I was under the impression that David Banner (Bill Bixby) didn’t get with any women because he was deathly afraid of Hulking up and killing her during sex. I’ve heard of a guy that died having sex with a horse. It’s the same concept, except the horse’s junk isn’t green. Remarkably, in the episode “Triangle”, Banner arrives in Jordan Town and meets Gale (Andrea Marcovicci) and hits it off, noting to her that he hasn’t felt like this in a long time. The comment made me feel bad for all those ladies in the prior episodes that weren’t good enough for the Hulk dick.

As always, Banner has a job. You’re never going to find him on welfare. He probably detests people on welfare. After all, he put himself through school and probably got fucked in the ass on student loans and now he has to roam the country and work menial jobs while some fat cellar dweller gets a free check. It has to drive him crazy, or maybe he has mixed emotions about the topic. We may never know, unless they have an episode focused on jobs and the reasons why people work and why they don’t. I’ll keep looking.

David starts working at a lumber company and as much as he puts on a happy face, I bet he hates that job, but at least it’s not collecting welfare. Oh, sorry…I already touched upon the topic. Anyway, Banner has a boner for Gale and the two are pretty serious. I’ve never seen Banner drink wine and be so free to make out with a woman. I wonder if he got that Hulk boner shit under control. It’s like going to a strip club in sweatpants. You have to be confident and perhaps Banner has finally figured this shit out.

Ellis Jordan (Peter Mark Richman) owns the town and the lumber company and just about everything else and he is not happy that Gale is seeing David. He’s got a major thing for her and hired a detective to spy on the couple to see if they were having sex. Well, remarkably, they were and Ellis flips out when he gets the photos, taking his anger out on the private eye he hired, which was bullshit. “You live in the gutter. You’re trash,” Jordan smugly says to the private eye that did a damn good job. I wonder if he treats all the people that work for him in such a manner. “You are a piece of human donkey crap”, I could imagine him saying to the pizza delivery guy.

There’s a shit ton of flashbacks in this episode, showing the budding relationship between David and Gale. Most of them end up with David making a move. I can’t blame him. When’s the last time you remember him getting laid? We learn that Gale is stuck up and looks down on the townspeople, noting her shock that there was a man at the library and he couldn’t have possibly been a resident. “Jordan Town isn’t literary center,” she notes to David and he is amused by the comment. OK, fine, maybe there’s not a great deal of intelligent people there, but it’s not right to insult them. Most of them seem to work. Shame on Gale and David for calling them fucktards.

When the couple gets too cozy, Ellis gets his goons, who could have passed for DUMB & DUMBER impersonators. It was quite amusing to see them look so mad and not being able to get that fucking movie out of my head. So, I’m going to call these dudes Harry and Lloyd for now because I only know one of their names…it’s Bert, but do you like the name Bert? I think that’s a fucking shitty name. I’m not using it.

They kidnap David and drop him off on the side of the road, putting money in his pocket and telling him not to come back. He throws the money back, which enrages Harry, but it shouldn’t have. Ellis doesn’t know that they got the money back. I would have said that David took the money and then split it with Lloyd.

Les (Lewis Arquette) drives up and picks up David on his way out of Jordan Town and immediately insults the people that live there, taking a jab at their intelligence. Wow, the writer of this episode really looked down on the working man…especially the stupid working man that was a redneck and probably inbred. I’m just guessing at what he was probably thinking. In an awkward moment, David begins thinking about making out with Gale as he’s sitting right next to Les. Had Les not been around, it was probably five knuckle shuffle time. Hell, even with Les there, how the fuck is he going to stop Banner from jacking off? If he Hulks up horny, Les may be in for more than he bargained for. We’ve seen the Hulk pissed. We’ve never seen him with a raging hard on that could knock down a building. Les’s ass would have been that building.

David changes his mind about leaving and asks Les to let him out. He gets out and walks to the other side of the road and the goons drive up immediately and they are ripshit. What was their problem? Banner was farther away than he was before, but they somehow knew that he was going to come back even though the only indication was that he was on the other side of the street? This is lazy writing here. They should have had him go to a payphone and call these goons and say “Listen to me you Dumb and Dumber-looking fucktards. I’m coming back and I’m going to get the girl, fuck your boss in the ass and then Hulk up and fuck you in the ass. I’m out.” Then it would make sense that they returned for him and wanted to fuck him up. This made no sense.

They chase him down and beat him up and we get to see the Hulk for the first time. Hulk walks over to the lumber site and starts fucking shit up, destroying the site, but he doesn’t beat the goons down as much as he should’ve. He tosses one of them, but then takes off. Now wherever there is a Hulk sighting, you can bet your ass that Jack McGee (Jack Colvin) will be near. He shows up and starts grilling the workers, but one of them makes a curious comment. He says that “you think I’m going to risk my butt so you can get a story?” Ellis threatened to rape him in the ass if he spoke to the press? That has to be illegal and I’m sure he could go to HR and file a complaint.

With Banner believed to be gone, Ellis kidnaps Gale and holds her hostage at his mansion. Since he owns the town and the cops, he can do what he pleases, but Banner isn’t going to go away that easily. What I didn’t understand is that Ellis had a hot maid. Why not go after her? Why was he so fixated on Gale? Gale was attractive, but damn, Ellis had money falling out of his ass. He could have had a million girls there and could have had all the guys at his lumber company watch him if that was his thing. He sure spent a lot of energy at just getting Gale.

As you’d expect, Banner gets beaten up by the goons again, turns into the Hulk again, and kicks ass and saves the day. They do throw in a twist at the end, but it seemed forced in and didn’t make a whole lot of sense. But, props to them for trying to make it cooler than the usual episode.

Triangle is a very good episode of The Hulk and there was enough amusement to keep me laughing. I highly recommend this one, especially if you are a Dumb and Dumber fan.

Rating: 7/10

The post The Incredible Hulk: Triangle (1981) – Marvel SUPERHERO TV SHOW REVIEW appeared first on SCARED STIFF REVIEWS.

By Geno McGahee

I always wonder just how much better the life of David Banner (Bill Bixby) would be if he just minded his own business all the time. Why must he always get involved? I know he’s a hero and whatnot, but he’s got his own set of problems to contend with and helping people isn’t helping him get better. He just keeps looking for a solution to the Hulk problem only to be pulled away from it by somebody in need of help. He should have said in at least one episode: “Help yourself bitch. I gotta get this green muscle man out of my ass.” The writer of the show may have phrased it differently.

In OF GUILT, MODELS AND MURDER, Banner is walking at night in an affluent neighborhood when he hears a woman screaming for help. It didn’t take long in this episode for him to find a cause. He runs up to a mansion and sees model Terri Ann Smith (Deanna Lund) screaming, but before he can save her, he has a problem. Two Dobermans are running at him and they are fucking pissed off. Why aren’t Dobermans talked about anymore? All I hear is Pit bull. Pit bull this. Pit bull that. I once heard of bulldog where a guy moons somebody and has his dick hanging out to represent the tongue of the dog, but that hardly has anything to do with this point. Dobermans kind of get a pass now, but in the 70s and 80s, if your neighbor owned one, you kept one eye open and you watched your ass.

The two dogs attack Banner and despite the kindness of the scientist, the Hulk is not a dog lover. When he morphs into the green monster (Lou Ferigno), he takes those two little shit dogs and launches them like footballs. Fuck PETA. Hulk is not taking shit from dogs and even though they didn’t show it, I bet Hulk went back and kicked the ever-loving shit out of them. I’ve never seen Hulk so furious. You can’t blame Hulk either. He wakes up and he has two dogs trying to bite his dick off. He can’t think. He just has to react. I am all for animal rights but when you just wake up and you have a couple of vicious dogs trying to chomp off your junk, you kill those peckers.

Unfortunately for Banner, he doesn’t remember much of what happened in that mansion, outside of the fact that he came back from Hulk mode to find the model dead. He quickly gets out of there, but finds an electronics store and watches the news broadcasts and this is where it kind of gets weird. Cosmetics owner, James Joslin (Jeremy Brett), holds a press conference and talks about how the Hulk went apeshit and killed his top model, but I didn’t think that anyone really believed that the Hulk existed. He’s sort of like Bigfoot. That is why Jack McGee (Jack Colvin), a reporter for a shit magazine, is the only one really chasing the story. Now, all of a sudden, everyone takes the Hulk as a real thing?

Even weirder is that McGee was given press credentials for the event and was placed in the front row. Who is he blowing? Now, I have considered McGee a dickhead in the past and I’ve always thought that Hulk should bend him over and split like firewood, but he proves how much of an asshole he is here. One poor reporter is trying to ask a question, but McGee cuts him off and takes over the questioning. I know Hulk is his story, but you can’t be an asshole prick like that. Wait your turn McGee!

Banner nearly gets picked up by a female hitchhiker and she ain’t bad. Banner, if he wasn’t the Hulk, would be getting pussy left and right. He probably wouldn’t have minded his wife dying and him not being the Hulk because all these women keep throwing themselves at him. Unfortunately, Banner has to avoid all sex because if he hulks up during intercourse, they’ll need an ambulance. I imagine Hulk, noted at 7 feet all, is probably hung like a horse or two horses.

Hulk is already set up as a murderer, which haunts Banner, but now they are trying to pin another one on him and he’s not having it. He goes for a job as an assistant to James at the mansion and when James sees him, he hires him on the spot, telling his receptionist not to argue with him, but she didn’t. She didn’t say a word before he scolded her, but maybe she’s a royal pain in the ass and always argues and he is just nipping this one in the bud. Or, he may just be a world class cocksucker.

In reality, James recognized Banner from the night of the murder and wants to keep him close and see why he’s shown up like this. I don’t think that James hid his anger at Banner very well. When first meeting him, he was standing in this way that made me think that he was going to fuck Banner up the first chance he got. If I got that sense, then Banner surely got it, but then again, even if he thought that James wanted to fuck him up, how could he? He would just Hulk up and it’d be over. I’ve not seen one guy ever send the Hulk running and James didn’t seem like he’d be that guy.

Banner is given the tour and sees a whole group of hot babes with some of them wearing only bikinis. This job has turned out to be way better than his typical menial job, even if there is an element of danger to it. He meets the new number one model and face of the company, Sheila (Loni Anderson), and he wastes no time in grilling her about the night that the other model was murdered. She tells him that she is terrified of James and goes into a flashback to the night the murder happened. There are a lot of flashbacks in this episode, but it worked pretty well. According to Sheila, James hit Terri with a statue and knocked her dead after she tried to blackmail him into marriage. The Hulk shows up and fucks shit up and becomes the perfect murderer. So, Hulk didn’t kill anyone and Sheila actually notes how sad Hulk was when he found the dead body. I’m not sure if he was really sad or if one of those dogs bit his junk and it’s finally hit him. It’s one or the other.

Banner makes a threat to go to the cops if Sheila doesn’t, but how could he possibly mean that? The cops will arrest his ass once they discover he faked his death and then he may even Hulk up when they lock him up. Nothing good can come from Banner going to the police. Perhaps it’s a bluff, but Sheila buys it and now Banner goes to meet up with the former assistant, Sandy, who has been blackmailing James from a secret hideout that Banner discovered. Unfortunately, (Spoiler), Sheila set him up and now they know where that rat is staying and they are all going to die!

I was concerned for Banner and Sandy here. James and Sheila brought some goon with a very bad 70’s porn mustache that screamed “I’ll fuck anything that moves.” When they tied up and gagged Banner and Sandy, it seemed my worst fears were about to come true. The mustache creepy guy was going to cornhole them, but thankfully, that didn’t happen. What did happen was totally unbelievable and I guess could be called lazy writing. Sheila discussed another flashback where she killed Terri and in a hilarious part of the episode, she notes that she knows karate and starts breaking shit to demonstrate it. She goes on and on and on about how and why she killed Terri and how much funny business that they are all involved with. Unknown to them, Banner is recording it with McGee’s tape recorder.

They load Banner and Sandy into one of those car compactors at the junkyard and it’s certain doom…if Banner didn’t have the power of Hulk. As expected in a situation like this, Hulk gets out, saves Sandy, and then…runs away. Well, he throws that mustache guy just to make sure his cock is at least 50 feet away from him, but he does nothing to Sheila and James. They tried to frame him for murder and he lets them slide when he could have smashed their heads together over and over again until he was just holding head guts. I know head guts may not be a thing, but it is now.

The tape recorder is discovered and Sheila and James and mustache weirdo rape guy are all locked up and McGee takes total credit, once again displaying how much of an asshole he truly is. NOT COOL McGee! Banner solved the case and they should have said what they normally say. “A middle aged man with brown hair and ripped up pants and who’s always getting into other peoples’ business dropped off the recorder”. But McGee gets the nod. I guess it’s not a bad idea considering how many times they wanted to fire him or get him to stop covering the Hulk. This attention probably bought him some time.

Overall, this is a good episode, bordering on very silly. Loni was quite good in this and I remember her being a really big thing at one point when I was a kid. Everyone around me was like “that Burt Reynolds doesn’t treat her right and his wig sucks.” I’m not sure if he treated her right or not, but his bad rug isn’t fooling anyone. That’s for sure. Rich mother fucker looks like he has a dead rat on his head.

I recommend this one. I think they could have come up with a better way for David to discover all the details rather than Loni going on and on, but some people like to brag. That’s how they get caught and here is a good example of how it happens. So, let this be a valuable lesson to all future criminals out there. Don’t tell anyone. Just keep your mouth shut and you may get away with it. You don’t want to be getting it from Bubba, do you?

Rating: 7/10

The post The Incredible Hulk: Of Guilt, Models and Murder (1978) – Marvel SUPERHERO TV SHOW REVIEW appeared first on SCARED STIFF REVIEWS.

By Geno McGahee

I love the Hulk TV show, as you can probably tell by my many reviews. With some time on my hands, I elected to watch and review another episode and I came across “THE BEAST WITHIN” on the episode select screen, which featured a gorilla that had an expression on his face as if he just nutted. What the fuck is this episode about, I wondered. Did Hulk make it with an ape?

David Banner (Bill Bixby) got a job at a zoo, picking up animal shit, basically. He is teamed up with Joe (Charles Lampkin), and this dude is a total piece of shit. Everyone has a guy like this at work. He has the most menial job in the world and he is the first to say that the bosses are doing everything wrong. As Banner shows interest in Dr. Baxter (Caroline McWilliams), he brings up that an orangutan and lion cub had died on her watch and had she spent less time researching aggression in animals and more time “doctoring,” those animals would have been alive. Who the fuck is this guy? He shovels elephant shit for minimum wage. He is in no position to critique Baxter.

Despite Joe trashing her, Banner introduces himself to her and she is quite shocked about his knowledge of her work. “You are not the typical idiot moron shit head fuck face with an IQ of 20 that they hire here David.” I think that’s what she said. I’ll watch the episode again to confirm. As they talk, Banner notes that he has some medical background and did some “animal husbandry” too. WHAT?!!!! Mother fucker can’t marry an animal and if they were going to say that he married the orangutan that died earlier and screwed it to death, I would NEVER watch another episode again. Thankfully, husbandry apparently means that he bred animals and did not marry them… but it doesn’t mean that he didn’t have one hell of a honeymoon with that orangutan.

Rita (Billy Jean Beach), the receptionist, has no problems discuss private business in front of Banner as he walks in alongside of Baxter. She notes that the money guys aren’t happy with how Baxter is spending their grant money and that they may just pull out if she doesn’t get shit right. When they go inside the lab, David sees Elliot, a large gorilla, and one of the least convincing gorilla costumes in the history of film. The Three Stooges had a better gorilla costume and that was like 40 years before this. They got a real chimp to their credit, but they got a very bad ape suit for the stunt guy to wear.

As they look at the chimp, Banner says that “he’s more my size.” What an odd comment. I’ve heard guys say “she’s the right height” when they are short and are at crotch level and I can’t help but to think that he’s making a blow job reference. Foolish. Remember that lady that had her face bit off by a chimp? If Banner was planning what I think he was planning, that chimp might just bite hit junk clean off. “Don’t bite my dick off. You wouldn’t like me if you bit my dick off.”

To the shock of Banner, Baxter has followed and built upon his work. Banner is totally psyched to hear her speak of his work in glowing terms until she says that he was “long-winded”. His expression screamed it all. He wanted to say: “I’ll show you long bitch,” but he didn’t. He is a gentleman, after all.

We meet Carl (Richard Kelton) and he’s a total asshole and obviously the guy that Hulk (Lou Ferigno) is going to fuck up as soon as he can. He tells Baxter, right in front of David, that he can get her grant money if she puts out, basically. Doctor Malone (Dabbs Greer), Baxter’s boss, comes in next and is a total ass as well, telling David to get to work and to go shovel shit. It has to be fucking terrible to be Banner, one of the best minds in the country, a doctor making great money, to have to take these menial fucktard jobs and then be bossed around by mental midgets. The only benefit I can think of is that by being dead, he didn’t have to pay his student loans back. Good. Fuck student loans. I’m glad they got screwed by Banner.

There is something fishy going on at the zoo and Banner senses it. When he sees Carl taking the chimp out and claiming that it’s dead, Banner gets a closer look and realizes that it’s just in a comatose state. Malone comes over and kicks David out of there, but the decision is made to either kill Banner or scare him. What method will they use, I wondered. Maybe they will shoot him. That’s probably the easiest way. Nope. They are going to drug up Elliot the gorilla with the aggression drug and lock David in the cage with him. That won’t be suspicious at all. I guess it doesn’t matter in the end. They knew that we wanted to see Hulk vs. Gorilla and they gave it to us.

The fight between Hulk and Elliot is epic and hilarious. I loved when Hulk fought the bear and tossed that cocksucker across a lake, but this even beats that. Hulk usually doesn’t play dirty, but he hit that ape with one hell of a dick punch. He also threw him through a table, WWE style, and made poor Elliot run back into his cage. Elliot got some shots in and held his own for a bit, but I’m telling you, that dick punch took all the life out of him. I also loved how Elliot looked around and found a microwave (I think) and threw it at Hulk. I know gorillas throw their own shit at people, but I didn’t know they threw appliances as well, but then again, how many gorillas have access to microwave ovens?

The Hulk runs through the zoo, has a moment where he eats peanuts with a little girl, which I always hate those Frankenstein-like moments, before he hauls ass out of there. His presence brings that fucking pain in the ass, Jack McGee (Jack Colvin), and this is the last thing that Banner needs. With this asshole showing up so much, you’d think that Banner would just Hulk up and chase that little shit down and then beat him to death with a rock or something. Considering that most people deny the existence of the Hulk and the newspaper is sick of flying McGee around, that they would stop covering it if McGee came home in a body bag. Hulk saved so many people. I think he should be allowed to kill on nuisance without people judging him.

The game is up and it turns out (spoiler if you care) that Malone and Carl were smuggling in diamonds from South Africa and making a shady deal that was making them both rich. When they find out that Baxter and Banner know, they kidnap them both and plan to inject Banner with the aggression drug to kill him and are going to throw Baxter to the lion. As Malone tries to shoot up Banner, he Hulks up and takes off, just knocking Malone down, barely. I hate that. Malone was ready to kill him. Malone talked to him like he was a piece of shit. Hulk should have taken Malone and beat his head against the wall until his entire face fell off and then took that syringe and shoved it up his ass sideways and then tea bag him before he left. Did I go too far with that? Nah.

The plan to toss Baxter to the lion could work and could be explained as a terrible accident, but when she kicks Carl, he decides to run her over with a car instead. That is going to be tougher to explain. “Yes, the lion somehow drove the car and ran her over officer.” “The lion sleeps tonight my ass.” Oh shit. Isn’t that the perfect reply if the cop said that?

Hulk saves the day and Banner has to leave town again, but he got a kiss in. I’m sure he jerked off in the bathroom too before hitchhiking away. What a great episode this was. I love the addition of a gorilla and the total absurdity of this episode. I was laughing the entire time. I highly recommend this one.

Rating: 8.5/10

The post The Incredible Hulk: The Beast Within (1978) – Marvel SUPERHERO TV SHOW REVIEW appeared first on SCARED STIFF REVIEWS.

By Geno McGahee

David Banner (Bill Bixby) takes a lot of jobs that are underneath him. You’ll often find him washing dishes or cleaning floors, but he was one of the top doctors in the world. It has to be tough on him to take these menial jobs, but not all jobs are as easy as they seem. Banner landed a job working in construction and did a shitty job and caused quite a bit of damage. He was moving a crate by himself and it fell on him and he hulked up and destroyed everything. He had no reason to be pissed at anything but himself for the crate dropping on him. I know what he was thinking: “I’m David Banner. I’m way smarter than these meatheads that ride fork trucks all day. My left nut is smarter than most of them. Anyone with a 40 IQ could do this job.” That sort of thinking fucked him. He moved that crate and boom. He obviously is not cut out for construction but now has a healthy respect for the profession.

Hulk-chasing, pain in the ass reporter, Jack McGee (Jack Colvin), has a new partner at work. Another writer, Fletcher (Michael Conrad), now has to share a desk and assignments with poor Jack. It’s not a welcomed addition and he especially doesn’t like how dismissive this new asshole is when it comes to the Hulk. “Hard to see something that is not there,” Fletcher notes, which is absurd. I get why some people don’t buy Sasquatch…even though the evidence suggests he exists, but to deny the Hulk existing when they have tons of pictures of him running around? These pictures are clear too! I think that Fletcher was just trying to get under McGee’s skin or into his pants.

When Jack gets assigned to another story, a phone call comes in that Fletcher receives. There has been a Hulk sighting in Atlanta. Fletcher books a flight and grabs McGee’s file and heads down to Georgia to see if he can do what his partner couldn’t…prove the Hulk is too legit to quit.

Like in most Hulk episodes, they have one character that should have never been added. Usually, they add them for comic relief, but they are never funny. You’ll have some drunk asshole see the Hulk and then look at the booze and throw the bottle or something along those lines, but here, we have Stella (Jan Sterling). In the defense of the show, I have not gone into the south very much. I’m a New Englander. So, my idea of how a southern person acts and speaks may not be correct, but I have to believe that the Stella character here is way off. It’s as if she walked off of GONE WITH THE WIND and it is so fucking annoying. The cast is pretty strong in this but every time that this bitch comes on the screen, it takes me right out of it. Why did the Hulk series do this? They always had the need to add something shitty to every episode.

Fletcher pretends to be McGee and meets up with Stella and she not only saw the Hulk, but she knows where he lives. When Fletcher gets a glimpse at the suspect, he is shocked. Somehow he knew David Banner and when he comes face to face with him at his apartment door, he challenges him on it. Banner denies it at first, but then Fletcher whipped it out and it was pretty surprising. Well, he whipped out a picture that is and it was strangely a glamour shot of Banner. What is Fletcher doing with this? I know he wants a story, but the fact that he knows Banner and that he carries around a picture of him at all times is creepy. If this took place in 2018, I would bet my house that Banner would yell “get out of here and stop sending me dick pics!”

With no other choice, Banner allows Fletcher in and agrees to be interviewed about his Hulk experience, and this is when the episode nose-dives quickly. Now, if you’re not a Hulk fan and this is the first episode you see, then it may be OK, but the endless flashbacks and recounts of shit I already know took up 80% of this episode. The only breaks were when Fletcher had his own flashbacks about his dying child. The only difference between the two sets of flashbacks is that people echo every word in Fletcher’s.

As Banner goes on and on about his past, he notices that Fletcher is looking at him funny. Concerned, David must have thought that the guy had a hard on for him, but when he pried, the truth came out about his daughter passing. The two began to get along and David even noted how refreshing it was to finally let somebody know of his secret. Unfortunately, all of this shit has brought McGee into town with a tranquilizer gun and the goal to date-rape the Hulk or whatever. Another unfortunate thing is that McGee is teamed up with that annoying cow Stella. Why? Why Hulk writers why? I’m not happy with you.

McGee begins to break in to the apartment with an axe, which is not cool. He is a reporter and, as far as I know, they are not allowed to use axes to break into apartments. Fletcher looks out for Banner as he plans the escape, but as he crawls through the window, Banner cuts his hand and that brings the Hulk for the first time in the episode (not counting flashbacks). He destroys the building and jumps out, which is good news for McGee. He can say Hulk fucked the door up. As Hulk is escaping, McGee tries to use that tranquilizer gun, but Fletcher attacks him and seems to be grinding on top of him. I’m not a fan of McGee, but the last thing I want for him is to be cornholed by this douche.

McGee falls from the building and is caught and saved by the Hulk, which is so fucked up. This asshole has been fucking with Banner forever and he is largely the reason why he has to travel so much. The minute he gets settled down, McGee shows up and he has to jet. Now with McGee falling head first to his death, he opts to save him? No. You let that prick hit the pavement and splatter his brains all over the place. Your biggest problem is gone and you have no guilt. The guy fell. You did not push him. But this did not happen and McGee lived and probably has no intention to stop his quest to ruin Banner’s life.

INTERVIEW WITH THE HULK is a very lazy episode, relying heavily on past footage and stories to float it to the 45 minutes. When you add in the terrible Stella character and the emptiness of the episode as a whole, it’s difficult to recommend this one.

Rating: 3/10

The post The Incredible Hulk: Interview with the Hulk (1981) – Marvel SUPERHERO TV SHOW REVIEW appeared first on SCARED STIFF REVIEWS.

By Geno McGahee

With Wrestlemania just behind us, could there be a better time to do a review about a Hulk episode involving pro wrestling? Then again, the 1981 episode “HALF NELSON” isn’t too flattering on the wrestling business and they didn’t seem to know a lot about it outside of the fact that there are occasional midgets. You don’t see midget wrestling that much anymore. I can’t say that it’s a shame. It seemed right up there, or down there, with midget tossing. Remember that? What was that about? Fucking tossing midgets.

In this episode, we have David Banner (Bill Bixby), walking the streets where he hears a ruckus. He walks into the alley and sees two thugs ready to corn hole a midget. As he approaches, one of the thugs takes out a knife and asks “you looking to get involved?” Of course he is. Have you seen a Hulk episode where bad shit is happening and Banner just walks by and says “fuck them”? No. He will always try to help even when he should mind his own business.

The two thugs rob David and that’s when the midget, Buster (Tommy Madden), lays into him, noting that he was just about to beat those two thugs down before David showed up. That’s total bullshit. One of the thugs had him from behind has Buster just kept repeating that “you’re going to be in a world of hurt” and “you’re going to be sorry.” I know it’s background dialogue, but you’d think that they would mix it up a little. He just keeps saying the same two phrases over and over again. When the thugs are gone, Buster notes that he is “commando-trained” and “size means nothing.” That’s not true. Size is everything, right? Or is it not the size of the ship, but the motion of the ocean? Whatever the case, I have heard that little people are hung like horses.

With no money and no place to go, David agrees to stay with Buster for the time being and is invited to a wrestling event where Buster is headlining. WHAT?!!! All you pro wrestling fans out there. Have you ever went to an even where it was headlined by midgets? I’m not saying that you can’t have a good midget match…wait a minute…yes I am. Midgets do not belong in the ring. There. I said it. But back to the point. A midget headlining a wrestling card? I call bullshit.

As Buster takes on some grease ball, we get shots of the crowd having a lot of fun. They are way too enthusiastic, but they were probably getting a free lunch for being an extra. When you get the action in the ring, you realize that they shot the midget match at another time when nobody was in the crowd. Sometimes, they get wider shots and you see the empty arena and Buster playing it up like he has tons of spectators. Hey, he tried. I give him that.

In the audience, Banner is having a great time, laughing hysterically at the action. I don’t think that he has much respect for little people. He may even snap and say “who said that they were people” if you questioned him on it. Now, Banner has been all heart from day one and is the most accepting guy in the world, but everyone has some bias or hatred in their heart and I think we found it here. Banner hates midgets.

The more Buster talks, the more he brags about himself and it gets old fast. Banner was one of the biggest names in the medical field and this little fucking shit is running his mouth like he’s king shit. He even notes that everyone knows him and that he can get whatever he wants, whenever he wants, including the blonde babe, Mitzi (Elaine Joyce). He doesn’t care that she is taken by 65-year-old fake Russian wrestler, Gregor (H.B. Haggerty). Buster just wants to buster a nut and tries to impress the babe with his bullshit, but this bullshit is going to fuck him in the ass.

Apparently, the mob was screwed over for a lot of money by some wrestlers and Mitzi is willing to screw any one of them that is willing to spend the cash on her, including Buster. So, that little shit says that he knows who took the money, is going to have some of the money, and that David is involved too. This gets Mitzi wet and she plants a kiss on Buster as Gregor storms over, ready to stomp a mud hole in both he and poor David. David helped that little shit out and this is the thanks he gets? Ridiculous.

David gets invited to a party by Marsha (Sandy Dryfoos), who is short, but I don’t think she’s an official midget. She has a thing for Buster and has friends that are exclusively little people. At the party, David feels out of place as all these midget faces are at his crotch level. “While you’re down there,” is a comment I can imagine him saying. Why not? There is even a decent looking midget chick there that likes David, but if he’s not willing to screw a full-sized girl because of fear of hulking up while having sex, then a midget is out of the question. You hulk up during intercourse with a little person, you’ll never find the body. It’s not a good idea.

We learn that Buster wanted to be doctor but fell in love with pro wrestling, which puts David into advisor role. He really looks down on pro wrestling and I know he’s a doctor and I know he’s educated, but wrestling can be fun. He was just at a shitty show. If the Junkyard Dog was there, David would have a better respect for the business, but he doesn’t know a thing about it and neither does the writer of the episode. I think they just watched REQUIEM FOR A HEAVYWEIGHT and that was all they needed to know about the game.

The mobsters find out that dickhead midget Buster is involved and so too is David. They find poor Banner and chase him down as some guy with a broom that looks like the grandpa from WILLY WONKA is sweeping the outdoor steps. Is there a connection here? The Oompa Loompa were midgets too, right? Well, as David is dragged into the alley to have his ass handed to him, the grandpa guy took his golden ticket ass into his house and locked the door. David escapes the goons and runs over and that mother fucker would not let him in. Poor Banner is left to deal with the mobsters and it goes as expected. They fuck him up and he Hulks up and then he fucks them up and they run away, but there was a nice change this time. He was still pissed at the Willy Wonka guy and threw a metal fence at him. I wish the Hulk chose to grab him, drag him outside, yank down his pants and give him an everlasting gobstopper and split him like firewood.

Now, whenever the Hulk makes an appearance, Jack McGee (Jack Colvin), will show up and he does, immediately speaking to that asshole from Willy Wonka. When the 10 thousand dollar reward for the capture of the Hulk is noted, McGee starts getting pressure from this asshole to pay up, even though there was no capture. Remarkably, McGee does give him 30 bucks for his cooperation, which is like 100 bucks today. I didn’t like the fact that McGee gave that prick any money. Why are they rewarding bad behavior?

Everything comes down to the big night, where once again, Buster is headlining the event. Before the match goes on, Mitzi shows up and starts getting romantic with the little guy, but things go sour. She calls him a lying little shit, more or less, and exposes him for the fraud he is. Buster calls her a “dumb doxie,” which really offended her. I’ve never heard of the term “doxie” but it probably translates to “cunt.” She flips out, calls him a “shrimp”, and storms out. With her missing, Gregor is on the warpath, looking for Buster and David. He’ll teach them for banging that dumb doxie.

On top of McGee at the stadium, Gregor hunting them down, the mobsters seeking him out, David learns that Buster has implicated him in the stolen mob money. Now this was the point where David should have hulked up and beat the midget to death. It would have been totally justified, but they didn’t go in that direction. He forgave him, but he still had to deal with the bullshit. The first piece of nonsense was McGee, who barges into the locker room. Thinking quickly, David grabs a ski mask and pretends to be a wrestler…an angry wrestler, yelling at McGee and telling him to fuck off. This must have felt good. That fuckhead has been nothing but a pain in the ass for Banner since day one. Screaming at him had to be fantastic.

Gregor sees David in the mask and initially thinks he’s “Deadnot,” but when he realizes that he doesn’t have the right physique, he figures it out and chases David to the ring. An impromptu match begins and David gets the holy hell beat out of him by the faux Russian. McGee panics, realizing that the man behind the mask will turn into the Hulk if he gets too pissed off, but nothing can stop Gregor as he puts the pain on poor David. The Hulk emerges and it was pretty cool-looking to see the Hulk rip through the ski mask. It was almost creepy. He tosses Gregor out of the ring and runs away to the locker room. He beats up the mobsters and runs from the cops…but one of the cops had a clear shot and went to kill the Hulk. McGee hit his hand away and Hulk got free. I wonder if McGee will be arrested for interfering with police business. I also wonder if the mobsters returned and killed Buster. I assume they must have. I can’t imagine their boss telling them to forget the money. They were beat up, sure, but they weren’t killed. They still have a job to do. Buster will be dead in a week.

I really enjoyed HALF NELSON, even though it was rather critical of wrestling and I like wrestling. At one point, when Hulk runs out of the ring, the whole crowd is applauding and only Jack McGee is standing. He should have enjoyed the moment. Just stand there and take it in and then see if you can get any of that wrestling groupie pussy. It has to be better than newspaper reporter groupie pussy, right?

I recommend this episode. It was very entertaining and silly fun.

Rating: 7/10

The post The Incredible Hulk: Half Nelson (1981) – Marvel SUPERHERO TV SHOW REVIEW appeared first on SCARED STIFF REVIEWS.

By Geno McGahee

I am so sick of these people saying that there are no jobs out there. Look at David Banner (Bill Bixby). He is out there every week with a new job and he’s not afraid to try something new. He has that much confidence in his ability to learn. In the episode “PATTERNS”, David finds a job working for a clothing design and supply company and he seems to really enjoy the work. Solly (Joshua Shelley) supervises David as he works and noted that he had “good hands.” When a dude tells me I have good hands, that’s my tip to quit the job immediately. I don’t want him telling me what I could do with my good hands.

After a hard day of work, David is called into the office of the owner, Sam (Eddie Barth), and for some reason, David is wearing a white mini-skirt. I’m thinking that he was forced into it. If you want the job, you will dress sexy! That was probably what he was told, but it’s sad to see such an educated kind man reduced to a slut whore.

In the office, Sam is arguing with Marvin (Larry Marko) over some money due as Sam’s daughter, Liz (Laurie Heineman), watches on. Sam owes the dude six months worth of money and he’s acting as if it’s nothing. At one point, he tells poor Marvin to basically shove it up his ass and then tells David to “show him the door.” Never afraid to get into the business of others, David talks to Marvin and tells him of the upcoming fashion show that they are putting on and that they would gladly pay up once the show made money. Marvin is cool now, but I wouldn’t be. Sam has been fucking him in the ass for six months and when he comes to collect, he’s being nice until Sam tells him to bend over and take it hard. Now, he’s got this guy in a white mini-skirt telling him that he’ll get paid? One thing in life that I have learned….never trust a dude dressed like a slut.

When David leaves the office, Sam starts singing his praises and is trying to get his daughter involved with him, nothing that he’s a “good-looking guy.” Maybe Sam swung that way. Perhaps he wanted David for himself. Sam was later proved a horn dog as he walked out to flirt with his crew, especially poor Esther. He walks up to her and makes kissy faces and then calls her “honey.” Now, these employees of his probably were making minimum wage. If you’re going to be sexually harassed, it should be for top dollar.

After that #metoo moment, Sam walks up to Steve, who looks like a creep. I’m guessing that he took some employees from a work release program for sex offenders. I swear I would not allow Steve around animals or children, but he was aces in Sam’s book. When Steve walks away, Sam offers David a promotion to become his “right hand.” Well, I’m sure I would not want the job that Sam’s right hand does, especially at night when skinamax is on the TV, but David wants to see how it will pan out. He knew that if Sam shoved his right hand into his pants, he would just hulk up and ram Sam with his green salami.

So we know that Sam is a jerk, a sexual predator and we also find out that he isn’t paying his employees, but it even gets worse. He borrows 15 grand from mobsters at 33% interest and then tells them that if they don’t get the money, they can take it out on his “partner”, David. What a scumbag thing to do to poor David. Like he doesn’t have enough trouble already. He doesn’t get laid. He lost his good job. He’s wanted for murder. He has Jack McGee up his ass weekly. Now, he is on the hook against the mob because this one asshole has no care for anyone but himself? What bullshit.

Things get worse when Mr. Cox (Beans Morocco) shows up to tell Sam that they are no longer accepting his product. It turns out that nobody is buying the shit and that they are done dealing with him. Sam begged and pleaded, doing everything short of sucking Cox’s cock, but it was all for not. Now, he can’t afford the first payment to the mob and David is going to find out the hard way that he is involved. Can’t poor David go one week without getting his ass handed to him? Can’t he just have a normal week? I would like to see an episode where David sits in front of a TV set, watching my 600 pound life, and saying “fat slobs should be shot” while downing beers and jacking off. It would give a new dimension to the character…as a fat shamer.

The mobster jump David and we get the Hulk about 27 minutes into the show. The story was interesting enough to not need the Hulk, but it was nice to see him and he did not take too kindly to the mobsters beating his ass when he was Banner. The Hulk was in a strange mood here. Sure, he was fucking ripshit at the bad guys, but he had a smile on his face part of the time. He was really enjoying beating their asses.

Hulk finds a mannequin and gets confused and then sees a sewing machine and is confused again, but we didn’t get the normal wannabe comic relief that we see in so many other episodes. Usually, they’d have some annoying guy that works there, wearing headphones so he couldn’t hear the ruckus, walk out dancing and see the Hulk, look him up and down and say something like “your pants need to be hemmed mister.” I’m so happy they left that shit out of this. It was NEVER funny and it always pisses me off and as one of the biggest fans of the series, you don’t want to lose me now. Then again, it’s been off the air for 35 or so years. They probably don’t give a fuck if I like it or not.

When the dust settles, Sam insists that nobody call the police and even smugly says “nobody got hurt.” What about David? He had his ass handed to him. Of course, Sam knows who did it and why and don’t want to get them more pissed off at him…but what about poor David? Sam turns into an even bigger asshole cock when his daughter says she doesn’t want to be involved in the business anymore. He says “who needs her”, as she walks away and tells David “What does she know” when he suggests that he makes Liz a partner. Sam is a total asshole but this episode is pushing hard for people to like him. Fuck him. Fuck Sam.

The mobsters hire some white trash guy to burn down the office as the team is away at the big fashion show, but when they forget a suit, Liz runs back and gets locked into a room by the redneck hillbilly bad guy. To all offended by terms like “white trash”, “redneck”, or “hillbilly,” please fuck off. Anyway, in a surprise moment, Liz screams “open this damn door!” I don’t think I ever heard anyone say “damn” in a Hulk episode. Damn is small potatoes today, but back then, it was probably big news. It may have even been bigger news than a nip slip on Wonder Woman. Still haven’t found one, but as I go frame by frame, I’m sure I will. I’m not a quitter.

Sam gets beaten just a smidge by the bad guys before the Hulk shows up to save the day. He beats their asses and goes and saves Liz, leading to a happy conclusion with everyone standing there in great moods. I have a question though. What happened to the mob? They are still owed over 15k and I don’t think they were paid. I would also think that they would up the price to at least double for the green guy being involved and the white trash guy costing some money too. Did they just walk away? I think not. I’m guessing that after David left the city and moved on, Sam was murdered by the mob and his place was burned down. I have no sympathy.

PATTERNS is a decent episode, but I have my issues with it. Sam should have never been seen as an OK guy at the end. Banner even shook his hand and gave him a warm smile before taking off. Sam should have been killed in this one and Liz should have dated Banner. With all the pants he ripped through, having a fashion designer girlfriend makes all the sense in the world. Who knows, through necessity, she may have invented jeggings.

I recommend this episode. It was decent. Not a lot of Hulk, but the story was strong enough not to really need it that much.

Rating: 7/10

The post The Incredible Hulk: Patterns (1981) – Marvel SUPERHERO TV SHOW REVIEW appeared first on SCARED STIFF REVIEWS.

By Geno McGahee

With the popularity of THOR: RAGNAROK, I thought it was time to watch the film that brought back the real Hulk (Lou Ferigno)…not some CGI green dude. If you want Hulk, you find a dude and paint him green. Keep that computer off bitches. All you need is paint. In THE INCREDIBLE HULK RETURNS, we see the original series picked up again after six years of being off the air. The made for TV film wanted to present something different and brought in another Marvel character and that superhero is Thor (Eric Allen Kramer), which immediately throws this film on my bad side. I never liked when they started meshing these superheroes together, especially Hulk. In the Hulk series, we had David Banner (Bill Bixby) dealing with a personal problem and he was seeking to find the cure, butting into the business of many other people, getting himself in trouble, and moving on. Every once in a while, he would fight something out of the ordinary like a bear or another Hulk, but another Hulk made sense because another regular guy used the same gamma radiation to change…but now we have a god mixed into this series? What? OK, maybe I started off on the wrong foot here. I’m sure many comic book geeks creamed their shorts over this film, but I’m not into comic books and loved the execution of the series…now we have Thor. Damn Thor.

We begin with Banner having a nightmare, but awakening in a new world…to the viewers at least. All these years, he strayed away from chicks because he didn’t want to Hulk up and hurt them or as Hulk would put it: “Hulk tear that shit up.” Now, he is sort of living with Maggie Shaw (Lee Purcell), but has not fully committed to it. He sleeps over but still keeps an apartment. We learn that it has been two years since he has Hulked up, which sucks because that leaves four years of undocumented Hulk activity. Damn them for cancelling the show!

Maggie is a widow and is quite taken with Banner or “Banyon” as he goes by in this episode. Why always names that start with B? You’d think that he would come up with other names with different letters, but I guess it was easier to remember. Anyway, both Maggie and Banner work at a huge corporation that has created a gamma transponder that reverses gamma radiation, which was created by Banner. The owner of the company, Josh Lambert (John Gabriel), allows David to work in anonymity but offers to help him get out of any trouble he’s in. Banner thanks him, but how’s he going to get him off of a murder wrap? If they use him Hulking out as a defense, he then has to deal with destruction of public and private property. Hulk has fucked shit up over the years and who pays for it? We do, the tax payers and I would definitely want Banner to pay up what he owes. You throw a redneck through a barn, insurance may not cover that shit.

While working, some geek with a grappling hook appears and gets entrance into the building. It’s the worst character in the entire movie, Donald Blake (Steve Levitt). He was a fan of Banner for a long time, met him once at some conference, and has now found him to tell him a big secret. Before I get into that secret, how the hell did he find Banner? He’s been extremely careful …outside of the name thing. I bet it was the name thing. Whatever the case, this curly-haired nerd starts talking and narrating his adventure into the snowy hills of somewhere, where he found a cave and some ancient writing. He then found a grave, and in the grave was a hammer, and by using that hammer, he resurrects Thor. He even controls him now. Time out! Thor is supposed to be the biggest bad ass in the universe and now this skinny geek controls him because he has possession of the hammer? I thought that nobody could lift the hammer but Thor (keep in mind, I’m not a comic book geek and could be mistaken).

Outside of the grave, it looks like Blake is pretending to jack off with the hammer. That is very disrespectful and when Banner doubts his story, Blake whips it out. The hammer at least. With the hammer, he summons Thor and he starts tearing shit up in the lab. Banner worked hard on this shit. He doesn’t need some dude going around breaking everything. Banner pleads to Thor to leave, but he refuses and launches him into a circuit box or something and it zaps the shit out of him. After 2 years of successfully suppressing the Hulk, he begins to switch. Thor watches on in amazement, but so too does Blake. Now, Thor makes sense. He’s taken on monsters before but Blake is a pussy. He should have shat his pants and ran out the door offering to blow anyone that agrees to get him out of there.

A battle ensues between Hulk and Thor and it sucks. I’m sorry, these two don’t belong in the same movie. Fuck the haters. Hulk is his own man and does not belong socializing with other superheroes. This movie had no respect for the series and had no respect for the Hulk, giving him a shitty wig and then ripping his pants without any originality. Like you rip your pants evenly. You ever rip your pants? You ever put on a midget’s pants and they ripped off like nobody’s business? Me either, but you get the point.

Another thing that I should mention is that Hulk is hairy in this one. Why was it gross to see Hulk with all that black hair on his legs and arms? Hulk’s hair turned green on his head right? So, I guess the carpet doesn’t match the drapes for all of you keeping score. I don’t think Ferigno was into this one and did not shave his legs and arms like he used to. He was just here for the paycheck.

With the Hulk sightings going on, Jack McGee (Jack Colvin) shows up again, but it’s tough to watch this movie and not be disgusted as a die-hard Hulk series fan. Jack tells the cop that the Hulk was “seen with a Viking.” Fuck. That is painful to write. Hulk only assholes. You want to put another bad Hulk in there fine. You want rednecks fine. You want a bear, awesome. BUT I cannot deal with the idea of Thor in this. Poor McGee. At this point, I think I would have given up my search for the Hulk and you’d think that his paper would have pulled him off the subject, especially with 2 years of no Hulk sightings at all. They must really like him or they remember the time when he faked a suicide attempt after being canned. Drama queen.

Now, Banner is forever saddled with Blake. He can’t get rid of the guy. I was hoping Banner would Hulk up and bend Blake over and split him like firewood. That’d teach him a thing or two about fucking up Banner’s life! There is one time, however, where Blake gets lost. He takes Thor to a bar to get women and to have fun. They must have struggled to get this film to the 90 minutes it needed to be. So, they had Thor dance around with some chicks. I guess it’s better than Blake doing more narration or jerking off Thor’s hammer again.

As things get back to normal, a bunch of bad guys invade the Lambert building with guns drawn. Banner Hulks up and takes them down along with Thor, again…and that damn Blake! Why not kill Blake? Why not just throw him off a building and Thor could even toss the hammer up his ass for good measure. Even writing about Blake pisses me off. This is not the Hulk show I knew and loved. You ruined it YOU BASTARDS!

The bad guys, led by Jack (Tim Thomerson) and Mike (Charles Napier), come up with plan B. They dress as police officers, somehow get a police chopper, and attack Maggie’s house. They kidnap her and take off, letting Banner know that if he doesn’t turn over the gamma transponder, she’s a dead woman. Thor gets ready for battle as Blake goes on and on and on. Jesus…shut the fuck up Blake! I will say this though. As much as I hated this film and how they strayed from the formula really badly, Eric Allen Kramer had his moments. One moment was when he answered the door in a towel only as Jack McGee came knocking. He pushed McGee around, which is something that he desperately needed. Screw McGee for all the shit he put Banner through. I could tell that McGee was very nervous about an ass rape as Thor kept pushing forward toward him. That fear got him hauling ass out of there. Thor was amusing at other times as well, as he learned about the culture, but there wasn’t enough of it to make it worth it here.

We get a big showdown at an old warehouse. Banner, Thor and asshole Blake go there to save the girl and take on the bad guys and I have to say that this is the first time that I have seen the Hulk kill somebody. Perhaps this has to do with the bad guys taking his girl from him. He takes this steel beam and slams it into one guy’s chest, launching him fifty feet. That shot to the chest is deadly. He’s dead. Hulk killed him. Hulk then followed up by hitting two other goons and there is no way that they survived. As he murders more people, Thor is taking on his share of bad guys, including one guy that shoots Thor a few times, which does nothing. Instead of running, the bad guy throws his gun at him. If the bullets did not hurt Thor, how the fuck would throwing the gun at him do anything? Maybe if he threw it at Thor’s balls and hoped that he felt it down there…that’d make sense, but not this.

So, Hulk and Thor win and Maggie is saved and Blake won’t shut up! Who is this guy? I just read up that Blake is the alter ego of Thor and whoever put this shit together made them two separate people. Fuck that noise. I’m sure Thor is rolling over in his grave right now…if Thor was real…and if Thor was dead. Maggie looks at Hulk as he just stands there and sort of guesses that it must be Banner. She’s been with him for a while. He’s stayed the night. Why would she assume that he turns into a green monster rather than just think that it’s some random green monster in town and Banner must be out somewhere …maybe a strip club. A lot of this movie did not make sense.

Thor sort of looked like Chris Jericho too. That threw me off. If there was a Chris Jericho lookalike contest in 1988, this guy would have certainly won it. He even sounded like him from time to time. Hulk teaming up with Chris Jericho might have been mad cool. It would have been cooler than this. That’s for sure.

I was surprised to find out that Eric Allen Kramer played “Bear” in AMERICAN WEDDING. He was hilarious in that. He’s been in a lot of stuff since this, and he honestly did rather well in this. He just wasn’t given anything to work with, much like poor Hulk. THE INCREDIBLE HULK RETURNS is just shit. The film crawls along at a snail’s pace. Bixby was directing and also acting, which took away from his skills in front of the camera, or maybe he was rusty, but he just didn’t work well in this. Lee Purcell did well and Ferigno tried, but it just wasn’t good material. As for Blake… FUCK BLAKE.

THE INCREDIBLE HULK RETURNS should have never been made. They could have made a Thor made for TV film or make a real Hulk movie that follows the winning formula set forth by the series. As a huge fan of the Hulk series, I’m disgusted by this film. I gave it a chance. I said, fine, Thor is in it and I have to accept it, but I didn’t think it would be this bad. Avoid Hulk fans. Avoid!

Rating: 2/10

The post The Incredible Hulk Returns (1988) – Marvel SUPERHERO MOVIE REVIEW …with Thor appeared first on SCARED STIFF REVIEWS.

By Geno McGahee

David Banner (Bill Bixby) is always looking to interfere in the lives of others. He’s not a bad guy, but he is a busy-body. If there is any trouble, he will get involved and try to fix it. Sure, he helps a lot of people but I often thought that once he fled town, those he helped would revert back to the pussies they were before he came along to save the day. Whatever the case, I cannot argue with his intentions. They were surely good across the board.

In the 1981 episode “THE HARDER THEY FALL,” Banner is minding his own business for once, standing on the street corner, waiting for a ride. He has obviously arrived in a town that had no immediate problems to solve. So, it was time to move on, but a car blows out a front tire and barrels right into David, launching him into another car. Hit by two cars at once…that really sucks for the poor guy. I’m sure some of the bad guys that he beat up in prior episodes were happy to hear of this.

David wakes up in the hospital and can’t move. He is paralyzed from the waist down, which shows a new side to Banner. He starts getting depressed and snippy, especially to the nurse. She tries to soothe him by telling him he still has his arms, but he may have thought she was making a masturbation reference which was in really bad taste. I don’t think that she was, but you never know nowadays or nowadays in 1981.

After being told that he will never walk again, Banner is put into a crowded room with other guys in wheelchairs and he is not happy. What dude would be happy in that situation? Stuck in a sausage fest and being helpless. That sucks and Banner was not pleased. He looked across the room at Bobby (Alan Toy) and he was very creepy…rape you in your sleep creepy….fake being in a wheelchair, rape you in your sleep creepy. Banner sensed it. I could see it in his eyes. Perhaps Hulking up and tossing Bobby out of the hospital head first into the concrete pavement would have been the right thing to do…just in case that perv-looking fucker got horny. You wouldn’t like him when he’s horny.

A familiar face rolls into the room. Paul, played by Denny Miller, was also in one of my favorite Hulk episodes “KILLER INSTINCT” in 1978. They probably thought that nobody would remember him after 3 years or maybe they had a shortage of TV actors, or this is the same character, which is my contention. In KILLER INSTINCT, he played John Tobey, a professional football player with a terrible temper. He would take it out on other players and often hurt them severely. With some hypnotic regression, he would start screaming about “cheaters” he encountered when he was younger. Eventually, David helped the guy out, but now he’s back and in a wheelchair. Yeah, good one David. You did really good helping him out.

Paul rolls to David with a basketball on his lap. I’ve learned, you avoid guys that cover up their crotch with anything. They are hiding erections 99.9% of the time. It’s a proven statistic. Google it. (Note: Percentage based on assumption, not fact). At first, David wants nothing to do with Paul and wants to just lie there and feel sorry for himself. Paul explains that he has helped a lot of the other crippled dudes there, but Banner just isn’t ready. He is trying to figure out why he can’t fix himself like he’s done in the past, but there is a pretty good reason. He hasn’t Hulked up yet. The Hulk fixes himself. Banner is relatively regular and can’t heal rapidly and doesn’t want to Hulk up and start tossing people out of wheelchairs. So, he must play the game and go through the treatments to live as a paralyzed guy.

Paul and David become friends and we find out that Paul is former pro footballer and even the picture of himself in football uniform on his wall looks identical to his uniform in KILLER INSTINCT. I’m telling you, this is John Tobey, going by the name “Paul” now. Maybe it’s witness protection. He saw some horse rapist and testified on behalf on the animal and they want to make sure he is safe, especially if he wants to go as a horse for Halloween. Whatever the case, the more I watch Paul in action, the more I see how he is the same guy from KILLER INSTINCT. I’m surprised that Banner doesn’t confront him. A “I remember you asshole” would have been enough to link the episodes.

David, still somewhat depressed, falls out of bed and there is nobody around. And you wonder why these nursing homes and hospitals get such bad press. They don’t give two shits about their patients. Poor Banner was lying there forever before Paul found him. Where the hell was the nurse? Maybe she was pissed off at him. Depressed people aren’t easy to like. They always bring you down. That’s why the best thing to do is to tell them to get lost and be sad somewhere else.

Eventually, David gets a better attitude and is now really enjoying hanging out with Paul. They do a recovery montage, where David lifts weights and climbs ropes, but then he rolls backwards down a set of stairs. When he lands safely, the people applaud. I think this wasn’t part of recovery. I bet somebody said, probably a nurse, “ I bet he can’t go down the stairs backwards without falling and breaking his ass.” Other than that, the montage seemed normal.

To reward David for his progression, Paul takes him out on the town to a sports bar and all is well until Al (Joe Dorsey) approaches the duo and offers to pay for their drinks, believing that they are wounded soldiers. Paul takes great offense and rolls over and gives Al back his money and challenges him to a fight. Paul really had a temper and because of that temper, a fight breaks out and poor David is launched down a flight of stairs. This episode gave the Banner stuntman quite the work.

Banner Hulks up, but the Hulk is confused because his legs are still sort of fucked. He’s able to climb the stairs and destroy the bar, but he didn’t beat the fuck out of anyone like he usually does. He just focused on destruction of private property. Paul watched on and he had this “I’ve seen this before look.” Maybe he didn’t know he was really John from the other episode. This show is not beyond putting amnesia into the storyline.

The Hulk sighting brings Jack McGee (Jack Colvin) and he now wants to speak to Paul, but Paul has other plans. He wants to re-launch his sporting goods store and just needs a loan from the bank, but when he gets there, Melton (William Bogert), the loan officer, explains that the market is in the tank and that he can’t get the loan. Immediately, Paul starts telling Melton that he is being discriminated against. What bullshit. If the market sucks, the market sucks, but Paul will not get it out of his head that it’s due to him being in a wheelchair. Keep in mind that Paul is at the hospital to inspire and help others in wheelchairs and how the hell is he going to do that when he has this idea that the whole world is against them?

The Hulk transformation has helped David to start walking again, but when he runs into Paul, he realizes that something is wrong. He plans to rob the bank to send a message. David can’t stop him as he takes off, but he soon sees a familiar car. McGee pulls in and parks in the handicapped spot, prompting some geek to yell at him to move it. He refuses and runs in, but notes that the keys are in the ignition. Banner steals the car and takes off to stop Paul, but it had to feel good to take the prick’s car. I knew McGee was an asshole, but to park in a handicapped spot too? That place is full of handicapped people and now one of them probably had to walk from the parking garage because of that asshole. Not cool McGee! Not cool!

Because Banner’s legs are fucked, he is having a hard time driving the car, prompting the redneck asshole behind him to start blaring on the horn. It’s rather funny to watch the guy get so pissed off and spout of things like “what’s with this guy” over and over. The honking distracts Banner enough to cause an accident. Banner plows into another car and gets hit by the redneck which is great. It’s not his car! McGee will have to eat the cost.

All of the honking, insults, and accidents get the best of Banner and as he Hulks up, he hears that asshole redneck call him an “idiot” and a “dumb idiot” to the gathering crowd. Banner was one of the most respected doctors in the world and this guy that probably works at Walmart is now calling him an idiot? That had to quicken the Hulking process. I was certain that this guy was going to find out that the Hulk isn’t paralyzed from the waist down as he chased this pecker, bent him over and split him like firewood.

With a huge kick, the car door comes flying off…more damage to McGee’s car. Good. Fuck him. Hulk then screams a few times and destroys the redneck’s car. He totally deserved that. Hulk then runs to the bank to stop Paul from robbing it. He breaks both doors and knocks the poor 80 year old security guard on his ass. He probably died. If you toss an 80 year old into the wall and you’re that strong, you killed the guy. Hulk may not respect his elders.

When Hulk sees Melton, he starts breaking stuff around him, and Melton begins to cry and scream “don’t hurt me.” I’ve seen a lot of Hulk episodes, but Melton may get the pussy of the series award, although I don’t think he deserved this. Melton was just doing his job and was probably right about the economy. Paul did not have income and all signs pointed to a bad loan. So, he wasn’t a bad guy. He was just doing the job. Hulk got this one wrong. Paul was the one that needed a reality check here, but instead, the Hulk bullied poor Melton.

Leaving the wheelchair behind, Hulk picks up Paul and runs off with him as he’s done with many others. What he was protecting Paul from, I don’t know. He only carried him over to a street bench about fifteen feet from the building. Maybe the Hulk was planning on blowing up the building to send the message home to Melton and wanted Paul to see how glorious it would be, but that never happened.

THE HARDER THEY FALL is not a great episode of Hulk but it’s not a bad one either. I really wish that they gave Denny Miller more moments where he could scream and go crazy as he did in the other episode. When he’s going nuts, he is very amusing, but he kept it rather under control here, outside of an outburst here and there…but most of those were normal ones. In KILLER INSTINCT, he was so over the top, I couldn’t get enough of it.

I recommend this episode. It’s worth a watch and entertaining for the most part.

Rating: 6/10

The post The Incredible Hulk: The Harder They Fall (1981) – Marvel SUPERHERO TV SHOW REVIEW appeared first on SCARED STIFF REVIEWS.

By Geno McGahee

I feel so bad for David Banner (Bill Bixby). Sure, he can’t mind his own business, but he’s overall a good guy. Unfortunately, he’s always getting into trouble. The guy gets his ass thrown through walls on a weekly basis, which is odd. He’s a nice guy and you’d think that this sort of thing would happen to a complete prick. Even with complete assholes, they don’t get their asses handed to them regularly. It happens here and there. For Banner though, he gets fucked up all the time and deals with mistreatment from every angle. I guess this would not be a good show if he just had a normal life….goes grocery shopping, happy that the deli meats are on sale and watches Wheel of Fortune before rubbing one out and going to sleep. If he turned into the Hulk while rubbing one out, that might be a whole new show, but then the sponsors would probably pull out and the sensitive snowflakes or whatever it is that they’re called would boycott Hulk jizz. Get a life.

Now, Banner has put a lot of work in to become one of the best doctors in the world, but he can’t practice his craft and has to take shit jobs like working at a car wash. In the Like a Brother episode of the Hulk, Banner has to deal with racism. Being the only white guy working there, he immediately deals with Mike (Stuart K. Robinson), a jerk that keeps on throwing out racist shit. “You’re in the wrong place for a lot of reasons,” Mike smugly notes at poor Banner as he’s trying to eat. The other employees are cool with David, but there’s still tension all around.

Making matters worse is Taylor George (Tony Burton), a rich drug runner that has Mike on his payroll. When he drives up, Banner goes to tend to his car and George immediately says “look what they’re hiring now.” That hurt Banner’s feelings. He’s sensitive. On top of that bullshit comment, George opens his door and a huge black panther is sitting there and growls as Banner, prompting yet another racist comment. “He sure likes white meat.” I expected more from you Burton! You trained Apollo Creed for Christ’s sake! Had I known you felt this way, I would have NEVER watched a ROCKY film.

George’s partner in crime, Lee (Ernie Hudson), is the muscle of the team and he has no issues roughing up poor David and treating him like a “fucking bitch.” OK, he didn’t say that, but if this was an R rated flick, you bet his Ghost-busting ass he would have said that. The interactions with Mike and Taylor doesn’t go unnoticed and Oscar (Carl Anderson) and DJ (Michael D. Roberts) inform David that he’s bad news and that Mike is working for him. I saw David’s eyes light up. He found another cause. I guess sometimes I don’t feel so bad for him. If he just walked away, nobody would have fucked with him. Just scrub the bumpers, go home, watch Wheel of Fortune, rub one out, order a pizza and go to bed. Is that really that difficult Banner?

DJ, who has a fetish for cars, cuts himself badly with a razor and can you guess who runs over to help him? David Banner again runs over and helps him out, bandaging him up and irritating Mike that much more. Mike keeps running his mouth and Banner is getting irritated but he doesn’t want to fight because he doesn’t want to be called racist. It’s bad enough that he turns green and fucks shit up and even worse that he changed his name to David from Bruce because it sounded gay, but imagine if he was racist too! “Oh there’s homophobic racist Hulk. I bet he’s friends with Kevin Spacey.” Do you think Banner needs that shit?

When Oscar and DJ ask Mike why he’s being such a dick to David, he notes that “anyone messing with my main man is messing with me.” Aaaah…now it makes sense. Banner must’ve had a little side action with Mike’s main man and Mike had zero interest in sloppy seconds. That’s not Banner’s fault. He rarely has sex…if at all. The risk of Hulking up during intercourse is too high. Imagine what would be left if he went full Hulk sex on somebody. When Mike realizes that this was true or that he forgave his main man, he flirts with Banner a bit. I’m pretty sure that the character Mike was originally supposed to be played by a chick. It follows the format of most Hulk episodes. He meets a girl, protects her, saves the day, gets none and runs away with ripped pants and blue balls. But in this one, he has this dude Mike that invites him over for dinner and says his parents aren’t home. I know what it means when a girl says come over and her parents aren’t home. I was young once. It meant nothing. I never got any.

When Banner goes over Mike’s apartment, he notices that there is a sex swing hanging from the ceiling and ball gags all over the floor. Disregard. I’m watching two programs at once. I got mixed up. He actually sees Bobby (Dale Pullum), perhaps the worst actor in the history of the Hulk show. Where did they find this kid? He is so bad that it immediately takes you out of the show. Anyway, Mike reveals that he’s been taking care of his younger brother and that Taylor George has treated them well. Is that enough for David? Of course not. He shit talks George, which is probably related to all that racist shit and the panther that he encountered before.

Bobby has a medical emergency and David tries to break up a meeting with Mike and the drug runners to inform him, but they’re not having any of it. Lee beats Banner to a pulp and throws him through the car wash, under the car. Almost 30 minutes in…we were due for a Hulk appearance. As David is dragged under the car, we hear the growls and the car gets destroyed, but sadly, he really doesn’t fuck up the bad guys. Some woman with a stroller loses her kid and Hulk gets fixated with looking at the little girl. He smiles as she smiles. I hate this shit. Hulk should not calm down. He should be like the people that get irritated with the out of control kids at Walmart. Maybe he could scream “Where are the fucking parents?!” Hulk should have had an episode where he went to Walmart and took all the fatties in pajama pants and threw them around for an hour. It’s not too late. Lou Ferigno still has it.

The most cringe-worthy line in Hulk history was said as the Hulk ran away from the car wash. DJ looks at Oscar and says “that’s what I call a colored man.” Not a good line, but I knew they were going to use it or some variation of it somewhere in this episode. On top of this stupid shit, one of the women in the crowd screams “he’s green!” This is part of the series that is really stupid and happens all the time. As the Hulk fucks shit up, the extras in the scene scream lines like “I can’t believe it,” and “He’s huge”, and “I bet he rubs one out after Wheel of Fortune.” It takes away from the show.

As all of this goes on, Reverend Jack Williams (Austin Stoker) is trying to stop George and help the youngsters, starting with the complete idiot, Jimmy (Jesse Dizon). I’m not sure if Jimmy is slow or if he’s just a burnt out junkie, but he overplays the role tremendously and laughs so unbelievably. I think they could have lost that character. He added nothing to the show outside of being the reason why Williams finds the bag of drugs in the car. He takes those drugs to George and Lee and they laugh right in his face. It was pretty amusing. I would have laughed in his face too. Not because it was funny but because Burton and Hudson were having such a great time. I wanted to have that fun too. If it hurt the reverend, so be it. Fuck him.

After an attempted hit on the Reverend, all hell breaks loose and Banner, DJ and Oscar go to George to take him down. Unfortunately, they don’t do well at first, but when they lock Banner in the bathroom with the panther, he Hulks up and it’s on. Hulk smashes through the door and beats up the two bad guys and then hauls ass out of there. Mike redeems himself, Bobby still can’t act, the bad guys goes to prison and David is forced to find another job somewhere else.

Like a Brother is a good episode but it has its fair share of cringe-worthy moments. It was the 1970s and it was influenced by the Blaxploitation films around that time. It missed the mark, mostly, but as a made for TV prime time show, I didn’t expect a lot of edge to it. Ernie Hudson and Tony Burton were awesome in it, but I think that the fake beard that they gave Burton should have been better. If I were a rich drug lord, I would buy the best fake beard I could get. Other than that, Hudson and Burton were great and the rest of the cast did incredibly well too. The episode has its share of problems, but the good outweighs the bad and I recommend this one.

Rating: 7/10

The post The Incredible Hulk: Like a Brother (1979) – Marvel SUPERHERO TV SHOW REVIEW appeared first on SCARED STIFF REVIEWS.

By Geno McGahee

David Banner (Bill Bixby) has no luck. No matter what job he gets, he somehow gets tied up in bullshit and has to sort shit out. In most instances, I feel very sorry for him…just a poor victim of circumstance, but in the episode “TWO GODMOTHERS,” I have little sympathy. He took a job delivering and picking up linens at a prison. Sure, it was a female prison, but they can still stir up shit. They can’t drag you into the shower room and run a train on you, but they can still give you a bad day. Why would Banner take this job and how the hell did he get it? You’d think that anyone going into the prison would be heavily screened. Somebody definitely dropped the ball here.

Barbara (Suzanne Charny) and her two fellow inmates, Sondra (Sandra Kerns) and pregnant Lannie (Penny Peyser), make a daring escape, holding a knife on the warden, Hackett (Kathleen Nolan) and the prison guard, Grubb (Gloria Gifford). They lock them in a room and take off, but not before we see just how crazy the warden must be. When Barbara has her at knife point, she has a lot of joy. I think she thought that because of this she would have the right now to kill her and won’t that be fun. “I can’t wait to see you again,” Hackett notes as Barbara replies “Don’t worry, you ain’t.” Who the fuck says ain’t? I think they wrote in the word “ain’t” because inmates must be stupid and they had to portray them as uneducated morons. I guess I can’t argue with that logic. I’ve watched a lot of those shows like SCARED STRAIGHT and the inmates seem rather stupid, but they also seem like aggressive cornholers. I would not be surprised if a spinoff to SCARED STRAIGHT comes out called “SCARED SPLIT LIKE FIREWOOD.”

The inmates jump into Banner’s truck and they take off. Banner is trying to be the voice of reason, but Barbara is a total bitch. As they speed down a dirt road, David notes that it’s dangerous and Barbara insists he keeps on going. He does and soon the vehicle is incapacitated. They are now on foot and David really has every opportunity to haul ass here. All she has is a little knife and there are plenty of times where he could make a run for it. He just lingers around, which is in his nature. He is a busybody. He’s always in somebody’s business and here we go again. He had to know how this situation would play out. He could have been home jacking off, but he stayed for the duration. To his credit, he did assist Lannie through a river and wanted to make sure her baby was not harmed. Barbara, on the other hand, did not care and just wanted to push forward.

Grubb and Hackett, along with some other officers, are in pursuit and we learn the details of the background check on David. He was a “drifter. His ID belonged to a school teacher.” What school teacher did Banner jack to get that ID and did he put down teacher as his prior occupation prior to delivering linens?

“You were a teacher huh?”
“Yup.”
“Why did you leave that job.”
“Fucking sucked. Trust me, teaching is the sort of job where they bend you over and fuck you in the ass at every turn. I’m happy to be out of there and look forward to a career in picking up dirty laundry.”
“You’re hired.”

The group marches on and into an area that is marked for blasting. Barbara notes that nobody works on Saturday, which means that there will be no blasting, but David knows better. Reluctantly, he goes along and sure enough, the blasting begins and rocks start falling on everyone. Now, I assume these are fake rocks made out of Styrofoam, but they still hired stuntmen to do the work of the actors. The stuntman playing Barbara has a wig on that’s three times the size of his head. That’s right. I said his. It’s a dude. This would not be the only bad wig in this episode. In fact, they use stunt doubles for most of the actors here. Perhaps I never noticed before or maybe they just hired these stuntmen and figured they should do something rather than just sitting on their asses the whole time. Most of the stunts were rather tame and probably could have been done by the actors, but they erred on the side of caution I guess. My point is that they should have gotten a better wig company.

Here’s where the episode goes off the rails. Banner goes to help Barbara after some rocks hit her and we are about 30 minutes into the episode. So you know the Hulk is coming soon. Banner gets his hand smashed with a rock and he Hulks up. He throws the rock, but then the Hulk looks down and he’s bleeding and his hand is all fucked up. Doesn’t the Hulk heal immediately? Where is this change coming from? Instead of being the bad ass Hulk, he is nursing his hand and runs away, and this is where the real bullshit begins. I hate how they shove unrealistic characters into these episodes for comic relief…I guess. They’re never funny.

Hulk sits there wincing about his hand and some dog comes up and starts licking the wound. The Hulk smiles and enjoys. “Hulk need peanut butter.” Well, that’s the line I was hoping he would not say. He didn’t. There was no implication that this was sexual at all. So, I give the episode credit there for taking the high road, but when Hulk changes back to Banner, the girls catch up and they prove how really stupid they are. Banner was wearing a shirt with the linen company printed on the back. He was the only one there when the rocks fell. Hulk emerged with that same exact shirt on and runs away. They find Banner sitting with the shirt on and it’s totally ripped up as if a huge muscular monster wore it and ripped it to shit. His hand is fucked up. Hulk’s same hand was fucked up. None of the girls connect the two. They give a brief note about the “big green man” and then move on to another subject before being interrupted by the dog’s owner, Phil (John Steadman). Phil is also the worst part of this episode.

Barbara takes Phil’s hunting gun and points it at him, prompting him to say “you can rob me. You can burn my cabin to the ground. Just please don’t shoot my dog.” Why did he volunteer that he had a cabin? Why did he volunteer that he probably has money? Who the fuck wrote this shit? It makes no sense. Of course, with a baby one the way, Banner advises they go to the cabin, which is why they wrote in the cabin line to begin with but don’t you think that it would have been better if Barbara sort of forced out that information. “Hey you old cocksucker. You must live around here. Where’s your house. You’d better tell me or I will shove this rifle so far up your ass you’ll be shitting lead for a week.” See. Doesn’t that work much better than him volunteering the information?

As Phil leads them to the cabin, I noticed that David’s pants weren’t ripped anymore. He had a full set of pants. Where did he get these pants? He still has the ripped shirt, but his denim is immaculate. Can you refer to denim as immaculate? I guess. It just sounds weird. I guess it’s more PC than calling jeans and a denim jacket a “Canadian tuxedo,” but not as fun.

At the cabin, David begins talking to Phil and keeps cutting him off. I’ve never seen David this rude, but I think he’s just sick of these types of characters as well. In a rare idiotic move, David sends Phil out to get water and, as expected, Phil takes off to get the police. Hackett and the group show up and, after two babies are delivered, grab David and plan to tear gas the cabin. David is handcuffed but goes apeshit and tackles Hackett and Hulks up to save the day. Even though the cops told Phil to stay at his truck, he insists on returning to the story and tries to run the Hulk over with his truck, maniacally laughing and yelling “I’ll get you.” Hulk knocks the truck over but the old cocksucker lives and then says something really stupid like “what in tarnation,” or some other phrase used by backwoods shitheads. I forgot what he said and I don’t ever want to hear it again. So, I apologize if the quote is wrong. I’m sure it is.

Hackett is exposed as a crazy warden. The girls are brought back to prison and Grubbs is promoted to the new warden position. What’s odd is that the girls all escaped prison and they are being called heroes by the press, according to Grubbs. Why? Because she gave birth in a cabin? Look at the facts. The girls did the following: 1. Attacked a prison guard at the prison hospital to start the escape. 2. Attacked another prison guard and threatened the warden before getting into the truck. 3. Hijacked David’s truck and held him hostage. 4. Probably cost David his job. 5. Held a gun on Phil and held him hostage temporarily. Where are they heroes and why the fuck are they releasing Lannie? She was in on this too. Without her initial involvement, Barbara would not have gotten anywhere.

Also, how did Barbara go from complete bitch to a good person so quickly? She was ruthless and could care less if the rocks killed Lannie and Sondra. She ditched them at the cabin when they needed her the most. She eventually returned, but that’s not the point. She was no hero and should not have had that change of heart at the end. It made no sense. This entire episode made very little sense and was rather piss poor.

TWO GODMOTHERS is one of the weakest episodes of the Hulk that I’ve seen. Hulk being hurt was stupid, the hick Phil blew horse cock, and the story wasn’t anything special. Special props though to Kathleen Nolan. She was a standout here and Penny Peyser did a good job, especially with her interactions with Bixby at the fire. Overall, the cast tried to make a go of it with what they had to work with, but there was nothing they could do. I can’t recommend this episode unless you are a die hard Hulk fan that wants to see every episode no matter what. If that is the case, have at it, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Rating: 3.5/10

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