practicing and, as a good Illinosian, I notice the football players all have large Cs on the side of their helmets–the trademark of the Chicago Bears.  I figured David had made his way to the Windy City this week, but no!  The football team we see is the fictitious pro football team the Los Angeles Cougars.   Admittedly C stands for “Cougar” as well as it does for “Chicago” (and far better than it does for “Bears”), but the reason for the uniforms and helmets the Cougars wear is to match up with stock footage of the Bears that will be inserted into the episode later.

Beyond the football uniforms I could not help but laugh at the 70s style in evidence in the establishing shots.  For this scrimmage game all the players as well as support staff are sporting short black shorts with white socks pulled up to their knees.  This includes David (Bill Bixby) who is working for the team as an assistant trainer treating the minor injuries of the team players.  Not wearing black shorts, but with one hell of a perm, is Dr. Byron Stewart (Rudy Solari), a psychologist performing a study on the team.  He is watching the practice game taking photographs for his research.

During the practice star player John Tobey (Denny Miller–Duke Shannon from Wagon Train) is delivering hit after hit, even cracking the ribs of one of his team members.   Tobey is proud of being able to hit so hard and playing his hardest even in practice, but the other players think something may be wrong with Tobey–something echoed by the media and Tobey’s wife June (Barbara Leigh).

David goes to speak to Dr. Stewart, who has published several books on aggression in football players–books that built on the work of a Dr. David Banner!  David’s real motive for taking the job was to get close to Stewart in the hopes of using Stewart’s research to help him gain control of the Hulk (Lou Ferrigno).  The two chat, then David asks to sit in on some of Stewart’s hypnosis sessions with the football players.  It’s an odd request coming from an assistant trainer who is not supposed to be a medical professional, so Stewart initially refuses.  When David asks if it would be acceptable with a player’s permission Stewart then acquiesces

During his time with the team David became close with Tobey, spending dinners at the footballer’s house, looking at the little army men Tobey spends hours painting in his off-time.  Tobey also confides in David, telling the trainer about his rise to fame, and how his father was a stern man who got Tobey into the military hobby.  Due to their personal relationship Tobey agrees to let David sit in.

June also asks David to keep an eye on Tobey.  She noticed her husband has become more angry and aggressive, not like the man she knew.  She fears that the press is right, that Tobey is playing dirty.

Soon we find that there is a lot of aggression in Tobey as we see him in one of his sessions under hypnosis.  It’s a very strangely edited scene, as Tobey, eyes shut, slams his fist and whines “Lousy stinking cheaters!”  Then the film rolls from the bottom up to the same shot zoomed in tighter.  Then it rolls from the bottom again and he does it in extreme close-up.  I’m sure the rolling of the frame is intended to create a hypnotic mood but it just made me roll my eyes at the obvious trick editing technique.

Tobey is reliving a childhood memory of playing touch football with friends but the opposing quarterback was cheating, causing Tobey to lose.  Under the hypnosis Tobey is back in his childish mindset, and having a full-on tantrum like a child so  Dr. Stewart talks him down from the session as David looks on from behind one-way glass.

Stewart later explains to David that he is having Tobey reexperience the first moments of anger and aggression that stick with him through to adulthood.  David is concerned about Stewart’s methods, fearing they may be dangerous, but Stewart is convinced that this is the path to curing such aggression.  Stewart postulates that by perhaps using hypnosis to alter the memory it can allow the patient to continue to experience the anger, but to control it, possibly by using hypnosis to alter the original memory.  The end goal is to allow the uncontrollably aggressive bring their rage under control.  David is skeptical but does not intervene, perhaps due to his hoping Stewart will be successful and able to cure David of his own anger.

We then cut to some quite obvious footage of the Chicago Bears playing the Pittsburgh Steelers (I can tell by the helmets), but all the voices are overdubbed by the actors and the audience is chanting “Tobey! Tobey!”  Intercut with the stock footage are shots of Tobey and David, and damn if the editors didn’t do a fantastic job of matching the crappy look of the stock film!  I really thought at first the shot of Tobey was from the original game, with the grainy, washed-out film.  It’s impressive that they can match the film so well, even if it means making the new footage look terrible.  Still, the shots of the football game remind me of an ad for Sports Illustrated, hit after hit, tackle after tackle, not feeling cohesive, feeling more like a montage than a scene.

Tobey’s next hypnosis session shows Tobey’s anger with his own father over his father making him shake  hands with the cheater of the touch football game.  I want to give credit to Miller for committing to his role as Tobey.  It’s not every actor who will drop all vanity and act like a temperamental 6-year-old screaming “I don’t like cheaters!” repeatedly.  An experienced actor, if not a star, Miller both looks and acts the part of the aggressive sportsman, and it goes a long way towards helping me not laugh during these hypnosis scenes.

We then see the next football game (one in which the stock footage and new scenes don’t match nearly as well as the first game).   Tobey gets hit hard by opposing player Kermit Connelly   After the play Tobey retaliates, tacking the unsuspecting Connelly.  It causes a all out riot on the field and Tobey is ejected from the game.

David goes to see Tobey in the locker room but finds Tobey out of control.  The footballer is punching the lockers screaming “Cheaters!  I’m not shaking anybody’s hand!”  Worried, David goes to Stewart and asks the psychologist to go to Coach Haggerty and suggest that Tobey be benched as a danger to himself and to others on the field.  Stewart refuses, stating David is not a professional, and kicks him out.

But in Stewart’s waiting room two of Tobey’s teammates overhear David’s suggestion, and are not happy with David trying to bench the team’s star player during playoffs.  They follow David into the locker room where the assistant trainer is gathering some towels.  They threaten David, snapping towels at him, the makeshift whips stinging David’s skin.  David retreats and the two players push him in the steam room, turning the steam up to high.  Unable to see David they start saying “You stay in there and think about this”, but the players don’t hear what we hear–the telltale high pitched sound that signals David’s Hulk-out!

Hulk-Out #1:  As the steam temperature raises the players cannot see anything, but they hear a low growl.  Then right on the other side of the glass appears a green, wet face–Hulk!  I have to say they did a good job of keeping Ferrigno’s make-up in tact while he’s wet, and the close-up of his face through the glass is a great shot.  That said, David was wearing those black shorts when pushed into the steam room, creating a very skimpy wardrobe for Ferrigno.   David usually wears long pants and makes Hulk look ready for a flood, but I feel Hulk is strangely vulnerable, exposed as he is in black shorty-shorts.

Hulk punches through the steam room door with both hands, one hand grabbing each player.  He pulls them against the door, and they make comical “smushed” facial expressions.  Hulk then pushes the door back, and both players fall under it.

Standing, one of the men attacks Hulk using a football helmet as a melee weapon, but Hulk deflects it, shattering the headpiece.  Giving up, the players flee when Hulk is distracted by seeing his own reflection in a mirror.  Hulk flexes and growls for a while then throws a bench into a mirror, shattering it.

After the commercial the two players try to convince their coach about the Hulk, but Coach Haggerty (Pepper Martin, Rocky the garbage-eating thug from Superman II) thinks the two players were juicing and caused the damage to the locker room themselves.  There’s a funny line where Haggerty asks if the Hulk is a Packers fan with the green skin, and if Hulk is so strong they should try to sigh him to the Cougars.

During all of this Tobey goes to see Kermit.  Kermit’s leg was horribly injured and he may never play again but Tobey still tries to cheer up the sidelined player.  Kermit finally explodes, calling Tobey a grandstander, accusing Tobey of intentionally maiming him.

Tobey is shaken by this accusation and goes to David for help saying he did want to kill Kermit.  David says he has “transference reaction”, that Tobey has lost the ability to discern between what has happened in the past and the present, between what is real and what is not.  David reassures Tobey that it can be treated with treatment and rest.  Tobey blows up at David at the “rest,” realizing it would mean not playing in the upcoming championship, and storms off.

Back home Tobey starts to box up his little Civil War men and then leaves, never knowing June is watching the whole time.  He takes the army men to the stadium and uses them as mock football players in a game, then crushes one of the most intricately painted ones.  It’s a scene that doesn’t entirely work, though we’re supposed to see that Tobey is so angry that he will destroy that which he spent hours creating.

Worried about Tobey disappearing, June calls David and says “I can’t get through to him, not like his father could” and that gives David an idea.  Checking one of the pictures in the team display case David realizes that the cheater in Tobey’s game of touch football was Tobey’s father.  The hypnosis sessions Stewart conducted have brought all these childhood feelings into Tobey’s present and since the elder Tobey is now dead John cannot confront him and put the feelings back where they belong.  Stewart tries to kick David out, but David is adamant that Tobey must confront the photo of him and his father and that if Tobey is not stopped he may kill another player out of aggression.

David finally realizes that Stewart won’t stop Tobey from playing for fear of losing his two hundred twenty-five thousand dollar research grant.  More, Tobey is not Stewart’s patient, he’s a research subject so Stewart feels no moral obligation to step in.  David asks Stewart  what it will mean for the psychologist’s career if Tobey kills someone on the field in the game, and walks out.

As the Cougars prepare for the game we see Tobey is more sullen and despondent than ever.  Coach Haggerty is less worried about Tobey’s anger than Daivd’s absence–he failed to get the playoff footballs signed by the players so Tobey has David fired and his pass revoked.

When David arrives at the game late he is stopped by security.  Needing to get to Tobey he tries to buy a ticket but doesn’t have the $200 the scalper demands.  Finally, desperate, he climbs the fence, using his boot to avoid the barbed wire, but he is spotted and apprehended by stadium security.  The guard grabs David by the forearm and puts him in a holding pen with other people.  I’m not sure what they did to get locked in the pen, I assume they tried to get into the game without a ticket, but in the credits someone is listed as “Drunk Man” so perhaps they were disorderly during the game.  These men sit around a radio listening to the game they have been prevented from seeing.

On the field Tobey is seeing his father in place of the other players.  He is trying time and time again to hit the opposing quarterback but has been stopped.

In the pen David is shouting and rating that if Tobey gets to the quarterback the quarterback will be killed.  David is becoming irate with panic and worry for Tobey.  He’s yelling at the others in the pen to not cheer for Tobey but to try and help him, and annoyed by David’s shouting one of the men throws a metal bowl at David, striking him in the back.  David can take it no more–his eyes go white.

Hulk-Out #2:  The other men in the cell are so fixated by the transistor radio playing the game and their chants of “Tobey! Tobey! Tobey!” that none notice when David’s clothes start to tear.  Only when Hulk roars disturbing their enjoyment of the game do they realize they are caged in with a green beast.  But Hulk isn’t here for them, so with a roar he leaps from the second-story window out into the stadium.  Running through the stadiums Hulk tries to get to the field, while the Cougars try to set up for another play.  Tobey calls the play saying “I’m gonna kill that quarterback this time” and it’s not an exaggeration.

The ball is snapped, but Hulk enters the field and the announcers are fixated by Hulk but the players, their heads in the game, don’t notice the green giant bearing down on them.  Tobey sacks the quarterback, then starts to punch the man while he’s down.  Before he can do serious damage to the quarterback, Tobey is lifted off his opponent by the Hulk, who slings Tobey over his shoulder.

An amusing scene follows of Hulk running down the field carrying Tobey.  It’s set up like a football play, with the announcers saying “He’s past the 15 yard mark, the 10…” and the Cougars trying to block Hulk but Hulk just pushes them aside one by one.  Hulk scores a Tobey Touchdown entering the end zone and dropping the pro baller.  When the other Cougar players try to attack Hulk, Hulk pushes the goal posts over stopping them.

But Hulk must now face Tobey, who gets up and tries to go after the opposing quarterback again.  Hulk pushes him down once, twice, then Tobey tries to attack Hulk himself.  Hulk grabs Tobey by the helmet and pushes him to the ground.  This time Tobey stays down, and Hulk realizes the crowd for the first time.  He flees, smashing through several barricades in the stadium before pushing down the gate and running off into the city.

In the coda we see David at the Tobey’s house, he, June, and John surveying John’s army men.  We find that the Cougars lost the playoff game to Memphis, but John is now getting the help he needs to deal with his anger and will be playing again next seasion.  David says he has to leave as he does not want to become part of the publicity Tobey’s actions and Dr. Stewart’s research will bring.

Donning his tan jacket and bell bottoms once more David walks away from the Los Angeles Olympic Building, looking back wistfully for the first time in the series, as The Lonely Man theme plays on.

Thus closes a well-acted, well staged episode of The Incredible Hulk.  Technically I can find no flaws other than the hallmarks of low-budget television production 30 years ago.  However, the episode is at best a field goal, not a touchdown.

First, the story feels stretched too thin.  We see not one scene of Tobey being rough on the field but three, not one hypnosis session but two, David asking Stwart three separate times to help Tobey.  Had there been more story to fill the hour it would have tightened up the script and removed a lot of redundancy.

More, this is really another episode of Hulk without a villain.  Tobey is as much a victim as a villain.  While he hurts people, it is out of his control–he’s sick, not evil.  When there are no villains it’s hard for Hulk to have someone to smash and the green guy often ends up feeling superfluous, or, worse, obligatory.

I do recommend Killer Instinct due to the performances but I know Hulk can do better.

Read my other Incredible Hulk Series Reviews

March 19, 2012 Posted by Arnie C | Comic Books, Movies, Reviews, Television, The Incredible Hulk TV Series Reviews | 1970s, 1980s, Bill Bixby, CBS, Comics, Hulk, Incredible Hulk, Lou Ferrigno, Marvel, Now Playing, Review, Television, TV series | 1 Comment

Incredible Hulk Season 2 Episode 7 – Alice in Disco Land

David takes a job in a disco, where he meets a troubled dancer and soon realizes that she is a remnant of his past.

Alice in Disco Land
Season:	2
Episode:	7
Air Date:	November 3, 1978
Director:	Sigmund Neufeld Jr.
Writer:	Karen Harris, Jill Sherman Donner
David’s Alias:	Unknown
Hulk-Outs:	2
	• Unable to open a locked door • Falling off a stack of boxes

After a string of episodes that , while mostly entertaining, danced with danger bringing in racial stereotypes and topics like child abuse and the mentally challenged it was such a relief to be going towards an episode entitled Alice in Disco Land.  I was pretty sure the only stereotypes I’d be facing were those of 70s disco divas and swinging bachelors.  For a show based on a comic book intended for kids, The Incredible Hulk was dealing with some pretty heavy issues.  It’s not that I mind the occasional issue episode, but I felt there were too many in a row.    After a series of serious reviews, I was up for the Hulk to have some fun boogieing on the disco round!

Can you imagine my disappointment when I found out it was another serious “issue” episode, this time dealing with alcoholism?  It was an episode that had far more in common with the 70s book Go Ask Alice than Alice in Wonderland, but while unexpected given the title I found the episode entertaining.

We open at the Pandemonium Disco.  DJ Dr. J is hooting while spinning his 12-inch records and sharing his slogan “Shake it, but don’t brake it, and if you can’t shake it then fake it”.  We are in the 70’s for certain.  The music is a groovy disco beat, and the camera is zooming and spinning around the dancers on the disco floor like I was watching an episode of Solid Gold.

This is where David works as a bartender, taking crap from drunk ditzes.  It’s his first night and we are quickly introduced to his coworkers:  Al the bouncer (played by Brion James who I instantly recognized from Blade Runner and 48 Hours), penny-pinching club owner Ernie  (guest star Marc Alaimo, Gul Dukat from Star Trek: Deep Space 9), plus an unnamed slutty waitress.

Despite it being his first night David is already giving lectures to Al that it appears the bar is serving underage minors.  Sure enough, he soon sees one on the dance floor, someone that he recognizes–Alice Morrow, David’s goddaughter!  After Alice’s father died her mother moved to Canada; the last time David saw the girl was at her father’s funeral over a decade earlier.

We see flashbacks of David lying in the grass with little Alice reading her Alice in Wonderland, a book he gave her for her birthday.  Now Alice is sixteen and has been crowned “Queen of Pandemonium” along with her “king” Louie Sharp.  David tries to call Alice’s mother and learns from the maid that Alice has been constantly running away since she was 14, stealing her mother’s jewelry to fund her travels.  David wants to speak to Alice’s mother Rosalyn, but she is on business in New York.

She is dancing and she is drunk, and she doesn’t recognize David when she sits at the bar to get a drink.  But she obviously still remembers her time reading Alice in Wonderland with David as she cannot stop quoting Lewis Carroll.  But this provides an opening for David, who also seems to remember the book line for line, and his ability to quote it opens an avenue for him to talk to Alice.  In the course of the conversation David immediately realizes Alice has a drinking problem.

For once there is an area where David is not an expert!  The next day he goes to see Joan Roberts at the Alcohol Abuse Program where she lectures David (and the audience) on the “epidemic” of teen alcoholism.  Joan tells David no one can force Alice to get help, she has to come into the program on her own.  Because Alice is underage Joan suggests reporting the girl as a runaway.  When David says that won’t work because of Alice’s parents Joan then suggests David make an anonymous tip to the bureau of alcohol control.

David does make the tip anonymously, but alcohol inspector Art Philben is on Ernie’s payroll.  Art tries to tell Ernie to not serve underage people for a day or two until the heat is off, but Ernie says he’s almost broke and needs the money the kids bring.

That night Ernie plays by Art’s rules and the teens leave in droves, except for Alice who is going through withdrawal. Her need for booze has her even being judged by Louie, who tries to cheer her up with news that they are finalists in the disco dance competition.  When she only wants a drink, he storms out.

Then Alice hits rock bottom, flirting with David, subtly offering sexual favors to the much older man in exchange for a drink.  David of course turns her down and tries to make her realize she’s addicted, but she uses the age old line “I can quit any time I want.  I just don’t want to.”

Staring into the looking glass (a mirror to the rest of us) behind the bar Alice starts talking nonsense saying “Daddy will tell me what to do” and runs out.  When David is able to follow he finds Alice has climbed atop a tall billboard, telling her friends she “followed the white rabbit down the hole.”  Alice is swaying on her feet and looks ready to fall to her death at any moment.  She is hallucinating that she is in a tree, her father standing below to catch her when she jumps.  That vision changes to her father’s casket, all interspersed with drawings from “Alice in Wonderland.”  Alice cries, shouting “Who’s gonna miss me tonight?” and “Daddy, where’s Wonderland?”

David tries rushing up to get her but the only way is through an abandoned building with a rickety staircase.  David keeps falling and sliding down the stairs.  Out of breath from running up so many flights he reaches the door to the roof that can take him to Alice, but the door is locked.

David’s eyes go white.

Hulk-Out #1 David’s Pandemonium shirt tears and then the Hulk (Lou Ferrigno) is there.  He knocks down the locked door, running out onto the roof.  He then bursts through the billboard from behind, grabbing Alice before she can fall.  Alice yells “please let me fall!” but Hulk takes her to the middle of the roof where she will be safe.  Alice’s friends then come to the roof and Hulk runs off into the distance.

After the commercial break David finds Alice, looking pretty peaked with big bags under her eyes, sitting in a park.  She had been taken to the hospital the night before, but she left not wanting to be found out as a runaway.  David talks to her about the dangers of alcohol withdrawal such as tremors and hallucinations and Alice says “I don’t know what’s worse, drinking or not drinking?”  Seeing that Alice is ready to stop drinking the potion, David takes her to see Joan at a meeting reminiscent of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Alice is rude and surly at the meeting.  In a really terrible exchange Joan asks Alice how old she is.  I guessed Joan to be in her 50s; Alice guessed 35.  Joan revealed she is 26 but looks 35 because she was a hard drinker for ten years starting at age 13.  Hearing Joan’s story lowers Alice’s defenses and she begins to participate honestly with the group.

But they are seen leaving the group by Art, who calls Eddie.  Joan is one of the District Attorney’s prime witnesses against Pandemonium for selling alcohol to minors, and Art jumps to the conclusion that Alice and David are other witnesses against Eddie..

At Pandemonium Louie is practicing for the disco competition when in walks National Register reporter Jack McGee (Jack Colvin).  Louis is excited thinking McGee is there to interview him for the Register‘s “Disco Dude” competition that Louie entered, but McGee isn’t down with disco, he’s hunting for Hulk.  Louie isn’t interested in the Hulk until the reporter mentions the newspaper’s $10,000 reward for information on the big green guy.  Spurred on by the thought of quick cash Louie takes McGee to Alice, but Alice refuses to talk to McGee.  More, she tells Louie that she won’t dance with him in the competition, that she’s never coming back to Pandemonium.

Louie races to Eddie to tell him about Alice, and Eddie is upset as Eddie and Alice’s dancing brings in crowds.  Louie is very money hungry–he wants McGee’s $10,000 and he wants the $500 prize money for the disco competition, so when Eddie offers Louie $100 to ensure Alice dances that night Louie heads to Alice’s apartment trying to bribe her with a bottle of alcohol.

He arrives to find Alice being interrogated by McGee, and as she kicks them both out McGee says “I wasn’t able to stop having nightmares about the Hulk until I talked to somebody about it.”  Assuming McGee isn’t lying to gain Alice’s trust I find it interesting that they portray McGee as having been traumatized by the events in the pilot.  In the pilot and every episode since McGee seemed only interested in the story but never the least bit afraid of the Hulk or the death supposed deaths the Hulk caused.   If some of his first season attitudes were a response to fear, and his hunt the attempt to face that fear, that would add a lot to the character.  I’m reading quite a bit into a single line said in passing, but I do hope it’s a sign of things to come for McGee.

David visits Alice after the two men have gone.  Alice complains that Louie is trying to force her to go to the disco but she doesn’t want to go because she’ll drink.  Unlikely as it seems, David sides with Louie.  David has seen Alice dance and knows she has a special talent.  He tells her she has a disease and she cannot run from it, the problem isn’t the disco–the problem is wherever she goes.  What I’ve read about addiction says that you should never  put an addict in the path of temptation, so I find David’s advice to be medically false as well as being too much too soon for a sixteen year old addict.  But David’s words get through to the girl, she returns to Pandemonium that night to dance with Louie.

And dance they do…to a disco version of The Lonely Man theme.  It’s groovy to the max.

David then goes to talk to Eddie, and Eddie and Al take David to the basement.  They call David a fink and accuse David of being a grand jury witness against Pandemonium.  They handcuff the bartender and, despite David’s honest denials, Eddie and Al don’t believe him.  They leave David locked in the basement and go to take Alice “for a little ride” to see if she’ll tell them about the grand jury investigation.

Eddie and Al go to wait as Alice finish her dance, and David tries to escape in the basement.  He flings his rolling chair into a wall, breaking the chair’s arm and releasing him.  His hands still cuffed together he cannot open the gate to the stairs, and trying to climb atop boxes of booze they collapse and David falls.

His eyes go white as Alice finishes her dance.

Hulk-Out #2:  Eddie and Al go up to take Alice, but before they can make it to the door Hulk comes out of the basement.  He throws Al into the bottles of alcohol behind the bar.  He then shatters the looking glass with the cash register.  He trashes the bar, preventing anyone else from being served, then chases after Eddie.  Eddie throws a chair at Hulk, but Hulk deflects it right into the disco ball.  He then throws Eddie against the turntables in the DJ booth.

The fight over, Hulk notices all the discoers staring, and at the front of the pack is Alice.  Hulk walks onto the disco round, and everyone but Alice backs away.  They stand and look at each other, and the way it’s filmed I really wonder if they are about to dance.  Maybe they would have, but right then the disco ball falls from its impact, crashing in front of the hulk.  Hulk is startled and roars at the kids before running outside.  On the outdoor backlot Hulk rounds the corner to see McGee just arriving at Pandamonium.  Hulk growls at McGee for good measure and runs off into the night.

After the final commercial David and Alice are both leaving town.  Alice is going to become a disco dance instructor, and David is going to parts unknown.  She gives David her copy of Alice in Wonderland saying she won’t need it any more, and David dons his heavy black coat and sticks out his thumb for a ride as credits roll.

And thus another “important” episode of The Incredible Hulk ends.  I must say that seeing these Season 2 episodes in sequence has completely changed my view of The Incredible Hulk.  I had seen many of these episodes, including Alice in Wonderland, in syndication over the years, but in the random order of syndication I never before realized Hulk was a show that really changed over time.  In the first season the show was finding its legs and often using blockbuster film plots for inspiration while adding in Hulk.  Now in Season 2 we are dealing with a string of episodes where almost every one has a moral.

Truthfully it makes sense.  Given that Hulk is based on a comic aimed at kids inserting a moral lesson each week makes sense.  My disconnect is I never saw Hulk as a children’s show as it was beloved by people of all ages.  In these early episodes I believe the producers were not so confident that adults would turn in at 8pm to watch a big green man beat up bad guys so they aimed these episodes very squarely at children.

I wouldn’t mind a few life lessons sprinkled throughout the series, and not every episode has attempted to teach while it entertains.  The Antowuk Horror and Another Path certainly had no deeper meaning.  The ratio just seems reversed from what I would expect.

That said, as I wrote above, many of these episodes are entertaining–including Alice in Disco Land.  While the way David handled Alice’s addiction may not match my 21st century knowledge of addiction treatment, seeing David reconnecting with someone from his past and stepping into a paternal role worked well for me.  His relationship with Alice was entertaining on screen; the two actors had chemistry.  Plus it was groovy to see the Disco club.  I do recommend this episode.

But I do feel the title was misused.  While clever because it stars a girl named Alice and she is in a disco, I expected this episode to be a modern retelling of Carroll’s classic story.  I expected to see characters who were taking the place of the white rabbit, the Mad Hatter, and possibly even the Queen of Hearts.  I think that a pastiche of Alice in Wonderland, Hulk, and disco would have been far more entertaining than what we got.  Hell, they don’t even have Alice facing a bottle of booze that says “Drink me.”  A good episode but many missed opportunities.

Read my other Incredible Hulk Series Reviews

March 18, 2012 Posted by Arnie C | Comic Books, Movies, Reviews, Television, The Incredible Hulk TV Series Reviews | 1970s, 1980s, Bill Bixby, CBS, Comics, Hulk, Incredible Hulk, Lou Ferrigno, Marvel, Now Playing, Review, Television, TV series | 1 Comment

Incredible Hulk Season 2 Episode 6 – Another Path

In San Francisco, David meets Li Sung, a Chinese philosopher who suggests that controlling the autonomic nervous system may be a way to subdue the Hulk.

Another Path
Season:	2
Episode:	6
Air Date:	October 27, 1978
Director:	Joseph Pevney
Writer:	Nicholas Corea
David’s Alias:	David Brahmer
Hulk-Outs:	2
	• Locked in a freezing trailer he grabs a frozen metal rod • Tied to a bed

After David (Bill Bixby) visited a Native American looking for an herbal potion that would rid him of his Hulk alter-ego (Lou Ferrigno) I was less than enthused when I read the next racial stereotype David would seek out was a Chinese philosopher.  At this point in American culture we still were okay with Asians being portrayed as laundromat owners who used Calgon on laundry and claimed it was an “ancient Chinese secret.”

But my spirits were buoyed when I saw the writer was Nicholas Corea, a series producer at this time this man would go on to write the TV movie The Incredible Hulk Returns and had previously written the enjoyable, gonzo The Antowuk Horror.  I hoped Corea could deliver another fun episode of Hulk.

And he did.  Unfortunately the episode is littered with Asian stereotypes, but the way the episode is handled makes up for it.  This episode isn’t about teaching acceptance and understanding of others, this episode is a mash-up between The Incredible Hulk and Kung Fu, two of the most popular action shows in the 70s.  As the episode follows many kung fu tropes of the day and makes no attempts to be at all serious it makes the stereotyping of the Chinese characters slightly less offensive,

The episode opens with David hitchhiking in the rain, his tan jacket covered by a slicker.  Not finding a ride, he comes across a stopped semi truck with a refrigerated trailer pulled to the side of the road.  He asks the driver for a ride, but the driver wants nothing to do with hitchhikers.  Desperate to get out of the rain David hops in the back against the driver’s wishes, but the driver is wise to him.  He locks David in the trailer and turns on the cooling unit.

In the trailer David finds an another man taking shelter from the storm, Li Sung (character actor Mako, who I know best from his role as Kanemitsu in Robocop 3).  Li Sung is meditating and does not respond to David’s attempts to rouse him.

David soon realizes that the trailer has dropped below 30-degrees, but David’s pleas for help fall on deaf ears as the trucker drives on.  David gives up his tan jacket to keep the Asian man warm, and continues to yell for help.  Accidentally clasping his hand around a frozen metal rod, David’s hand is burned from the cold and his eyes turn white.

Hulk-Out #1 The Hulk-out is very early this episode, and I was shocked that the transformation was happening right in front of Li Sung but the man, who’s eyes were now open, did not react with shock or even interest.  I didn’t guess it then, but Li Sung is blind, thus he had no knowledge of David’s double identity.  Yet.

Hulk starts to smash his way through the side of a semi truck.  Sadly, due to the quality of DVD, I can see exactly where the false portion of the trailer wall was hung and knew exactly where Hulk would smash it.

The trucker had started to warm up the back, but it was too late.  He comes to the back just as Hulk punches down the doors, knocking the driver flat.  Then Hulk carefully helps the blind man out of the back of the truck and carries him to safety.  This is when I first realized Li Sung is blind, as I notice him carrying a large white stick, looking like the cane of a blind man, while Hulk carries him.

Sitting under the hot California sun Hulk transforms back to Banner and it’s a well done transformation, with just an extreme close-up of David’s eyes, caked in green make-up with white contact lenses, the reverse-transformation sound plays, then David is sitting there half-naked.  He pulls out the spare shirt he’s smart to keep in his knapsack and goes over to Li Sung who is making tea by a fire he had built.

Li Sung gives David a cup, and if you haven’t figured out Li Sung is blind you might be confused..  We get a close-up of Li Sung pouring the tea, his thumb in the cup.  He pours the tea up to his thumb, submerging the tip.  This is how Li Sung knows when the cup is full, but if you didn’t catch that you may just think “I don’t want to drink tea that the old man dunked his thumb in!”

As David cannot remember what happened while he was Hulk, Li Sung recounts the events.  David is relieved when Li Sung says no one was hurt, but something about Li Sung’s description is off–he mentions that Hulk “The vehicle we were traveling in was damaged.  At least it sounded damaged.”  That is when David catches up to me and realizes the man is blind.

My fears of the portrayal of Asians in this episode is confirmed in this scene however.  Li Sung is a caricature right out of the Kung Fu playbook, spouting Confucius-like wisdom, such as “Each question in time.  We are where we are” and “Yes, I am blind, a physical disorder which fortunately has little to do with true seeing.”   Additionally, immediately after revealing he is blind, Li Sung uses his super kung-fu  hearing to smack a snake on the head with his stick, scaring it away from their camp site.  I wish I could say that all portrayals of Asians in the 21st century are more enlightened, but Chinese mystics like Li Sung are far too common.  Still, it did not ruin my enjoyment of the episode.  Nor will I count the times the Asian mystic trope is used, lest this entire review be a list of Li Sung’s fortune-cookie dialogue.

Li Sung also reveals that, in his own way, he saw “the power” David possesses, and I am shocked that three episodes in a row someone has learned David’s secret.

Li Sung describes to David the process of his meditation, and that in the trailer he was meditating so deep that he was not feeling the cold.  When David seems to doubt Li Sung’s ability the Asian man picks up a burning ember from the fire.  Li Sung never shows any indication of pain, and after he sets it down David cannot find a burn mark on the man’s hand.

David is astounded and immediately thinks if meditation can prevent an ember from causing flesh to burn it surely can allow him to control his Hulk-outs.  He asks Li Sung to teach him how to meditate to control his “disease” and he even reveals to Li Sung how his wife Caroline (from Married) tried to help him find a cure before she died–the second Married callback this season and I’m again impressed by the continuity.  After bonding over a love of jazz music Li Sung agrees that David can travel with him and Li Sung will instruct the man in meditation techniques.

Li Sung tells David he is returning to San Francisco where the old man used to run a school teaching meditation to Americans.  The school became a huge success and Li Sung ran away leaving the business in the hands of his student Steve Silva  (played by Tom Holland who would go on to direct Fright Night and Child’s Play). Having been gone for two years Li Sung is now returning to his school, and takes David with him.

But Li Sung is unaware that Silva has turned the school into a protection racket, extorting the residents of the Chinatown-dressed backlot out of their savings.  Silva tells the residents he does it in the name of Li Sung so none of the residents oppose him.

Li Sung and David arrive in a beat-up pick-up truck.  Li Sung rides in front while David meditates in the back, sitting cross legged with his thumb touching his middle finger.  I am reminded of Edward Norton’s meditation scenes in the recent Incredible Hulk film and wonder if they drew inspiration for Bruce Banner’s meditations from David Banner’s travels with Li Sung.  David had been sitting in that position for six hours, and Li Sung must work to bring him back to consciousness; David is a fast learner.

Returning to Chinatown Li Sung discovers his old friends are now afraid of him, thinking Li Sung is the mastermind behind the protection racket.  Li Sung takes David to the school’s original location in a humble building, but finds the school is now in a glitzy high rise.  Entering a receptionist tries to sell Li Sung a membership saying they take credit cards.  When Li Sung is recognized as the face on the wall he is quickly shown to the classroom where Silva is teaching students.

But he’s not teaching the Americans to meditate, he’s teaching them kung fu!  And he’s teaching it aggressively, calling his students “weak willed”.  It is much like the scenes of John Kreese teaching the Cobra Kai in The Karate Kid.

The Mr. Miyagi like Li Sung interrupts class and takes Silva to task over his teachings.  Li Sung had used martial arts as a minor part of his teachings, whereas Silva has it as a primary focus.  In conversation Silva makes his rationale seem reasonable, that it works better for Americans who need more discipline, but David and Li Sung both see the school’s focus is far different than it was under Li Sung’s watch.

That night Li Sung and David begin to snoop around the school but before they make it far they are attacked by a girl with a knife.  Li Sung starts to fight her off, but when she realizes she is attacking the famed Li Sung she turns and flees.  Then Silva, Silva’s goon Simon Ming, and many other students come out for their midnight workout.  Silva says the girl, May, should be arrested for trying to kill David, but David thinks the attack was a case of mistaken identity.  He points out that Silva himself may have been the target as May seemed to be awaiting his midnight training.

We then get a scene that shows us Tom Holland is a better director than an actor.  He is talking to Simon, explaining he has the power to decapitate a bust made of solid plaster.  His kung fu is slightly more believable than Loni Anderson’s karate, but not much.  At no point do I believe Holland is a kung fu master, nor that he is dangerous.

Meanwhile Li Sung tries to convince David to leave, saying it took half a lifetime for Li Sung to find how to control his small anger, let alone a rage as long as David’s.  But when David pushes Li Sung admits if David stays Li Sung will use him selfishly to find out what is going on with his school.  David smirks, wanting to know himself, so Li Sung’s partner in crime heads to May’s house to find out why she attacked the two.

May explains that when Li Sung left Silva showed his true nature, changing the school’s regimen and using business skills to build an empire–all done in Li Sung’s name.  May’s father knew Li Sung had no part in Silva’s plans, so Silva had him killed.  May’s attack was to kill Silva for revenge.  David asks why May doesn’t go to the police but she says that the people there don’t trust police.

That night Li Sung comes to May’s apartment where several locals tell Li Sung of the crimes, including extortion and murders, Silva orchestrated to promote the school and Silva’s business interests.  Hearing this, Li Sung says “Silva must come down.  He’s twisted the power I gave him.  It’s my responsibility,” but David still advocates police involvement.

Li Sung says “great strength can be summoned and controlled” through meditation and I wonder if Li Sung is suggesting David can control the Hulk but it is actually Li Sung saying he can summon the strength needed to stop Silva.

We also see Silva is no meditation master.  He tries to use meditation to put his hand in a flame, but cannot muster the concentration and overcome his fear.  When Simon brings word the people are gathering around the returned Li Sung Silva says he will defeat the meditation master in public combat to destroy the local’s faith in him.

David knows that Li Sung plans to fight Silva, and believes the old man cannot win.  He says he’ll go to the police with or without Li Sung, so Li Sung touches David’s shoulder and does a Vulcan nerve pinch.  He pinches David’s shoulder and David slowly passes out.  When David awakens he’s tied in bed, being fed tea by May’s grandmother.

David starts to become irate, demanding Gramma Loo cut him free, and when she refuses his eyes turn white.

Hulk-Out #2:  David transforms and, with his hands tied to the bed frame, the frame splinters as his clothes rip.  Gramma Loo was discarding of a broken tea cup, but when she returns to find her furniture smashed, David gone, and a large topless green man climbing out her window she starts to scream and slap Hulk with a fan.  It’s the Chinese stereotype combined with the funny grandma stereotype, and it actually could have been funny if Ferrigno had given a good reaction.  As it is Hulk gives Gramma Loo a look and just shakes his head “no.”  Hulk climbs out the window to go save Li Sung and runs through the backlot, roaring at locals and flipping furniture.

The old meditation master is entering the tower to attack Silva.  Silva and Simon hide in Silva’s office, with Silva’s students poised to take down the old man.  Silva is not worried, saying “If Li Sung gets this far he’ll see that the student has now become the master.”  Not even Simon believes this bull as he makes a disbelieving scowl behind Silva’s back.  The look the actor playing Simon gives is priceless.

Li Sung enters the school and I’m watching, a TV version of Enter the Dragon as the evil white man’s students attack the kung fu master.  Li Sung holds his own, the blind man taking out four of Silva’s students.  Li Sung moves on, but the it’s now Enter the Hulk as the green giant enters the dojo!  The students attack Hulk with sticks and Hulk doesn’t even move.  He throws one student across the training room, and when another attacks Hulk with a bo staff, hulk pins the man to the wall with the weapon, then lifts him up to the ceiling, wedging the staff to keep the man trapped in the corner.

Li Sung continues to take out Silva’s students with ease, averaging about five seconds per student.  Hulk follows in Li Sung’s wake, finishing off the students the kung fu master had already beaten.  Hulk throws one student over a stair railing, and I’m thinking that student may be maimed or killed.  We know the Hulk never really hurts anyone, but a fall down a cement staircase can lead to a broken back or worse.  We never see that student’s fate.

Li Sung finally reaches Silva’s office and the two start their fight.  Li Sung easily knocks down Silva, hurting the younger man’s hand in the process.

Hulk eners, and Simon attacks the green man with a spear.  Hulk grabs the spear and knocks Simon down with a sumo belly bump.  Hulk then throws the spear into the ceiling where it cannot hurt anyone.

Li Sung doesn’t need Hulk’s help after all as unaided he bests Silva in combat, eventually grabbing Silva’s shoulder and doing the Vulcan nerve pinch again.

The locals enter to see Li Sung standing victorious over Silva’s unconscious body, but Li Sung does not rejoice for while he’s freed the neighborhood he knows he’s lost not one but two students, and tears well up in his eyes over David’s loss of control.

After the final commercial break David and Li Sung walk down the streets of backlot San Francisco saying goodbye.  Li Sung says May will assist him in rebuilding the school.  Li Sung says David can stay as well but David says he has to go. Bixby finally verbalizes David’s rationale for running:   “Now that the creature has shown himself I think it’s better for everybody if I get out of town.”  Li Sung says he understands,though I’m not sure I do.  But for skeptics like me, Li Sung also mentions National Register reporter Jack McGee called from Miami and is coming to San Francisco to investigate the reports of the Hulk sightings.  This is a reason for David to run that I understand.

Sung Li says he wished they had more time to work on David’s problem, and David says he’s learned a great deal, enough to give him hope.  But Sung Li won’t let David go so quickly, saying “if we don’t have the years necessary to cure you perhaps we could afford a few hours.  We could go someplace, listen to some jazz.”  With a big smile David agrees and, tan jacket in hand, he walks Li Sung down the backlot street as a jazz version of The Lonely Man theme plays.

While full of Asian stereotypes I found myself enjoying Another Path.  It’s story was a bit of a retread of Terror in Times Square but mashed-up with Enter the Dragon, a hit 5 years earlier, and David Carridine’s Kung Fu.   The combination is fresh and original, and it’s fun to see the Hulk as a fish out of water.

That said, Hulk was pretty useless this episode.  He saves an old man from a truck that was about to be heated up anyway, and then he follows in the old man’s wake fighting people Li Sung had already defeated.  It’s likely that without the Hulk’s intervention the end result would have been the same.  But even though Li Sung’s power made Hulk useless I’m actually glad the episode stuck to its guns and made the old man competent, not needing to be rescued by the all-powerful green man.

Also I would have liked the episode to try and tell us that kung fu is really powerful, and a kung fu master can possibly hurt or defeat the Hulk.  Would Li Sung have been able to Vulcan nerve pinch Hulk?  That’s a fight I would have liked to see.  But what we get is a blast in its own comedic way with Hulk fighting kung fu masters.  With the stylize black dojo as the background, the fight scenes were fun even if they were unnecessary.

I recommend Another Path.

Additional note:  IMDB and many other sites incorrectly list Tom Holland’s character as “Frank Silva”.  Having watched the episode twice for this review I can say clearly he is referred to dozens of times as “Steve”.

Read my other Incredible Hulk Series Reviews

March 17, 2012 Posted by Arnie C | Comic Books, Movies, Reviews, Television, The Incredible Hulk TV Series Reviews | 1970s, 1980s, Bill Bixby, CBS, Comics, Hulk, Incredible Hulk, Lou Ferrigno, Marvel, Now Playing, Review, Television, TV series | 1 Comment

Incredible Hulk Season 2 Episode 5 – A Child In Need

Taking a break from his search for a cure, David finds refuge in the great outdoors when he works as a school gardener and befriends a 10-year-old who is either accident prone or the victim of child abuse.

A Child In Need
Season:	2
Episode:	5
Air Date:	October 20, 1978
Director:	James D. Parriott
Writer:	Frank Dandridge
David’s Alias:	David Baxter
Hulk-Outs:	2
	• Frustrated no one will call the police to stop a child from being beaten. • Punched, slammed into a wall, and tossed through some doors

I read the one-sentence summary of this paragraph and just thought “Oh no, the Hulk smashes child abuse.”  For three episodes in a row The Incredible Hulk has courted controversy by approaching very sensitive, real-world topics and framing it as an action story starring a giant green man.  I appreciate television that takes risks and does not shy away from hot-button issues, but there is the question of appropriateness.  As a young series that focuses on what Hulk can smash it seems like there is no right way to go about it.  While neither Ricky‘s take on the mentally challenged nor Rainbow’s End dealing with Native Americans was a tragic failure, neither really clicked with me as the right way to handle those topics.  So here as Hulk takes on a child abuser I really wondered how this would play out.  As always I hoped for the best, and as the others before it excelled in some respects while failing in others.

The episode opens and David (Bill Bixby) is working as a groundskeeper at Lincoln Elementary School in Lincoln, Nebraska.  Given that David has forged his identity in every city, has no social security number, and no background I am concerned about the level of care these children are receiving.  I would hope background checks would be mandatory for workers at a school, especially one with young children.  But this episode has some big issues to deal with, so if to do so requires a leap in logic about how David got his job at a school I will let it have that “gimme”.

David is tending to the school’s garden accompanied by a sweet, somewhat happy version of The Lonely Man theme when he comes upon student Mark Hollinger, sitting alone and crying.  David notices cuts on the boy’s arm and, thinking Mark was recently hurt and that’s why he was crying, David takes him to Mary Walker, the school’s nurse.

Mary tells David that Mark is accident prone and often has these types of injuries, and David points out that accidents cause scrapes and bruises, not “multiple contusions.”  The nurse brushes off David’s concerns.  Her face shows a modicum of guilt, but she says “my job is to patch the cuts and bruises, not to worry about how they got there.”  David doesn’t force the issue, he just smiles smartly.

After school Mark runs up to David, and David buys the boy an ice cream.  Someone needs to teach Mark “stranger danger” as you never take food from strangers.  As they eat David asks about Mark’s hobbies and his friends, trying to get at the root cause of Mark’s injuries, but Mark doesn’t get it, just saying he doesn’t have many friends and usually plays with his dad.  David eventually asks outright about Mark’s bruises.  Mark insists he got them falling down and David doesn’t push.  He just knowingly tells Mark if he needs a friend he’ll be there.  (A strange man offers to be a special friend for a young boy!  Stranger danger!)

Mark then asks where David lives, and David takes him to his apartment (stranger danger!), and it’s a very nice place for a gardener on the run.  Spacious, glass french doors, really extravagant.  I think David should be living someplace more humble and saving his money for a rainy day when McGee comes knocking, but, again, this episode is not about David. If David lived in a shack it’s unlikely Mark would want to move in with David, which he asks to do.  He hints around, asking David if his sofa folds out into a bed, saying how David’s apartment could easily hold two or three people which David takes as a sign of trouble at home.

David says “I imagine your mother and father are very worried about you” and I think “Yeah, if they knew he was sitting on a sofa that turns into a bed in the home of the newly hired school groundskeeper.”  If I didn’t know David was the hero of the series I honestly think this episode would be a story similar to Dudley and Arnold at the bike shop on Diff’rent Strokes.

David walks Mark home where David is introduced to Mark’s father Jack, who sees the injuries on the boy and asks how he got them.  The look on David’s face says he thinks Jack is putting on a show, as do I.  As does Jack, I think as Jack invites David in for a beer and David accepts.

The inside of Jack’s home is the height of suburban 70’s style.  I swear when I was growing up my parents had the exact same furniture, if not the upholstery, as the Hollingers — the same gold sofa, the same dark wood frame chair.  It’s uncanny, and I wonder if every house in the 70’s had those pieces.  I keep checking the walls for a giant wooden fork and spoon.

Chatting with David, Jack seems to put the blame for Mark’s injuries on his wife Margaret.  He says she works nights and is very stressed, and that it is hard for her to be a mom and hold a job.  David takes the bait and immediately shifts all suspicion to Mark’s mother, going so far as to track Margaret down at her job at a convenience store.  Under the guise of a customer David starts casual conversation, but in under a minute he starts to accuse the woman of beating her son.  He starts first through implication, “Mark gets hurt…a lot…and no one seems to know why.”  When that doesn’t illicit a response David puts it bluntly “I think Mark’s being beaten.”  Margaret is shaken and asks him to leave.

But being a good employee she first has to ring up David’s purchase.  When Margaret hands David his change he gets a good look at the large, dark bruise on Margaret’s hand.  David smiles smugly, knowing now that Jack is beating them both.

At this point I think Bixby is playing this wrong.  He’s too full of smiles when this is a topic not able to be smiled about.  He shouldn’t be smug when he’s shown he’s proven right, he should be upset that he’s right.  Instead he just smiles this fish-eating grin.  And then he goes home?  He doesn’t go to get the boy, he doesn’t call the police, we just jump to the next day and David is back at work.  He couldn’t wait a moment to confront Margaret, but he then can go home and get a good night’s rest?  It’s poor writing and likely poor directing not telling Bixby the right way to portray Banner in these moments, and it’s keeping me from thinking David is the right person to be getting involved.  I think someone needs to get involved, but not the newly hired gardener of the school.

The next day David sees Mark at school and claps the boy on the shoulder, causing the boy to wince.  David looks down Mark’s shirt (Stranger danger!) sees another round of injuries, and takes him back to Mrs. Walker.   The injuries are so severe this time that the nurse writes Mark a note and sends him home.  When David again pushes Mary to report the abuse the nurse confesses she wishes she could help, but at her last job she reported a parent for abuse.  No one would corroborate Mary’s story, the family denied it, and she ended up losing her a job.  David asks if anyone from the school can talk to Jack and the nurse replies “Why don’t you?”  It’s not a come-up, it’s an honest suggestion, and one that David appears ready to take.

We then follow Mark home.  He is coming home late, having spent the day alone.  He tries to enter quietly and sneak into his room but Jack calls him in.  The musical score by Joe Harnell sets a menacing tone, taking Jack’s fairly flat line deliveries of “You’re late again” and turning them into the most ominous of threats.  When Jack sees a note in Mark’s pocket showing that Jack was sent home early Mark is even more upset, but he’s not shouting, he’s aggravated.  He says “You get more out of hand every day.  What do we have to do to teach you to behave?” and I think a beating is coming, but no, not yet.  Margaret sends Mark to get ready for dinner.

But Jack sits there stewing, and a story about a boy saving his father’s life in a plane crash is what sets Jack over the edge.  I’m not sure why that story is what does it, but we see Jack is pushed to the edge by the thought of a father being saved by his son.  Jack’s face gets red, and he leans forward agitated.

Jack asks Mark to bring him a beer, and Mark is afraid.  Margaret tells Jack to wait for dinner, but Mark demands the beer now, and he demands Mark bring it to him.  Mark opens the beer and walks tentatively, taking baby steps towards his demanding, red-faced father.  Jack continues to bark orders, getting irate, saying insane things like “you don’t like to help me do you” and making Mark put it in his hand.

Mark is shaking and at the last second he drops the beer.  I saw that coming from the moment Mark popped the tab off, but I suppose Jack did too.  Jack didn’t want to get a beer, he wanted to give a beating.  Jack starts to shout and he’s turning even more red; it’s the human equivalent of a Hulk-out.  If he had been gamma irradiated he would have white eyes, but instead he just kicks the beer and starts to chase Jack through the house.  Presumably he is hitting Jack, but we don’t see it, just hear it.

Truthfully this scene is well done.  The actors, at the extreme reach of their limited range, do a good enough job of selling the emotion of the moment, aided greatly by Harnell.  More, the dialogue is a bit odd but it shows the pathos and the pain of abuse.  This moment was one I feared would either be too soft or over the top, but they hit the right note here.  You feel for the victims, and more than any episode before I want Hulk to show up and put a stop to it.

And he will.  We cut outside to see David walking up to the house.  Hearing the screams he knocks on the door, trying to interrupt.  Margaret answers and tells David to go away, but Jack comes and tells the gardener to mind his own business.  When David doesn’t appear ready to take that suggestion Jack shoves David who falls backwards over a railing, falling several feet.

I’m sure the physical violence from Jack will make David Hulk-out, but no!  David is just fine.  Standing, David sees a neighbor across the street working in his yard, but when the neighbor witnesses the violence in the Hollinger’s yard he starts to hustle indoors.  David catches up to the man and asks for help, but the neighbor refuses saying “That Hollinger is crazy.”  David tries another neighbor and gets the same result.  When the neighbor refuses to open the door David can take no more.  We get white eyes.

And what white eyes we get!  It’s an extreme close-up of the contact lens Bixby wears and it’s white, tinged with green.  Really impressive on DVD.  I recommend you see that frame!

Hulk-Out #1  We cut inside and see Jack terrorizing his family.  He shoves Margaret to her knees by her shoulders, showing us how Mark got the bruises on his shoulder.  Jack then lifts Mark off the ground and slams him into a wall.

Then Hulk (Lou Ferrigno) slams into, and through, the opposite wall.  Coming in, Hulk stalks towards Jack who stands in the dining room, frozen to the spot where he was beating his son.  Hulk flips the dining room table out of the way and Jack forgets about beating his son, cowering from Hulk.  Hulk lifts Jack off the ground as Jack lifted Mark.  Jack tries to punch the green beast, and Hulk throws him through some shutters that cover an indoor window, throwing the man into the kitchen.

(I thank Hulk for destroying that 70s bastion of style, the shutters covering interior windows in a home.  Do they even make houses with interior windows any more?)

Hulk then turns to Mark, and Margaret is yelling for Hulk to not hurt her child.  But Hulk is there to help, not to hurt.  He picks up the boy and flees the house, with Margaret shouting “don’t take my baby!”

Hulk takes Jack to a studio backlot that is supposed to represent Lincoln, and he’s chased by the Keystone Cops.  It appears the cops have Hulk cornered but when Hulk doesn’t comply they start to move in.  With some wacky disco music a chase scene begins.  It’s totally out of place to have in this episode, but Hulk flips a pick-up in the street causing all the police cars to crash.  Their cars hit fire hydrants and they don’t even bother to pursue on foot instead just radioing for back-up.  Mark helps Hulk escape the cop’s view.

When out of sight, Hulk transforms back into David in a unique way, the best reverse transformation of the series.  Mark and Hulk walk in shadow, and through a series of obvious fades Hulk grows smaller and eventually becomes David, still holding hands with Mark.  While the fades were obvious, it is the closest thing to a “morph” that the 70s could do, and with the actors walking instead of standing still, covered in shadow to hide bad make-up effects, it shows a full-body transformation in a way the series has never done before.

Mark now is one of the few that know David’s secret, and he says he wish he could change too. Obviously Mark wishes that to fight back against his father.

The next day David calls Mary over to his apartment.  She asks about the green monster, David replies that the only monster is Mark’s father.  He tells the nurse that he found Mark walking on the streets the night before.  He brought Mark back to his apartment to protect the boy from his father.  (Mark spent the night in the groundskeeper’s apartment?  STRANGER DANGER!)  David asks the nurse again to go to the cops saying “There’s more important things than losing one’s job”.  Mary rightly asks why David doesn’t go, and David says “because I have considerably more to lose than my job.”  Mary asks if David is wanted, and David says “Something like that”.

David asks Mary if she’ll talk to the police if he can find one other witness to corroborate Mary’s information, and Mary agrees, so David goes to see Margaret.  But National Register reporter Jack McGee (Jack Colvin) has gotten to Margaret first.  David hides from the reporter and hears Margaret tell McGee that Hulk beat her son and her husband.  Of course a giant green man who’s wanted for murder is the perfect scapegoat for any unexplainable injury.

But the clock is ticking.  Jack (Hollinger, not McGee, and I’m frustrated that there are two people named “Jack” in this episode) is in the hospital for observation to ensure the Hulk didn’t seriously hurt him.  David tries to convince Margaret to go to the police for Mark’s sake.  He informs Margaret, and maybe the audience “There are laws against child abuse” and says he is afraid their lives are in danger from Jack’s beatings.  Margaret says “it doesn’t happen very often, only when Jack loses his temper.”  Ut-oh.

More dialogue continues and it becomes obvious that the writers are trying to draw a parallel between the anger Jack feels that causes him to beat his son and the anger David feels that causes him to become the Hulk.  That is an incredibly bad decision.  Hulk is our hero in the story who took the battered child and saved him from the abuser.  To draw parallels like this, to equate our hero to a wife-beater and child abuser, is in extremely poor taste.  More, it paints our hero as a bad guy who is half a step away from beating children!  It was an ill-conceived parallel that should not have been explored as it was.

Margaret gives the abused story “He doesn’t mean to do it, it just happens” and David says Jack needs psychiatric help before he kills one of them.  This is the beginning of David’s “message” for the episode.  David doesn’t see child abuse as a crime, he sees it as a disease.  While Margaret and Mark are worried that Jack will go to jail, David tries to convince them that Jack doesn’t need jail, he needs a hospital.  I am not an expert on abusive situations, and I am certain that therapy is part of any attempt to break the cycle of abuse, but the oversimplification here is off-putting.  More, we watched as Jack tortured and beat his wife and child.  Sorry Jack, you are now a loathsome individual who I don’t want to see helped.  I want to see you go to jail.  I don’t want to see you helped, I want to see you punished.  You didn’t try to shoot a horse, you beat your family.  You are past the point of no return; you are irredeemable.

But not to the writers and, thus, not to David.  David preaches the benefits of the hospital, while Margaret gives the standard, cliched, tearful responses.  Finally she says “Give me some time” and David agrees.  He tells Margaret to meet him, Mrs. Walker, and Mark in the gym after school.

When school ends David challenges Mark to some basketball.  While playing twenty-one David tells Mark that the two of them, plus Margaret and Mrs. Walker, need to go to the police.  Mark asks if his father will go to jail and David again starts preaching the benefits of medical care for abusers.  But Mark is on my side–he wants his father to go to jail.  He says if his father doesn’t get locked up then he’ll just come back madder and start all over.

David then becomes an apologist for the abuser.  David says “Your father doesn’t want to beat you, he just has a problem” trying to explain child abuse as a mental illness to the child.  While I think on the one hand it’s important for the boy’s self-esteem to know that his father doesn’t hate him specifically, it’s again not right to say these things.  It’s one of those times I think David needs to shut his mouth and just wait for this to be handled by someone who won’t be packing up and abandoning everyone at the top of the hour.

But David is so busy telling Mark about the social programs for child abuse he doesn’t see Jack come in the back door.  Jack hears David telling Mark about these programs and the man changes from child abuser to adult abuser as he starts to pummel David.  Jack lands punch after punch to the stomach, the face, throws David into a wall, and finally thorws him through the double hinged gym doors.

It’s just a shame he was too busy beating David to notice the white eyes.

Hulk-Out #2:  Behind the doors Jack cannot see David’s transformation, and it is one moment required but not believable.  Rather than pursue David through the doors, Jack calls for the man to come back and get more of a beating.  But it’s not David that comes back through the doors.

Hulk smashes through the gym doors and stalks at Jack.  Like any good bully, Jack backs away in fear from Hulk, but Hulk keeps coming, demolishing gym equipment in the process.

Jack turns to run but Hulk catches up, grabs Jack and slides him into the wall.  Cornered, Jack tries to fight.  He punches Hulk repeatedly but Hulk just growls and pushes him back into the wall.  Jack continues to attack but Hulk just keeps shoving him back, bullying the bully.

But Jack is starting to break down.  He’s having memories–memories of a belt whipping across.  Jack has memories of his own father beating him with a belt, and starts to project images of his father onto Hulk.  Jack soon breaks down crying “please don’t hit me daddy” and bawls on the floor.  He calls for Mark, sobbing apologies to the boy, and I think we’re now supposed to think Jack is redeemed and will get the help he needs.  But I still hate the man.

In the coda we see David, looking sharp in a new black turtleneck he must have spent his security deposit on.  He is at Mark’s house with Margaret and Mary.  Margaret happily says “the hospital says Jack will be back in less than a month!”  The way she delivers the line makes me think of a housewife telling the benefits of an appliance.  The hospital is sold as a “set it and forget it” solution.  They also show Mark is healthy, having him babble about what he’s learned about the subconscious and repressed memories that caused his father to hit him.

Everyone is beaming with smiles, everyone is happy.

Mary and Margaret tell David “are you sure you don’t want to stick around and talk to the reporter about the green man?  You could get your name in the paper” but David demurs.

Mark tries to get David to stay a bit longer by challenging him to another game of twenty-one, tossing David the ball.  David throws it one-handed and, swish, makes a perfect shot.  Saying “I better quit while I’m ahead” he throws his tan coat over his shoulder and walks off down the road as Mark watches on from the lower left corner of our screen.

Like David with Hulk, I am torn in two regarding this episode.  On the one hand I admire A Child in Need for daring to cover such a hot-button, real-world issue as child abuse.  The scenes of the abuser and the portrayals of the abused were, for the most part, convincing and done in a sensitive manner.  In an era where such topics were not often discussed, it would serve to raise awareness with children and adults who enjoyed the show.  Had this show come a decade later I have no doubt that it would have ended with Bill Bixby, out of character talking straight to the audience, giving an 800 number for a crisis center for the abused, saying “If you or someone you know is the victim of abuse, don’t hesitate. Call now.”  It is very possible that the airing of this episode did raise awareness, and who knows, perhaps one or more abusers were made to stop by people reacting to this episode.

But on the other hand the episode oversimplifies the entire problem of child and spousal abuse.  The episode ends with everyone smiling, almost giving a thumbs-up to the camera.  This is Hulk‘s idea of a happy ending, but truthfully in a situation such as this there are no happy endings, especially not this quick.  There needs to be time for healing.

Yes, I’m asking for some realism in a television show about a puny man that transforms into a giant green rage monster.  If they are going to tackle serious issues like child abuse, they cannot treat it with the same comic-book style they treat their hero.  It, again, is the appropriateness of the forum for such a serious issue.  If you cannot handle it seriously because “that’s not what this show is” then this show is not the proper medium to discuss serious topics.

Bixby’s portrayal of David just irks me this episode.  I like David when he’s smart, I hate David when he’s a smug know-it-all, and in this episode he’s definitely the latter.  His little smiles, his knowing glances, his proselytizing how doctors can cure abuse, it’s a bit too much to bear.

As for Hulk, his scenes were good.  Both times I felt Hulk was really in the right place at the right time.  I felt bad for Mark and his mother, and I wanted to see Hulk smash the abuser.

It’s not a perfect episode, it didn’t astound me with its handling of the subject matter, but I admire the episode for doing what it did back in 1978.  A very mild recommend.

Read my other Incredible Hulk Series Reviews

March 16, 2012 Posted by Arnie C | Comic Books, Movies, Reviews, Television, The Incredible Hulk TV Series Reviews | 1970s, 1980s, Bill Bixby, CBS, Comics, Hulk, Incredible Hulk, Lou Ferrigno, Marvel, Now Playing, Review, Television, TV series | 2 Comments

Incredible Hulk Season 2 Episode 4 – Rainbow’s End

Hoping to tame the Hulk, David works at a racetrack and seeks out a trainer who has successfully used a vitamin formula to calm a troubled horse.

Rainbow’s End
Season:	2
Episode:	4
Air Date:	October 13, 1978
Director:	Kenneth Gilbert
Writer:	Karen Harris, Jill Donner
David’s Alias:	David Bishop
Hulk-Outs:	2
	• Hit by a falling beam in a burning barn. • Burning his hands on a pipe while the reactor melts down

In the previous episode of The Incredible Hulk we had the show tackle the issue of the mentally challenged, to ill effect, so you can imagine my nervousness when I realized this next episode would portray David (Bill Bixby) going to a Native American to find an herbal cure for his Hulkism.  Attitudes towards Native Americans have changed drastically in 30 years, and I was very worried that here we’d see stereotypical headdresses, peace pipes, sweat lodges, and more.  After all, in Married the writers were happy to portray cancer as Indians slaughtering pilgrims.

I was half right.  Rainbow’s End does have several moments of poor taste, but, like Ricky, was not as bad as I’d feared.  I will explain why throughout the review.

The episode begins with David relaxing with a beer in a random bar.  It’s good to know that despite being on the run from the law and the media, having no reliable source of income, and having a giant green rage monster inside of him, David can still enjoy the finer things in life like a cold beer on tap.  I do find it amusing though that David is a paying customer at the bar when most episodes would show him working at the bar.

As an aside, have you ever seen such a clean, well dressed homeless man in your life as David Banner?  While he may sometimes have to scrounge for money for a pay phone he can always pay for his pilfered clothing, cab rides, and beers.

The television in the bar is turned to news of horse races, featuring a story on Rainbow’s End, “the meanest horse in racing” who has now been tamed by Thomas Logan (guest star Ned Romero).  As pharmaceutical solutions such as tranquilizers would bar Rainbow’s End from racing, Logan was able to concoct a natural alternative using vitamins and herbs.

Poor Indian Stereotype #1:  We find out about this partially from a newspaper headline which reads “Indian Hocus-Pocus Rocks Racing World.” Accompanying the headline is a picture of Thomas Logan, a Native American, wearing a feather warbonnet.  As this is our first view of Logan I did fear David would Hulk-out in a sweat lodge before the night was through.

David wonders if Logan’s herbal cure can help him repress or control the Hulk (Lou Ferrigno), so he hops a bus and heads to the race track.

Poor Indian Stereotype #2:  While on the bus David is reading the newspaper article about Logan.  The boorish man seated next to David takes this as an opportunity for a conversation with such lines as  “That Thomas Logan sounds like one crazy Indian!” and accuses Logan of giving the horse “firewater”.   The man doesn’t trust Logan’s medicine, saying  “the chief doesn’t know his herbs from his elbow” and that he’s betting against Rainbow’s End in the upcoming race.

Now while I list that as “Poor Indian Stereotype #2” it was the first time this episode that I wondered if the writers were trying to dispel Native American stereotypes.  The man seated next to David is obnoxious, but I cannot tell if he’s supposed to be, thus showing the loathsome nature of those who view Native Americans in such a way, or if I am reading this character as repellent because of what he’s saying and the writers considered him just a neutral character.  Even after the episode ended I am not sure.

Despite the man’s views, David decides he will bet on Logan, continuing on to the race track for the cure.  He arrives and is somehow able to walk right into the closed racetrack to see Rainbow’s End doing practice runs on the track watched over by Logan.

Happily, Logan is dressed like an ordinary person with no moccasins, no headdress, no face paint.  He also speaks proper English.  Whew, crisis averted!  After the picture on the front of the paper I expected the writers to portray Logan as a Tonto-like character, and I’m happy to see a more realistic portrayal.  Logan even overtly confronts Native American stereotypes.

But for that step forward, there is also a step back.  Logan is an isolationist, not trusting David thinking he is a reporter trying to sneak out word about Logan’s methods.  More, it cannot be denied that while Logan is acting like a normal person the writers have cast him in the role of “medicine man”, using a special blend of seven herbs and spices to create a medicine that science cannot.

Logan tries to send David away, but their conversation is interrupted when Rainbow’s End starts to buck and rear, throwing the jockey.  A woman tries to grab the horse’s reins  and is knocked down.  David puts himself in front of the girl and calms the horse.  I think.  Obviously Bixby was a bit nervous being around a bucking horse, so all we see is the woman on the ground and some looped lines of Bixby saying “whoa, whoa, calm down” and then we cut to David petting a perfectly calm horse.

The owners of Rainbow’s End, Jimmy Kelly and Laurence Henry Carroll the third (guest star Craig Stevens, star of Peter Gunn), rush out and thank David for his quick work.  The girl David saved was Kim Kelly, Jimmy’s daughter an an aspiring jockey herself.    For saving the girl Laurence offers David a job at the stables, which David happily accepts.  No discussion is had about David’s duties or pay, but a mention is made of him shoveling hay.

Of course, David took the job as a way to stay near Logan, and keeps asking Logan about the medicine given to Rainbow’s End.  Logan is still worried, asking David “Are you sure you’re not a reporter?”  David laughs and says “Honest,” and Logan replies that if David says “honest injun’ I’ll deck you.”  Again I wonder if the writers are trying to put forth a positive, realistic view of Native Americans–one where they don’t appreciate the stereotypical media view of their culture.  Then again if that’s the case why did Logan agree to pose with the headdress?

Logan’s fears about David are quickly put to rest when David realizes why Rainbow’s End went wild at the track.  It wasn’t that Rainbow’s End was just a bad horse or that Logan’s medicine didn’t work, someone replaced the saddle oil with acid.  When the acid mixed with the horse’s sweat from running it caused so much pain that the horse reacted wildly.   It’s a contrivance that makes about as much sense as the heart-attack potion in Final Round, but it clues us off that there is a saboteur at the racetrack.

Logan and David take the acid to Jimmy who seems unworried.  When they say they want to alert Laurence, Jimmy snaps they’re “not to bother Mr. Carroll over a bad can of saddle oil.”  Neither one bothers to point out it’s not bad saddle oil, it’s acid.  Corrosive acid that someone intentionally burned a horse with.

David discovering the acid causes Logan to trust the newcomer and start to share details of the compound he uses to calm Rainbow’s End.  After a time, David asks Logan if the compound has been used on a human.  Saying he has hyperactivity followed by blackouts, David asks Logan to try it on him.  Logan initially resists afraid of the risk, but David persists.  Meanwhile, I wonder what the risk is of using herbs and vitamins on a human, but I don’t hang out at The Vitamin Shoppe.

The focus returns to the primary plot of who’s trying to hurt Rainbow’s End.  At this point I know from his reaction to the acid that Jimmy is the villain, but I am hoping the writers are more clever than that.  Perhaps he is just stupid and our red herring?  No, I gave them too much credit, Jimmy burned the horse and has a lot more dirty tricks up his sleeve.  We find out the entire back story on Jimmy, as told to David by Kim.

Jimmy developed a new radar device that will track horses as they race on the track (and kudos to the writers for being able to foresee that races would soon have computerized results).  As Jimmy didn’t have much money he sold the patent to Carroll to fund the development.  As Kim puts it, it was “fair and square.”  But once Jimmy had a working prototype he became enraged, thinking he’d been swindled by the rich man.   Jimmy wants the patent back but everyone, including Jimmy’s own daughter, thinks he should be grateful Laurence believed in the device enough to invest with it.

It’s an odd, convoluted story that I couldn’t quite follow.  Laurence is shown as a kindly fellow, befitting of the actor who played good guy Peter Gunn.  He does not come off as a harsh businessman with a “you made a deal, you have to live with it” ethic.  More, Laurence only gets rich if Jimmy’s device works.  Jimmy is close to perfecting it, but he hasn’t yet.  There must be some financial incentive for Jimmy to continue his work.  Even if he sold the entire patent to Laurence, either he must be a paid employee performing work-for-hire, or a business partner with some cut of the profits.  I think the writers have no clue what words they’re putting in the character’s mouths.  The writers aren’t contract lawyers and in the end it’s supposed to be “Jimmy thinks he’s getting a raw deal but he’s not.”

I’m also confused by the course of action Jimmy takes during this.  Instead of sabotaging the sonar device, or refusing to work on it, he burns a horse with acid?  I don’t see the direct link between Rainbow’s End’s and the sonar, but the rest of the episode will be Jimmy attempting to assassinate the horse.

Oddly, I believe Kim is telling David this story as some type of flirtation, as she then invites him to a dance being held that night.  I suppose it’s like a team-building exercise, having all the track workers come together and dance.  At the dance Jimmy blows up at Laurence shouting “Do you really think I’m going to stand around and watch you make millions off my invention?” and “you don’t just steal money from me and walk away.”

Jimmy storms off and David follows “to make sure he gets home okay.”  But Jimmy doesn’t make it home okay–he goes and sets a major fire to Rainbow’s End’s barn.

David goes to save the horses, setting several of them free, but Rainbow’s End is too skittish and violent.  David gets a leash on him but the horse bucks and kicks at David.  They have made little progress when the fire causes structural damage to the barn, and a flaming beam falls on David.

Hulk-Out #1  Rainbow’s End is no match for the Hulk.  Hulk grabs the reins, knocks aside some bails of hay, and punches through a wall to lead out the panicked steed.  It’s a funny scene and, like Bixby before him, you can see Ferrigno break character a bit, dealing very gently with the horse. Seeing the workers coming, Hulk runs off with Rainbow’s End, and I wonder why he doesn’t just let the horse go.   Sitting still with the horse Hulk begins to transform back into David while the worrkers extinguish the blaze.  But one worker, Logan, was out looking for Rainbow and witnesses David’s metamorphosis.  Now Logan is one of the small number of people who know David’s secret.

With the reverse transformation it’s another step backwards for the series as the bad eyebrows and green glow are also evident, but as the plot demands Logan see David transform I can forgive it this one time.

In most episodes after David transforms into the Hulk for the first time he is hounded by National Register reporter Jack McGee (Jack Colvin) and David has to continue running, but something always keeps him there just a while longer.  But in the majority of episodes the Hulk was actually seen by bystanders who call the police or the media.  That is what alerts Jack to the Hulk’s presence.  In Rainbow’s End however Hulk rescued the horses and was only seen by Logan; everyone else was too fixated on the fire.  No one is talking about a large green man, and no one was hurt.  As such, I’m very confused in the next scene where David tries to leave, but Logan talks him into staying.

Poor Indian Stereotype #3:  We also get a dropped reference to McGee, not in relation to the Hulk but to Rainbow and Logan’s miracle drug. Logan receives a call from the reporter, and Logan again says he doesn’t want to talk to the press.  It ends with Logan calling McGee “Kemosabe” in a way that does not come off as ironic.  More, McGee never struck me as especially bigoted or racist except against large, green men with a poor grasp of the English language.

That done, Logan and David look to using the drug as a cure for the Hulk.  There is some truly great dialogue in here between Logan and David.

Logan:  My grandfather’s tribe would have treated you like a god.  If you could control it you’d have great power.

David: I don’t want that kind of power.

and also

Logan:  You posses a powerful force!

David:  No, it possesses me!  I can’t control it.  Even in my sleep.

The two actors really sell this scene and it is a standout.  The debate ends simply with Logan saying “We begin the treatments today.”

But before treatments can begin David tells Logan that Jimmy started the fire.  Kim, working outside, overhears this and confronts her father.  He doesn’t deny it, he just sits there with his face scrunched up like a five-year-old throwing a temper tantrum.  It’s an astoundingly silly facial expression that doesn’t even change when Kim engages in some emotional blackmail, invoking her dead mother, saying she loves him.  She says she’ll try to make things right with Mr. Carroll.  I’m not sure how she can “make things right” for her father committing arson, attempting to kill Rainbow and half a dozen other horses, and generally being an ass.  Despite how kindly Carroll has been so far I strongly suspect any reasonable person would respond to this information by calling the police.

But we have to wait a while to see what happens to Kimmy and Jimmy, as we see David and Logan try to cure the Hulk.

Poor Indian Stereotype #4:   In this stereotype I have to fault Joe Harnell, the composer of the score for The Incredible Hulk.  While I love Harnell’s title themes for Hulk, and in most episodes his score is perfect, sometimes he plays a scene wrong.  This is one of those times. In montage form we see Logan make the formula for David.  All the actions, all the things the actors are doing, are completely normal.  But in scoring the scene Harnell took inspiration from the same Cowboy and Indians movies that were referenced in Married.  The score is a slow, moody rendition of the Native American ceremonial music used in thousands of films and cartoons, filled with mystic overtones and wood instruments.  While Logan is wearing jeans and working in a building, as far as Harnell’s score is concerned he might as well have the headdress on and be in a tepee.  The music tells me Logan is a medicine man, while the script seems to mock those who hold such notions of Native Americans.  I am disappointed in the lack of imagination the score shows, but I have to remember it was a different time and a television show on a tight schedule.

David drinks the liquid from a large stein.  Will it calm him?  Will it transform him?  Will he get stoned?  Will, as David jokes, he turn into a horse?  Instead it seems to put him to sleep.  This doesn’t surprise me as the drug has often been called a tranquilizer.  I’ve never been entirely sure how it would cure David of the Hulk unless it just kept him so sedate that he’d never get angry again.

David goes to bed and has memories/visions of his second wedding, and his marriage to Caroline in the season opener.  I’m pleasantly shocked to see these scenes.  Not once since Married aired has David mentioned his second wife, and it’s nice to see Dr. Caroline Fields lives on in David’s memories.  It even includes scenes of Caroline having her seizure, and the hurricane during which she died.  That said, as David didn’t mention it this episode either, these scenes would be very confusing to someone who skipped the season opener, it’s trusting the audience to have seen it.  I suspect the script just said “David has a nightmare” and, in editing, they decided to add these scenes to show the audience the dream.  I also think they needed to stretch the episode out a couple more minutes as this goes on longer than it really needs to.  Either way, a series with as little continuity as The Incredible Hulk maintains should not have this type of reference with no set-up.

In this scene Harnell proves himself once again.  I may not have enjoyed the Native American score for Logan, but I love  the score during this dream.  It is a perfect mix of melodies and fear as the dream transitions from good times to bad.

David’s sleep gets more restless, he’s tossing and turning.  Will this be the third time that a dream turns him into the Hulk?   He shouts “Carol” in the half hulk voice in his dream, and wakes up…his eyes aren’t white.  He’s not changing.  It seems as if he may have found his cure.

But if he has, who will stop Jimmy?  Kim’s talk must not have taken hold as the grumpy old inventor is oiling his rifle, with a sharpshooter’s scope on it.  The next day is the race that will prove Jimmy’s device works, and Jimmy refuses to let that happen so he is going to shoot Rainbow’s End.  And he’s practicing his aim by watching Rainbow’s End race on TV.  I hate to tell him but the cameraman is already keeping the horse in the center of the screen so being able to keep the video in your crosshairs is not a sign of your ability to hit a moving target.

The next morning David tells Logan that he feels the best he has in a long time, calm but alert, and I’m wondering where I can score some of what David’s drinking.  As the topic changes to the workplace drama David asks if  Jimmy’s troubles will hurt Kim’s racing career.  Logan says “not if she’s good.  Which she is.”

She’ll have to prove how good she is, though, as Andy the jockey isn’t feeling well and David diagnoses that Andy sustained  a concussion when he was thrown from Rainbow’s End during the acid incident.  David says if he rides again he could be killed (though David fails to mention it would require another blow to the head, which seems unlikely).  Not wanting to risk Andy’s life, kindly Laurence has Kim saddle up to ride Rainbow in the race.

Of course Kim’s dad Jimmy is going to shoot the horse, and may kill his own daughter by accident in the process!  Oh the suspense.

Logan watches from the stands with Mr. Carroll.  Jack McGee shows up to continue his investigative journalism into Logan’s potion.  David watches in the standing-room-only area.  Above them all Jimmy takes up position on the roof.

Much like the last episode we set up the race with lots of obvious stock footage showing a crowd far larger than the show’s budget can afford.  We see close-ups of David standing in the bleachers with a few people around him but in wide shots it appears to be a sold out crowd.

But somehow in the chaos David is not looking at the race or at flirty Kim’s big moment, but at the roof.  Maybe his Hulk-sense is tingling because while I see nothing he keeps staring at the roof.  Finally Jimmy takes aim and David sees Jimmy with his scope.  David tries to get to the roof working through the crowd, but the race is on and the very small crowd is refusing to step out of the way for David.  He trips on someone’s foot, someone else steps on his hand, and then some real jerk pours hot coffee poured on David’s back.  Oh the indignity!  There was no warning on the cup saying “The beverage you are about to spill on a fugitive from the law may be hot” so I smell a lawsuit!

Logan’s formula must have worn off as we get white eyes.

Hulk-Out #2:  We see little transformation here, just a shirt tear then a shot of the crowd and, like he’s on a spring, Hulk jumps up in the middle of it.  With a roar he does what David couldn’t, parts the audience and runs through the crowd.

We get a reaction shot from McGee who can’t believe his luck to have Hulk come to him, and a shot from Logan who knows David’s first dose was not an instant cure.  They both race after Hulk.

Now in the past we’ve seen Hulk do super-leaps, but here Hulk must feel he needs more cardio as he chooses to take the stairs, smashing through a glass double-door in the process.  He knocks down the door to the roof just as Jimmy was taking aim.  Unable to cross the distance of the roof before Jimmy can pull the trigger, Hulk pulls off the entire railing of the roof, dislodging it, a section of it knocking Jimmy down.  Hulk runs up to Jimmy and chucks the rifle far away, and I hope it doesn’t land and hit poor Andy in the head, killing him.

The police soon arrive and then when police come on the roof Hulk runs away.  Having gotten his workout in, Hulk takes the short path, leaping from the high roof to the ground, while the police tend to Jimmy.

Hulk runs out the parking lot while Kim enters the winner’s circle having set a world record time riding Rainbow’s End to victory.  But she wants to share her success with David, who is nowhere to be found.

We see later that David has come to get his tan coat and say goodbye to Logan.  Logan wants to try altering the dosage or the ratio, but David says it could take weeks and with McGee around he can’t take the chance.  Logan understands and tells David “all things do pass.”

Then he stops to say goodbye to Kim, who says Mr. Carroll is going to help her take care of her father.    I say never quit your job as Mr. Carroll is the single kindest employer ever.

Kim asks why David wasn’t in the winner’s circle, and he says it was hard to get through the crowd, but there will be lots of winner’s circles.  She says she will be looking for him in every one, and David walks off as a faster version of The Lonely Man theme plays.

Rainbow’s End is another uneven episode of The Incredible Hulk.  It seems the writers cannot find a good balance when there is David’s personal story as well as a criminal plot for Hulk to fight.  Sometimes the pendulum swings too far one way and we get Married with no villain at all.  Other times it goes the other direction and we get episodes like The Antowuk Horror.  Here the dual plots never seem to mesh, and neither is entirely satisfying.

For David’s story I find it frustrating that David comes close to a cure, or at least a path worth exploring, but he is easily scared off by McGee.  It’s McGee’s purpose in the show, but to make it work I’d have liked to see McGee have a greater presence.  Sometimes finding Jack Colvin in an episode is as hard as finding Waldo on a page.

I also found Jimmy’s horse-assassination plot to be muddled.  I could determine no logic behind Jimmy’s anger, and Laurence is such a nice freaking guy that even after Jimmy sets fire to the stables and tries to shoot the horse he still wants to help take care of the man.  He’s a saint!  Even Kim sees it and she’s Jimmy’s daughter.  I understand they say the sonar device is the reason, but if that’s the case why’s he killing the horse?  It’s all very confusing and unsatisfying.

As to the handling of Logan’s being Native American I do think this episode may have been an attempt to apologize for Married‘s metaphorical Indians killing David’s wife.  But despite the show being very progressive about exposing Native American stereotypes, perhaps a make-good for Caroline’s cowboys-and-Indians visualizations in Married, it’s not consistent in its delivery of the message.  They give us a caricature of a man discussing “firewater” but in the same scene show Logan wearing a headdress.  They say “Don’t say ‘honest injun'” but give us a musical score full of melodies taken from the most obvious of Native American themes.  It’s a very odd aesthetic that I blame on the fast production of television episodes; it’s obvious that not all parties were quite on the same page with this episode’s “message.”

Finally Hulk’s scenes were a bit lackluster.  I enjoyed his appearing in the middle of the crowd, and laughed that it was hot coffee that pushed David over the edge, but from the calm way Hulk rescues a horse to the fact that Hulk’s ultimate goal is to beat up an old man, I fail to be excited.

All that said, I love two scenes in this episode, the scene where David and Logan discuss if Hulk is a blessing or a curse, and David’s dream sequence.  Those two scenes alone elevate this otherwise unspectacular episode.  I feel those are scenes every Hulk fan should get a chance to enjoy, so I recommend Rainbow’s End.

Read my other Incredible Hulk Series Reviews

March 15, 2012 Posted by Arnie C | Comic Books, Movies, Reviews, Television, The Incredible Hulk TV Series Reviews | 1970s, 1980s, Bill Bixby, CBS, Comics, Hulk, Incredible Hulk, Lou Ferrigno, Marvel, Now Playing, Review, Television, TV series | 2 Comments

Incredible Hulk Season 2 Episode 3 – Ricky

Both David and the Hulk go the distance for a mentally challenged young man who is goaded into driving a defective car in a demolition derby.

Ricky
Season:	2
Episode:	3
Air Date:	October 6, 1978
Director:	Frank Orsatti
Writer:	Jason Summers
David’s Alias:	Unknown
Hulk-Outs:	2
	•  Jams his hand between a shovel and a bar. • Burning his hands on a pipe while the reactor melts down

On the back of each DVD in The Incredible Hulk box set is a brief description of every episode.  I have been posting these descriptions at the top of each review.  However, this one had me truly worried.  The Incredible Hulk (Lou Ferrigno) befriends a mentally  challenged man?  Given the changes in attitudes towards the mentally handicapped in the past thirty years, I was honestly apprehensive about this episode.  With the production values of 70s television and the perfunctory life lessons that are often inserted as an afterthought to the on-screen action, I truthfully expected Ricky to be a cringe-worthy.

The preview before the show started didn’t help.  It shows mentally-challenged Ricky getting yelled at and he responds “Maybe the big green man did it.”  Then it shows Ricky sitting behind the wheel of a race car making engine sounds like a child.  Almost every line in the preview is someone shouting “Ricky!” with a different inflection.  I am prepared for the worst.

Fortunately the episode was not as embarrassing as I had expected.  It’s merely bad, accented by some truly awful moments.

The episode opens with stock footage of stock cars racing.  Clearly in the lead is Buzz Deter (guest star James Daughton, Greg Marmalard from Animal House) and it looks like former champ Sam Roberts (guest star Gerald McRaney) will have to settle for second.  Sam is fighting hard to regain the lead, but his “unsportsmanlike” driving causes him to spin out on the track, and in the spin his door gets jammed shut.

He screams for his pit crew to come get him out, but the first on the scene is Ricky, Buzz’s mentally challenged brother.  Why he’s out in the middle of a race track is beyond me, and given his size I don’t think he was the fastest to get to Sam’s car.  In his attempt to be helpful Ricky works his fingers into the car door frame and uses his weight to pull, prying back the door slightly.  At this point I’m especially worried, please don’t tell me this boy is mentally challenged and as strong as the Hulk!  Fortunately that is not the case.

Sam, in the car, establishes himself firmly as the episode’s villain as he yells “Someone get that retard out of here.”  Hearing that voice is when I first realized Sam is played by Gerald McRaney (Major Dad) in his second guest-starring role in The Incredible Hulk.  Previously he was Denny, the foreman and Julie’s suitor in the second pilot episode The Return of the Incredible Hulk (aka Death in the Family).  In 1978 McRaney was not a known actor.  Sporting the thick beard he wears in this episode I doubt even the casting director would remember he had a bit part in a previous episode, let alone a television viewing audience that had not seen his previous episode in almost a year.

Far less recognizable is Mickey Jones who plays Ricky.  A character actor who I’ve seen a dozen times in TV guest star roles such as this as well as in the movies Sling Blade, Total Recall, and Tin Cup.  Only when I looked him up in IMDB did I realize I have just one memory of the man–he was the sheriff-slash-mechanic in Vacation who takes all of Chevy Chase’s money after he drives off a cliff.  He has a trademark Captain Lou Albano beard in most of his roles, but as Ricky he’s clean-shaven making him unrecognizable.

Ricky looks about to get in some trouble from Sam when David (Bill Bixby), dressed in pit crew coveralls, comes and escorts Ricky away from the crash.  David has hitchhiked his way from Utah to Nevada and gotten a nondescript job at the racetrack where he cleans up, repairs soda machines, and helps fix cars.

David introduces himself to Ricky, and notices the mentally challenged man wears a large pin on his shirt that says “Ricky.”  Here my first moment of horror sets in.  Ricky explains the button was a gift from his brother.  “I have to wear it all the time or I might get myself lost,” Ricky says, and thus we have the first inkling of Buzz’s character.

Truthfully I’m not sure what to make of Buzz this episode.  Trying to put myself in the head of writer Jason Summers, I think Buzz is supposed to come off as a caring brother who simply doesn’t have the resources or training to care for a mentally handicapped individual.  To me, however, Buzz comes off as an ill-tempered jerk who worsens the stigma of the learning impaired.  He makes Ricky wear a button which I take to be a mentally handicapped version of a scarlet letter.  Then whenever Ricky deviates from Buzz’s orders in the slightest of ways Buzz flies off the handle shouting at his brother.  In the calmer moments he tries to tell David “Ricky’s retarded.  People just won’t understand” but I think Buzz doesn’t understand either.  Buzz is so set on winning the Daytona race and buying a house for his fiance-slash-mechanic Irene that I wonder where Ricky fits into Buzz’s world view.

In truth, Ricky doesn’t.  Buzz wants to win enough money to be able to afford to put Ricky in a home.  David starts to preach about state homes and programs that can give Ricky the care he needs now.  Buzz says Ricky has been in and out of hospitals, but David is referring to more specialized care.  As I watch this conversation I become quite uncomfortable.  First, as in Life and Death David is preaching about personal matters that are really none of his business.  Second, that David is constantly pushing people towards government funded programs is sending a weird political message that the show is ill-equipped to discuss.  Finally, that the one thing both David and Buzz agree on is that Ricky needs to be locked away in a home and not able to live in society is really off-putting.  I am no expert in caring for the mentally handicapped, but Ricky seems beyond functional to me.  I know of many organizations that teach the mentally challenged how to function, get their own homes, work jobs.  But getting Ricky to stand on his own two feet is nobody’s objective–getting him “proper care” (meaning: out of Buzz’s hair) is.

While the portrayal of Ricky is not offensive, David and Buzz’s plans for the man are.

During all of this we also find out the background of Sam Roberts and his brother Ted.  The two are partners in racing, Sam drives the cars and Ted fixes them.  They were offered a job as “PR Reps” for Allied Tires, a job Sam turned down because he was on a winning streak.  Now, I could see Allied Tires wanting Sam and Ted to be a spokesperson, possibly used in some advertising, but they continually use the term “PR Rep”.  A PR rep is who you use to communicate to the media, to handle advertising, external communications, and such.  If Allied Tires had a Bridgestone-Firestone type situation with tires blowing up and killing people it is the job of the PR Rep to issue statements like “We are looking into the situation.”  I cannot see these two gearheads as PR Reps, they are thugs who party until 4 a.m. then get up and race cars and drink beer.  But their dream of the good life, either as racing champs or PR Reps, was stolen when Buzz showed up and started to win every race.

Buzz goes on a date with Irene, leaving Ricky alone for the night to watch horror movies.  He’s watching the Universal classic Wolf Man and I think for sure that Ricky will see David transform into the Hulk but no one will believe the boy.  Unfortunately this doesn’t pan out in the least.  Instead, the moment Buzz is gone Ricky sneaks into the garage.  Ricky is infatuated with race cars, and he hops behind the steering wheel and starts the car.  With the car in neutral, he floors the gas and pretends to be racing, all the while making revving sounds verbally.  I don’t know why he had the engine running and was making “grrrr, grrrr” sounds, but I guess it’s because it’s the writer’s view of the mentally challenged.  More, it is simply uncomfortable to watch a 37-year-old man (Jones’ age when this was filmed) performing these scenes this way.

Due to the exhaust from the car being trapped in the closed garage Ricky soon passes out from the fumes.

David happens to be right outside the garage, having been tasked by the Roberts Brothers to fix a broken soda machine.  Hearing the engine he tries to get into the garage, but Ricky locked the door from the inside.  David tries to break in using a shovel, but it slips and jams his hand.

Hulk-Out #1  Hulk breaks down the door with ease and rushes to the front of the car.  Around him we see smoke that is supposed to represent the exhaust from the car, and perhaps it is dry ice on the set but the way it moves it appears to be a very poor animation.  Additionally, the smoke appears green, perhaps a nod to the Hulk?

Now with the door down Ricky would likely be fine.  It’s a large garage door that would vent the area quickly, but Hulk is never satisfied with the simple fix.  He first goes to the front of the car and smashes down on the roof, obviously crushing something important as the car stops immediately.  Then Hulk goes to the driver’s side of the car, tears out the seat belt, and carries Ricky outside.

The mentally challenged man wakes up almost immediately and starts coughing, but his near-asphyxiation is quickly forgotten when he sees the Hulk standing over him.  And Hulk is all up in Ricky’s face, clearly invading the shorter man’s personal space.  “You’re…green!  How can you be green?”  Ah, the writer’s mind of the mentally challenged, too innocent to be afraid of a giant half-naked green man.

But Hulk’s response is very odd.  He responds with a growl, but am I mistaken or did Hulk just say his first word?  Much like a baby first intoning “da da”, Hulk’s first word might be a word or it might be a series of noises that my mind is turning into a word, but damned if the Hulk didn’t just growl the word “Green.”  It’s no “Hulk is strongest there is” but it’s a start.

His throat burning, Ricky goes for a soda, but as David never had a chance to repair it the machine steals his money.  Hulk retaliates by ripping off the front of the soda machine.  Don’t make Hulk thirsty, you wouldn’t like him when he’s thirsty.

Ricky takes the soda he paid for, then offers a grape soda to Hulk.  Of course, since no “good” character in the series must ever be seen doing anything unethical Ricky leaves the money for Hulk’s soda in the machine.  However I notice no one is leaving money to replace the soda machine’s missing front door.

Ricky then gives Hulk a lesson in how to open a can of soda.  “See I can teach you because Buzz showed me.  People used to laugh at me before I could do this.”   It’s an insane moment.  I get the writer’s intent–it’s showing that Hulk has an even more childish mind than Ricky, and that Ricky is so kind he will immediately become the big brother to Hulk teaching him to open a soda.  And I do understand this is supposed to be amusing to see Hulk doing something as everyday and mundane as drinking a cola, but the humor is not clicking for me.  Seeing Hulk dribble down his chin, infantilizing Hulk and Ricky both, feels very wrong to me.

The only positive thing I can say about this scene is that I forgot pull-tab soda cans existed, and it takes me back to my childhood.

I do wonder about the wisdom of giving Hulk a sugared soda.  Since we are treating Hulk like a child, many parents of small children won’t give their kids soda due to how it causes hyperactivity and restlessness.  I really hoped the episode would go in weird directions, with Hulk rampaging on a sugar high, but instead he just slowly wanders off.  We see his shadow grow smaller and I think it’s the best Hulk to human transformation we’ve seen yet.

After the commercial we return to see Buzz yelling at Ricky again.  Buzz’s car is smashed, as Hulk is wont to do, and no one believes Ricky’s story about “the big green man.”   The story makes Buzz even angrier, calling it the first time Ricky has ever lied to him.  Truthfully I think the writer is again cheating. It doesn’t matter who smashed the engine, big green man or Ricky, had Ricky not been playing behind the wheel it never would have happened.  Second, the car has obviously not moved, and it was smashed from the top.  Does Buzz really think Ricky is strong enough to crush a car?  Even kindly garage owner Mac says “Ricky’s strong, but is he strong enough to crush a car?” but Buzz refuses to acquit his own brother just calling it “weird”.

I likely would have gone through the entire summary without mentioning Mac were he not played by Gordon Jump, one of the iconic Maytag men who rose to fame as the “big guy” Arthur Carlson on WKRP in Cincinnati.  The second WKRP star to appear on Hulk, Jump filmed these scenes before WKRP premiered, and as WKRP was not a quick success he likely was not recognized by many Hulk viewers when this was first run, but to see him play such a bit part was shocking to me having grown up with the man as a TV star.

Mac offers the less-than-helpful suggestion that Buzz should “enter the car in the demolition derby” but Buzz and Irene are convinced they can make it race-worthy by Saturday.  Feeling guilty for Hulk’s damage, David offers to pitch in as well.  He is sent to get parts for the car and to cheer Ricky up David takes him on the errand, promising that Ricky can help Buzz fix his car.

In this scene David asks Ricky “did the green man hurt you?”  Ricky says “No” and David seems relieved again…or is it more?  Maybe I am reading into this scene as I think David should have learned long ago that Hulk is not a killer, but I think when Ricky says he wasn’t hurt David is bemused, not relieved.  It’s like Bixby is portraying David as learning the Hulk’s pattern.  He’s not as worried about the Hulk really hurting innocents.  I hope the writers catch up to Bixby soon.

On their outing David takes Ricky on a side-trip to a park.  There David lets Ricky roam on his own and examine the sculptures. Ricky is tentative and unsure if it’s okay to go on his own and the scene has the feeling of a domesticated animal being released in the wild.  But rather than run away, Ricky runs towards sculptures and fondles them.  He rubs the tummy of a cherub, just feeling everything.  The acting is bad, with Jones squinting and making the most extreme “dumb happy face” he is capable of, and the score is worse trying to sell me on sweetness I don’t feel.  David has a huge smile cross his face.  He’s clearly seeing something I am not.  What I am getting from the scene is once again a creepy feeling watching a 37-year-old fondle statues.  What I am supposed to be getting from this scene is that Ricky has an affinity for art, specifically sculpture.  It’s not as useful as being able to take Ricky to count cards in Vegas, but it’s a step towards Ricky’s happy ending.

Returning to the race track David again corners Buzz and tells this man how he should treat Ricky.  Were I Buzz I think I’d tell David where to stick it.  Daughton was 27 when this episode was filmed, so assuming the character is about the same age I think Buzz has far more experience with Ricky than David, who’s been in Ricky’s life for a few days.  David says Ricky has a great feeling for art.  “Maybe he lost something at birth, but maybe he gained something else.”

Buzz continues to argue the point, but now we get an important scene.  We know it’s important because the music tells us so, and because everyone stops what they’re doing to just watch Ricky in this moment.  Ricky sees two screwdrivers hanging on the wall out of order, and is able to on his own figure out how to rearrange them from largest to smallest.  It’s such a saccharine scene that I wonder if later in life when Bixby was a director of Blossom he would return to this moment to get inspiration on how to stage the “very special episodes”.

But seeing that Ricky can order things small to large Buzz relents.  He won’t let Ricky use a welder, but he gives Ricky some epoxy glue to glue some scrap metal together “but don’t get it on your fingers or your eyes, and always wear gloves.”

For the first time in this entire Hulk series, I wonder where is Hulk?

He will return, thank God, due to a plot by the Roberts brothers.  They have called to beg for the PR Rep job, and have been told if they win Saturday’s race they can have the job.  (Is it one job or two jobs?  I really don’t understand the entire PR Rep goal.)  They think the race is theirs with Ricky and Hulk damaging Buzz’s car, but Irene is too good a mechanic and Buzz is taking the car for a test drive.  Seeing Ricky with the epoxy, the Roberts out some in the car’s gas tank and ruin the carburetor.

Again Buzz blames Ricky for the damage.  While Ted and Sam did set Ricky up for just this, it would be nice just once to see Buzz not jump to the worst conclusion about his brother.  Irene can fix it but she needs parts and time.  Then we get a montage of Irene fixing the engine, Ricky helping but moping, Buzz and David fixing the car, full of trumpet and piano music.  It’s truly terrible, and ends with Buzz asleep while the other three have pulled an all-nighter to fix his car.  Sure, on the one hand the driver should be well rested, but on the other hand it’s a dick move.  One last part is needed to get the car ready so Irene and Buzz head off in a beat up family truckster (I’m sure Ricky could have fixed the truckster if needed, but not the race car!).

But once Ricky is left alone the Roberts come in and lie to Ricky, telling him that regulations won’t allow Buzz’s car in the race and the only way for Ricky to help Buzz is to drive the car in the demolition derby.  They tell Ricky comforting lies, that they are his friends, and that Ricky is a good enough driver to win.  As Ricky has always wanted to be a race driver, and he wants to help his little brother, he is pretty easily convinced.

As he starts to drive the car out David comes in, but Sam hits him from behind with a wrench.  David is knocked unconscious before he can transform, and Ricky, mistaken for Buzz by the race announcer, enters the demolition derby.  Also entering the derby is Sam, who is gunning for Ricky specifically to finish off Buzz’s car permanently.

The demolition derby begins and we are treated to more stock footage.  I have discussed in previous reviews when stock footage used enhanced the episode or detracted from it, but in no previous episode has the stock footage been so seemingly out of place.  I don’t know where the footage originated, but it appears to be a demolition derby in the  60s, completely out of date even when this episode first aired.  Cars straight out of American Graffiti smash into each other, and I swear I saw Herbie the Love Bug in there somewhere.  None of the cars in frame with Sam or Ricky look anything like the cars in this footage, and between that and the poor method of editing that shows random crashes without any connection to our characters it really felt arbitrary.  More, the stock footage of the stands shows crowds of people, but in new footage showing the announcers it looks like the bleachers at a high school football game.  If any effort was made at all to match the footage it failed completely.

Having never raced before, possibly never even driven before, he is looking like he might win the derby, and Mac says Ricky is driving better than anyone else; driving like he was trained to do it.  Now I fear that we will be told that Ricky’s true skill is driving the demolition derby and the episode will end with Ricky a champion demolition derby driver.  Thank God that didn’t happen either.

Irene and Buzz return to find David just coming to and Buzz’s car missing.  They soon find the car in the demolition derby, but their worry for the car becomes secondary when Irene reveals the part they needed was a coupling for the fuel line.  The car is leaking gas and if Ricky’s car gets hit he’ll be killed.  Only Ricky’s beginner’s luck has kept him alive so far.

While Irene and Buzz stare and gape, David grabs the first car he sees and races to Ricky’s aid.  I don’t know where David found this purple car to drive into the race or if cars are just sitting around during these derbies, but David is soon in the derby.

But David is too late.  Sam repeatedly rams Ricky’s car and it catches fire.  David’s car also gets sandwiched, trapping David inside.  He can’t get out, cant escape, and shouting “Ricky” in his half-hulk voice we get white eyes and

Hulk-Out #2:  In Never Give a Trucker an Even Break we saw Hulk transform in a car in the most lackluster way.  Here they do it right…Hulk tears the steering wheel off the column.  Then, the doors trapped by cars, he tears open the roof and leaps out.  Plus with the car being purple it’s the closest we’ll come to Hulk wearing purple pants until Trial of the Incredible Hulk.

When Hulk enters a demolition derby, Hulk wins.  Hulk flips a car and chases after Sam.  Usually Hulk rescues the innocent then punishes the guilty, but here the order of operations is reversed.  Growling menacingly he flips Sam’s car.  This could have killed the person, but we see Ted rushing to the car and pulling Sam out, Sam is okay.

Then Hulk gets to Buzz’s car and again tears out the seat belt.  I’m wondering if Hulk is thinking “Hulk tear this out before! Who put this back here? Hulk smash seat belt repairman.”  Hulk grabs Ricky and runs away as the car explodes, and I wonder if this is the creation of the “I’m too cool to look at the explosion” shot.

Setting Ricky down Hulk growls and flexes for several seconds.  He finally runs off when Buzz, Irene, and Mac come to Ricky’s aid.  Ricky says “The big green man came back” and now Buzz and Irene know he’s telling the truth. Aww.

Ricky sees that in the race he lost the button Buzz gave him, and Buzz says “You don’t need it, not any more.”  Double aww.

And Mac, running the race track, tells the Roberts Brothers to pack up and get out, they’re finished for what they did to Ricky.  I guess their PR Career is over, perhaps they can try social media?

The episode ends and we see Ricky is back at the sculpture park, but now he’s sitting at a table creating a sculpture with other mentally challenged adults.  I’m not sure if the clay Ricky sculpted was supposed to be Hulk; it has as much resemblance to Ferrigno as the bust of Lionel Richie has to the singer in the video for “Hello”.

We find out Ricky has been admitted to a boarding school for the mentally challenged.  I don’t know if the sculpture park was on the school grounds or if the school was on a field trip to that same park. Intellectually I know that the director is being economical reusing shooting locations, but narratively this is nonsense.

More, as I stated, I continue to question the happiness of the family looking on and saying “I think he’ll find what he needs here” while they tuck him away in a facility away from his brother, the only family he has left.  But the writer thinks it’s a happy ending so David and Buzz think it’s a happy ending so we are supposed to think it’s a happy ending.  I’m not so sure.

David goes to say goodbye to Ricky, and Ricky says “You won’t visit any more?” David says he can’t, but he will write.  Ricky says “Misses James can read them to me and pretty soon maybe I can read them myself.”

Then David, tan jacket in hand, walks off as a crane shot lifts higher and The Lonely Man theme plays on.

The most ironic  thing about this episode?  By having two pairs of racing brothers, Summers had an opportunity to create a story that shows a healthy fraternal relationship contrasted with an unhealthy one.  Showing Buzz and Ricky to be a team that no one could break, while evil Ted and Sam constantly bickered and sabotaged each other, would have been genius.  But instead Summers does just the opposite!  Ted and Sam are great brothers.  They take a little anger out on each other when they lose the races, but the whole episode they have each other’s back and work as a great team.  Meanwhile Buzz doesn’t trust Ricky, often can’t be bothered with Ricky, and his actions, if not his words, show he thinks of Ricky as a burden.  Given the alternatives, maybe Ricky was better off in the home after all.

The episode honestly was not as cringe-inducing as I’d expected it to be.  I feared something incredibly politically incorrect and possibly unintentionally mocking the mentally handicapped given how attitudes have changed in 30 years.  But while I do question the “happy ending” of tucking all mentally challenged people away from society in a home, I think it was handled pretty well for the time, but not well enough for me to truly believe Ricky as a character, nor care about him.

The episode could have been saved by some good Hulk action scenes, but Hulk merely flips a few cars, rescues the same person from the same car twice, and drinks a grape soda.

More, am I the only one disappointed that Ricky’s last name wasn’t Jones?

While not as bad as I’d feared, I still can not recommend Ricky.

Read my other Incredible Hulk Series Reviews

March 14, 2012 Posted by Arnie C | Comic Books, Movies, Reviews, Television, The Incredible Hulk TV Series Reviews | 1970s, 1980s, Bill Bixby, CBS, Comics, Hulk, Incredible Hulk, Lou Ferrigno, Marvel, Now Playing, Review, Television, TV series | 3 Comments

Incredible Hulk Season 2 Episode 2 – The Antowuk Horror

After getting a glimpse of the Hulk, the citizens of a struggling resort town invent their own replica Hulk as a way of increasing tourist business.

The Antowuk Horror
Season:	2
Episode:	2
Air Date:	September 29, 1978
Director:	Sigmund Neufeld Jr.
Writer:	Nicholas Corea
David’s Alias:	David Barton
Hulk-Outs:	2
	• Drops a crate on his foot then falls into a stack of barrels • Thrown down the side of a mountain by his boss.

In the season two premiere of The Incredible Hulk we were treated to a dramatic character exploration.  David (Bruce Bixby) travelled to Hawaii, got married, confronted the beast inside him, and lost his wife.  We last saw him sitting on a Hawaii beach mourning Caroline outside her destroyed home.

I can’t say that I’m surprised that all of these major developments were forgotten by this next episode; that is how all action series worked in the 70s and 80s.  But just because it was what I expected doesn’t mean I wasn’t slightly disappointed.  For all the drama David endured, the reset button has been hit.  David is somehow back in the states and back on the run.

That said, a return to the formula also means a return to form for Hulk.   While it’s not in this show’s DNA to allow David to evolve and change much, this reset brings the show back to what viewers expected and wanted from their weekly series.

We open with National Register reporter Jack McGee (Jack Colvin) walking through a wooded area in Utah where Hulk (Lou Ferrigno) had been spotted three weeks prior.  There have been no sightings of the creature since, and McGee is stumped.  Despite his frustration, he is still not ready to take up master hunter Buck Hendricks’ offer to kill the Hulk.

When at the top of his game Buck was an expert hunter and tracker, but now he’s down on his luck and living in his car.  Buck wants McGee to give him a job finding the Hulk, and thinks that if he can be the man to kill the Hulk it will get him back on the lecture circuit.  Because, as we all know, hunters travel the world, giving lectures.  Hunters are known for their astounding oratory skills.  Especially hunters that became bloodthirsty old coots.

McGee refuses, seeing the desperation in Buck’s face.  McGee says, “You wouldn’t used to think of shooting something that’s worth more alive than it is dead” and we see that McGee may want the Hulk but he has a moral code about it–he wants the Hulk captured, not killed.  Buck doesn’t care either way, and that desperation will lead to trouble for David.  When McGee turns Buck away, the old hunter challenges the reporter to see who can get the Hulk first.

Buck had said that Hulk went up into the mountains, and he was right.  After his Hulk-out in the woods David had found his way to Antowuk, UT, an obvious back lot, I mean, former resort town in desperate need of tourists.  Most people, tourists and locals, have left the town already but David found work in a general store owned by Harlen Bates.

Trading labor for room and board David has been performing odd jobs around Harlen’s store, and also watching after Harlen’s daughter Samantha.  Samantha is a precocious girl.  She is very smart in science, but worried about her own future living in a ghost town.

There are some very cute scenes between Samantha and David that are a joy to watch.  It’s adorable that Samantha sees David using a dirty bandanna to wrap a cut and she gives him a lecture about germs and proper first aid.  Bixby is charming playing off the little girl.  He has a skill of working well with child actors that he likely honed with years on The Courtship of Eddie’s Father.

While David bonds with Samantha, Harlen drinks beers with his friend Brad.  The two knock back a cold one while brainstorming ways to drum up business and tourism.  Brad is ready to leave the town behind, as so many others have, but Harlen is attached and becomes frustrated with Brad’s fatalism.

Harlen becomes more angry when he goes inside and sees that Samantha and David have rearranged the store.  Obviously threatened by David’s intelligence and ability to connect with Samantha, Harlen snaps at both of them.  He tells Samantha she’s lucky her mother’s not alive to see her treating the hired help better than her own father, causing Samantha to burst into tears and, even with Harlen offering an apology, the little girl runs out.  Seeing David worried about Samantha’s emotional state angers Harlen even more, and he orders David into a back room to clean and inventory all the items.  I’m not sure what Harlen sells, but this back room was full of an insane number of crates and boxes that had been stored behind nailed two-by-fours.  In addition to the boxes are steel gas canisters, wood barrels stacked to the ceiling, and more.

Not content to just have David perform manual labor, Harlen stands there berating David as he works, trying to goad David into a physical fight.  Harlen obviously wants to take out his frustration by administering a beating to the smarter man.  He pushes David around, bullying him, guessing David is on the run.  “I know your kind.  Big shots, can’t stand having someone tell them what to do.  They have little tantrums, Davy.  Let loose on me and get it out of your system.”

Truthfully Harlen does have David pegged.  Perhaps that is why David looks ready to fight back.  The berating, the physical abuse, David looks ready to throw the first punch possibly for the first time in his life.  Harlen is inviting it, saying David can keep his job if he beats Harlen in the fight.  David forms a fist…he’s considering it.  He’s restrained, but prepared to defend himself.  If Brad hadn’t come in perhaps David would have thrown the first punch, but Brad does come in.  Harlen throws himself at David, and Brad restrains the larger man, escorting him from the room.  Alone and frustrated, David does take out some aggression on the boards he must tear out.  Working angry, David is careless and a crate falls on his foot.  The pain causes him to fall backwards into a pile of wood barrels that collapse upon him. From underneath the barrels David pops his head out and we see the white eyes.

Hulk-Out #1  Hulk throws a barrel and hits the camera!  I found it amusing as it’s obviously an accident, the frame shaking as the camera wiggles form the impact.

Hulk then picks up one of the random metal tanks Harlen had in the back room and throws it through the roof.  It launches out of the building like a missile.  Hulk smashes out of the storeroom and into the streets and everyone is frightened and running.  Of the group only Samantha thinks “where is David”.  Hulk runs away down the back lot as the crowd gathered around Harlen’s store looks on.

Now is a commercial break, and this is the beginning of a new Hulk trope.  I’ve complained in many previous reviews about the bad effects of the reverse transformation, and Bixby himself did not like the time required for the prosthetic appliance application.  As such, my memory is that most often Hulk would run away, we have a commercial break, and then when we return David is back.  Truthfully, this is better in every way.  For almost twenty episodes we’ve seen the transformation of Hulk back into David, then we see David try to surreptitiously, but legally, obtain new clothes.   At this point in the series economical storytelling is a bonus as is not having to see those embarrassing fake eyebrows on Bill Bixby.  Here at the very start of season two this new, improved method of returning Hulk to David form is born.  After the commercial David returns with clothes in tact, so he must have gotten them somewhere.  I don’t mind not knowing who’s clothesline he left a fiver on.

David returns to find Harlen’s store in chaos, with Mayor Murphy, Sheriff Colton, and the press all there to find out about the green monster that caused so much damage.  David feels guilty for the damage caused to Harlen’s store,  but Harlen sees the destruction as a good thing.  Finally the shopkeeper thinks he has a way to restore the tourist trade in Antowuk, using the story of this monster to attract “wierdo” monster hunters–monster hunters with money in their pocket.  “Resort community battles mountain monster,” is how he spins it to Mayor Murphy and Sheriff Colton, entitling it “The Antowuk Horror”.  With nothing to lose, the sheriff and mayor agree to the publicity stunt.

After the people leave we get an unlikely tender moment between Harlen and David.  It’s completely unbelievable that Harlen, who had to be physically restrained from beating David when last they met, would pour his heart out to David now.  I can chalk it up to Harlen was drunk and now he’s sober, or he had calmed down and now wants to make amends, but it is still an unlikely scene playing out.  Harlen is semi-apologetic to David, saying “I don’t really want you to hurt yourself”, as he helps David right some furniture. Then David listens sympathetically while Harlen discusses not being able to fit in with normal people, and the only place Harlen feels at home is on the mountain.  This is supposed to explain the gruff, abusive man to us and let us feel bad for him.  I just roll my eyes.  For all his talk saying he’s stupid, I never got that Harlen was exceptionally dumb.  Nor does he come off like a mountain-bound hermit.  Had this story been that Harlen built his business with his dead wife and letting the store go would be like the last memory of his wife slipping away I might have bought his rationale for where the story goes.  However, trying to tell me that the owner of a shop on a mountain cannot fit in with the residents of Salt Lake City is a stretch.  I blame both the writer and the actor for this.

Harlen also has a tender moment with his daughter, perhaps spurred on when David seems to care more about Samantha than her own father does, but more than likely because Harlen has a scheme up his sleeve that will make it so he doesn’t see Samantha for a few days.

Harlen and Brad get gear from the store and make a big show of going out to hunt the Hulk, and Harlen asks David to watch after Samantha while he’s gone.  The next morning Brad comes running back into town shouting for help, telling a fake story that they were attacked by the creature and it took Harlen and ran off.  Of course, David knows it’s a lie because he still has his clothes on, but they find Harlen’s shirt with blood on it leading the sheriff and mayor to start a posse to find the creature and rescue Harlen.

We then hear a car radio as a reporter  says “Harlon Bates is reported missing, supposably captured by the creature.” Yes, the radio reporter says “supposably.”  Not “supposedly”, “supposably”.  But with that blow to English grammar the reporter sparks a wildfire which causes Jack McGee and a dozen other reporters from TV and print to descend on Antowuk.  It’s a media circus and Sheriff Colton, enjoying the spotlight, stands with his chest puffed out looking like Jackie Gleason’s Sheriff Buford from Smokey and the Bandit.  

The town is buzzing, and David should be fleeing the town but is tethered by his promise to look after Samantha.  He hides from McGee in the store, watching as the tourists Harlen promised come to town and even throw a carnival.

But the carnival is interrupted as the Antowuk creature attacks–and it’s not the Hulk, it’s Harlen with black shoe polish smeared over his face.  Having seen Hulk himself I don’t know why Harlen paints himself black instead of green, maybe green shoe polish is harder to find, but it really look’s like Lon Cheney is attacking Antowuk in full werewolf make-up.

Harlen runs around screaming like a loon and shakes a popcorn stand, terrorizing the tourists.  But then I get a bit confused as he effortlessly flips the sheriff’s pick-up truck.  No show is made of it, but it’s later revealed some of the steel canisters Harlen kept in the storeroom were full of compressed air.  Harlen hid it under the truck and, with it as pressure, used a secret lever to flip the vehicle.

I also wondered if the sheriff was in on this ruse.  Both Sheriff Colton and Mayor Murphy were up for using the monster to bring tourists, so it’s not a stretch that this small town could concoct a conspiracy to boost tourism.  Plus we never see anyone find Harlen’s car-flip contraption, and I would assume the Sheriff’s first order of duty would be to tend to his flipped truck.  But it’s later revealed this was Harlen and Brad working alone, and I’m probably asking too much by hoping for a bit more logic in a 70s television episode.

But Harlen’s timing for this “attack” couldn’t be worse as Buck just arrived in Antowuk looking for the Hulk.  Buck sees Harlen’s “monster” and gets Harlen in his sights, but in his haste Buck forgot to load the gun.  By the time the ammo is ready Harlen has run into the night, but Buck is ready to use his expert tracking skills to find and kill the Antowuk Horror.

We see Brad and Harlen plotting, and any audience member who didn’t realize Harlen was the monster is now shown clearly that it was a hoax, and that Samantha is in on the hoax.  Brad told Samantha the truth so the little girl didn’t worry about her “missing” father.  With Harlen’s antics the night before  the town is booming with tourists and Brad thinks it’s time for Harlen to be “rescued,” but Harlen wants to give one more performance before putting up his blackface.

But in town Samantha breaks down and, worried for her father, tells David the truth.  Of course, David had it all figured out already.  When Buck, mistaking Samantha’s concern for the monster as fear, tells her that he’s sure he’ll kill the beast, Samantha gives David directions to where Harlen is hiding.  David wants to go alone to talk sense into the shopkeeper, but Samantha follows David up the mountain.

There Harlen is preparing for the performance of a lifetime.  He has hid another canister of compressed air under a large boulder for “the monster” to roll down the mountain, and also a pile of logs he plans to roll down and scare reporters.  He then has Brad to gather the reporters to lead them to his site.

After Brad goes, David finds Harlen’s hiding spot.  Harlen begins his performance early, trying to scare off David by rolling the logs.  Undeterred, David loses his patience with the shopkeeper, telling Harlen to stop acting foolish and that the people aren’t coming to report on the creature, they’re coming to kill it.  Harlen is having none of it, mostly concerned that if the reporters come and see David they’ll figure out Harlen’s ruse.  Resorting again to violence Harlen pushes David, so David retaliates by shouting to the reporters that the monster is just Harlen.  The shopkeeper then shows how monstrous he can really be, lifting David in the air and throwing him down the mountain.  “He asked for that anyway” Harlen says as David’s shirt tears.  Harlen is walking back to his mark to await the reporters so he never sees…

Hulk-Out #2:  We start with a close-up of the Hulk’s face and he doesn’t look good.  Perhaps it’s the camera angle, perhaps it’s the lighting, but Ferrigno’s eyebrow appliance appears too large, the largest it’s been since the pilot episodes, and the wig looks a bit like Hulk just came from a guest spot on The Monkees.

Hulk’s make-up problems are far less evident in a wide shot as he goes after Harlen.  The shopkeeper is panicked seeing the real monster again and, without waiting for reporters, launches his boulder down at the Hulk.  Hulk doesn’t run, Hulk doesn’t dodge, Hulk just stands still and punches the boulder.  This is why I love the Hulk.  He. Punches. A. Boulder.  Take that, Indiana Jones!  The boulder shatters, and Hulk doesn’t budge an inch.

No one can face a man that can punch a boulder, so Harlen runs and Hulk gives chase.  I also notice that we are seeing this chase in real-time.  Season one Hulk was almost entirely seen in slow motion during action scenes, much like the Six Million Dollar Man.  Now the producers are comfortable enough to let the action be in real-time and it’s more exciting for it.

Hulk catches up to the mountain man and throws Harlen, much like Harlen threw David earlier.  But Harlen is finally getting the fight he’s been itching for the whole episode.  He stands up, pulls off his furry gloves, and obviously forgetting what happened to the boulder he goes at the Hulk.  Deflecting a punch, Hulk effortlessly pushes Harlen down again.

But the two gladiators are unaware they are being watched by two people with drastically different motives.  Samantha has followed David up the incline and is crying out to try and help her father, and at the bottom of the cliff  Buck sees the two and, thinking there are two monsters, plans to kill them both.

Samantha rushes toward her downed father, but in her haste she slips and falls off the side of the mountain.  At the last moment she is able to grab hold of a small tree, but her grip is slipping.

Hulk, always the good guy, goes to rescue the girl, but she is out of reach and even Hulk knows he can’t get to her without falling.  Harlen also goes when he sees his daughter needs help.  There is a great moment where Harlen stands toe-to-toe with Hulk, unflinching, putting his need to save his daughter above his own fear.  But Hulk isn’t there to fight, he’s there to help Harlen rescue the girl.

Harlen tries to have Samantha grab a stick, but she can’t get a grip.  Hulk then grabs Harlen by the ankles and lowers him over the cliff to grab the girl.

But at the bottom of the mountain Buck sees Hulk exposed and takes aim. It is truly a tense moment.  We know nothing will happen to Hulk, but we also know bullets hurt the green beast.  If he is shot while lowering Harlen his grip will slip, and then will the father and daughter fall?  It seems poetic if Harlen were to cause the daughter he ignored to be injured or killed as part of his foolish plot to save the town he put above his family.  I know Samantha’s not going to die, but I could see her being hurt so I’m on the edge of my seat.

Buck shoots.  Hulk is hit in the shoulder (he’s always hit in the shoulder), and he recoils.  He loses his grip on Harlen with one hand, but the other hand holds tight and, single handed, he holds both father and daughter.  Even injured Hulk gets back to work pulling the two up to safety.

With Samantha out of danger Hulk roars, and leaps off the top of the mountain.  I love Hulk this episode!  It’s the most super we’ve seen him, punching boulders, leaping from mountains.  He drops hundreds of feet but lands upright in front of Buck, pushing the old hunter into a tree and bending his gun in two.  Even bleeding from his arm nothing can stop the Hulk!

Except a posse with a bloodlust.  At the top of the mountain the posse rush to the edge with their guns, taking aim at Hulk, but they don’t shoot for fear of hitting Buck.  The actual looped line of dialog is “Don’t shoot, you’ll hit the old man” and I feel bad for Buck.  This once unstoppable hunter has now been reduced to living in his car, beaten by Hulk, and then called “the old man” by a group of strangers.

Hulk runs off, but standing at the top of the mountain holding his daughter is Harlen, still half in his monster make-up.  The sheriff and the mayor are enraged, and the reporters are ready to denounce the entire thing as a hoax, but McGee saves the day pointing out that while Harlen may be a hoax Hulk most certainly is not.

In a bit of comedy, reporters start to declare Buck a hero for standing up to the Hulk, and as reporters rush after Buck for an interview, McGee shouts “that man is an employee of the National Register!”  We end the episode knowing Buck will be alright and he didn’t have to kill the Hulk to do it.  Of course, he’ll likely be too busy on the lecture circuit to come back and repay McGee by finding the Hulk.

Left alone, Harlen has finally stopped acting like a jerk.  He tells Samantha,  “We better find David.  I’ve got some apologizin’ to do. To both of you.”  But it’s too late, David had left town.  He put a note in Samantha’s microscope kit saying good-bye, but the girl chases David on the highway.  She tries to convince him to stay, but David has to move on.

As they say farewell a car of tourists stop and ask the two  “is this the way to Antowuk where the monsters hang out?” Thus, while David may be gone, we know Samantha and Harlen will do okay because tourism will still be alive and well for some time to come.

David throws his tan jacket over his shoulder and walks down the side of the mountain while credits roll.

With a horrible title that attempts to evoke thoughts of The Amityville Horror this episode began with me prepared for the worst.  I could not have been more wrong.  Bixby shines in this episode, his scenes with Harlen show a stronger side of David than we’re used to, and his scenes with Samantha show David as a good-hearted person.  Bixby is just a pleasure to watch scene to scene here.  Even when he has no dialogue, such as when he’s standing in Harlen’s store watching the carnival outside, we know his every thought and motivation.  This episode is a shining example of why I love Bixby as David Banner.

Hulk also shines this episode.  While the first Hulk-out is a bit lackluster, causing some minor property damage, the second Hulk-out has monster fights, bounder punching, and leaps off mountainsides.  Due to budget the action is shot in such a way as to not be too incredible, but it’s exciting nontheless.

Finally we get to see McGee as a good-hearted person.  While he is chasing Hulk from town to town for his own career, he doesn’t want to see the Hulk killed, and he also is a moral compass for his old friend Buck.  It’s nice to see this third series regular become a bit more fleshed out.

The worst thing about this episode is its title.  I give it a strong recommend.

Read my other Incredible Hulk Series Reviews

March 13, 2012 Posted by Arnie C | Comic Books, Movies, Reviews, Television, The Incredible Hulk TV Series Reviews | 1970s, 1980s, Bill Bixby, CBS, Comics, Hulk, Incredible Hulk, Lou Ferrigno, Marvel, Now Playing, Review, Television, TV series | 3 Comments

Incredible Hulk Season 2 Episode 1 – Married (aka Bride of the Incredible Hulk)

In this gripping two-hour season premiere, David travels to Hawaii, where he meets a beautiful psychiatrist who agrees to take him on as a hypnosis patient–and then as a husband after they fall in love.

Married (aka Bride of the Incredible Hulk)
Season:	2
Episode:	1
Air Date:	September 22, 1978
Director:	Kenneth Johnson
Writer:	Kenneth Johnson
David’s Alias:	David Benton
Hulk-Outs:	4
	•Remembering the death of his wife while under hypnosis. •Beaten, thrown off a balcony into a glass table •A dream of his current and first wife both dying •Hit by a car in a hurricane, then trapped in an alley by fallen electric transformers

For the second season premiere of The Incredible Hulk When Season 2 of The Incredible Hulk began series creator Kenneth Johnson wanted to ensure it started right.  While the majority of season one episodes were formulaic, standalone episodes written and directed by a variety of people, Johnson himself returned to write and direct this two-hour episode Married.

While the set-up of this episode is similar to most others in the series, the tone of Married resembles no single episode, but rather the pilot movie for The Incredible Hulk.  Both are slow-paced dramatic stories of David Banner (Bill  Bixby) searching for a medical breakthrough, all the while falling in love with a blond scientist aiding him with his research.  In Now Playing’s podcast review Stuart in LA called The Incredible Hulk pilot “a superhero origin without a villain.”  Like the pilot, Married has no villain; there are no smugglers, drug dealers, or mafioso.   But it also has no origin story; David Banner is already the Hulk.

Yet despite those absences, Married is considered to be one of the best episodes of The Incredible Hulk, and the only episode of the series to win an Emmy award when guest star Mariette Hartley won for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series for her role as Dr. Caroline Fields.  Additionally, like the two pilot movies before it, Married received theatrical release internationally with the title Bride of the Incredible Hulk.  By taking the formulaic superhero series and making a feature-length dramatic episode Johnson found success.

That said, the episode is a bit of an oddity for this series, and I wonder how the viewers who enjoyed watching Hulk (Lou Ferrigno) put the smack-down on criminals felt about watching a psychological drama that served as a psychological exploration of David Banner’s psyche.  I know it wasn’t what I expected out of this series to be sure!

The episode opens with David in Hawaii.  There’s a great line when he tells Caroline it was very difficult for him to get to Hawaii and she asks “Did you swim?”  David laughs and says “Almost, yes.”  So the show acknowledges it’s hard for working people to afford a trip to the big island, let alone David who previously didn’t have enough money to use a pay phone.

Dr. Caroline Fields is a psychologist and expert in hypnotherapy.  David has gone to Hawaii to find her in the hopes that she can help him cure his bursts of anger that trigger the release of the Hulk.  It’s a bit more of a naturalistic solution to the Hulk problem, versus the science-fiction radiation treatments that have failed David so often in the past.

David’s unlucky streak continues, however, as he arrives on Caroline’s last day; she’s taking an extended sabbatical.   David follows the doctor out, pleading with her to take his case, but she refuses and refers David to one of the associates at the institute.  David equates that to “Going to see Michelangelo and getting one of his apprentices” and refuses to give up.  He even stalks Caroline, following her to her house, and I’m thinking this is not a great way to convince a psychologist that he is sane and deserving of her help.  It is more likely she will file a restraining order against him.

When he arrives at her house he finds her hooked up to an EEG machine and performing self-hypnosis.  This is shown in a visual montage of effects similar to the opening credits of every Hulk episode, showing close-ups of her cells, her trachea, her brain, her veins, and even her heart and blood cells.  It’s a visually striking montage, and also reminiscent of the Hulk pilot when David is experimenting on himself.  It ends with Caroline having a seizure in the chair.  It’s shot in an extreme way, using a fish-eye lens positioned right above her head, her neck craned back to look into it, attempting to provide the distorted tunnel-vision point-of-view of a seizure victim.

David rushes to her aid, breaking through her glass door, cutting his arm on the glass.  Once her fit ends she realizes he’s helped her, and responds with kindness–instead of calling the cops about her stalker she bandages his arm.

While tending to David’s wounds we find out that she has a terminal illness.  It is one of those fictitious Hollywood glamorous diseases where the afflicted woman looks perfectly right up until the time of their tragic death, but it is described as similar to Lou Gehrig’s Disease, but it also causes circulatory malfunction and her cells are malfunctioning, refusing to repair themselves.  She is shocked at David’s ability to diagnose the disease, and when he tells her he worked at in advanced genetic disease research at the Culver Institute in California her face brightens.  She asks if he worked with Dr. Banner, and David wryly says “quite closely.”

Then we get a bit of backstory that I wondered about since the pilot episode.  In that podcast I wondered if David had been researching strength enhancement before his wife died or if he just accomplished a lot of research in less than a year.  Here we get more of David’s backstory, told in third person by David himself.  While his wife Laura was alive David’s focus of research was curing of genetic diseases like the one Caroline suffers.  After Laura’s death David abandoned his genetic research and switched the focus to strength enhancement.

After learning Caroline’s secrets David spills his own, revealing his true identity as well as his alter ego as the Hulk.  He again asks for her help, asking her to give him hypnotherapy will help him control Hulk.  Caroline is willing, but simply cannot–she only has six to eight weeks to live.  She is hoping that through self-hypnosis she can find a way to arrest her own illness, and she cannot take time away from that pursuit to help him.

But David offers to stay in Hawaii and help Caroline.  He claims the reason is that if he can help her have more time to live then maybe she can help him control the Hulk.  In Bixby’s performance though I get that David is helping because it’s what David does, helps those in need.  Possibly David is also anxious to return his life to a bit or normality as well, performing genetics research as he did before the Hulk entered his life.

We then have several scenes of David looking into microscopes, talking about mitochondria, and other technobabble that reminds me of the pilot episode and it’s slow pacing, spending lots of time on the science research.  That languid pace is repeated here, which is not shocking given that Johnson is once again writing and directing the show.

But, also like the pilot, the focus here is on David’s relationship with his research partner.  In the pilot we saw David’s unspoken reciprocated love with Dr. Elaina Marks.  Here we see Caroline and David researching, spending all day and night together, taking respites on the beach, and making progress with her illness.  With the acting of both Bixby and Hartley I believe the relationship is genuine and enjoy watching it progress.

But after a few days of research Caroline cannot resist the chance to help David in return.  She puts him under hypnosis, having him revisit the events of his first metamorphosis.  We see the scenes in flashback as David recounts the events, and when he starts to get worked up Caroline calms him down through hypnosis.

I love David’s description of becoming the Hulk for the first time:  “I had a feeling inside me like 100 people shouting all at once.  Like a locomotive beginning to roll.”  For a year viewers watched David transform, but now we finally hear what it’s like for him to transform, and it does not disappoint.

What is slightly disappointing is that David blacks out totally when he becomes the Hulk.  But Caroline tries to push him further, to find the repressed memories of what the Hulk did that night–and he does get some images!  The film style changes, to an almost frame-by-frame slow motion of his first transformation, of Hulk smashing the car.   Then Caroline jumps to his second transformation, and David recounts his dream in the hyperbaric chamber.  He tells of the good times with Laura, and then the car accident in which she died.  Footage from the pilot is used liberally here.

I’m torn on these retellings.  When this episode aired in 1978 it had been almost a year since The Incredible Hulk pilot aired.  Without the benefit of home video, video-on-demand, or even syndication, audiences would have not had a chance to revisit this pilot except in the rare rerun.  By putting these scenes in the second season opener Johnson allows latecomers to see the exciting scenes from the pilot that populate the opening credits every week.  It also reiterates David’s full backstory, the death of his wife and the direction of his research.  And I do love that we hear David’s own retelling of events, giving us insight into the origin of our hero.

By the same token, these scenes are very drawn out and while David’s viewpoint is a nice shading, there’s no new information here.  And while these scenes were exciting in the pilot, seeing them as they happened, the slow-motion flashback style robs the scenes of all excitement and tension.  While I watched the pilot a month ago, not a year, I find myself thinking that Johnson may have overplayed his hand by bringing back too many scenes from the pilot all in the first hour of this episode.

Hulk-Out #1:  As David tells of Laura’s fatal car accident and his recurring nightmares reliving the event his emotions become heated and Caroline’s hypnotic suggestion to stay detached have no effect.  As he relives the death of his wife, David shoots up in the chair, he growls in his Hulk voice “I couldn’t get her out!” and his eyes go white.

This is the first time since the pilot that David has transformed without a task for Hulk to perform.  Be it to take out aggression on a car, land an airplane, or beat up a mobster, when Hulk comes out I’m pretty sure of what he’ll smash.  But in this scene, for the first time since his transformation in the hyperbaric chamber I don’t know what Hulk will do.  I am enraptured, and Caroline is, rightly, petrified.

The transformation is one of the best ever as well.  First, that animated green blob that annoyed me so much season one is finally gone.  They show Bixby’s face in make-up, but the make-up is much improved.  Instead of green kabuki make-up and silly Groucho Marx eyebrows, now they have applied latex moldings to his face.  It now really makes Bixby himself look larger and more muscular.  The shot is bottom-lit, like a kid using a flashlight to distort his face while telling a scary tale by a campfire.  It makes Bixby look even more inhuman.  Intercut with shots of the clothes tearing I see that the make-up and transformations have received a second season upgrade, and I like it!

On the commentary Johnson mentioned that Bixby had little patience for the make-up process employed here, which may explain the more lackluster transformations of the first year.  Still, it’s an astounding moment and I can only hope Bixby’s distaste for the latex process doesn’t force a return to the cheesier transformations and reverse transformations going forward.

When the transformation is complete we see Hulk, also bottom-lit from a lamp, and he starts to smash Caroline’s house.  He goes for the window, his normal means of escape, but Caroline says “no” so Hulk stops.  But while he obeyed that first order, Hulk is testing his boundaries.  He seems to toy with the psychologist, kicking a table in her direction.  Here Ferrigno is showing true menace, more than I ever saw him show to one of the villains-of-the-week.  There seems to be some intelligence in Hulk’s eyes, and his actions are not those of an unleashed berserker but that of an evil demon who wants to show Caroline who’s the boss.  I don’t know why Hulk is this way–is it an after-effect of the hypnosis?  Was it the hypnotic control that stopped Hulk from smashing the first wall?  Whatever it is, Hulk almost shows a sarcastic smile as he throws a lamp backwards to break a window, and runs out it–cutting his arm on the way out just as David did on his way in earlier this episode.

Then we get a startling jump-cut to a man screaming at the top of his lungs. The loud noise had me jump in my seat, but it was just a Hawaiian luau and show for the tourists; the scream was that of a performer.  The noise attracts Hulk, and then the performer screams again–a scream of terror seeing the green giant.  All the attendees scatter, but for one curly-haired boy who sits and smiles as Hulk punts the roast pig.

Hulk eventually calms down and the reverse transformation beings, witnessed by Caroline who followed Hulk across the island.  This transformation is also without the animated green light, but in Hulk the transition from Hulk to David has never been as elegant as that from David to Hulk and this is no different.  We get some fades between shots of various make-ups that, honestly, the green glow helped hide how terrible this effect is.  As a child I would watch Hulk and always be excited on the rare occasion that I would see this reverse transformation.  As an adult I just know that these look terrible and my memory tells me that in later episodes they would do all they can to not show the transformation back to a human.  Seeing this attempt of the effect I understand why.

While cleaning up Caroline’s house from Hulk’s mess she notices that David’s arm is mostly healed, and that the injury Hulk sustained is halfway healed already.  David reveals that as a result of his metamorphosis his metabolism is very high, and Caroline gets excited thinking the Hulk may be the key to her cure.  She wants to again hypnotize David, to help him control the Hulk, so they can get a sample of his tissue.  With that sample Caroline hopes they can cure her disease.

I smile inwardly knowing that this same exact fool’s errand of cultivating Hulk’s tissue is what led Glenn Talbot to his death in Ang Lee’s Hulk.  But here we see the plot’s live-action origin!

So Caroline puts David under hypnosis again, and now we get the spotlight of the episode–we get to see inside the mind of David Banner and the Hulk!  I have read much about the making of this scene both online and in Lou Ferrigno’s autobiography.  But for all the heat and troubles the cast and crew suffered, these scenes are worth it.

It starts like a scene from Oliver Stone’s The Doors, David walking across sand dunes in his bell-bottom jeans.  In this desert is the only time the entire series that David and Hulk are on the screen at the same time, and it’s a remarkably powerful sight to behold.  Ferrigno plays it so well, all confidence and strength, and puny Banner runs from Hulk!

As this is David’s mind, rules don’t matter, so I let it pass that suddenly some construction equipment appears out of nowhere and David is able to use it to drop a net on the beast.  But even the strongest ropes David’s mind can make cannot cage the beast, and so Caroline wakes David up and they plan to try again later.

Now my appetite has been whetted for David’s internal psychological battle, so I find myself less patient with the romantic scenes of Caroline and David.  My patience is strained further when David adopts the stereotypical accent and pigeon English of an Asian while bringing home Chinese take-out…I cringe at the offensive stereotype but remind myself this was 35 years ago and this must have passed for a charming flirtation with “mama-san.”  We also find out that Caroline was almost married but held off, wanting to put off children and focus on her career.  She and David walk the beach, hold hands, and the love theme that played in the pilot during the scenes between David and Elaina is reprised here as David falls for another blond scientist.

I also find myself a bit disinterested when we have hypnosis of Caroline, trying to control her cells and fighting off her disease through the power of her mind.   Caroline is using visualization techniques and stock footage in her hypnosis.  While there is stock footage of cells and such, Caroline was inspired by David and a grating John Wayne impersonation to visualize her disease as a group of Native Americans attacking a convoy of “pioneers”.  The footage in in black-and-white and serves to make me feel like TBS inserted footage of an old spaghetti western in the middle of my Hulk episode.  Worse, it’s full of racial stereotypes and a terrible score.  I want to back Caroline and her fight against the disease but I am put off by the way the story is told.

I am more interested when National Register reporter Jack McGee (Jack Colvin) arrives on the scene.  With the Hulk having been spotted at the luau McGee couldn’t be far behind.  Hell, if I were Jack and the Register would pick up my travel expenses I’d research Hulk sightings in Hawaii, Rio, Sydney, and London.  As always, when Jack arrives the stakes are upped as David must hide both his Hulk face and his real one.  We find out here the Register is offering a $10,000 reward for information that leads to the Hulk’s capture, so every fortune hunter around will be trying to capture the green beast.

Jack has come to question Caroline about possible Hulk sightings, but unsuspecting of trouble David goes to answer the door.  It’s a well-filmed and choreographed dance that occurs.  David walks towards the door, and I wonder what will happen to make McGee not see David.  But David opens the door!  McGee has his back turned, looking away.  He spins around, just as David realizes who is there and slams the door shut again.  It’s the closest call the two have had so far this series and quite a bit of fun, feeling like a throwback to the comedies of days gone by.  Caroline opens the door the second time and shoos away the reporter.

I hoped McGee’s arrival portends an increase in the suspense of the episode, but it didn’t–this is McGee’s only scene in the entire episode.  While it’s a fun scene, it does not drive the plot and hardly justifies the flight from Los Angeles for the actor!  I really hope Jack Colvin enjoyed his trip to Hawaii, because a vacation is the only excuse for him being here.

Then we go back into the recesses of David’s mind.  This time Hulk is in a cage, reaching through the metal bars to grab at David, his captor.  I notice Ferrigno’s make-up is shedding in the heat and his sweat, but the scene is still powerful, and made more so when David starts to release a yellow gas tranquilizer in the cage.  From this scene came a poster that graced the walls of thousands of boys across America, including me, with Hulk in a cage, the gas swirling about.

But Hulk still breaks out of the cage, and David is awakened again, frustrated that the Hulk is “too damn strong to be caged, even in my imagination!” but Caroline remains optimistic.

At this point we are about halfway through the episode, and I have really enjoyed the performances and the hypnosis scenes.  The romance is evolving in a very natural way, with flirtation that has not yet boiled into a love affair, but is certainly at a full simmer.  But nothing we’ve seen in the episode so far could prepare me for the wild, crazy ride that was about to come.

Despite her racially biased self-help visualization Caroline gets a pathology report showing no progress against the disease.  She has only two to three weeks to live.

I am a fan of Joseph Harnell who did the music for all Hulk episodes, but he insists on playing these test result scenes too large.  The instrumentation is akin to that when Janet Leigh is being stabbed in the shower.   The score this entire episode is tremendous, even if it does devolve into disco riffs at times, but during these scenes his atonal notes serve to undercut the tension.

Speaking of disco riffs, we get our best disco scenes here as Caroline, upset with her test results, goes on a self-destructive bender.  She starts a dangerous, speedy drive in her Mercedes.  She happens upon a bar named “Swingers” and pulls into the lot.  Perhaps I was naive, perhaps I thought the 70s were a simpler time, but I never expected Swingers to actually be a bar for Hawaiians into partner-swapping.  Nor did I expect Caroline to be a freak on a leash.  It turns out Caroline also has a monster inside of her–a sex monster, and it’s aching to get out in a big way.

Caroline goes in and drinks fruity cocktails served with pineapple wedges and the disco music plays.  The scene is the epitome of the 70s with the waka-waka music and the man with a large afro and sideburns.  Then a guy with a porn-style handlebar mustache, his shirt unbuttoned to his naval to show off his gold chains, hits on the drunk psychologist.

This is the exact 70s swinging stereotype mocked in every episode of Three’s Company but here Brad is being entirely serious, and the audience is expected to go with it.  “Hello”, he says, “I’m Brad.”   Caroline replies “Oh yes, you probably are.”  The two then go disco dancing and I cannot contain my laughter. But I stop laughing and my jaw hits the floor when she goes back to his place with another couple.

The dialogue is really something.  The other woman says to Caroline “Aren’t they gorgeous?” and Caroline replies “Yes, and their chests are so neatly brushed!”  I am dumbfounded.  Is this intentional humor poking fun at what men considered “sexy” in the 70s, or is she really turned on by this man’s lush body hair?

Then both women start to dance with Brad then go looking for the hot tub and  a bit of group sex.  Brad notices how drunk Caroline is and tells his friend “I think we can get out the cheap stuff now” and his friend replies “I can dig it.”  The pure 70s-ness of this scene is out of sight, man!

But before Caroline and her new girlfriend can run their hands through the rest of Brad’s brushed body hairs David shows up.  He sees Caroline have a momentary breakdown, falling to her knees crying, and tries to go to her but Brad stops David at the door.  Looking back and seeing Caroline having a good time with the brunette Brad and the other guy have no reason to believe David even knows Caroline.

In another bit of unintentional comedy, Brad’s friend pops a champagne cork right into David’s chin.  David runs past the men to Caroline, but Brad and his friend will not allow this jive turkey to harsh their buzz, so they beat David and throw him off a balcony into a glass table.  To which the brunette slut exclaims “Far out!”

Hulk-Out #2:  The two studs go to throw David out, but waiting for them is the Hulk.  He lifts one of them up by his chest hair and throws him behind a bar (No, I’m not joking).  Hulk then super-leaps to the balcony, and seeing him the brunette slut moans in ecstasy and cries “Far out!” again.  Hulk goes to toss Brad by his hair, on his head this time, and ends up ripping the swinger’s toupee right off!  Brad is as bald as Telly Savalas, and Hulk is just confused by the rug in his hands, so he pushes Brad back through a wall into a bathroom.  Hulk then picks up the passed-out Caroline, but the first stud can’t leave well enough alone and throws bottles at Hulk.

Hulk replies by picking up the entire fireplace and tossing it at the bar, causing the house’s second story balcony to collapse–so much for Brad’s sexy swinger pad!  No one is hurt in the collapse, but their night, and Brad’s house, is ruined.  Hulk finally leaves with Caroline, as the fire starts to spread through the ruins of Brad’s house.

And now I wonder how off-the-rails this episode has gone!  I was fine with the slow paced melodrama and romance-through-research of the first hour, and captivated when it evolved to the symbolic representation of the Hulk in banner’s psyche.  But suddenly we have devolved to Hulk saving Caroline from poor moral choices and beating up some swinging singles.  It went from serious to absurd in the span of a single disco song.  I can only presume this was to stretch the episode to a two-hour running length while giving us someone this whole episode for Hulk to fight, but due to the dated nature of the scenes and the crazy, sexual nature of the plot I have gone from praising to mocking this episode.  Truthfully, these scenes have to be seen to be believed.

Transforming back into human, David takes Caroline home and puts her to bed.  And then they make love…so Caroline still got what she wanted that night, though with maybe only half as many people involved.  But David wakes up to find himself alone in bed, and thinking it was wham-bam-thank-you-Banner he runs to look for her. We see Caroline has not gone off on another group sex bender, but is just playing Frisbee with the curly-haired boy from the luau, obviously regretting her life choice to not have kids.

David can read all this in her face, so he asks Caroline to marry him.  She doesn’t get it at first thinking it is a gesture, but David tells a story about a tiger and a strawberry that basically says “we may not have much time but let’s enjoy the time we have to the fullest.”  They pledge their love to each other, and then they get lai’d–as in they put lais over each other’s necks before their wedding ceremony. It’s a small ceremony but done in the beauty of Hawaii I can think of no spectacle as sweet as these two damned people exchanging rings.

It also is good to see David over Laura once and for all.  While David has had girlfriends, and presumably lovers, as he wandered the country, his original motivation for becoming the Hulk was to pay a karmic debt for Laura’s death.  His cheap flings in Vegas and Texas cheapened that somewhat in my mind.  But now he has had a true love affair, and though everyone knows she is going to die before credits roll it is a sweet and subtle character evolution for David.

The honeymoon is short though as we return to hypnosis scenes.  In the desert of David’s mind the scientist is locking Hulk in a large safe.  Caroline’s hypnosis is to trap the Hulk so David can release him in controlled circumstances.  But even the large vault cannot contain the Hulk.

Meanwhile Caroline’s pilgrims are still fighting those indians, but the cavalry, in the form of a new chemotherapy drug, has come riding over the ridge.  Her  newfound energy allows Caroline to rescue the curly-haired boy from drowning in the ocean, as well as “play doctor” with Dr. Banner.  But her exertion speeds up the progression of her disease.

As David sleeps one night we see more of his desert subconscious, this time without Caroline’s guidance.  Hulk is breaking free of his cages and following David in the desert.  Then David’s memory changes, leaving Hulk behind and going to happy times with Laura, and then to happy times the past few days with Caroline.

The dream changes again.  Caroline, in her wedding dress, takes off her lai and boards a bus driven by the Grim Reaper, in full black cloak.  The bus drives away and Caroline waves from the rear window, and try as he might David cannot catch the death bus.

The death of his past and current wife intermingle in David’s dream, and we see where this is going.

Hulk-Out #3:  This is another incredible transformation with Bixby wearing facial appliances and good make-up.  Hulk stands and begins to smash Caroline’s bedroom before turning on the psychologist herself.  Perhaps Hulk is upset at the hypnotist’s attempts to cage him, but he walks towards her menacingly, crushing the bed frame.

But Caroline is determined to get what she needs, and she uses a tool that looks like a pet-hair brush to get a tissue sample from the green beast.  He throws her onto the bed, but her soothing words calm him.

The next day David is worried by the bruises Hulk’s slap left on Caroline’s arm, but the cells seem to offer the psychologist the chance at a cure so both doctors put forth all their energies into the research.  David thinks that in a sterile hospital environment they can use the Hulk cells to save Caroline’s life.

Unfortunately Banner’s bad luck continues–a hurricane is hitting the island.  Caroline’s condition is too critical to wait, and the two newlyweds fight.  David accuses Caroline of using too much energy, and we’re meant to understand that Caroline is not just dying of her disease–she traded her life so she could save that of the curly-haired-boy.  But she won’t give up without a fight so David takes her Mercedes to the hospital, and we are treated to some grainy, old stock footage of hurricanes while they drive.

In the commentary Johnson said the cinematographer intentionally degraded the new footage shot so as to better match the grainy stock footage.  While it did help to minimize the contrast between the two scenes.

That said, where did this hurricane come from?  For David’s entire stay in Hawaii he’s been treated to blue skies and sunny times on the beach.  There was never any talk of an impending storm, and there should have been.  First, had this entire story been set against the background of a storm it would have provided a metaphor for Caroline’s disease and her relationship with David; it would start sunny and the clouds could build as her condition deteriorated.  Second, with some set-up this ending wouldn’t feel so random.  As is, it feels like a contrivance to keep Caroline from reaching the hospital.

Caroline starts to have a fit in the car and, for some reason, grabs the car door and jumps from the moving car, running off into the storm.   David gives chase, and is hit by a car which injures his leg.  He still is able to keep pace with the infirm woman, who is grabbing her head and hearing loud noises, but his path is cut off by some fallen electrical transformers.  Trapped by the sparks we have

Hulk-Out #4: Hulk can easily smash and throw the transformers and give chase after Caroline, who keeps shouting for David though, again I reiterate, she lept from his moving car.  Hulk races through the hurricane, having to tear down a fence to get to Caroline (and I wonder how the sick Caroline got there in the first place).  Then the two have a tender moment, as she embraces and kisses the Hulk, saying “At least we never gave up trying.  I’ll miss you David,” she dies in the Hulk’s arms.  Hulk stands there holding his bride in the torrential storm as sad music plays.

The storm passes, and we see in the light rain Hulk has transformed back into David, still holding Caroline tightly.

We then get a scene the next day of David and the curly haired boy sitting outside Caroline’s house which was demolished in the storm.  The boy says he wants to be a doctor when he grows up and hopefully find a cure for what killed Caroline.  “I’d never have the chance if it wasn’t for her,” the boy says.  He imparts a few other pieces of trite wisdom, such as “My grandma always says people never die so long as someone remembers them,” and that gives David a smile.

As David sits on the beach morning his wife, The Lonely Man theme plays and credits roll.

As I said at the start of this review, at the time this was the most acclaimed episode of the series.  Perhaps in 1978 this passed for amazing television, but I must say 25 years later the episode does not shine so brightly.

The show certainly has its high points, all courtesy of the performance of the three principles Ferrigno, Bixby, and Hartley.  All three give tremendous performances that make me forget of them as actors and make me believe in the reality of their characters.

Mariette Hartley did not want to be in an episode of The Incredible Hulk.  Like Bixby before her she thought starring in a comic book show was beneath her, but she was convinced by her agent who said “Mariette, this is your Emmy.”  He was right, she won an Emmy for this performance.  But I have to say that while I enjoyed her romance scenes, the rest of her performance was merely passable.  Her drunk performance was not convincing, and her rare moments of illness seem affected.

That said, I feel like the romance scenes played out a bit too long.  I liked that it added realism to their relationship, but it played unevenly.  A montage of science experiments does not a great love story make.

And truly I think that is what Johnson wanted to make, not just a love story but Love Story.  Much like previous episodes, this one feels drawn from that big screen hit.  The parallels are too profound to ignore.  But is that what a viewer of The Incredible Hulk wants to see?

Truthfully the high points of the series for me were not in Hawaii but in David’s mind.  The metaphorical confrontations with Hulk, the retelling of his first transformation, these scenes were standouts.  I feel in this episode Bixby outshone Hartley in every scene.  If this were a movie-of-the-week and not a regular episode perhaps Bixby would have had an Emmy himself, but his nomination would have to be judged on an entire season and I imagine voters may not be as forgiving when we return to the normal Hulk formula.  From Banner’s finding a new love to help him get past Laura to his fear at facing his inner beast, it was Banner’s story, not Caroline’s, that interested me.  Johnson said in the commentary that he was frustrated Banner and Hulk could never meet and this dream arena was his answer to that problem.  I’m glad he found the way to do it, the scenes pay off the contrivance of hypnosis.

These scenes are greatly aided by Ferrigno, giving the best performance of his career.  Both in the dreamscape and in Caroline’s house, this is a totally new Hulk under different circumstances.  This is a Hulk that would give the youthful me nightmares.  To paraphrase the self-help mantra David and Caroline chant on the beach “in every day in every way Hulk is getting better and better”.

But the episode also did not date well.  The random swinger subplot is the epitome of pre-AIDS sexual freedom.  With the gold chains and the chest hair Brad is a walking, talking stereotype that I could roll with in any other Hulk episode.  In this serious drama, however, Brad is out of place.

I do recommend you see Married.  The unintentionally comedic Swinger bar scenes have to be seen to be believed, and the Banner/Hulk scenes are some of the best of the series.  But it’s not as strong a recommend as I had expected to give it due to the episode’s pacing and uneven atmosphere.

Read my other Incredible Hulk Series Reviews

March 10, 2012 Posted by Arnie C | Comic Books, Movies, Reviews, Television, The Incredible Hulk TV Series Reviews | 1970s, 1980s, Bill Bixby, CBS, Comics, Hulk, Incredible Hulk, Lou Ferrigno, Marvel, Now Playing, Review, Television, TV series | 4 Comments

Incredible Hulk Season 1 Episode 12 – The Waterfront Story

After taking a job in a Texas dock tavern, David becomes immersed in a ruthless world of union politics.

The Waterfront Story
Season:	1
Episode:	12
Air Date:	May 31, 1978
Director:	David Barton
Writer:	Paul M. Belous, Robert Wolterstorff
David’s Alias:	David Barton
Hulk-Outs:	3
	•Beaten up by thugs (before episode starts) •Beaten up in a bar fight •Locked in a crate

We have now reached the last episode of Season 1 of The Incredible Hulk.  While in many series a season-ending cliffhanger is the norm, ensuring viewers are left in suspense over the summer hiatus, Hulk sticks to its episodic structure and ends its first with this standalone story of David (Bill Bixby) in Galveston, Texas.

Hulk-Out #1:  We start at the Galveston Harbor Imports docks–Hulk (Lou Ferrigno) is bursting through an aluminum wall and throwing crates at dock workers.  Why is he there?  What did the workers do to him?  We don’t know, but we soon find out.

The next day David, in his trusty tan coat, comes back to the docks where National Register reporter Jack McGee (Jack Colvin) is interviewing a security guard.  The guard says that a shipment was being robbed and he was being held down when someone stopped to help.  The mysterious good samaritan got beaten for his efforts, but then the Hulk showed up and saved the guard’s life by scaring off the thieves.

McGee is more interested in the Hulk than the robbery, and David shows up at the tavern where he tends bar to give his resignation.  Whenever McGee shows up David has to move on.

But tavern worker Sarah guilts David into staying.  In the few weeks he’s been in Galveston David has formed a relationship with widow tavern owner Josie (played by Sheila Larken who played Agent Scully’s mother on The X-Files).  David’s affections have pulled Josie out of her shell, and when he tries to tell Josie he has to leave the widow begs David to stay.

But fighting for Josie’s attention, if not romantically, is Cliff McConnell (played by Doogie Howser dad James Sikking).  Cliff is running for dock union president, a position Josie’s husband Frank last held.  Cliff is urging Josie to support him in the upcoming election.  Also hounding Josie for the endorsement is Cliff’s union rival Tony Kelly (Jack Kelly, star of Maverick), who Josie believes engineered Frank’s “accident”.  Both men believe Josie’s endorsement can determine the election’s victor–Cliff is trying to use sympathy to get Josie’s endorsement, Tony is using intimidation.  When Josie is noncommittal she then finds Cliff being beaten by three men, men Cliff claims Tony sent.

Honestly I saw where the wind was blowing–despite the episode telling me through the musical score and Josie’s actions that Cliff was good and Tony was bad, I felt like there was more to this than met the eye.  When Josie said Frank was investigating robberies at the dock when he died I realized the mastermind is going to be more suave and less gruff.  More, Tony is talking about setting up a fund for dockworkers’ widows, something Josie takes as a bribe but which I think is meant to show Tony really has a heart.  Perhaps it’s the actors; Sikking is just exuding slime while Kelly is coming across pretty earnest after his first scene.  Plus with Kelly being Bart Maverick I’m just inclined to trust him.  So the casting is working against the script, and I saw a mile away that Cliff staged his own beating to get Josie’s endorsement.

While the dock worker union is our “A” plot, the heart of the story is its “B” plot of David and Josie in love.  We see them sipping coffee, fishing for the morning breakfast (Josie says fish is wonderful for breakfast if it’s fresh caught–I’ll take her word for it).  But in their romantic moment, David again tries to tell Josie he must leave.  Her attachment to him is obviously far stronger than his to her, and she cries in his arms when he tires to go.  It’s a solid storyline.  David stuck around for Josie, despite McGee snooping around.  Might he have found love worth staying for?

Unfortunately while that’s the plot that interests me more, the script pushes us back to the dock story.  Whoever the mastermind, the face of the criminal operation is Marty Hammond (Ted Markland, Hap from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest).  Hammond makes phone calls with his mysterious boss while arranging for the theft of goods from the dock.  His boss says something which obviously means “that interloper David is standing in our way” as in the next scene Hammond is in Josie’s tavern slipping a dead fish into one patron’s picture of beer and blaming David for the joke.  A bar fight ensues, complete with the crazy, wacky, rootin, tootin wild west harmonica and banjo music one expects.  David is beaten repeatedly.

Hulk-Out #2:  David’s eyes are already white when he is thrown out of the bar (literally, he’s thrown through the double-hinged doors).  He is quickly forgotten as it seems every patron of Josie’s bar was itching for a fight.  People are punching and choking each other, and one eager woman has jumped on a man’s back and started pummeling him with both fists.  One rascal is staying out of it, drinking all the beers of the distracted fighters. Then Hulk roars, bringing all the patrons to attention.

He punches down the stockroom doors, and tears through the bar.  Before the fight the people of the bar were laughing about McGee’s article on the Hulk, but now he’s there in the flesh!

At first this is played serious, with the ominous score from Joseph Harnell.  But soon it devolves back into wacky western territory, the harmonicas are blaring, and Hulk is causing wanton destruction while everyone runs.  The last few fighters team up with pool cues and balls to attack the giant, but the comedic music shows Hulk is in no danger.  They may attack with pool balls and cues, but Hulk attacks back by throwing the entire pool table at them!

Sarah is the only one remaining in the bar, and says Hulk reminds her of her second husband, “the strong, silent type” and tries to help Hulk escape before the police arrive.  She hides Hulk in a back room saying Hulk’s “handy to have around” and, alone in the quiet, Hulk transforms back into David.  It’s not shown much but the green glow is still there.  Once back to himself, David escapes out the window lest Sarah know Hulk went in and David came out.

After the commercial break we see Josie giving Cliff her endorsement, blaming Tony for the fight that tore up her bar.  Despite level heads thinking the bar is a total loss, Josie is resilient and ready to use her savings to open the bar again that week.

David returns and Shelly says what we’ve always thought–she calls Hulk the “Jolly Green Giant”.  Ho ho ho!  Bixby again plays it tense, asking if anyone is hurt, and literally breathing a sigh of relief when Shelly informs him that no one was.  I think about a year into it that we should know Hulk isn’t a killer, but David is still not so sure.

And now David feels he must leave.  It is the pattern, one Hulk-out and David starts to leave, two Hulk-outs and he hits the road.  He has come to say goodbye to Josie, saying he found a job in New Orleans with an old friend.  He has his tan jacket and his bag, and the end-of-show music is playing.  But I know the union worker plot is unresolved and the hour isn’t up so there is no way David is going to make it to the town border.  But Josie is at least happy David stayed until she was ready to stand on her own two feet, and this time she allows David to go.

On his way out of town, David walks past the docks and sees what I already knew, Cliff is in cahoots with Hammond.  More, Hammond caused the accident that killed Frank.  David cannot leave with Josie endorsing the man who instigated her husband’s murder, so he rushes back to tell her.

But Josie doesn’t need David.  Listening to one of her husband’s favorite operas, she finds he has recorded evidence of Hammond’s role in the dock thefts.  Cliff comes to see Josie and hears Frank’s tape.  He takes it from her and claims they will take it to the police, but the music tells me he’s planning something far more evil.

David calls Josie’s house (and Josie has a 6-line business phone in her house?  Was the prop master out of home phones?) and when Cliff answers David takes Sarah’s car and races to help Josie.  A car chase ensues, with David chasing after Cliff and Josie.  Of course, Cliff isn’t taking Josie to the police but to Hammond.

Cliff reveals he is over his head in gambling debts and the stock market.  Frank wanted his resignation, so he and Hammond killed the union president.  Now, to avoid being discovered, they must also kill Frank’s wife.  The two criminals tie up Josie and tell one of their cohort ship captains to drop Josie in the middle of the water on their next boyage.

David rescues Josie and I’m happy to see David do some heroics, not Hulk.  It’s too rare that Dr. Banner is shown as a competent adult.  But before they can escape the ship captain, Cliff, and Hammond come back and give chase.  Hammond tries to shoot the two, but Cliff is worried about witnesses.  Running, Josie trips over some crates and is knocked out (how does one pass out from a fall?  I didn’t see her hit her head), and the two are taken hostage and locked in a crate.  Despite the captain’s objections, they begin to load the crate onto the boat.

Hulk-Out #3:  David’s yells for help are unheeded so he Hulks-out.  With the crate hoisted high in the air to be loaded, Hulk breaks it apart and, holding the unconscious Josie, leaps to safety.  On the ground Hulk seems more concerned with Josie’s safety until the boat captain attacks with a stick.  Hulk throws him in the water, so we know he’s out for the episode.

More dock workers attack with pipes, and they too are thrown in the water.

Seeing how easily Hulk took out three dock workers, Cliff and Hammond try to escape in Hammond’s pick-up truck.  But one handed Hulk holds the truck and prevents it from moving.  Then he tears off the door and the truck spins out of control, crashing into two other vehicles.

The police sirens start to get closer, so Hulk runs off and we hear some canned looped lines like “That sucker’s big!” and “What is that thing?”

In the last segment of the show we see that Josie is supporting Tony in the race, Cliff and Hammond have been arrested, and once more Josie and David must say goodbye.  She now knows he’s in some sort of trouble and needs to leave, and donning his heavy black coat he walks down the Texas street as The Lonely Man theme plays on.

This was an episode full of promise unfulfilled.  I was excited when the episode opened on a Hulk-out and, minutes into the episode, McGee was there investigating.  It was a perfect set-up for dramatic tension, with McGee searching for the Hulk, David knowing he has to leave but his love for Josie keeping him in Texas.  Had that been the episode I think I would have been happier.  I would have preferred the dock worker union plot kept in the background as the impetus for action and David’s eventual departure, with the focus on David’s relationships and motivation to stay or go.  Instead the entire focus of the story is on the dock workers, and I’m left yearning for what this episode only hints at.  More, the episode is uneven.  It goes for deep dramatic moments, then cuts to a wacky wild west bar fight.  One more rewrite and a director with a stronger vision could have made this a standout episode of the entire series.  As it is, this is still one of the better Hulk episodes of the ten-episode regular part of the first season.  Recommend

Read my other Incredible Hulk Series Reviews

March 9, 2012 Posted by Arnie C | Comic Books, Movies, Reviews, Television, The Incredible Hulk TV Series Reviews | 1970s, 1980s, Bill Bixby, CBS, Comics, Hulk, Incredible Hulk, Lou Ferrigno, Marvel, Now Playing, Review, Television, TV series | 1 Comment

Incredible Hulk Season 1 Episode 9 – Never Give a Trucker an Even Break Review

It’s full-throttle action when David aids a female trucker on the road for vengeance against the hijackers who took her father’s rig.

Never Give a Trucker an Even Break
Season:	1
Episode:	9
Air Date:	April 28, 1978
Director:	Kenneth Gilbert
Writer:	Kenneth Johnson
David’s Alias:	Unknown
Hulk-Outs:	2
	•Out of change for a pay phone •In an out-of-control car about to be rammed by a truck

After Final Round and 747 the writers of The Incredible Hulk had a pattern–pick a hit movie and reproduce it cheaply while finding a way to add the Hulk into the action.  It’s like the Hulk (Lou Ferrigno) was just wandering through the Universal Studios backlot, going from movie to movie like a giant green Forrest Gump.

This time the movie in question is Smokey and the Bandit.  A smash 1977 hit, Smokey and the Bandit was the latest in a series of trucker films that were a rage in the 70s and early 80s, including Convoy, Breaker! Breaker!, and one of the earliest trucker films, Steven Spielberg’s Duel.

Before Jaws made Steven Spielberg a household name, and  Close Encounters of the Third Kind certified the director a hit-maker, he made Duel for Universal Pictures.  But by the time this Hulk episode was made both those blockbusters had been released to great fanfare, and Spielberg would be a Hollywood power player with some significant clout.

And, as I learned reading Lou Ferrigno’s autobiography, this episode of The Incredible Hulk made Spielberg angry–and you wouldn’t like him when he’s angry.

As I mentioned in previous reviews, Hulk, like many other TV series around the same time, used footage from movies as cheap stock footage.  For Never Give a Trucker an Even Break the Hulk creators went into Universal’s archives and mined Spielberg’s Duel.  The producers didn’t only take shots of big rigs from Duel, they took entire action sequences and plot points!  As Duel had very specific vehicles and action scenes, items that would be integral to the story of this episode, the writers wrote an entire episode of Hulk around the action from Duel.

Spielberg was not happy with his directorial debut being recycled for a television series, and tried to prevent the show from using his shots.  However, due to the contract he signed with Universal he was powerless.  Burned by The Incredible Hulk, Spielberg would wield his clout to demand in his future contracts that none of his footage could be recycled in such a manner.

Spielberg may have had his revenge a few years later while making the TV series Amazing Stories episode Remote Control Man.  An episode all about TV series come to life, there was a cameo by Hulk (not played by Lou Ferrigno, but a much less muscular double).

But looking at this week’s episode of Hulk, I can see why Spielberg might be upset.  I can only imagine Kenneth Johnson, writer for this week’s episode, watching Duel and specifically trying to figure out how much of it he can use in an episode.  The amount of reuse goes beyond homage or convenience and almost into piracy!

The episode starts with David (Bill Bixby) walking the streets in Nevada.  As the series has not really kept verisimilitude with David’s geography from the end of one episode to the start of the next, I liked seeing him still in Nevada creating stronger ties to the previous week’s The Hulk Breaks Las Vegas.  The dialogue even references David having come from Vegas, and the episode starts as most episodes end, with David hitchhiking on the highway, The Lonely Man theme playing.

But now we see what happens after he hits the road.  He is picked up by a young, fast talking blond girl.  Something seems amiss when she offers David $10 to deliver a “funny birthday card” to her boyfriend at his office.  David, ever the trusting soul, agrees happily, seemingly anxious to see the joke himself.   Bixby plays this scene horribly, with a stupid grin on his face.  It’s worse because we all know David’s being played for a fool, and his complete naiveté in this situation is silly.

It all pays off when the recipient Ted opens the letter and, shocker, its not a funny card but a note that says “I’ll kill you if I get the chance.”  Ted and his workers blame David for the note, made worse when he cannot give the name of the blond girl that lied to him, and the blond girl’s car has disappeared.

The men are about to beat David when they’re all distracted by one of their trucks, the iconic rusty, beat-up red truck from Duel, starts driving off.  David was a patsy to distract the men while the blond stole their truck!  David flees the men and jumps on the moving truck, climbing through the cab window into the passenger seat.

And then we get some terrible dialogue.  I think it’s supposed to be quick and clever, the type of dialogue you’d hear in Ocean’s 11 (or Smokey and the Bandit).  For example David says “I’m just trying to catch up” and her response is “Yeah, but let’s hope they don’t.”

Through this painful banter we find out the crux of the story.  The truck belonged to the girl, who’s name is Joanie, and her father.  They were hauling ten-thousand gallons of gasoline when Ted and his goons hijacked the truck and put Joanie’s dad in the hospital.  Telling this Joanie spouts more bad dialogue, “I could never figure out who’d want to steal ten-thousand gallons of gas anyway?  I mean beer maybe, but gas?”

Ted’s goons disguised the truck (presumably with beat-up red rust paint) but Joanie recognized it and decided to steal it back.  David postulates maybe they wanted the truck, not the gas Joanie was hauling.  He peers in the back to find the goons had emptied out the gas and filled the tanker truck with “very expensive computer components”.  Ted and his goons hijacked a truck full of these random, anonymous computer components, and were planning to use the tanker to smuggle them.  Smuggle them where?  Sell these computer components to whom?  In the 70s “very expensive computer components” would be of use to large corporations like IBM, but unless it was a prototype Apple PC I can’t imagine them having much in the way of street value.  You can’t grind them up and snort them, so I fail to see the profit for Ted.

Joanie and David drive along looking for a phone to call the cops (ah the 70s when pay phones were along the sides of the road and no one had heard of “cell phones”), but none is forthcoming.

During all of these scenes Joanie and David are being chased by Ted and his lackey Mike in a red Plymouth (go figure, the car from Duel), and this episode’s bottom-barrel production values get the spotlight.  The scenes inside the car or truck are obviously filmed on a rear-projected set.  The camera angles, the scenery, nothing about it looks real.  But when we get the exterior shots (from Duel) the film grain is different, as is the color processing, and the vehicles are moving quite quickly.  The producers don’t even seem to try to make it match.  Worse, the entire episode is scored to an upbeat, jaunty western tune that seems right out of Smokey and the Bandit.  It’s a total tonal mess.

The action is staged directly from Duel storyboards, using Duel’s film, with the Plymouth using a dirt road to pass the truck and Joanie using the truck to bump the back of the car, making it swerve off the road and hit a guardrail.  Duel is a film full of suspense and terror.  This episode is an absurd tale full of broad humor.  I can see why Spielberg was pissed; imagine taking footage from Fatal Attraction and interspersing it into an episode of Growing Pains and you’d have the same type of effect.

Only ten minutes into the episode I realize I’m in for quite a bumpy ride myself.

Ted and Mike are sloppy and incompetent, searching their Plymouth for a gun that they just can’t find.  Is it in the glove box?  Is it on the floor?  The toolbox in the back seat?  It’s a gun in a small car.  They find the gun and…it’s not loaded and they have to search the car for bullets.  It becomes very clear this episode isn’t going for suspense, it’s going for the lamest form of humor.   I cannot believe this farce was written by series creator Kenneth Johnson, who created the melodramatic psychological pilot for this series.

The story continues to plagiarize Duel as the goons have to pull off for gas and find the Plymouth’s radiator hose is in need of repair.  Joanie and David pull off at a gas station as well.  Still looking for a phone they ask the gas attendant, but his phone isn’t working.  Joanie gets gas, and David parts ways with the troublesome blond.  He stays at the gas station preferring to take his chances hitchhiking rather than with Joanie and the expensive computer components.  Joanie promises to call the police on Ted as soon as she can find a phone, and David starts walking the highway as The Lonely Man theme plays.

Wait, what? The Lonely Man theme?  We’re only a half hour into the episode and we haven’t even seen the Hulk yet?  This can’t be how it ends.

And, of course, it isn’t.

David wanders up the road to see Joanie’s truck pulled over,  Ted and Mike having caught up to the blonde.  We don’t see how they stopped her in the big rig, but they have taken Joanie captive and stolen back the truck, leaving their Plymouth unattended in the desert.  Ever the hero, David hot wires the car and takes off in pursuit to rescue the girl.  He follows them back to where they have Joanie hostage, so David runs off to find a pay phone to call the cops.

Yes, this entire episode has been a hunt for a pay phone in the desert.

But this time David finds one!  I have no idea where this oasis of a pay phone was by Ted’s base in the desert, but now halfway through the episode David can finally call the authorities.  He puts in his dime to call the operator.  No answer!  So he calls the number of the pay phone company, but the support woman is less than helpful.  She refuses to call the police, and “is not equipped” to connect David to a call.  She gives him the number of a police station, but he used his last dime on the unanswered call to the operator.

I’m laughing, but David is getting frustrated.  He’s checking the coin return for a stray dime, anything to call the police.  He finds a dime and calls the police, but the operator says “please deposit twenty-five cents for the first three minutes.”  David is fumbling through change, finding only pennies.  Joanie is screaming in the distance, and then we get…

Hulk-Out #1:  Yes, I’m not kidding.  His lack of a quarter has caused David to Hulk out, screaming the words “I don’t have twenty-five cents!” in his gravely Hulk-transformation voice.  The green animated blob takes over David’s face, his eyes go white, and he transforms.  The buttons pop off his shirt and I’m thinking if he doesn’t have a quarter there’s no way he can afford new buttons for his shirt, but now the Hulk is here and proceeds to take out David’s anger on the phone booth.  Hulk crushes the phone receiver and tears the phone out from the wall, smashing the phone booth in its entirety.

Hey, Hulk, remember Joanie?  Want to rescue her?

Once the phone booth is suitably destroyed Hulk breaks through the aluminum wall of Ted’s base.  Hulk lifts up one goon with one hand, and uses the other to toss another lackey across the garage.  He then lifts up Joanie in his arms and flees.

Another one of Ted’s goons picks up a chain and starts to swing it above his head–the first time Hulk has been attacked by a real weapon other than a gun!  I think a good fight may follow, and the goon captures Hulk’s arm with the chain.  But he’s apparently throwing the chain from only three feet away as Hulk reaches out with his other hand and throws the goon up to the roof of the building!  The goon is able to catch a fingerhold, and Hulk runs off.

But during all this, Ted and Mike have driven off in the truck with the “very expensive computer components”.  Joanie takes chase in the red Plymouth (so I know more scenes from Duel are coming!), and Hulk is left there to roar impotently.

I want to say I think Lou looks good in the make-up this episode.  With the torn shirt hanging from his shoulders, he is intimidating and after the farce that we’ve been watching on screen his presence is more than welcome.  But he has little to do, the fight is too short, and before we know it we’re at a commercial.

Joanie is driving over 80 miles per hour!  Still she cannot escape the scenes from Duel as she drives and hides behind an embankment.  (At this point can I start calling Joanie “Mann”, the lead character in Spielberg’s film?)  Once the truck passes, she drives on and sees David by the side of the road, just post-transformation.  Despite his torn clothes Joanie doesn’t connect David to the Hulk.  In this exchange I cannot decide which line was funnier, Joanie saying “We have to find a phone!” continuing the endless search for telecommunications, or David searching through his bag for a new shirt saying “I really need to start buying shirts that stretch.”

They drive and see a phone by the side of the road.  Joanie pulls off, but the truck is in pursuit, so David gets behind the driver’s seat and the two take off once again.

Banjo music as loud as can be, Mann, er, Joanie and David try to outrun the truck.  The truck bumps them, and they pull in front of a train, and now I just wish I was watching Spielberg’s film en toto rather than this rip-off.

We do get some new footage interspersed with Spielberg’s, seeing the car hit some barricades Dukes of Hazzard style but the majority of the external shots are from Duel.  As is the plot as the radiator hose of the Plymouth gives out and the car overheats.  The car barely makes it to the apogee of the mountain, and then pick up speed as they coast down the other side.  This happens near the climax of Duel and leads to an exciting and innovative ending.  But in Never Give a Trucker an Even Break it instead ends with David losing control of the car and hitting the side of the mountain.  Joanie is knocked out, and Ted and Mike bear the truck down on the car.  The stress causes

Hulk-Out #2:  In 747 we  saw Hulk fly a plane.  Now we see him drive a car.  Unfortunately this is not filmed nearly as well.  Rather than have Bixby in the rear-projected car doing his transformation, they have him on an all-black set with the green glow on his face.  Close-ups of shirt arms tearing and Bixby in partial make-up are interspersed with car chase scenes, and it all ends with Hulk, obviously not in a car, holding a steering wheel attached to nothing.

And we never get to see Hulk try to mess with the brakes, or steering.  Instead the car just stops, and Hulk knocks the door off its hinges, then throws it aside, also pulling Joanie free from the car.

The banjo music is replaced by the Hulk theme from the pilot intermixed with rapid piano notes to indicate danger.  It’s actually not bad but, like this entire episode, uneven.

Hulk pushes down an electrical pole, and using the 40-foot post like a wooden baseball bat he smacks the front of the tuck.  He then pushes the Plymouth into the truck, and the two vehicles collide in a fiery explosion.  The climax from Duel is shown with the car and truck both going off the side of a cliff, but Johnson must think Duel would have been improved by having the Hulk in it as the scene is now intercut with Hulk standing at the top of the cliff roaring triumphantly.  It’s a long drawn-out crash that makes sense in the film, but just seems to pad this episode’s running length.

Before the truck went over the cliff Ted and Mike jumped to safety. But Ted’s leg is broken and Mike is unconscious.  Hulk goes to the unconscious, but safe, Joanie who awakens to again see David post-transformation.  Joanie never asks what happened to David’s shirt again, but they walk away to go to the cops.

And in the last scene Joanie buys David some new clothes with the reward money she got from turning in Ted, and the shop owner tells Joanie that a reporter named McGee is looking to talk to people who saw the green creature.  This, of course, cues David to leave, but Joanie convinces him to stay!

Joanie:  David, I’d like to share that reward with you.

David:  That’d be nice, but I really have to leave.

Joanie: (suggetively) I’d like to share more than that with you.

(now a porn groove bass funk starts playing)

David:  How about lunch?

Joanie:  That’s a start.  (laughs)

David:  (suggestively) Yeah…

And instead of The Lonely Man theme we get a disco version of it, perhaps the “David Gets Some” theme?  But it ends with a banjo riff out of Deliverance as credits roll.

And none too soon for my tastes.  After each episode being better than the last, this is the first real stinker of the season.  There is a reason I’m reviewing an episode of The Incredible Hulk every day and not an episode of Dukes of Hazzard–I don’t really care for Dukes.  I don’t like the juvenile humor of Roscoe P. Coltrane and his dog Flash, and I don’t get excited by car chases scored to banjo music.   Yet that’s what this episode has in abundance.  I’m sure to CBS this served as a great episode to get Hulk watchers to stick around for another hour to watch more car chases on Dukes but for me this episode was miserable.  I didn’t find the intentional humor funny, and I found the serious moments unintentionally hilarious.

The only good thing I can say about this episode is that if it was still 1978, and you didn’t see Duel in theaters seven years prior, you could see the best scenes in Never Give a Trucker an Even Break and not even have to pay the $3 for a movie ticket.  But now that we have home video I strongly suggest you check out Duel instead of this turkey.  I saw it for the first time during my research for this episode, and I can give that a solid recommend.

I understand that people with different tastes than mine, those who still enjoy Dukes of Hazzard and Smokey and the Bandit to this very day, may find something they’re looking for in this episode.  These tastes are not mine; being in a comedic truck heist film wasn’t what I wanted to see the Hulk do.  I give this episode a strong not recommend.

Read my other Incredible Hulk Series Reviews

March 6, 2012 Posted by Arnie C | Comic Books, Movies, Reviews, Television, The Incredible Hulk TV Series Reviews | 1970s, 1980s, Bill Bixby, CBS, Comics, Hulk, Incredible Hulk, Lou Ferrigno, Marvel, Now Playing, Review, Television, TV series | 3 Comments