The Incredible Hulk, Hulk, Incredible Hulk

[Brue]

After seeing Incredible Hulk at the theater and enjoying it, buying it on DVD and thinking it was a vast improvement over Hulk I decided to re-watch Hulk. Even with the aid of positive attitude and fast foward I can't stomache this film. I hated it more this time. I will likely never watch it again. This one in in League with The first made for TV captain America movie.

I, like many, was not an avid reader of the Hulk and the TV show was my base. I loved the show. It had little to do with the comic but it gave plausibility to the origin and story and made the Hulk a Hero. The characters and stories were usually relate able.

My Hulk ratings of Movie length Hulk:

1 Married 10
2 Pilot 9
3 Incredible Hulk (2008) 8 mainly for production and action - the TV show stories are better
4 Returns (with Thor) 8 -I love the pure cheese factor of this one
5 Death of the... 8
6 Mystery man 7
7 Trial 6.5
8 The first 6
9 Prometheus 4
10 Hulk (2003) 2
11 A Death in the Family (Return of the...) 1

If I had to rank the 60s and 90s cartoons in I would stick the 60s cartoon between number 7 and 8 and the 90s between 8 and 9.

How would you rank them?

[HardyGirl]

I love the TV series too, b/c in my opinion, this is the definitive Hulk. (ducking the tomatoes the comic fans are throwing) I also like the 60s cartoon, but I love the series better. I don't know all the titles, but I do know the plots. My faves are (in no particular order):

Never Give A Trucker An Even Break (I love that title!)
Death In The Family
the one w/ Daredevil (Rex Smith)
The one w/ the race cars and the mentally challenged boy
the one w/ 2 Hulks
Married
The "bigfoot" episode
The Lumberjack episode
The boy who was abused

and I'm sure there are more I'm missing, but you get the idea.

[Brue]

Daredevil is Trial of... I love how Banner's beard reappears when he changes back from the hulk. The best part of that was the only presence of a villain from the comics during its entire run and only the second appearance of any other comic character. There is never a reference to Betty, Rick, Gen Ross, or any other Hulk regulars in the series.

2 hulks is The First

I was only listing movies and two parters but i do like the trucker one.
i can't remember the bigfoot one.

Death in the Family -Good? We definitely differ there. it had the worst actress in the world in it. i thought it was unbareable

[MIB41]

The television show was a great moment for Marvel and many episodes, like 'Married', still hold up to this day. But the 70's comic was considerably different. Where bullets could wound the television Hulk, the comic book Hulk viewed them as a simple annoyance which often made him even angrier and subsequently more stronger. The first film tried to capture that latter idea by increasing the Hulk's size as he got irritated. The problem was the director and animators never made the Hulk seem like a real creature, so when he started growing, it only served to remind the viewer that Hulk was little more than a glorified cartoon - Shrek on steriods if you will. It also didn't help that the director (Ang Lee) was not familiar with the material and spent most of the film spinning an explanation about Banner and the Hulk that was self-evident to everyone but the director. Enter the Incredible Hulk.

Marvel took a better approach with this version, first by dumping the self analysis and then stream lining the script to be more action oriented. But what still plagues the film is the quality of the CGI. Sorry but, for me, he doesn't read much better than the last one. What makes him 'appear' better is because he's utilized in more crreative situations and animated in low light which helps dilute the seperation somewhat. But at the end of the day he still reads emotionally flat when he comes on screen. And the Abomination, which is the equivalent of the Hulk's "Joker", was so poorly interpretated, he could have been on any saturday morning cartoon. It also didn't help that they didn't even try to make him look anything like his comic counterpart. The various 'tip-of-the-hat' nods to the television show were fun, but I would have been happier if they had left the television's musical prologue out of the film. That is uniquely tied to Bill Bixby's David Banner and really only served as a device for this film so fans of the show could say, "Oh wow, it's the old theme!" In the television show that theme was such an intricate part of each story and helped connect the viewer with the pathos of both Banner and the Hulk. You really can't seperate it from the show plus it didn't make you think of this new Banner. It made you think of Bill Bixby's Banner.

Without question it was an improvement over the last film, but it also felt like a melting pot of every idea we had already seen. It never seem to really find it's own footing and the dialogue bordered on camp in some scenes where the emotional charge of the moment might have been better played out without any exchange. It is worth noting this second effort actually made less of a profit than the first outing, so I imagine the next Hulk appearance will be in the upcoming Avengers film and that will be that...for now anyway.

[starsky]

tv hulk season 5 just came out a couple weeks ago and includes out takes /gag reels from the tv show.

[Brue]

tv hulk season 5 just came out a couple weeks ago and includes out takes /gag reels from the tv show.

cool it contains some out takes/gags. i thought the Mr. Rodgers stuff was the only behind the scenes footage available. btw if anyone has a good copy of that - let me know. mine is on DVD but is youtube quality whuch doesn't translate well to a screen bigger than 10 inches or so.

[Riffster]

to me the show was kinda bleh... no real villians, he can be hurt by bullets, only show that stuck out in my head was the episode with the other hulk

[filmation batman fan]

I love the TV series too, b/c in my opinion, this is the definitive Hulk. (ducking the tomatoes the comic fans are throwing) I also like the 60s cartoon, but I love the series better. I don't know all the titles, but I do know the plots. My faves are (in no particular order):


I am the same as you guys. My favorite TV series of all time is the Incredible Hulk. Bill Bixby was my childhood idol and hero and I've had the honor of meeting Lou Ferrigno quite a few times and I've corresponded with Kenneth Johnson, the executive producer through emails. Both Lou and Kenny are nice gentlemen and they have answered questions I've had about the show. HardyGirl. You and I would be great friends in terms of this show. If you'll allow, I can tell you the names of the episodes you referred to.

Never Give A Trucker An Even Break (I love that title!) Believe it or not, I remember the very first episode of the Hulk I ever saw as a kid when the show aired on CBS in 1978 following Wonder Woman. This episode was it. A personal favorite of mine. The first Hulkout I ever saw was David Banner in the phone booth shouting "I DON'T HAVE TWENTY FIVE CENTS!"

Death In The Family I saw this one the following week as it was a two hour rerun.

the one w/ Daredevil (Rex Smith) The Trial of the Incredible Hulk 1989

The one w/ the race cars and the mentally challenged boy: That one was simply called "Ricky". It was a season two episode. As a kid, I thought Ricky was a teenager, but was actually a grown man. It's Mickey Jones before he grew a beard and would become known for playing biker characters. He was also in the Long Run Home episode with the bikers and the lumberjack episode you mentioned.

the one w/ 2 Hulks: The First. A true classic. I met Dick Durock, the actor who played the evil Hulk. He said he enjoyed working on the show. He would later play the Swamp Thing.

Married: The season 2 premiere episode. One of the all time best. Marriette Hartley won an Emmy for her portrayal of the doomed Dr. Caroline Fields Banner. She and Bill Bixby starred together in a short lived comedy about news anchors in 1983 called "Goodnight Beantown".

The "bigfoot" episode: The episode that followed Married is called "The Antowuk Horror" and it features Bill Lucking who would later turn up on the episode, "Dark Side." As Harlan Bates, he dresses up as a Bigfoot like creature to draw tourists back to their dying resort town.

The Lumberjack episode: "Triangle" is a season five episode. One of my personal favorites. David has a romance with a woman named Gail Webber whose also loved by Ellis Jordan, the man who owns the logging town. It was Jack McGee's final appearance on the show and the blonde husky man who roughs up David is Charles Napier who is in the "Slam" episode as well as one of the bad guys in the Incredible Hulk Returns 1988. He also did the Hulk's growls and roars in season three after Ted Cassidy died in 1979.

The boy who was abused: One of the all time best. "A Child in Need" is where he befriends a 10 year old boy named Mark Hollinger who is physically abused by his father Jack Hollinger, played by Sandy McPeak who shows up in another Hulk episode called "Bring Me the Head of the Hulk" in season four.

and I'm sure there are more I'm missing, but you get the idea.

Here are some more recommendations:
SEASON ONE:
The Incredible Hulk: The pilot movie.
TERROR IN TIME SQUARE. The New York episode where David tries to prevent his boss from being forced to murder his best friend by a wealthy racketeer. This is the one where David Hulks out in the back of a taxi cab and Lou as the Hulk runs through Times Sqaure. This is the only episode where they went on location to film.

747: The airplane episode where David has to fly the plane with passengers after the flight crew is drugged after a botched attempt to steal Egyptian artifacts out of the plane's cargo. Brandon Cruz from the Courtship of Eddie's Father is the teenager who helps David with the controls.

THE HULK BREAKS LAS VEGAS: This is a personal favorite of mine. David works at a casino in Vegas witnesses a reporter named Ed Campion get injured in a hit and run. The reporter asks David to give his story to his friend and partner flying into town. Guess what! It's Jack McGee, the one man he can't afford to be seen by.

THE WATERFRONT STORY: David works at a bar in Galveston Texas. A man running for president of the dock workers union and his murderous acquaintance try to kill David's employer, the widow of the previous president, who was murdered.

SEASON TWO: I could recommend every episode this season. No stinkers at all. But a few more:

STOP THE PRESSES: David tries to retrieve pictures taken of him by another reporter who works for the National Register and he risks being sighted by Jack McGee. The Hulk runs loose in the Register.

MYSTERY MAN: The two parter where David looses his memory in an accident and his face is covered in bandages and he and McGee spend the whole two parter together trying to survive in the wilderness dodging wild animals and a forest fire. McGee learns that a man is the Hulk but not who the man is.

THE CONFESSION: Jack McGee and a student reporter (Pre Fall Guy actress Markie Post) are thrown off the Hulk trail by a lonely man claiming to be the mysterious John Doe.

SEASON THREE:

THE SLAM: The "Cool Hand Luke" inspired episode where Davis is in a prison work camp.

MY FAVORITE MAGICIAN: The episode where Ray Walston from My Favorite Martian plays an old vaudeville magician and David is his assistant.

HOMECOMING: The episode where David goes back to his hometown and reunites with his sister and estranged father.

CAPTIVE NIGHT: David works third shift in a department stores that's held up by a pair of crooks.

BROKEN IMAGE: David Banner has a lookalike whose a mobster.

PROOF POSITIVE: The Jack McGee episode where he tries to convince his new female boss that the Hulk is real and not a typical dreamed up story for the tabloid.

THE PSYCHIC: The episode with Bill Bixby's former late wife Brenda Benet playing a woman with pyshic abilities.

SEASON FOUR: Prometheus: The Two parter where a meteor causes David's Hulkouts to stop half way. The blind woman in that episode was the same one who played Julie Griffith in Death in the Family.

DARK SIDE: The episode where David experiments with a serum and it turns him evil and makes the Hulk behave differently.

BRING ME THE HEAD OF THE HULK: The episode where David is lured to a lab by a mercenary who wants to kill the Hulk.

KING OF THE BEACH: The bodybuilding episode where Lou Ferrigno plays a double role.

THE HARDER THEY FALL: The episode where David is hit by a car and paralyzed from the chest down.

INTERVIEW WITH THE HULK: A has been news reporter steals Jack McGee's Hulk sighting, learns that John Doe is David Banner and gets an interview with him.

SEASON FIVE:

TWO GODMOTHERS: The episode where David is taken hostage by three female escaped convicts. One of them is nine months pregnant and could give birth at anytime,.

VETERAN: David risks his freedom trying to warn a shady politician whose supposedly an opld Vietnam war hero of an assailant that may try to kill him.

I personally recommend the whole series, but anyway, I hope this helps answer the names of some of your favorites. If you want to talk about Hulk episodes, feel free to PM me.
Cheers.

[filmation batman fan]

I love the TV series too, b/c in my opinion, this is the definitive Hulk. (ducking the tomatoes the comic fans are throwing) I also like the 60s cartoon, but I love the series better. I don't know all the titles, but I do know the plots. My faves are (in no particular order):


I am the same as you guys. My favorite TV series of all time is the Incredible Hulk. Bill Bixby was my childhood idol and hero and I've had the honor of meeting Lou Ferrigno quite a few times and I've corresponded with Kenneth Johnson, the executive producer through emails. Both Lou and Kenny are nice gentlemen and they have answered questions I've had about the show. HardyGirl. You and I would be great friends in terms of this show. If you'll allow, I can tell you the names of the episodes you referred to.

Never Give A Trucker An Even Break (I love that title!) Believe it or not, I remember the very first episode of the Hulk I ever saw as a kid when the show aired on CBS in 1978 following Wonder Woman. This episode was it. A personal favorite of mine. The first Hulkout I ever saw was David Banner in the phone booth shouting "I DON'T HAVE TWENTY FIVE CENTS!"

Death In The Family I saw this one the following week as it was a two hour rerun.

the one w/ Daredevil (Rex Smith) The Trial of the Incredible Hulk 1989

The one w/ the race cars and the mentally challenged boy: That one was simply called "Ricky". It was a season two episode. As a kid, I thought Ricky was a teenager, but was actually a grown man. It's Mickey Jones before he grew a beard and would become known for playing biker characters. He was also in the Long Run Home episode with the bikers and the lumberjack episode you mentioned.

the one w/ 2 Hulks: The First. A true classic. I met Dick Durock, the actor who played the evil Hulk. He said he enjoyed working on the show. He would later play the Swamp Thing.

Married: The season 2 premiere episode. One of the all time best. Marriette Hartley won an Emmy for her portrayal of the doomed Dr. Caroline Fields Banner. She and Bill Bixby starred together in a short lived comedy about news anchors in 1983 called "Goodnight Beantown".

The "bigfoot" episode: The episode that followed Married is called "The Antowuk Horror" and it features Bill Lucking who would later turn up on the episode, "Dark Side." As Harlan Bates, he dresses up as a Bigfoot like creature to draw tourists back to their dying resort town.

The Lumberjack episode: "Triangle" is a season five episode. One of my personal favorites. David has a romance with a woman named Gail Webber whose also loved by Ellis Jordan, the man who owns the logging town. It was Jack McGee's final appearance on the show and the blonde husky man who roughs up David is Charles Napier who is in the "Slam" episode as well as one of the bad guys in the Incredible Hulk Returns 1988. He also did the Hulk's growls and roars in season three after Ted Cassidy died in 1979.

The boy who was abused: One of the all time best. "A Child in Need" is where he befriends a 10 year old boy named Mark Hollinger who is physically abused by his father Jack Hollinger, played by Sandy McPeak who shows up in another Hulk episode called "Bring Me the Head of the Hulk" in season four.

and I'm sure there are more I'm missing, but you get the idea.

Here are some more recommendations:
SEASON ONE:
The Incredible Hulk: The pilot movie.
TERROR IN TIME SQUARE. The New York episode where David tries to prevent his boss from being forced to murder his best friend by a wealthy racketeer. This is the one where David Hulks out in the back of a taxi cab and Lou as the Hulk runs through Times Sqaure. This is the only episode where they went on location to film.

747: The airplane episode where David has to fly the plane with passengers after the flight crew is drugged after a botched attempt to steal Egyptian artifacts out of the plane's cargo. Brandon Cruz from the Courtship of Eddie's Father is the teenager who helps David with the controls.

THE HULK BREAKS LAS VEGAS: This is a personal favorite of mine. David works at a casino in Vegas witnesses a reporter named Ed Campion get injured in a hit and run. The reporter asks David to give his story to his friend and partner flying into town. Guess what! It's Jack McGee, the one man he can't afford to be seen by.

THE WATERFRONT STORY: David works at a bar in Galveston Texas. A man running for president of the dock workers union and his murderous acquaintance try to kill David's employer, the widow of the previous president, who was murdered.

SEASON TWO: I could recommend every episode this season. No stinkers at all. But a few more:

STOP THE PRESSES: David tries to retrieve pictures taken of him by another reporter who works for the National Register and he risks being sighted by Jack McGee. The Hulk runs loose in the Register.

MYSTERY MAN: The two parter where David looses his memory in an accident and his face is covered in bandages and he and McGee spend the whole two parter together trying to survive in the wilderness dodging wild animals and a forest fire. McGee learns that a man is the Hulk but not who the man is.

THE CONFESSION: Jack McGee and a student reporter (Pre Fall Guy actress Markie Post) are thrown off the Hulk trail by a lonely man claiming to be the mysterious John Doe.

SEASON THREE:

THE SLAM: The "Cool Hand Luke" inspired episode where Davis is in a prison work camp.

MY FAVORITE MAGICIAN: The episode where Ray Walston from My Favorite Martian plays an old vaudeville magician and David is his assistant.

HOMECOMING: The episode where David goes back to his hometown and reunites with his sister and estranged father.

CAPTIVE NIGHT: David works third shift in a department stores that's held up by a pair of crooks.

BROKEN IMAGE: David Banner has a lookalike whose a mobster.

PROOF POSITIVE: The Jack McGee episode where he tries to convince his new female boss that the Hulk is real and not a typical dreamed up story for the tabloid.

THE PSYCHIC: The episode with Bill Bixby's former late wife Brenda Benet playing a woman with pyshic abilities.

SEASON FOUR: Prometheus: The Two parter where a meteor causes David's Hulkouts to stop half way. The blind woman in that episode was the same one who played Julie Griffith in Death in the Family.

DARK SIDE: The episode where David experiments with a serum and it turns him evil and makes the Hulk behave differently.

BRING ME THE HEAD OF THE HULK: The episode where David is lured to a lab by a mercenary who wants to kill the Hulk.

KING OF THE BEACH: The bodybuilding episode where Lou Ferrigno plays a double role.

THE HARDER THEY FALL: The episode where David is hit by a car and paralyzed from the chest down.

INTERVIEW WITH THE HULK: A has been news reporter steals Jack McGee's Hulk sighting, learns that John Doe is David Banner and gets an interview with him.

SEASON FIVE:

TWO GODMOTHERS: The episode where David is taken hostage by three female escaped convicts. One of them is nine months pregnant and could give birth at anytime,.

VETERAN: David risks his freedom trying to warn a shady politician whose supposedly an old Vietnam war hero of an assailant that may try to kill him.

I personally recommend the whole series, but anyway, I hope this helps answer the names of some of your favorites. If you want to talk about Hulk episodes, feel free to PM me.
Cheers.

[filmation batman fan]

Oops. Sorry about that. Didn't mean for that to post twice.

[Brue]

just to be clear I have lots of regular season episodes i like better than some on my list - i was ranking ALL of the 2 parter/movie hulks.

Oh yeah, and if you accidentally double post the best thing to do is click edit on your post and enter the oops message there rather than make a 3rd post.

[The Sentry]

Actually I love just about everything Hulk, that means shows toons, movies, cept for the so-called "The DEATH of the Incredible Hulk".

I was in high school when this aired and people were calling me all sad saying "I bet your heartbroken aren't you?" I was too busy laughing. It was crap IMHO. Yeah a person who can crack the outer crust of the earth if he slams his foot down hard enough is gunna die falling out of a helicopter. Sorry, but I think that trumps Ang Lee's Hulk movie. At least he didn't die falling out of a helicopter. Poop utter poop. What a crappy note for an awesome show like T.I.H. to end on if you ask me.

[Earth 2 Chris]

I think Bixby planned to do another Hulk movie, but became ill before it ever got off the ground. It was a horrible "***" ending though, esp. after the previous two somewhat campy reunion movies.

Chris

[Airdave817]

"David Banner. Physician; scientist..."

I grew up watching the '60's Hulk cartoons. The first comic book I got was with this energy (?) being Glorian. Sorry, but on the whole - with maybe a few exceptions here and there - The Hulk comics suck. I got the paperback collections of the classic comics and some newspaper strips from the late '70's. I don't think anybody has really had a grasp of this character until this new movie came out.

I never watched any of the other Hulk cartoons...

I loved The Incredible Hulk show. I just got season five, and I'll probably start watching from the beginning - again.

Of the three reunion movies, I liked The Trial of The Hulk most. The Return of The Incredible Hulk is okay. Don Blake is just a complete waste and so is Thor. Daredevil/Matt Murdock is pretty decent even though they changed his costume to the black Spider-Man symbiote costume... and John Rhys-Davies (Sallah) as The Kingpin - pretty good casting. The Death of The Incredible Hulk was just wrong. Sad and wrong. I guess that is the only way to resolve the character, but damn!

I don't really have a top ten, I like Married - probably the best episodes of the series! - The First, Prometheus, Mystery Man, Goodbye Eddie Cain, My Favorite Magician, 747, and the one where David meets a gangster that looks like him. I'm sure there are a bunch more. The show was really good. I know Kenneth Johnson claims he was inspired by Les Miserables, but the show is really an updating of The Fugitive. Maybe that's how it should have ended - implausible, I know - but there should have been a way to end the running other than killing The Hulk and Banner...It was wrong, just wrong!

[filmation batman fan]

According to Lou Ferrigno's book, "My Incredible Life as the Hulk". Lou himself did not like filming the Death of the Incredible Hulk, but Bill Bixby had already planned to follow that up with "The Revenge (or Rebirth) of the Incredible Hulk." This movie would have had scientists discovering one living cell in David Banner's lifeless body and are able to jump start it and bring David back to life. Lou also states in that book that David would have learned how to control the Hulk somewhat and the Hulk would have learned to speak a few words, which was what Lou always wanted on the show. I don't know if I would have liked that idea very well. But sadly, Bixby's battle with Prostate Cancer permanently shelved that project forever.
I actually like the Death movie better that the Trial. A well acted out piece. Though while I did not care for the ending, I hated the exclusion of Jack McGee from this movie. I felt he needed to be in there.
While not the greatest, I prefer the Death of the Incredible Hulk over Ang Lee's 2003 Hulk movie any day. But that's just me.
Cheers.