10 Things You Didnt Know About The 1978 Hulk Series

10 Things You Didn’t Know About The 1978 Hulk Series

There are plenty of Marvel fans who have never heard of the 1978 Hulk series. Here’s all there is to know about it.

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Most every major Marvel comic book character has been featured on screen in some capacity, but it took until the last ten years and the cosmic success of the MCU for a lot of them to make the transition. Others made the leap early, and in the case of the Hulk, very successfully.

Not all of the early Marvel comic screen adaptations are worthy (or watchable) but The Incredible Hulk, which debuted in 1978 on CBS, provided a unique showcase for the character and a framework for how to approach comic characters in a serial format. Here are ten things you didn’t know about the classic 1978 series.

A lot of things changed between the comic book and the television series, but one of the strangest and most obvious ones is that it wasn’t Bruce Banner as the main character, but David Banner. While the origin of the character is close-ish in the show, the name change mystified fans. A lot of different reasons were assigned to the change, not all of them particularly thought out, but the main reason seems to be that producer Kenneth Johnson simply wanted to name the character after his son.

9 Journeyman

The part of David Banner went to veteran actor Bill Bixby, who brought a quiet intensity to the role that helped sell the idea that a raging green monster was hiding inside him (the green contact lenses were neat too). Bixby was a known quantity when he came to the role, having started acting in the early 1960s and achieving success and acclaim in a series of roles, including reporter Tim O’Hara in My Favorite Martian, The Courtship of Eddie’s Father, and The Magician.

8 Hulked Out

While Bill Bixby played David Banner, the part of the Incredible Hulk went to another actor – well, sort of – in Lou Ferrigno. In the days before CGI, realizing a gigantic green Hulk on screen was a challenge, but Ferrigno absolutely met it and then some. A world-class bodybuilder, Ferrigno won an IFBB Mr. America title and IFBB Mr. Universe titles two years running. He also appeared in the documentary Pumping Iron, which focused on bodybuilding and featured his rivalry with Arnold Schwarzenegger.

7 Makeup Changes

Lou Ferrigno had the size down for the Hulk down no problem, but portraying a convincing green goliath took some doing. The biggest thing for the actor was getting covered head to toe in green makeup which took three hours to apply.

In the early episodes of the series, Ferrigno wore monstrous facial makeup to help convey how much more of a creature the Hulk was, but this was considered too much and ultimately toned down to green contact lenses and a wig made out of dyed yak hair.

6 Two Different Pilots

The show didn’t immediately become a series, as is usually the case with successful pilots. After the initial success of the first pilot in 1977, another was produced called The Return of the Incredible Hulk. Both pilots were also distributed theatrically in some countries, making this version of the Hulk the first movie adaptation as well. With the success of the show proven in the back to back pilots, the show officially kicked off in 1978 on CBS and ran through 1982, though production stopped in early 1981.

5 Transitions

Making the Hulk work on the small screen required scaling him down. While Lou Ferrigno was suitably massive, the character himself was powered down quite a bit. The comic book version routinely performs massive feats of strength, but on the show, it wasn’t feasible – or practical – for the Hulk to punch through mountains or lift buildings. Another change producers mandated is that the Hulk didn’t talk. In the comics, the Hulk speaks a little (depending on the version) but this one never did.

4 Almost The Red Hulk

One change that didn’t happen was that producer Kenneth Johnson initially didn’t want the Hulk to be green. He wanted him to be red. While that might have been interesting given how popular the Red Hulk has become in the comics in recent years, it’s probably one change that was best left unmade. Johnson liked the idea of a red Hulk because he thought the color red conveyed the rage and anger inherent in the character more than the green.

3 Change Agent

All these changes and proposed ideas come courtesy of the aforementioned Kenneth Johnson. Johnson came to the role of executive producer on the series after he was offered his choice of any of the myriad Marvel characters Universal Television had under license at the time.

Johnson didn’t like comic books that much (which maybe showed a little) but he was definitely a sci-fi aficionado. He later went on to develop the NBC alien invasion mini-series V, which featured a noticeably less murdery role by Freddy Kruger himself, Robert Englund.

2 Cameo Appearance

Kenneth Johnson didn’t like comic books a ton, but he definitely appreciated them enough to honor where his success had come from. The show featured a number of high profile guest stars – among them, Kim Cattrall, Ray Walston, and even Lou Ferrigno, sans green makeup in another role – but its two best might have been a pair of small cameos. Hulk co-creators Stan Lee and Jack Kirby each appeared in the series, though Lee’s didn’t occur until a made-for-TV movie in the late 80s.

1 The First MCU

Not only did The Incredible Hulk provide a template for later comic-book based television shows, but it also could be considered a prototype MCU. While the television show generally avoided comic connections, when the Hulk returned as a series of made-for-TV movies on NBC in the late 80s, things changed. The first movie – The Incredible Hulk Returns – introduced Thor. The second in 1989, The Trial of the Incredible Hulk, gave fans its first screen Daredevil and Kingpin, played by John Rhys-Davies.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/1978-hulk-series-facts/

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