The Incredible Hulk TV Series - 30th Anniversary

[James T. Kirk]

The pilot episode aired on the 4th of November, 1977.

 

[Sava]

and totally f**ked up the Hulk ... yay!!!!

 

[James T. Kirk]

OK, it wasn't the comic version, but loads of comic fans still love it.

 

[Sava]

even more hate it

 

[Cousin Itt]

It was different but I still enjoyed it.

 

[jadejaws]

While I agree with Sav on some level. I still appreciate Bixby's acting and the popularity of the series. The show was what attracted me to the Hulk as a child; if it hadn't have been then there's a chance that I wouldn't be looming on these boards.

 

[Cracker Jack]

Looming...........I like that word JJ. Loooooooooooming it's just a fun sounding word. Sava understand the way I feel about June 20, 2003. It sorta how you feel about November 4th 1977. t:

 

[Sava]

lol, as a TV show, its was great, as a Hulk tv show, its sucked balls... but i actually like it, it just pisses me off that people actually think THATS the real Hulk

 

[Cracker Jack]

it just pisses me off that people actually think THATS the real Hulk

Exactly t:

 

[El Payaso]

Yes, people think of Hulk when they watch the series simply because they loved it. The main episodes - the pilot but also Married and Prometheus -were actually serious and tragic (not ala average pop corn superhero movie with some cliché "serious" lines all over pretending to be serious). Great series.

even more hate it

Fans hating it talks great things about it.

 

[Cousin Itt]

As soon as I get paid I'm picking up season one of this show, I've waited too long to get it.

 

[Hulkzilla3000]

Exactly t:

My feelings too
it was a fun series, and at the time, there was precious LITTLE in the way of Superhero entertainment, except for comics.

We took what we could get
let's keep a perspective

 

[Khemik@L]

lol, as a TV show, its was great, as a Hulk tv show, its sucked balls... but i actually like it, it just pisses me off that people actually think THATS the real Hulk

I call him the "slow motion Hulk" cause he did everything in slow motion. But I guess that was how they displayed feats of great strength back in that time period. If you ever watched Bionic woman you will understand.

Its a great show anyway but I rather remember it as a classic. They can't pull off that slo motion hulk today, hee hee

 

[Dirty Harry]

Here's a desktop WP I created in honor of the TV show. Nothing fancy, just screen cap manips. Hope ya like:

 

[Arkady Rossovich]

I heard that people at the time thought it was a great series.

 

[Dirty Harry]

Another WP that I made from the show, featuring the transformation. Hope the movie folks can match/top this in the upcoming flick.

 

[Lex Luthor]

I heard that people at the time thought it was a great series.

This show was definately a great series.

Everything just clicked. Bixby as Bannerr, Ferrigno as Hulk, the opening theme, the Hulk Out's, the Lonely Man theme. It all worked wonderfully. And I can certainly see why people fondly look back on the show as a classic. I personally loved it as a kid.

 

[El Payaso]

Very good work Dirty Harry

You made my day

 

[ArtTeacher]

it just pisses me off that people actually think THATS the real Hulk

And that's the show's fault?

It's like hating an entire race because some people buy into a sterotype. It's not the race's fault that some people are ignorant.

If it wasn't for the TV show, the Hulk would not be one of Marvel's top icons today. Period.

It was the first Sci-Fi show to win an Emmy.
It is one of the longest running sci-fi shows.
It got great ratings.
It was tied as the most expensive show to film on television at the time (about a million dollars an episode).

And if the show HAD been true to the comic, right around the epidode where Bill Bixby had to fight off the Terrible Toad Men, the show would have gotten canceled faster than the original Hulk comic.

 

[Cracker Jack]

And if the show HAD been true to the comic, right around the epidode where Bill Bixby had to fight off the Terrible Toad Men, the show would have gotten canceled faster than the original Hulk comic.

blasphemer t:

 

[Dirty Harry]

Granted, this show has some pretty laughable special effects - but only by today's standards. However, taken in the context of when they were made, these shows were damn good and on-par with any other effects-heavy series made during that era. Younger fans (under 30) who can't take anything that isn't CGI'd to the Nth degree, and the hardcore CB-purests who always piss & moan about how the show "sucks" and is "crap" need to lighten up and think for a minute before opening their big mouths to complain or take cheap shots at the show. Just remember you crybabies, no matter how much you feel that the TV show (or parts of it) stinks, it could always have been much, much worse. When you get right down to it, there was only one other cost-effective special effects option for a TV series to depict Hulk-type feats of strength.

Picture if you will - The Incredible Hulk TV series with the same level of F/X sophistication as the average episode of 'ISIS' - for instance. Certainly producer Kenneth Johnson could have opted for video-to-film effects compositing in an attempt to do multiple feats of strength for the same price as a single shot done on film, in an attempt to please CB fanboys and portray the Hulk more like his comic book incarnation. But honestly, think about that for just a minute. How absolutely putrid and downright laughable (even back at that time) would THAT stuff have looked?

Imagine Lou Ferrigno standing in front of blue screen with a fan blowing his wig and pretending to jump up and down while the video camera operator tilts the camera up & down and zooms in - and then that video effects footage gets superimposed onto the film stock to portray the Hulk leaping. Or perhaps picture Lou battling a bunch of zipper-backed Sleestak-wannabees!?! Would you really have preferred that just so you could get it truer to the comic book? My sphincter twitches just thinking about it! Ack!

 

[SuperFerret]

How is it not the "real" Hulk?

 

[El Payaso]

Granted, this show has some pretty laughable special effects - but only by today's standards. However, taken in the context of when they were made, these shows were damn good and on-par with any other effects-heavy series made during that era. Younger fans (under 30) who can't take anything that isn't CGI'd to the Nth degree, and the hardcore CB-purests who always piss & moan about how the show "sucks" and is "crap" need to lighten up and think for a minute before opening their big mouths to complain or take cheap shots at the show. Just remember you crybabies, no matter how much you feel that the TV show (or parts of it) stinks, it could always have been much, much worse. When you get right down to it, there was only one other cost-effective special effects option for a TV series to depict Hulk-type feats of strength.

Picture if you will - The Incredible Hulk TV series with the same level of F/X sophistication as the average episode of 'ISIS' - for instance. Certainly producer Kenneth Johnson could have opted for video-to-film effects compositing in an attempt to do multiple feats of strength for the same price as a single shot done on film, in an attempt to please CB fanboys and portray the Hulk more like his comic book incarnation. But honestly, think about that for just a minute. How absolutely putrid and downright laughable (even back at that time) would THAT stuff have looked?

Imagine Lou Ferrigno standing in front of blue screen with a fan blowing his wig and pretending to jump up and down while the video camera operator tilts the camera up & down and zooms in - and then that video effects footage gets superimposed onto the film stock to portray the Hulk leaping. Or perhaps picture Lou battling a bunch of zipper-backed Sleestak-wannabees!?! Would you really have preferred that just so you could get it truer to the comic book? My sphincter twitches just thinking about it! Ack!

Dirty Harry, you made my day.

How is it not the "real" Hulk?

Because it wasn't like the comics. In fact it was better, but you know how it is.

 

[Dirty Harry]

I am just so tired of snotty young punks and the hypocritical, hypercritical dismissive purist types who it seems can never be satisfied with anything that isn't 110% CB-based. (Christ, even then they bicker & whine about which CB version is the 'real' Hulk). There's just no pleasing these whiny snots. I have no problem when criticism is constructive. These folks though just blubber and screech for the pure joy of hearing themselves making noise. More to the point, even constructive criticism is a moot point regarding this show, since it's over & done with - and has been for 30 years!! I'd like to take a baseball bat and brain idiots who make ignorant A-hole-ish "green-painted muscle man"-type comments. God that irritates me; which is the exact response these troll-ish sorts are jonesing to achieve, I suppose.

What other manner of portraying a huge, heavily-muscled superhuman do they think would have worked back in 1977?!? Ummmmm... NOTHING! So shut the hell up! We (whiners & CB fanboys included) should thank our lucky stars that we were fortunate enough to get the likes of a serious-minded producer like Kenneth Johnson. No, he admittedly didn't care for (or really 'get') the source material, but at least he chose to do it straight and not camp it up and go for laughs, which is the route many would have chosen if they didn't understand the stuff or couldn't figure out how to re-work it to a TV budget and the restrictions that imposes. For heaven's sake, the man even stopped production well into the pilot movie and re-cast the Hulk role because it didn't look right. Otherwise we'd all have been subjected to Richard 'Jaws' Kiel as the Green Goliath. Ick.

And bless Lou's Hulk. Give him a break, folks. He didn't ask to be mute. That was Kenny's decision; because he felt that prime time TV audiences would have laughed at Ferrigno running around bellowing "Hulk smash!" And honestly, I feel he was right. The only viewers who might have loved it would have been kids / younger CB fans, but that's not the demographics crowd that keeps a show in production and on the air. Mainstream viewers back then simply were not as accepting. We are that audience nowadays, but the ones watching the Hulk in the late 70's were our parents (and grandparents), and they didn't know and love this character like we do. Sticking true-to-source might well have turned this show into another Adam West "BOFF!" fest.

Regardless of person opinions, I think it's a safe to say that Bill Bixby was the best thing to happen to TIH since the character was created in '62. At least that's one area where even lovers & haters seem to agree. Another actor could easily have wrecked what Johnson intended, so let's be thankful that Bix took it seriously and played it that way.

I think we'd all love to have seen more CB-based Hulk powers. Problem is how to portray them in a manner that looks good and doesn't cost a zillion dollars a shot? The TIH crew did the best work they could under the constrictive F/X budget they were given and the rather limited options available to them in that day and age. Remember, these were pre-CGI days, and many F/X people of the time were schooled on the Universal monster movies of the 30's & 40's, and techniques really hadn't changed all that much since way back then either. It was only in the late 80's when advanced make-ups like Rick Baker's became cost-effective for a TV budget, and the computer didn't became a tool for turning imagination into celluloid reality until the mid-90's, and the successful effectiveness of that is often heavily debated even today!

Okay, I'm hopping down off my soapbox now. Think I'll go watch "Death in the Family." Stuffed grizzly bear and all, it's still one of my favorite TIH episodes. Peace all!

 

[ArtTeacher]

Thank you, Dirty Harry!!!!!!!

Amen, my brother!

I couldn't have said it better myself! Those 2 posts of yours are so good I'd like to tattoo them to the foreheads of all the *****e bags that gripe about how fake Lou looked.

Fake?

Yeah, those were fake muscles that Lou took years to build.

Anyway, kudos to you, sir! Bravo!