The Superhero Team That Became An 80s Live-Action Disaster
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- Опубліковано 18 вер 2024
- Decades before Iron Man kicked off the Marvel Cinematic Universe, there were plans put in action to make a different Marvel universe, which would culminate in an Avengers team up with Spider-Man, The Incredible Hulk, Doctor Strange, and Captain America. It was all set to happen on television, on CBS.
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There was also the Trial of the Incredible Hulk in 1989 which marked the first live action appearance of Daredevil and Kingpin.
The Fantastic Four movie was never intended for release. It was made solely to retain the film rights.
I'm not 100% sure about the Fantastic 4 movie not intended to be released. In the VHS release of "Spaced Invaders" there was a teaser/trailer for it.
It wasn’t released because the only cared about the rights, but if it had been good do you actually think they would not have released it?
I saw fantastic four on video
@@GiantFreakinRobot According to the version I heard, the producers saw the final cut, felt it was too bad for even direct-to-video, and ordered all copies destroyed. That's why the Human Torch scenes on the internet version are soo bad, it's before they were done.
@@rony41165 You saw it on a bootleg video. It never had an official release.
The reasons that The Incredible Hulk succeeded 1) the writing garnered sympathy for Banner/ Hulk 2) Lou Ferrigno didn't rely on bad special effects, he is a huge muscular guy 3) Bill Bixby was a solid dramatic actor.
It showed Banner in a new way. The Lonely Man theme still brings a tear.
@@kalmac6255 Yes, the series garnered a lot of 'pathos' for both Banner and Hulk.
That series was just short of perfection.
I watched it as a child in the late 1970s. That series was powerful- no "super villains" perse, but stories dealing with drug/weapons trafficking, kidnapping, political corruption, etc! Honestly some episodes were damn near depressing- like the 2 hour special where Banner was cured, got married, and became the Hulk again (and I think his wife died!). The Hulk was a tear-jerker in the 1970s. Today's audience couldn't handle it.
I remember when the live action Thor arrived and had bought comics. Stan Lee had a blurb in the back of a Thor comic that said if the episode did well enough, "Blondie will get His own TV Show". I remember writing in to the network and begging for a Thor show!
I remember The Hoff playing Fury in a tv movie too.
I like movie.
He was Better than Samuel L Jackson. At least it was the real Nick Fury.
I watched that and recorded it on VHS. I would show it to friends when the MCU started.
@@The4cp Yeah. The Hoff kinda looked like Nick Fury from the original comic, Nick Fury and the Howling Commandos, based in WWII. The MCU's first Captain America movie did use the Howling Commandos, obviously, minus Nick Fury. Agent Carter's One Shot brought Dum Dum Dougan back for a heartbeat in the aftercredits.
@@The4cpI think they are going with a blk Nuck Fury in the comics now but I haven't seen comics in my area for a while and the cost is not worth it to me. One they went over $2 I lost interest
I can still remember that sad piano bit for the Incredible Hulk TV show, which helped to set the mood about David Banner's life with his alter ego.
“The Lonely Man”
I loved the piano at the end but it always made me so sad
That closing music would nearly make me cry, especially after episodes where Banner had come close to a cure or had really connected with someone. He always lost at the end, of course, and had to move on, then that music would play as he walked away, alone. You couldn't dismiss the Hulk as a "comic book show" with that depth of emotion in almost every episode.
Dont forget Dolph Lundgren as The Punisher!
The only cinematic Punisher. Except Joaquin Phoenix. He made a stealth arthouse Punisher movie (You Were Never Really Here).
@darthkek1953 there have been *3* cinematic Punishers. Thomas Jane got to play a good Frank Castle, but they never really let him use the "Punisher" iconography. Jon Bernthal gave us the best of the character to date, but a couple of seasons of "series" streaming production helped.
@@wills2140 and a fourth "stealth" one, the one I said.
If you're that against 'superhero tropes', don't be involved with a show BASED OFF A COMIC BOOK. Guess the showrunners hating the source material has been a thing for longer than i thought ...
As a 55 year old who watched most of these movies on tv as a child, I figured out the major problem with almost all of them: the villains. There were almost no super-powered bad guys used from the comic books. Most of the time they had to fight big criminal organizations or mad scientists. Maybe rescue pretty girls from natural disasters. I liked Dr. Strange fighting Morgan LeFay but it took almost an hour to finally see any special effects. And I think Adam West’s Batman was really successful because he had campy versions of his comic book villains to fight. Sure there were a lot of goons but most had super powers or devices for him to overcome. Even the later movies that were successful for DC had recognizable bad guys from the comic books. The first Superman, though good and successful, was outshone by the sequel, where he fought Zod and his minions. The third flopped because the main “baddie” was a machine created by Richard Pryor’s character. The fourth had potential but was a new unknown superpowered creation. (Sorry for almost doing an essay here. I’ve had years to think about it.)
You’re absolutely correct.
Also, it's too hard to do a comic superhero well in a tv series in the 70's just because of TV's limited budget.
@@puichiung2959 that’s a big part of the reason for the lack of super powered opponents.
@@puichiung2959 Funny enough. It was the effects budget that killed the 90s flash tv series. It was considered the most high end and expensive for it's time and by the end of the 22 episode first season run, they just couldn't afford to keep doing it. Shame, cause I love it.
@@nerored6235
Me too. My daughter still quotes the series. She especially liked the line: "Guns don't kill people. it's these little hard things."
You forgot the Howard the Duck movie that came out in 1986.
I bet George Lucas wishes he could forget it too! 🤣
Lou Ferigno and Bill Bixby also made The Trial of the Incredible Hulk, and The Death of the Incredible Hulk. The Death of... was meant to be the first of a two-parter. Sadly, Bill Bixby died before the second part could be produced, so the Hulk's resurrection was never filmed. 😢
The Roger Corman FANTASTIC FOUR movie was not made to ever be released. It was purely to maintain rights. Plus, it is ironically the BEST FF movie me to date.
It's called an "Ash Can" movie, in the business. The company had to produce an F4 movie in order to keep the copyrights. There was no intention to release it. So I was told.
This concise documentary forgot to mention that Corman went on to produce his own superheroine movies and TV shows - Black Scorpion, who is kind of a female cross between Bruce Wayne and Tony Stark but a cop in her secret identity. The show was super hokey, and very much a 90s version of Adam West's 60s series, but at least enough of a success to still be available to watch to this day (on Tubi). The reason why it could have been mentioned is because Black Scorpion proves that Marvel was *correct* in being worried enough about original TV spinoffs to have created She-Hulk, as was briefly mentioned. I'm a big Corman fan, so this needed to be said. In fact, a fair amount of original superhero shows and movies were created in the 90s, from Buffy and Xena and Dark Angel to Meteor Man and Night Man and MANTIS, so there was definitely a hunger to create and watch superhero content in general.
Black Scorpion that was Joan Severance, a beautiful dark haired blue eyed lady.
She was the reason I watched those movies.
that it was because though the FF films that came after had big budgets they lacked what the first one had and that was heart because the actors were hyped up to start a franchise and make sequels, something they were promised. but like BATMAN in the 1960;s the people brought on to helm the projects were not comicbook fans, so they were not has good as they could have been.
No, THE INCREDIBLES is the best FF movie made to date.
As a child of the 70s, I loved the Nicholas. Hammond Spider-Man!
Me too!
SAME! THAT'S SAXOPHONE MUSIC WAS SUPER COOL TOO LOL I THINK THE SONG WAS CALLED "WHO AM I ?"
The 90s Spider-Man cartoon looked almost exactly like him.
I wouldn’t consider a tv movie that features a character to be a backdoor pilot for that character. A backdoor pilot is when you introduce a character in an existing series that you hope to spin off into their own series. Like the CW did with a number of characters starting with Flash in Arrow.
90's Capt America had the best red skull..."imma da red skull, I'm German but sound Italian"
The story began in italy and the scientist who created cap’s italian
I was one of the young fan base for the 1970s Spiderman TV show.
I love Cannon's Captain America and his signature move being "Please pull over, I'm going to get sick!"
Haha me too. I had to put it in
I was all into these shows as a kid. I didn’t care how cheesy it looked. I LOVED IT.
Also, wasn’t Daredevil introduced in one of those later Hulk TV movies? I think he was dressed in all black with a blindfold on. As if Daredevil needed a blindfold. He’s blind right? Lol
Some of the Doctor Strange movie actually almost looks good. It’s a shame it flopped!
The Trial of the Incredible Hulk
@GiantFreakinRobot it wasn't so bad for the time, but the special effects weren't good enough at the time to do it justice. I have to say that the constant use of gold as the present day's Dr. Strange's magic color sort of harkens back to the original. You'd think that today's tech would allow for more visually diverse effects like in the comics.
Not only was Daredevil introduced, but also Wilson Fisk (The Kingpin) who was played by John Rhys-Davies.
@@GiantFreakinRobot It wasn't bad, as I remember. They did their best on a TV budget, but it wasn't even close to the comic book origin. Then again, they didn't do much better with the MCU movie. They just had the budget to make it LOOK better!
I will die on the hill that the statue of Doctor Strange in Multiverse of Madness should have been Peter Hooten.
I love the transparent shield used in Captain America (1979). I want one of those.
If they had made those movies and shows closer to the comic storylines, including comic book villains, I think they'd have been much more successful.
Thor was bad, Cap wasn't Cap, and Daredevil just didn't cut it. Dr. Strange wasn't bad, but it left so much out.
The Incredible Hulk made for TV movies aired on NBC. I remember that. Also, the fantastic four movie was never made with the intention of being released. This guy didn’t seem to do much backchecking.
The special effects for Dr. Strange AT THE TIME were actually quite good, especially for television.
In 1975, Roy Thomas (the then-editor of Marvel Comics) gave a talk at Wesleyan University about the company. He mentioned that Marvel wanted to create a movie or TV show about The Incredible Hulk, played by an actor in a 7-foot suit of green latex. I was there and was excited about the screen version but thought that the latex suit was stupid. The movie/pilot tried to use that latex suit but the director decided to use a muscular guy with green-painted skin. Lou Ferrigno said "yes" and the rest is history.
Fun fact. Michael jackson wanted to buy the rights and create the MCU as we know today.
His ideas were used to create the current mcu.
Michael laid out exactly where to start with which characters and where it would end as well.
When he failed to buy the rights someone copied his plans and presented them to the studio. This was around 2001 if im not mistaken. A few years later iron man was made.
And then in 1997, CBS went to the other side and gave us the Justice League of America movie.
But why!?
The Wonder Woman television show that starred Lynda Carter started off on ABC but moved to CBS after the first season.
I got a bootleg of the FF movie in the late 90s. The best part of it is when Alicia Masters is kidnapped by the Moleman and his henchmen. A chloroform-soaked rag is put over her nose and mouth to knock her out, and the camera switches to her POV, showing things getting blurry before fading to black.
The character of Alicia is blind.
FF?
@@thomcat2704 Fantastic Four
The 2 tv hulk movies were my jam back in the day. Seeing DD and Thor made my little self smile
There were three:
The Incredible Hulk Returns (1988)
The Trial of The Incredible Hulk (1989)
The Death of The Incredible Hulk (1990)
I hated the movies. The show was great.
"Backdoor Pilot" is now added to my euphemism toolbox.
Thank you for the great laugh.
The Incredible Hulk movie was on NBC. In the movie trial of the Incredible Hulk introduced daredevil played by Rex smith.
Thor wasn't CBS's final attempt. The Trial of the Incredible Hulk doubled as a backdoor pilot for Daredevil, and featured the first appearance of the black, eyes-covered 'ninja' look for DD popularized in the first season of the Netflix series. The movie debuted this look years before Frank Miller used it in the comics, for the Man Without Fear storyline.
I vaguely remember the Dr. Strange treatment being aired but I was impressed the CBS executives gave it a shot.
As others have mentioned, you forgot the Trial of the Hulk with Daredevil and Kingpin, The Dolph Lundgren Punisher, but also the Death of the Hulk TV movie, and the David Hasselhoff Nick Fury and SHIELD.
As some have mentioned, there was a “Trial of the Incredible Hulk” that had his lawyer be Matt Murdock. They just didn’t have all the special effects or stunt-work that we take for granted today. I vaguely remember seeing it on tv but never saw him in any sort of costume and he was able to do some acrobatics, slightly more impressive than a normal human, but nothing spectacular.
I could be wrong, but I remember reading that "The Trial of the Incredible Hulk" saw the original "Stan Lee cameo" (I think he was one of the jurors).
The 2nd Hulk TV movie had Daredevil and the Kingpin in it (Trail of the Incredible Hulk). These old shows were made with some disdain for super heroes, embarrassment even. They never would do a connected universe as each deal and the rights were separate.
They actually played the 1990 Captain America movie on tv, at least in Chicago, sometime between 1990 and 1991.
Found it on one of the streaming channels.
"Captain America" wasn't made by the Cannon Group it was made by Menahem Golan's 21st Century Film Corporation. You also forgot to mention Cannons "Spider-Man" movie which went through several directors including Tobe Hooper and went on to Albert Pyun only to get cancelled in the end. In the end several of the sets and props for this and the cancelled "Master of the Universe" sequel went on to be used by Albert Pyun for the VanDamme vehicle "Cyborg". Trivia Actor/Stuntman Scott Leva who was cast as Peter Parker/Spider-Man in the cancelled Cannon version was a stuntman on the first "X-MEN" movie in 2000 and even appeared in an out-take from the film dressed as the webbed hero himself.
Hulk was originally grey in the comics but the printers couldn't get the color consistent so he was changed to green.
Dolph Lundgren as The Punisher was an excellent movie.
I’m pretty sure somewhere on this this thread it’s mentioned, but the Incredible Hulk back door pilots movies featuring Thor and Daredevil didn’t air on CBS- they debuted on NBC. All three movies.
The Dr Strange pilot played against the premier of "Roots" the most popular TV mini-series to that point in time.
I must be ancient. I've seen ALL shows depicted. The animations in the late 60's were a more accurate portrayal.
Remember the animated “Spider-Man & Amazing Friends”? Wasn’t horrible but even as a young boy am pretty sure the only real reason I kept watching was for Firestar, whom oddly enough hasn’t been portrayed in any live action or animated shows since then. I wonder why?🤷♂️
Edit; well now that I looked up firestar specifically, it seems there were portrayals but not exactly like the Firestar I mentioned.
@@turbopokey Firestar is an interesting character because she was created for the cartoon as a replacement for the Human Torch. But she was so popular that she eventually made her comic book debut in Uncanny X-Men. However, unlike the cartoon where she and Iceman were both former members of the X-Men, Firestar in the comics was introduced as a contemporary of the New Mutants, a younger group of mutants under Professor Xavier's guidance.
I hated the trope of alliterative names in comic books, so we got Bill Bixby as one of our leads.
The Fantastic Four movie was NOT "so bad it was never released." The REAL story is very interesting and you should do an episode on THAT. It is a great example of how the suites & Rights are more of a driving force than on-screen talent.
It’s also bad though
@@GiantFreakinRobot What do you expect from a Fantastic Four movie with a budget of $1 million? Roger Corman was the only one that could even produce a complete movie with that kind of budget.
The only reason the movie was made so that they could keep the rights to make Fantastic Four, which took them 11 years to make another, just meeting the deadline to keep the rights again.
And while it is bad, from all 4 Fantastic Four movies made I like that one the best when it comes to the story..
@@Dreamfox-df6bg The director of the Corman FF actually bought a stack of FF comics and read them before filming. So there’s that
In 1977 I was twelve yrs old and a collector of comics and huge Spider-Man fan. I watched one episode of the show, thought it sucked and never watched it again. Heck, the mute Spider-Man of Electric Company was even better
CBS had no business producing superhero programs. CBS was always a network for old farts, not the target demographic for comic book characters. ABC would have been perfect, they already appealed to youth with The Fonz and Mork and Mindy, Welcome Back, Kotter and Donnie and Marie! Marvel Superheroes would have been in a better home on ABC.
OMG, you found footage of the Iron Man show I remembered seeing as a kid that I figured was lost to time!! My brother and I liked the show, but didn't remember it being called Iron-Man, but something else we couldn't recall. Thanks for proving I wasn't mistaken
That was not Iron Man, I’m afraid! Just a similar show from the era to demonstrate how the costume might have been
The movie was titled Exo-man. You can find it on youtube.
@@kenjackson5907 Thank you!!!
Exo-man movie about scienctist who gets mugged and crippled from the waist down builds a suit to allow him to walk again and destroy the gang that attacked him,
Interesting fact the same script is used for the pilot of a new tv show called.
M.A.N.T.I.S.
crippled scientist makes a super suit to fight crime, this one did become a tv show only one season i think.
@@lonknight3197 Starred Carl Lumbly. His acting style and the cgi made me hate the show. He can just be too hammy, IMO.
CBS also planned to do a Namor movie. But NBC beat them to the punch with The Man from Atlantis.
I absolutely hate that the Spiderman multiverse live action movie didn't have a cameo of Nicholas Hammond. Such a lost opportunity. He could have claimed to fully have lost his own powers but his daughter had taken his place.
Would have loved that
That is the same thing I've been saying. I remember there was a comic book of Spider-Girl in the 90's that was the daughter of an older and retired Spider-Man/Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson. That would have been a perfect opportunity for a Nicholas Hammond cameo in Spider-Man: No Way Home. His character could have been a reminder to the other three Spider-Man versions of an Uncle Ben or Aunt May surrogate temporarily, especially for Tom Holland's character (who had just watched May expire). Hammond is still acting and has stated that he would have liked to have been featured in the movie. Maybe they would have if if were not for the pandemic.
Intersting, the very last character that ended the Marvel series for that time period would be the first to reignite the Marvel movies in a new era.
I could have sworn they did a hulk movie with daredevil in the late 80’s
Yes, they did, the guy that made this video probably wasn't even alive when it aired. It was "The Trial of The Incredible Hulk" (1989) where Daredevil and Kingpin appeared.
The reason why live action adaptations always failed until Batman 89 (I consider Superman 77 an outlier) was because they needed to wait for their original target demographic, that bought comic books and watched cartoons, to get old enough to have their own disposable income to be able to support the budgets those efforts needed
What is nuts is that people seem to forget that Superman was highest grossing movie of 1979, and Superman 2 was in 1981, and then Batman was in 89 followed by Batman Returns in 92. CBS being worried about "kids demographic" in the early 80s is idiocy too. They had the highest rated shows (Dallas, MASH, Magnum PI, etc.) in the late 70s - early 80s, but made poor decisions and only 60 Minutes (long form news) held on to top 10 ratings.
Also I believe Elizabeth Gracen played the Black Widow in The Death of the Incredible Hulk.
She wasn’t named Natasha Romanov, but it was a similar character.
In a nut shell: hollywood did as hollywood does; completely dissed the source material and failed miserably.
Stan Lee had almost nothing to do with Dr. Strange
The Incredible Hulk TV series was successful because of the drama and excellent writing and producers. CBS tried to clone the success of DC's Wonder Woman, Batman and Superman TV series. They failed but they found it again in the launch of Iron Man movie.
Captain America had a toyline based on the tv movies.
The three Hulk TV movies in the late 80s were on NBC not CBS. And had other heroes in them as well.
Roger Corman was one of the executive producers on the FF film and didn't direct it. It was in the vault and not supposed to be released, not because it was so bad. Then it mysteriously popped up in comic book shops and sci fi conventions and gained a cult following.
I don't know where you got your information from but children were watching the Hulk in droves.
Wonder Woman ran for a few years and no one thought ABC was a kids network. When Batman broke out in the 60s children and adults tuned in for the campy humor and the other networks tried to get in on the action.
If there's one thing I enjoyed about She-Hulk was when the studio used the 70's style and almost shot for shot remake of The Incredible Hulk's TV show, opening credits sequence.
Yep! We put it in this video!
Funny the mentor in the Dr Strange film looked more like Strange than the guy playing him.
I didn't know that they made back then a post Billy Brixey of She Hulk version, even back when I in my early youth was watching the episodes.
They didn't. Stan Lee and Marvel thought CBS was going to create a female Hulk for the television series so they created She-Hulk in the comics. She-Hulk never appeared in the television series.
The 1992 film Doctor Mordrid started out as a Dr. Strange film but they had to change the name after they lost the rights to it by taking too long to complete it.
There were other films too such as the first major motion picture based on a Marvel comics character, 'Howard The Duck' (1986) starring Lea Thompson, & 'The Punisher' starring Dolph Lundgren & Louis Gossett Jnr. from 1990, released around the same time as the aforementioned 'Captain America' film. There was a failed attempt at a 'She-Hulk' film starring Bridgette Neilsen, as a potential pilot for a spin-off series. Only make-up & costume test photos exist online. The final Bixby/Ferrigno Hulk TV film that was produced after The Mighy Thor crossover, 'The Trial Of The Incredible Hulk' featured another Marvel hero Daredevil but he never appeared in costume, only as Banner's lawyer Matt Murdock. A major Marvel villain Kingpin also appeared, as this was also another attempt at a "backdoor-pilot" for a 'Daredevil' series that never got off the ground, in the same way they tried & failed with Thor in 'Return Of The Incredible Hulk'. Not related to the CBS TV shows in any way, but there was also a 'Spiderman' film announced in '87 by the infamous cousins Golan-Globus starring Michael Dudekoff, that thankfully never got past pre-production stage when their company Canon Films went bust. The 'Fantastic Four' film produced by the late Roger Corman's studio in '94 was only meant as a placeholder to retain filming rights within the required statute of limitations period so the rights wouldn't expire, it was never intended for official release, But the cast & crew were not informed of the production's true purpose during it's filming, they were duped as they say. The pilot as well as several other episodes from the 1977-78 'Spiderman' TV series starring Nicholas Hammond were edited into 3 different films that received international theatrical release between 1977-81: 'Spiderman', 'Spiderman Strikes Back' & 'Spiderman : The Dragon's Challenge'. So technically they're the first Marvel movie trilogy hahaha
Matt Murdock did appear in costume, but it was all black, and Death of the Incredible Hulk was the final film. It had a female character similar to Black Widow.
10:00 That's Exoman, not Iron Man. The story was essentially RoboCop 10 years ahead of its time.
From what I’ve read, Spider-Man failed mostly from the truly sad special effects, and Doctor Strange would have been too expensive.
The Spiderman films were pretty popular, even at the cinemas. It was the last one that kind of let it all down (Spider-Man: The Dragon's Challenge), with Spidey taking on the triads...
So glad they didnt get to make an Avengers team up back then. It would not have been worth anything more than the Justice league movie made back then...
I don't believe CBS in the 1970s would have had very much success in making their own MARVEL universe. The special effects were cheesy, the stories didn't have enough fantasy and the budget would have been too much for the network to make it credible for the hardcore comic book fans.
I read that the Thor series was a go, but got stymied by the Writer's strike of that year...
Back in the day me and my buddies never expected an Avengers series, but we did expect a Defenders live action movie thanks to two of its founders & key members, Hulk and Dr. Strange, being there. And years later I found out that the Man From Atlantis came about thanks to a failed attempt to get the Sub-Mariner onto the small screen, so we were snockingly close after all. I do hope that somehow we get at least one more visit to this 70s/80s Marvel Universe of my childhood while we original fans and especially the remaining actors are around for it (no matter what form its in, so long as its respectful to that fanbase).
Director makes Hulk show ... but hates the comic book.
Used to be the norm. Now they are better at lying about it!
You dance around one of the biggest issues. In the 80s, the technology didn’t exist to make comic book movies and tv shows that didn’t look hokey. Yes, the early Superman movie looked pretty good, and Batman looked good. But the technology wasn’t in place to do fights and action that looked real across the menu of comic books. Plus, actors weren’t yet doing the weights and/or steroids to look like the comic book heroes.
You forgot that Daredevil was also cast in "The Trial of The Incredible Hulk television movie. And there was also a Punisher movie that starred Dolph Lundgren.
I remember the Spider-Man series fondly, but I'm not sure FX were ready for 70s Avengers.
Hilarious putting your GFR credits (with '70s typeface) over Bixby hitching to next weeks location! 😆
More people need to stay through our end credits. Always a weird/fun thing going on there!
That guy is only partially right about changing the name, at least what I remember. Bruce sounded (I am not trying to trigger anyone) too “gay” and were afraid people wouldn’t watch. Who couldn’t love Reb Brown and his iconic yell!
I remember those tv shows and movies...I enjoy them too at that time.. grateful for the MCU now it was worth the wait...
The RDJ Iron Man carried the MCU. As witness the fall off as they then vilified him in AoU and Civil War. Killing him off was a monumentally stupid idea, and it seems they've finally realised it with this attempt to bring RDJ back as Victor Von Doom. Will they be able to capture lightning iin a bottle again?
The Incredible Hulk maybe 1 of the Best TV shows of all time!!! Bixby was a Beast
That was not an Iron Man movie. It was a movie called Omega Man. Not the one with Charelton Heston either. It was about a scientist, that made something like memory metal. When he put a small electric current through the wires, they would bend and flex like muscles. He was hurt, and became paraplegic. He built that suit for mobilty, using his wire muscle. I saw it twice in the same week. They sometime repeated those Thursday night movies. I cant find any info on it at all. But that scene with that odd armored guy, with the welding mask, that was Omega Man.
It was Exo-Man not Omega Man.
@@ChargerBullet I’m pretty sure the “movie of the week” I saw was called Omega Man. But I’ll concede that I could be wrong. Will search for exo-man, thanks 🫡
@@ChargerBullet Well I’ll be damned. I’ve been searching for the wrong movie all these years. It was exo-man.
I liked the Thor in the Hulk movie.
These are my foundational memories of Superhero TV; it still blows my mind to hear fans complain about the quality of the modern slate of Disney+ content.
I also recall the David Hasslehoff Nick Fury film and an early attempt at The Punisher.
The 3 Incredible Hulk TV movies that introduced Thor, Daredevil & the final Death of the Incredible Hulk were aired on NBC.
I liked both the Spider-Man and Hulk shows in the 70's as a kid.
Now that's a cute 80s throwback... ah the memories. 😀 I like to call them the good old days, but things are just more complex now.
& once again, Blade is overlooked.
Huh? In what way? He’s in the timeline!
Ummm... That's not the subject of the video.
What Blade project are you imagining was made by CBS in the '70s or '80s?🤦♂️
It is actually Conan and Red Sonja who were overlooked within that time period.
The Dr. Strange movie was pretty great.
Doctor Strange looked like Adult film Star John Holmes.
Not a bad look for the time, 😆
You forgot to mention that in the 1990 Captain America movie they made the Red Skull, unfathomably, Italian instead of a German.
You forgot the Trial of the Incredible Hulk, which included Daredevil. This one actually ran several times in reruns, and I enjoyed it every time it was on. If I recall correctly, there's even a line about Banner being Bruce David Banner (or David Bruce Banner) so they could finally get the Bruce part of his name in there.
Hot take : dispite the limited success of CBS's _Spider-Man_ and _The Incredible Hulk_ the tv show that... enabled the MCU beyond *_Iron Man_* was _The Greatest American Hero_ . The amount of wise cracking and tropes tackled in that one TV show is some small part of the DNA of "superhero" visual media going forward.
Some comments here were disappointed these Marvel TV shows didn't feature super-villains...apart from budget issues, I think one reason the Hulk series was successful was *because* they avoided comic book villains in favor of stories focusing on the people Banner crossed paths with. (See my comment nearby about the "football" episode.)
Another thing I liked about the Hulk series was that you could literally set your watch by the Hulk's appearances in the episode, *always* and only in acts 2 and 4, and nowhere else!
As a young boy at the time, those Spiderman films and Hulk TV series were great. Dr.Strange was entertaining but the dialogue let it down more then the effects. I never saw the Captain America films but I live in the UK and they might not have been shown or were put in obscure timeslots.
The MCU should bring all these actors back as alternative universe versions
'Exo-man' not only was NOT an attempt to make an 'Iron Man' movie, it's not even a Marvel property! Yes, it was an Iron Man rip off, but Marvel had nothing to do with it. Get your facts straight.
Exo-Man is frequently used as an example as to why Iron Man wouldn't have worked back then.
One excellent actor, one iconic actor and one of the best theme thongs ever were helping. @Hulk
Not quite the same, but apparently Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Wolverine and the X-men, and the Hulk Vs. movie are all supposed to be in the same continuity.
Doctor Strange was awesome. I had it recorded on vhs and played it over and over. CBS was so stupid. They played the pilot opposite Roots and few people saw it. It blows my mind what kind of a series it might have been. I wish I could find that scene on the bridge with the cool music, similar to this scene with Morgan testing the defenses of Strange's house: ua-cam.com/video/cOvtoa_w2FA/v-deo.html. I've always liked the classy Cathy Lee Crosby Wonder Woman too with Ricardo Montalban.
I agree. Of all these attempts Strange had the most potential
Actually, I HAVE seen the Roger Corman FF4 movie; to this day, it has the best plot and acting of any movie the FF has ever appeared in.
I get what your thinking, but your analysis is incorrect. Your thinking in terms of modern movie block busters and cinematic universes, instead of old style network tv.
Old Network TV wanted content to fill time slots, so they could sell select audiences to select advertisers. They gave zero $@#$ about what they put on the air, as long as it could get a marketible audience, for a reasonable price.
No one was thinking about creating some giant MCU block buster. From an old school tv stand point, that's a terrible idea. Its expensive, doesn't bring in additional audiences, and leaves times slots vacant. Why have two heros in one winning show, when you can have two winning shows in two time slots.
Further NO ONE, and and mean NO ONE thought that super hero shows were marketable to any one other then children and nerds. Shows super hero shows like the "Incredible Hulk" or "Superman" were the expection... not the rule. And like Scifi was largely seen as expensive stuff for kids.
Meanwhile crossovers while popular with show runners, were special events for sweeps week, not new shows. If Spiderman is bringing in children, and the Hulk is bringing in a larger audience, putting them in the same show for one episode, is an expensive way to add a few more eyes for very limited time.
Largely it wasn't worth the cost, as the kids that were watching Spiderman were already watching the Hulk, so your not really gaining anything.
If you put them in a long term show together, what you would be doing wasn't building a super show, what you would be doing is surrendering Spiders time slot, to another network.
So you would be radically increasing the costs of a show, at almost zero gain for one time slot, and complete loss for the other.
I get what your thinking, but as I said your thinking terms of modern cinematic universes not old school network tv.
It’s not my opinion. They had plans for crossovers between the shows.
@@GiantFreakinRobot First of all great job on the research, loved the video and all the effort you put into it, but you're looking at their intent and ideas from a modern sensabilities and because of that your understanding of what they did and why they did it, is wrong.
Cross overs, were a big thing back then, but you have to understand cross overs were not meant for combining shows or even creating expanded universes. They were special events for ratings.
Old school tv was ruled by demographics and ratings.
Networks, didn't make TV series, they made "Audiences" they could sell to advertisers.
They would fill time slots with paticular shows that would guarentee advertisers a predictable demographic of a set number of viewers watching at any paticular time.
They didn't care what they put on the air, so long as it could get them viewers.
Further most of them, didn't even own the shows they put on, instead they licensed them from independent production companies.
So while both the "Incredible Hulk" and "The Amazing Spiderman", were licensed by CBS they purchased and producered from two completely different production companies, "Universal", and "Columbia" to fill individual time slots.
CBS didn't make toys or comic books, so they would have had zero interest in combining the shows outside of ratings, as selling actual merchendise would be seen as a conflict of interest to their advertisers.
Meanwhile the production companies Columbia and Universal had zero interest in combining their shows either, as it would literally cut their profits in half.
The only ones that had an interest in this kind of thing was (Marvel) Stan Lee who already owned the combined universe for characters and sold the toys and comics. But they zero control over either show, as they sold the licenses to those outright back in the day as Marvel was hemoraging money. Marvel had a say over how the characters were used and protrayed, but not what shows got made.
That left "Made for TV" movies and "Cross Over" Episodes. Both were only ever considred for ratings, and ratings alone as both were incredibly expensives to produce.
As we said multiple production companies would be involved, twice the star power, double the special effects budget, additional license rights and overhead, etc... Cross overs unless they were owned by the same production company were EXPENSIVE, and only filled a single time slot. So "NO ONE" was going to make "Amazing Spider Man/Incredible Hulk Power Hour".
But what they could make is Spiderman/Hulk cross over episode or even a "Made for TV" movie, if they could get all the players to play nice together. Spoiler alert... they didn't.
That leaves you the final and cheaper route, characters who were all owned by the same production company. Enter "New World Television".
New World picked up the rights to a bunch of those characters when the Universal folded.
But, the only character they had that was sort of marketable at that time was "The Hulk" who had already had a long running show, and had some baked in nostalgai factor.
So how do you sale shows for characters no one is willing to give a shot? BACKDOOR PILOTS!
And that's what we got, in an attempt to sell shows for characters that no one was interested in they made a series of "Made for TV" cross over movies staring the Hulk, that were backdoor pilots to try to sell the new characters Thor and Daredevil.
But both of movies weren't meant to make a new TV series with Daredevil, Thor and the Hulk forming their own Avengers team.
They were to start new independent shows staring those individual characters.
After all why have one expensive combined show, when you could have three less costly seperate shows that you could sell three times, and just do the occaisional cross over event for ratings.
But... it never took, and all three went quietly away.
Despite anything that Stan Lee (Marvel) may have wanted, they weren't in the drivers seat. As I said, they could just control aspects of the character, not decide what did or did not get made.
They could pitch whatever they want to the studios and production companies, but those companies were only going to do what was going to get them the most money for their investment.
So, outside of Stan Lees pipe dreams, no one... and I mean NO ONE was ever going to risk the money even try to make the Marvel judgernaut we know today.
That's why Disney had to do it. They had the deep pockets and the desire to control the entire thing. They had seen the success of the Spiderman and Xmen movies, and their toy franchises, and wanted a peice of that action.
They purchased the rights to all the remaining characters, and wanted a return on their investment.
So to sell toys to boys, they plotted out a blitz of test movies to see what characters would take, and which wouldn't, the fact that they were a total hit, and grew into a jugernaught happened organically, and wasn't some grand plan. They just wanted to sell play sets and t-shirts.
So like I said, no one else had the interest or money to even attempt anything like the MCU, until Disney got involved, and even then, they did it to sell Iron Man Underoos not make a giant combined cinematic universe that would dominate half their studioes for the next two decades.
So your research is correct, but your understanding of how TV and Movies got made back in the day is incorrect.
But as I said, loved the video! Keep up the good work.
You forgot to mention the trial of the Incredible Hulk that featured Daredevil and the Kingpin LoL 😂
Reb Brown wasn't Steve Rogers but Steve Rogers Jr. They also miss that Daredevil was in the Trial of the Increduble Hulk film.
The Hulk show had a sad piano tune at the end. Captain America could have had a Boogie Woogie tune from the 1930's so that when the team up occurred, the sad tune could have been incorporated into the Boogie Woogie tune.. Maybe CBS could have produced a record of the tunes used in the show. The song from the Greatest American Hero just a few years later was a big hit.
Actually NBC not CBS made the three Incredible Hulk reunion movies.