| The Incredible Hulk | |
|---|---|
| Created by | Stan Lee (characters / created for television) Jack Kirby (characters) |
| Voices of | Michael Bell Bob Holt Michael Horton B.J. Ward |
| Narrated by | Stan Lee |
| Composer(s) | John Douglas |
| Language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 13 |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | David H. DePatie Lee Gunther |
| Producer(s) | Don Jurwich |
| Production company(s) | Marvel Productions (20th Century Fox Television) |
| Distributor | ARP Films (syndication) |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | NBC |
| Original run | September 18, 1982 – October 8, 1983 |
| External links | |
| Website | |
The Incredible Hulk is an animated television series based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name. The series ran for 13 episodes on NBC in 1982, part of a combined hour with Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends (as The Incredible Hulk and the Amazing Spider-Man). The series focused on Dr Bruce Banner's attempts to cure himself of his transformations into the Hulk, and the Hulk defeating various monsters and villains whilst fending off the army's attempts to subdue and capture him. This was the second Hulk animated series: in 1966, the Hulk appeared in 39 seven-minute segments as part of TV's The Marvel Super Heroes.
The 1982 Incredible Hulk series featured accompanying narration by Hulk co-creator Stan Lee. Some of the same background music tracks were used for Dungeons & Dragons. Boyd Kirkland, who became a writer/director for Batman: The Animated Series and X-Men: Evolution, was one of the layout artists for The Incredible Hulk.
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Unlike the live-action The Incredible Hulk TV series, which wound up the year this was produced, this series was based more closely upon the Hulk comic-book - being an animated series, it was able to portray the more fantastical elements of the comics which the live-action series could not.
The cartoon restored the Hulk's real name as "Bruce Banner," as it is in the comics - eschewing the live-action series' "David Banner." Like the character as depicted in the comics, Bruce Banner was presented as a nuclear physicist working at Gamma Base in the New Mexico desert, rather than the nomadic medical researcher/physician David Banner was in the live-action series. Akin to the Hulk of the comics, the cartoon Hulk was larger and much more powerful than the live-action Hulk, and could speak (albeit with a very limited vocabulary) rather than merely growl and roar as the live-action Hulk did. The version of Bruce Banner/the Hulk from this series appeared as a supporting character in the Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends episode "Spidey Goes Hollywood", although Banner/the Hulk were voiced by Peter Cullen. In The Incredible Hulk, Banner and the Hulk were voiced by Michael Bell and Bob Holt respectively.
The 1982 cartoon was more faithful to the Hulk's origin story (although it substituted alien involvement for the original comic's Soviet spies), as well as featuring more supporting characters from the comics, albeit with some changes. Banner's friend and confidant, Rick Jones, was styled as a blond-haired youth in country and western garb, who would often refer to Bruce as "Doc." As in the comics, Jones stays with Banner out of guilt for being partly responsible for the creation of the Hulk. Rather than the blonde hanger-on as she was in the comic, Banner's love-interest, Betty Ross, was depicted as a brunette scientific colleague of Banner's, similar to the character as depicted later in the 2003 and 2008 Hulk films. Major Ned Talbot was essentially the same character as the comic's Glenn Talbot, although he was played more for comic relief, being less intelligent and more clumsy than his comic-book counterpart (he is even referred to by his men as "Noodlehead Ned"). General Ross, also retained from the comic-book, was portrayed as cantankerous and generally antagonistic towards the Hulk, though less hateful of the green-skinned goliath than Talbot is (in fact, in the episode "The Incredible Shrinking Hulk", Ross admits that the Hulk saved the base, and chastises Talbot for wanting to destroy him). Both Talbot and Ross were far less effectual than their comic-book counterparts, as their base is infiltrated and taken over by villains regularly. The series featured the first cartoon appearance of the She-Hulk, yet only one classic Hulk villain appeared in a single episode of the series, The Leader, with a number of villains normally associated with other Marvel characters, and newly created foes, filling out the other episodes. Villains from the comics who appeared in the series included Doctor Octopus, Spymaster, the Puppet Master, and HYDRA.
New recurring characters created for the series were the Hispanic family of the middle-aged Rio and his youthful daughter Rita. Rio's efforts to advertise and raise the fortunes of his restaurant, "Rio's Ranchero," provided the series with more chances for comic relief, and Rita provided a love interest for Rick Jones.
The series did have a number of changes to avoid censorship issues with a younger audience, including arming the troops at the army base with futuristic sci-fi-style weaponry. There is also the more frequently remembered quirk that whenever the Hulk transformed back to Bruce Banner, his clothes would miraculously return to normal. Also, the series would frequently re-use the same stock sequences when Banner transformed into the Hulk.
The character design for both Bruce Banner and the Hulk were based on the artwork of Sal Buscema, who penciled the Incredibile Hulk comic during the 1970s and 1980s.
| Episode | Title | Overview |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | "Tomb of the Unknown Hulk" | When high cosmic ray activity triggers Bruce's transformations without him getting angry, he tries to lock himself in a cave to protect his friends, but the cosmic rays also block communications and allow Doctor Octopus an opening to stage an attack on Gamma Base. |
| 2 | "Prisoner of the Monster" | Rick stumbles upon a map for a potion held by a lost tribe that can cure Bruce of the Hulk, but the cure becomes bitter sweet when the Spymaster kidnaps Betty and her father, stealing a deadly weapon from Gamma Base that only the Hulk can defeat. |
| 3 | "Origin of the Hulk" | The retelling of the origin of the Hulk, with the original Russian Cold War spies replaced with aliens seeking the secrets of Bruce's Gamma Bomb. |
| 4 | "When Monsters Meet" | Arriving in Paris for a scientific conference, Bruce is given a possible cure for his condition, but his chances of using it are threatened by the appearance of a descendant of Quasimodo who wreaks havoc in the city. (This episode was adapted in comic book format by Marvel, in the one-shot "The Incredible Hulk versus Quasimodo". A back-up, one-page comic featuring editor Al Milgrom disguised as the Hulk explained how this book fit into the animated cartoon continuity, and not current Marvel Comics continuity[1]) |
| 5 | "The Cyclops Project" | Due to the inadvertent actions of the Hulk, Cyclops, the most world's powerful military defense computer malfunctions and seeks to take over the world, trying to obtain the aid of the Bruce Banner and Hulk to do so. |
| 6 | "Bruce Banner Unmasked" | When the Puppet Master attempts gain control of the Hulk as a part of his plan to take over Mesa City and its surrounds, the army are finally able to defeat the creature and learn of Bruce Banner's secret identity. |
| 7 | "The Creature and the Cavegirl" | Bruce learns of a colleague whose developed a working time projector, seeing it as a chance to go back and stop the creation of the Hulk, only for the device to malfunction and transport the entire lab and its occupants back to 1,000,000 B.C. |
| 8 | "It Lives! It Grows! It Destroys!" | A rival scientist at Gamma Base develops a part plant, part animal lifeform which can eat almost anything in its path, but the creature escapes and threatens the planet as it grows uncontrollably. |
| 9 | "The Incredible Shrinking Hulk" | After his latest gamma experiment malfunctions, Bruce is shrunk down until he is one inch tall, as two spies attempt to steal a new tank. |
| 10 | "Punks on Wheels" | When a motorcycle gang kidnaps Rita, Bruce and his friend discover the gang is secretly working for the Leader, who seeks their aid in stealing a shipment of Vibranium. |
| 11 | "Enter: She-Hulk" | Bruce and Rick travel to Los Angeles to visit Bruce's cousin Jennifer Walters to try and learn how she is able to maintain her intelligence when she changes into the She-Hulk, but their attempt is endangered thanks to the efforts of terrorist group HYDRA to take over the city. |
| 12 | "The Boy Who Saw Tomorrow" | Betty's nephew Jonah arrives at Gamma Base to demonstrate his amazing psychic ability, able to predict the future with uncanny accuracy he has a vision of Betty's space shuttle crashing into a mountain, with the Hulk and a mysterious madman involved. |
| 13 | "The Hulk Destroys Bruce Banner" | While testing his new Transmat teleporter on himself, Bruce transforms into the Hulk in mid-teleportation, convincing Betty that the Hulk interfered and leading the charge to capture the creature to attempt to save Bruce. |
Bruce Banner was played by voice actor Michael Bell, while the Hulk himself was voiced by Bob Holt, whose stock library of roars created for this series would be used in various other Marvel Productions series and movies.
The series was planned for release on Region 2 DVD in the UK in August 2008 by Liberation Entertainment as part of a release schedule of Marvel animated series. However, due to unforeseen circumstances the release day was pushed back to October, and then again to November 3. Liberation Entertainment then closed its UK division, making 12 staff redundant. This brought many delays to the releases.
Lace International bought the rights to distribute the series on DVD.[2] Amazon.co.uk was the first store to receive stocks of the resulting two disc DVD set, which includes a short restoration featurette.
Clear Vision re-released the series on DVD in the UK on the June 7, 2010.
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