A little show with HULKING possiblites

Hey everyone,
You know that you wanna ask? Right? what's with Green text this time around especially since it's hard to read this on that black colored background? I want to ask how many people out there have a television show that they grew up on and remember it like yesteryear, by this I mean like if you heard it's theme song or that certain person's voice in the show's monologue. Well here's the monologue for this show that I want to share about with you. Doctor David Banner, physician, scientist, searching for a way to tap into the hidden strength that all humans have. Then an accidental overdose of gamma radiation altered his body chemistry. And now when David Banner grows angry or outraged, a startling metamorphosis occurs. The creature is driven by rage and pursued by an investigator reporter. "Mr. McGee... Don't make me angry... you wouldn't like me when I'm angry!" The creature is wanted for a murder he didn't commit. David Banner is believed to be dead, and he must let the world think that he IS dead Until he can find a way to control the raging spirit that dwells within him. Those words were uttered every Friday night by Ted Cassidy from November 28th, 1977 till June 2nd 1982. The Incredible Hulk, was based off the character that Stan Lee (who also created the amazing Spider-Man), of the same name back in May, 1962 for Marvel comics. Frank Price head of Universal Television in 1977 had offered Ken Johnson the opportunity to make The Incredible Hulk into a live TV series, But Ken refused at first until he read Victor Hugo's novel Les Miserables. He wrote a script entitled "THE INCREDIBLE HULK" but he made several changes in his script that were different from the comic book character himself to make it more believable to TV audiences. He wanted it to be a type of show that was for both adults in dramatic storytelling yet excitable for children when it came to Banner's change into the monster. The main thing that was changed the most was the character of "Bruce" Banner himself, back in the seventies it was believed that "Bruce" was homosexual for any character name, leading character or not. So Johnson changed "Bruce" Banner to David Banner the name of Johnson's own son, for the main character's live TV series. In fact the only part where the "Bruce" is referenced in the show is at graveyard scene in the opening credits end. One other main thing Ken wanted was to not have the creature talk as he did in the comic in fact Ken preferred he didn't speak at all for the part.
For the part of the human side of the hulk Ken wanted only one person and that was Bill Bixby to play the part.
Bill was like Ken in that he wanted no part in a show pandering to children because of it's source material, Ken told Bix to just take the script home an read it. In so doing Bill came back the next day asking "Ken is this really how you're gonna do this with heart warming drama & focus on human emotional string tugging?" Ken said "Yes that how we're going to this adaption of this fictitious character, so what do you say Bix?" Bill told him "I'm in on this as long as your with it as well Ken throughout it's production run".
To find who they wanted as the incredible hulk they started with actor Richard Kiel,
Richard Kiel was famous for playing James Bond movie villains his most famous one was Jaws from "The Spy who loved me" & continued the character in "MoonRaker". The problem the producers had with Kiel was he complained about the make up & was half blinded by the contact lenses he had to wear for the part. So after two days of filming he was let go, (there's one shot of Kiel in the television pilot that does exist it's where the Hulk looks up to the top of the tree by the lake.) they went with Lou Ferrigno Lou was shorter than Kiel he was six feet, four inches tall but he weighted two hundred, twenty five pounds, where Kiel had only the height for the character at seven feet, two inches tall.

The casting for the interrogative reporter Jack McGee was played by Jack Colvin. The series had another Television movie before the series began called The Incredible Hulk: "A Death in the Family", what's interesting is that in some cases they later titled this "Return of the Incredible Hulk, which can get confusing when in the latter eighties the first reunion movie was titled "The Incredible Hulk Returns".
The story begin with David Banner trying to find the inner strength that all humans have after the death of his wife Laura dies in a car accident of which he is spared, it just so happens he had a reoccurring nightmare about it for the past eleven months. He has the help of Elaina Marks in his studies of rare instances of ordinary people finding this very strength he was hoping to find back when Ms. Banner died, come to find out a young African American woman & her ten year son had the same type of accident the Banners had with one exception his son's alive. After several more stories like this one David decides to look at sun graphs, "which show all of the interviewees had excessive strength at the said time of their said events" and he had low gamma activity during "his own said event". He goes to radiology there he hope by injecting himself with a low dose of gamma rays he'll get the strength he wants.
At first it seems nothing had happen so even angrier he leaves to go home to find it raining. On the way home he gets a flat tire now he's down right pissed off, he starts to change the tire on the second turn of the tire iron to get the lug nut off the wheel he cuts his hand.. And then it happens the first Hulk out, when he finds himself in the morning with a bullet hole in his arm he wonders what has happen? He goes to get help from Elaina whose equally scarred as he is, after running tests he realizes it's uncontrollable so they start to look for a cure. So Banner tries to look for a cure wherever he may not be found out by the law or McGee.
The show was paired with CBS's Friday night block of shows in 1979 Dallas at nine the Incredible Hulk at seven and at eight it was Hazzard time with the Dukes What was neat about the "Incredible Hulk" was that sometimes it tackled hard issues that were unapproachable by even today's type of TV standards an put the message out there. The one episode I loved beyond the norm was "A Child in Need" David was a grounds keeper at a elementary school where he notices a boy that seems to have a lot of bruising about his arms. At first the boy claims he got the bruises from falling down. When David confronts the school nurse she tells him the child has been to see her more than just his time of bringing "Mark Hollinger" the name of the kid to see her. She suggest David to talk his parents because the last time she tried to deal with a similar situation the schooling board had her fired. David walks Mark home and tell the father of his concerns of the boy injuries. The next day David finds the bruising of Mark to be those of welts from what appears to be a belt David ask Mark how he get these the boy says he got them playing basketball with his old man, David talks again with the school nurse who will agree to help Mark if David will talk with the boy's mother so later that evening he goes to the store where Mark's mother works and tells her of someone being to violent with the boy and maybe the police should be made of aware of it by someone within the family. All in all the hulk's conflict with the father proves he needs help by a doctor, for the sake of his family. Ken had one small irk about the show in per- production it was green when it should have been Red, what was it? It was the Hulk's skin color, He argued with Stan Lee that the color of rage is Red, but in the end the TV version had his comic book color. The very reason I'm bringing this up is that right now in the comic he does have Red, skin color but it still hasn't been explain how this has happen as of yet? The entire run of the Television hulk was eighty two episodes in all. The show's composer was named Joe Harnell he composed the theme on a piano it was called "Lonely Man" if no one has a copy of the series on DVD, it can be heard in the two thousand eight movie of the same name when Bruce Banner is leaving the country of Brazil.

Young women loved the TV show mostly because of when David got angry he had a hulk out into Lou Ferrigno in fact here is a photo of Bill & Lou together outside of the on screen transformation which looked like this. One thing that had happen while the show was being made was that in it's third year it got a lot of exposure by two things. One was that the public broadcasting network show called "Mister Rogers neighborhood" had a visit to universal's lot to show that children shouldn't be afraid of the incredible hulk show by showing the process Lou Ferrigno goes through to become the Incredible Hulk. The other thing that help the Incredible Hulk TV series was that Stan Lee was already writing a Spider-Man daily newspaper strip and decided to write one about the TV Hulk till it was ended he started the Incredible Hulk strip in October 1978. As far as I know I think it ran on Sundays only I could be wrong about that too, here's a Sunday Hulk comic. The reason I say it only ran on Sundays only being wrong is because in the summer of nineteen ninety two I found a Incredible Hulk newspaper strip collection in a paperback trade format at a bookstore that I got a boat load of Spider-Man comic books for like if I remember ten dollars and something in change. The Strip had Banner's first name as David as in the TV series currently running on the air. The difference from the strip and the show was the Hulk could talk like he did/does in his own monthly comic book, the newspaper strip lasted till Spetember5,1982 which was at least a couple months longer than the series final episode. By the end of that season Bill Bixby & his wife Brenda Benet which was in the latter part of nineteen eighty had divorced. They were married back in nineteen seventy one six years before Bixby had gotten the part of David Banner. Three years before production of the live action "The Incredible Hulk" was made Bill and Brenda had their only son named Christoper Sean Bixby. Bill was very adamant that the young boy couldn't watch the show, for fear of having to tell him "Daddy doesn't really become a monster & Chris not understand why his daddy has to be the star of such a show?"
The fourth year of the Incredible Hulk show had a great opening called "Prometheus" which was a two parter where David found himself stuck in mid transformation between the Hulk and himself without knowing why? To have the government finally do what McGee can't do capture the creature. The fourth year of the show had other great hits as well but still the best of the best of the entire run of the incredible hulk was in that very year it was the season's only other two parter called ("The First"). By this point CBS studios had started restricting the number of "Hulk Outs" per show to one Hulk out or none or they were starting to try to enforce it more so as season four came to a close.
In the summer of nineteen eighty there was a "writer strike", for those of you who don't watch much Television or go to movies very often a "writer strike" is when networks that run shows can't or won't work with writers or producers of the medium to get a stable of funds to make shows work in being produced. (Hence the most recent "writer strike" was in two thousand eight) Well the one back in nineteen eighty lasted shorter than this past one did but result for for The Incredible Hulk show were determined by a man named Harvey Shepard who had control of the CBS network for all of twenty minutes had decided to AX the show despite very high ratings still. What CBS wanted from universal studios was to have David Banner have a side kick & they would travel around in a motor home RV type vehicle with one "hulk out" per show otherwise.
Kenneth Johnson & one his head writers Nicholas Corea had tried to get Network to give them a full season for season five they were going have Banner have to save his sister who was introduced in a third season episode and have a female counterpart to the Hulk himself Marvel comics had gotten wind of this and had a comic version of the Hulk come out named She-Hulk, but still as a result the television Incredible Hulk was left hanging even though their were nine episodes all together not filmed for air. These were as follows "LOS INDIOS" parts (1 & 2) season 3. "Double Exposure" season 3, "The Trial of Jack McGee" season 5, "David Banner R.I.P. season 5, "The Steel Mill" season 5, "The Survivors" season 5, "Killer on board" season 5, "Eye of the Beholder" season 5. Also Johnson and Corea had wanted to do a two hour finale where Banner is caught found out to be alive, goes to trial for Elaina Marks death, resolves things with McGee and is cured from Hulk Outs. So the unfortunate thing because of a man who didn't last long as a program director for a network that thought a show was to expensive we got the result of the Incredible Hulk, was a fifth short lived season of seven episodes. Hey I'll promise to blog about a weekly episode of the show with two Incredible pieces of Trivia.