The Incredible Hulk Returns (1988)

This weekend saw one of the biggest film franchises reach a major changing point as Avengers: Endgame was released into theaters.  It saw characters from 11 years worth of films come together for one fantastic conflict.  It was a goodbye to the franchise as the fans knew it, and a welcome push to the future of what the franchise would become.  It was a season finale, after 22 episodes of riveting superhero action.

It wasn’t the first time that Marvel had come to the big screen.  Or the small screen, for that matter.  The Marvel Cinematic Universe was far from the introduction of many of these characters to film and television audiences.  Spider-Man has had numerous film franchises and television series throughout his history.  Captain America had a few movies come out in the 1970s and 1990 before getting the MCU treatment.  And then there was that Nick Fury television movie with David Hasselhoff in 1998.  Doctor Strange had a television movie.  Through years of Marvel properties getting the television or film treatment, few have made as much of an impact as Hulk.

Hulk has gotten a few television series.  The first was The Marvel Superheroes.  The animated series had five different segments, each focusing on a different hero.  Hulk was one of them.  More animated series came in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2010s.  The most popular show of all for Hulk was the 1978 live action series The Incredible Hulk.  David Banner (renamed from Bruce Banner) was played by Bill Bixby.  When he got angry, he transformed into the bigger, greener Hulk, and was played by Lou Ferrigno.  The show was notable for many things.  It was the first live action success for a Marvel character on television.  It made Lou Ferrigno a household name.  And, when the series concluded, it had three follow-up television movies, the first of which featured the first live-action team-up between two favourite Avengers team members.

The Incredible Hulk Returns was a television movie from 1988 that saw David Banner (Bill Bixby) creating a new gamma machine that would be able to rid him of his alter ego, Hulk (Lou Ferrigno).  As he was about to go through with the separation, he was confronted by his old colleague Donald Blake (Steve Levitt), who informed him of a trip he went on that led to his being tethered to Thor (Eric Kramer) through a mystical hammer.  Together, the two scientist friends would use their superhero connections to take down a gang that was trying to steal the gamma machine for nefarious reasons.

Thor and Hulk were working together, just like they would in the Marvel Cinematic Universe some twenty-four years later.  Things were a lot different, though.  Those differences weren’t only from the filmmaking standpoint.  There were differences in the storytelling, as well, that made for an interesting television movie.  There were choices made that changed characters so that they were different from their comic book versions and the Marvel Cinematic Universe versions that future generations would fall in love with.

I never saw a single episode of The Incredible Hulk, so my introduction to a story from the series was this television movie that followed a few years after it went off the air.  The first notable difference was that the character of Bruce Banner had been renamed David Banner for the television show.  There are a few stories floating around out there about why the change was made.  The one that sounds the most ridiculous, but at the same time sounds the most realistic, is that the name was changed because the producers thought that the name Bruce was too gay.  It’s a weird reasoning since there’s really nothing all that gay about a name.  In the 1970s, people weren’t as open to differing sexualities, so it makes sense that they would shy away from something that seemed gay.  The name Bruce though?  That sounds kind of ludicrous, but for the 1970s, sounds believable.

David and Hulk were two separate sides of the same person, which was the same as in the comics.  Just like Bruce, David would become angry and turn into the rage-filled Hulk to wreak havoc on everything around him.  He would usually turn out to be a hero, as he did in The Incredible Hulk Returns.  There were a few differences in his powers, though.  Most notably, Hulk wasn’t as strong as he was in the comics or would be in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  They wanted to make the character feel a little more grounded.  He was still stronger than the human characters.  He was able to throw people and things farther than a normal person could.  He could stop a car from speeding into battle by pulling on it.  But he wasn’t going to be knocking down buildings, throwing entire cars (at least, I didn’t see that), or jumping far distances.  He could smash, lightly.

Other characters had differences too.  There was the character of Jack McGee, played by Jack Colvin.  He was a reporter hot on the trail of Hulk, who thought that the green superhero could be the story to bring him fame and fortune.  This character was similar to Thunderbolt Ross, a nemesis from the comics.  The main difference was profession.  Jack McGee was a reporter hunting Hulk, while Thunderbolt Ross was a military general who wanted to hunt and kill Hulk.  They served essentially the same purpose, though the lack of military presence in the television show probably made the production easier in the 1970s.

The final major character difference was Thor.  There have been many different versions of Thor, each with their own way of dealing with the character’s presence.  The version that most people would know right now is the Marvel Cinematic Universe version, where Thor is a Norse God and that’s that.  He was sent to Earth to learn humility, but he was always the God of Thunder.  There was no other identity.  In the comics, he was sent to Earth to learn humility, but was put into the body of Donald Blake, who could turn into Thor by striking a walking stick against a rock.  The walking stick became Mjolnir, and Blake became Thor.  The Incredible Hulk Returns kept Donald Blake and Thor as two separate people, with Blake being able to summon Thor by holding Mjolnir and shouting “Odin!”  It made sense, since the television movie was meant as a sort of backdoor pilot for a Thor series, and having the two play off each other was fun to watch.  A full series that was like a buddy cop comedy with Donald Blake and Thor could have worked.  Outside of that prospect, it was a little weird to have the power do that.

The Incredible Hulk Returns was an interesting crossover between two characters who I primarily know from different iterations.  Their interactions were different from what I’m used to.  The characters had slightly different personalities.  And the bad guys they had to stop were a group of thieves trying to steal a gamma machine for no real reason other than to have it, I think.  It wasn’t as high stakes as most superhero stories.  It wasn’t as personal as other superhero stories.  It was a simple heist that they had to stop.  Few superhero movies keep their stakes so lowkey.

Avengers: Endgame was a very high stakes movie.  The world had been put in danger during Infinity War, and the surviving heroes were now fighting back to retake what they had lost.  And it brought together characters from the past 11 years’ worth of movies in order to do it.  It’s no wonder it has made such an impact during its opening weekend.  None of it would have happened without The Incredible Hulk Returns being the first live-action crossover between Thor and Hulk.  The world would be different without it.

Now for a few notes:

• 1990’s Captain America (week 181) and 1998’s Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD (week 284) were mentioned in this post.
• Charles Napier made his fourth Sunday “Bad” Movies appearance this week in The Incredible Hulk Returns.  He was in Steel (week 127), Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (week 224), and Return to Frogtown (week 334).
• This week was also the fourth appearance of Lou Ferrigno.  He previously popped up in Sharknado 3! Oh Hell No (week 190), Sinbad of the Seven Seas (week 235), and Return to Frogtown (week 334).
• Tim Thomerson was one of the bad guys in The Incredible Hulk Returns.  You might remember him from Evil Bong (week 52), and Iron Eagle (week 90).
• Finally, there was an actor named Tom Finnegan who was in both The Incredible Hulk Returns and Road House (week 200).
• Have you seen The Incredible Hulk Returns?  Have you seen any of the series?  Can you fill me in on it?  Let me know your thoughts and other stuff in the comments.
• You can use the comments and Twitter to suggest movies I should be watching for future Sunday “Bad” Movies installments.  I’m open to most of the suggestions, unless you’re suggesting something critically acclaimed, beloved by many, and an all-around good movie.  Only bad movies here, please.
• There’s an Instagram account for the Sunday “Bad” Movies.  Check it out.  There are some good things coming to it soon.
• Now let’s talk about next week.  The year is 1999.  Movies based on television shows are big.  Brendan Fraser is big.  The two come together for a live-action adaptation of Dudley Do-Right.  Now, twenty years later, I check it out.  Come join me when I put up a post about Dudley Do-Right, right here, next week.

Return to Frogtown (1993)

Many wrestlers have gone from the ring to the big screen to try to become movie stars.  Hulk Hogan did it in the 80s and 90s.  Dwayne Johnson and Dave Bautista did it more recently.  They spend their time sparring against other big, burly men and branch out into a new avenue.  They find a new audience that might not have watched them between the WCW, WWF, WWE, or TNA ropes.  Few of the actors to come out of the wrestling world have found as much cult film popularity as Roddy Piper.

1988 was an especially big year for Roddy Piper.  He took on the lead role in John Carpenter’s They Live, a movie where people were being taken over by aliens and a pair of sunglasses could reveal who was still human.  The movie wasn’t a huge success when it came out but went on to become a favourite of people into 1980s genre films.  The other movie Roddy Piper starred in that year was even more bizarre.  Hell Comes to Frogtown was about a post-apocalyptic world where most humans could no longer conceive children, and other people had been mutated into frog people.  Sam Hell was a man who was frequently impregnating woman, and his seed was needed by the women of the world.

That second movie wasn’t the biggest hit.  It did do something that They Live couldn’t, though.  Hell Comes to Frogtown spawned two sequels: Return to Frogtown and Toad Warrior.  Toad Warrior was considered more of a spin-off than a sequel.  It was considered much more of a standalone film than an actual sequel.  Return to Frogtown, however, was a direct sequel to Hell Comes to Frogtown.  It followed the same characters as they ventured into Frogtown once again to save someone who was being held captive.

Return to Frogtown was released in 1993.  Sam Hell (Robert Z’Dar) was now a Texas Rocket Ranger.  He was tasked with going to Frogtown to find Ranger John Jones (Lou Ferrigno), who had gone missing in the area some time before.  Sam Hell took his trusty sidekick, Dr. Spangle (Denice Duff), with him.  He had every intention of leaving her behind, but she tagged along.  They went to Frogtown, got involved with the frog people of the town, and fought their way back out.

As you could probably tell from that description, Roddy Piper was nowhere to be seen.  He wasn’t the only actor from Hell Comes to Frogtown who didn’t come back for Return to Frogtown.  No characters who made it to the sequel were played by the same person.  None of the cast had returned.  Roddy Piper was replaced with Robert Z’Dar.  Sandahl Bergman was replaced with Denice Duff.  The cast was completely different, even though the characters were the same.

The other noticeable difference was in the storyline.  The procreation storyline of Hell Comes to Frogtown was completely dropped for the sequel.  It was no longer about women wanting to use Sam Hell to try and repopulate Earth.  Sam Hell still managed to have sex, or get close to it, with a frog woman.  But the intention wasn’t to use him for sex so that babies could be made.  It was more just because Sam and the frog woman found each other attractive.  They wanted to have sex for the fun of it, not for the job of conception.

There was one thing that stayed the same in the sequel.  That was the basic storyline of Sam Hell and Dr. Spangle travelling into Frogtown to save someone.  Yet, there were still some major deviations in that storyline.  Hell Comes to Frogtown saw a group of female scientists sending him to save a group of fertile women for procreation purposes.  He was under the watch of Dr. Spangle, with an explosive codpiece that would detonate if he tried to escape Spangle’s watchful eye.  Return to Frogtown made his trek nobler.  He wasn’t being forced to go to Frogtown.  It was his mission from the Texas Rocket Rangers, but he was doing it out of the goodness of his heart.  He wanted to save his friend.  Rocket Ranger Jones had been captured, and Sam wanted to make sure he got out of there safe.  Though the two movies shared a behind enemy lines sort of storyline about going into Frogtown to save someone, the intentions were different.

As for the things that Return to Frogtown managed to do apart from its predecessor, it had some fun sequences.  When Dr. Spangle was captured, she was tied to the front of a car and driven around the wasteland near Frogtown.  It was an entertaining little action piece, watching someone struggle on the hood of a car as it sped through the dusty streets of the wild west looking Frogtown.  Oh yeah, Frogtown was designed like an old west town in Return to Frogtown.  It was a fun setting to place some shootouts in.  Post-apocalypses that end up like the wild west are usually enjoyable.

The weirdest part of Return to Frogtown was Professor Tanzer, played by Brion James.  The character was outlandish, even for a movie featuring people that had been mutated into frogs.  The way he spoke, his mannerisms, and his look all felt like they were ripped from something that was more farcical than the movie ended up being.  The twist near the end of the film didn’t help matters at all.  It was the most nonsensical element.  The character didn’t bring the film down at all.  He just stood out as something that never sat quite right.

The final thing that needs to be mentioned is the music.  There was an extended driving sequence as Sam Hell and Dr. Spangle headed to Frogtown that featured what sounded like an original song.  I could be wrong about that, though.  It was some sort of “kicking the frog” type of thing.  Those may not have been the actual lyrics, but that’s what it sounded like.  Then there was the concert scene.  Frogtown had its own bar band sort of setup where a band of frog people would perform.  That one had lyrics like “meaner and greener.”  The two songs set up the two sides of the conflict in Return to Frogtown.  The first one set up the heroes while the second one laid the foundations for the frog people.  It was a solid way to set the sides for the conflict.

Return to Frogtown wasn’t the greatest sequel to ever be made.  Hell, it might not have been the best sequel that Hell Comes to Frogtown could have gotten.  The cast was changed and the story lost a big chunk of its oomph when it focused solely on the rescue mission, dropping the repopulation subplot.  There could have been more to the story.  It wasn’t there, though, and we got what we got.

Wrestlers made a move onto the silver screen, beginning in the 1980s.  Roddy Piper came out with Hell Comes to Frogtown, just like Dwayne Johnson, Dave Bautista, and John Cena would come out with movies in later decades.  He didn’t find the same level of stardom as any of them, but he did kickstart a franchise that spanned three movies.  And that got us here.

Now for some notes to finish off this post:

• Here’s the post for Hell Comes to Frogtown (week 206).
• Charles Napier joined the three-timer’s club with Return to Frogtown.  He was in Steel (week 127) and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (week 224).
• Another three-timer is Lou Ferrigno, who showed up in Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! (week 190) and Sinbad of the Seven Seas (week 235).
• Robert Z’Dar starred in Return to Frogtown.  He was also in Samurai Cop (week 66).
• Another returning actor was Brion James, who had made an appearance in Cabin Boy (week 173).
• Return to Frogtown saw the second appearance of Douglas Dunning, after Miss Cast Away and the Island Girls (week 208).
• Finally, Mike Nyman was in Road to Revenge (week 313), and now he is in Return to Frogtown.
• Have you seen Return to Frogtown?  Have you seen Hell Comes to Frogtown?  What did you think about them?  Let me know about them or this post in the comments or on Twitter.
• Both of those places are good spots to let me know what movies I should be checking out for future installments of the Sunday “Bad” Movies.  Hit me up.  Let me know.
• There’s now an Instagram account for the Sunday “Bad” Movies.  I’m whipping things up on it right now, so check it out.
• Let’s talk about next week.  Lou Ferrigno is going to be coming back quickly as I watch a movie related to a big release on Friday.  The Incredible Hulk Returns was a television movie from the late 1980s that saw The Incredible Hulk meet up with Thor.  That’s what I’ll be watching.  I’ll see you next week with my thoughts.