Lou Ferrigno as the Hulk
November 4, 1977: The Incredible Hulk premieres as a 2-hour "backdoor pilot" TV-movie on CBS. Bill Bixby played Dr. David Bruce Banner, and Susan Sullivan played Dr. Elaina Marks, his assistant and love interest, who ended up dying in a laboratory explosion.
Bill Bixby as Banner
Jack Colvin played Jack McGee, a reporter for a national tabloid newspaper, investigating the Hulk, due to the fact that the creature appeared to have caused the explosion, and thus is guilty of the murder of Drs. Banner and Marks.
Since he can't allow the Hulk to be caught, Banner goes on the run, making this the best of many TV shows that followed the pattern of The Fugitive, with Banner and the Hulk serving as the show's "Dr. Kimble" and McGee as its "Lieutenant Gerard," though McGee shows little of Gerard's morality and commitment to justice: He doesn't care whether the Hulk is punished for his crime, as long as he gets his stories.
The series ran for 5 years, and later produced 4 movies, which included the 1st live-action versions of Marvel Comics superheroes Daredevil and Thor.
Marvel boss Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby created the Hulk in 1962, giving his true identity that of Robert Bruce Banner, a physicist rather than a physician, and usually just called "Bruce." Lee had an acute affinity for alliteration: Spider-Man was Peter Parker, his boss was J. Jonah Jameson, Jameson's partner was Robbie Robertson, and Jameson's secretary was Betty Brant.
Dr. Strange was Stephen Strange. Daredevil was Matthew Murdock. Lee's 1st superhero team was the Fantastic Four, whose members included Reed Richards and his girlfriend, later wife, Susan Storm. Iron Man was Tony Stark, but his girlfriend, later wife, was Pepper Potts. So, "Bruce Banner."
(In 1970, when rival DC Comics created a character that was a parody of Lee, he was named Funky Flashman. Of course, DC had already given Superman stories plenty of characters with the initials L.L., including Lois Lane, Lana Lang and Lex Luthor.)
Series creator Kenneth Johnson, who also created the Six Million Dollar Man spinoff The Bionic Woman, and later created the sci-fi series V (lizard-man aliens, not to be confused with V for Vendetta), had a son named David, and he said that's why Banner was renamed "David."
Lee claimed he'd heard a different reason: The show went with "David" was because they thought "Bruce" was, in their words, "too gay-ish." Ferrigno heard this story as well, calling it "the most absurd, ridiculous thing I've ever heard." After all, Batman was Bruce Wayne, and one of the biggest rock stars of the era was Bruce Springsteen.
Because Ferrigno was hearing-impaired, leading to him having a speech impediment, the show's Hulk never spoke, only grunted and roared. Unlike in the comics, where the Hulk speaks but is grammatically challenged, there is no commentary of "Hulk smash!" or addressing of anybody as "Puny (whatever)!" There is, however, quite a bit of the Hulk smashing things.
Despite all the changes, Lee approved of the series: "The Hulk was done intelligently. It was done by Ken Johnson, who's a brilliant writer/producer/director, and he made it an intelligent, adult show that kids could enjoy. He took a comic book character and made him somewhat plausible. Women liked it, and men liked it, and teenagers liked it... It was beautifully done. He changed it quite a bit from the comic book, but every change he made, made sense."
Earlier in 1977, on April 19, CBS had debuted the 1st TV series about Spider-Man. Unfortunately, at 27, Nicholas Hammond was about 10 years too old for the part. This was followed in 1978 by Dr. Strange, and in 1979 by 2 movies with Captain America. CBS could have had a "Marvel Universe" then.
The problem was, low budgets meant they couldn't use the special effects necessary to depict supervillains, such as Spidey's "rogues gallery" that includes the Green Goblin and Doctor Octopus, Captain America's nemesis the Red Skull, and Hulk enemies such as the Leader and the Abomination. Given the powers shown by the Fantastic Four, they, to say nothing of their opponents like Dr. Doom and Galactus, were out. So, like the 1952-58 Adventures of Superman, it was mostly gangsters -- at least the 1966-68 Batman series could use that hero's themed gangsters as villains -- or, as Knight Rider would later put it, "criminals who operate above the law."
Years later, Susan Sullivan would play Martha Rodgers, mother of the title character on Castle, and a clip from this film would be used to illustrate her acting career.
Ted Cassidy, who played Lurch on the TV version of The Addams Family, did the show's opening narration. He died in 1979, while the show was still on the air, but his narration was kept. Bill Bixby died in 1993, Jack Kirby in 1994, Jack Colvin in 2005, and Stan Lee in 2018. As of November 4, 2022, Lou Ferrigno, Susan Sullivan and Johnson are still alive.
Lou Ferrigno, 2022
Ever since, pretty much every adaptation of the Hulk, including (and especially) parodies, have included the line that Bixby's Banner used on Colvin's McGee in the pilot: "Mr. McGee, don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry."
Among the parodies that used it was a 2016 episode of the YouTube series Epic Rap Battles of History: "Epic" Lloyd Ahlquist played the Mark Ruffalo version of Bruce Banner, while "Nice" Peter Shukoff played the similarly-named 1976 Olympic decathlon Gold Medalist Bruce Jenner. In mid-battle, each changed: Banner became the Hulk, played by bodybuilder and former American Gladiator Mike O'Hearn, and Jenner became Caitlin Jenner, played by Jolie Drake, an actual transgender comedian who performs under the name NoShame.
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November 4, 1977 was a Friday. This was also the day that 2 major rock albums were released Footloose and Fancy Free by Rod Stewart, and Rocket to Russia by The Ramones. I have a separate entry for this dual event.
Baseball season was over. Football was in midweek. There were 9 games played in the NBA:
* The New York Knicks beat the Seattle SuperSonics, 95-92 at the Seattle Center Coliseum.
* The New Jersey Nets lost to the Philadelphia 76ers, 107-104 at the Rutgers Athletic Center (now the Jersey Mike's Arena) in Piscataway, New Jersey. Bernard King scored 41 points for the Nets, but the Sixers had a better team effort, getting 29 from Doug Collins, 21 from George McGinnis, 17 from Darryl Dawkins, 14 from Lloyd Free (later to rename himself World B. Free), and 11 from the man the 1974 and 1976 ABA Champion Nets had to let go just to be able to afford the NBA's entry fee, Julius "Dr. J" Erving.
* The Denver Nuggets beat the Boston Celtics, 109-107 at the Boston Garden.
* The Washington Bullets beat the Phoenix Suns, 113-96 at the Capital Centre in the Washington suburb of Landover, Maryland.
* The New Orleans Jazz beat the Golden State Warriors, 105-102 at the Superdome in New Orleans.
* The Buffalo Braves beat the Chicago Bulls, 100-92 at the Chicago Stadium.
* The Milwaukee Bucks beat the Houston Rockets, 110-108 at the Milwaukee Exposition, Convention Center and Arena, or "The MECCA." Since 2014, it has been named the UW-Panther Arena.
* The Atlanta Hawks beat the Kansas City Kings, 111-110 at the Kemper Arena (now the Hy-Vee Arena) in Kansas City.
* And the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Indiana Pacers, 111-99 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California.
There were 2 NHL games played that night. The New York Rangers beat the Vancouver Canucks, 5-1 at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver. And the Atlanta Flames beat the Pittsburgh Penguins, 5-2 at The Omni in Atlanta.
And there were 4 games played in the World Hockey Association:
* The New England Whalers beat the Cincinnati Stingers, 4-3 at the Hartford Civic Center (now the PeoplesBank Arena).
* The Winnipeg Jets beat the Birmingham Bulls, 4-2 at the Birmingham-Jefferson Civic Center in Birmingham, Alabama.
* The Quebec Nordiques beat the Houston Aeros, 7-6 at The Summit in Houston. (The arena has since been converted into the Central Campus of the Lakewood Church, Dr. Joel Osteen's "megachurch.")
* And the Edmonton Oilers beat the Indianapolis Racers, 3-1 at the Northlands Coliseum in Edmonton.
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