Tag Archives: Steve Levitt

Retro Television Reviews: Puppetman 1.1 “Pilot”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Thursdays, I will be reviewing Puppetman, which aired on CBS in 1987.  The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!

This week, we have the pilot for Puppetman, a sitcom that was created by the people behind the Muppets.

Episode 1.1 “Puppetman”

(Dir by Alan Rafkin, originally aired on July 3rd, 1987)

Gary (Fred Newman) is a puppeteer who spends most of his day hiding beneath a cardboard wall while speaking in the voice of a naive dragon.  Much like the guy from the Police Academy films, Gary does a lot of other sound effects as well.  Who needs to pay for an SFX department when Gary can perfectly duplicate any sound that’s needed?  Gary works on a PBS puppet show that is hosted by the mercurial Rita (Julie Payne).  His co-puppeteers are Del (Richard Hunt) and Holly (Lisa Waltz).  It would seem that he has the perfect life, though it’s hard not to notice that Gary seems to be a lot more comfortable expressing his emotions through his puppets than through face-to-face conversation.

Gary’s ex-wife calls and explains that she has an audition for a play.  She asks if Gary can look after their six year-old son, Zack (Michael Patrick Carter).  Gary agrees, though he worries about whether or not he’ll be as good a full-time father as he was a part-time father.  At first, Zack is excited to spend time with his father but then he’s bitterly disappointed when Gary has to keep abandoning him because of the demands of his job.  Gary is good at holding the show together but he’s less skilled at meeting the emotional needs of a six year-old.

Gary’s going to have to get better at it, though.  When his wife calls and says that she got the part and she’s going to be on the road for the next six months, she asks Gary to take Zack.  Gary agrees but first, he has to ask Zack.  And what better way to ask Zack than to have a puppet do it for him?

The Puppetman pilot was co-written by Jim Henson, the creator of the Muppets.  Perhaps not surprisingly, the pilot is at its best when it deals with what goes on behind-the-scenes of a PBS children’s show.  The stuff with Zack is rather rudimentary but the pilot actually comes to life when it deals with temperamental grown-ups and idealized puppets.  When Rita decides to sing a song without giving anyone any advance warning and the puppeteers decide to upstage Rita by having one of the dragon puppets sneeze on her, it’s obvious that Henson was writing from his own personal experiences.

To be honest, this was kind of a depressing pilot.  Gary is a nice guy and he’s likable and he wants to be a good father but it’s obvious that he can only express his emotions through his puppets.  As a result, Zack is far more comfortable talking to the puppets than talking to his own father.  Throughout the whole pilot, one gets the feeling that Gary has been so deeply wounded in the past that he’s scared to open up.  Even the show’s laugh track sounds kind of sad.

Perhaps that explains why only one episode of Puppetman aired.  Gary agreed to watch Zack for six months but America would not be watching either one of them.

Spring Breakdown: Hunk (dir by Lawrence Bassoff)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tBgb_kUjho

Released in 1987, Hunk tells the story of Hunk Golden (John Allen Nelson).

At first glance, Hunk seems to have everything.  He lives in a huge house on the beach and he’s good-looking and muscular enough that he can actually pull off the rainbow speedo look.  Women want to be with Hunk and men want to be Hunk.  He’s rich.  He can eat all the food in the world without putting on a single pound.  He’s got a great smile and wonderful tan and he even knows karate!  Hunk drives a red convertible that has a personalized license plate, one that reads: HUNK.  If anyone else did it, it would seem narcissistic but Hunk can pull it off.

However, Hunk is deeply dissatisfied with his life.  As he explains to his psychiatrist, Dr. Sunny Graves (Rebecca Bush), he wasn’t always Hunk Golden.  He used to be a nerdy writer named Brady Brinkman (played by Steve Levitt).  After Brady’s girlfriend left him for an aerobics instructor, he somehow managed to write a guide to how to become rich.  Brady’s wasn’t sure where his inspiration came from but he was still able to make a fortune off of it.  After Brady moved to the beach to work on his next project, he discovered that being wealthy didn’t mean anything unless he also had the right look.

That’s when he was approached by O’Brien (Deborah Shelton), an emissary of the devil (James Coco).  O’Brien turned Brady Brinkman into Hunk Golden and taught him how to be …. well, how to be a hunk.  The only condition was that, after a number of months, Hunk would have to give up his soul to the devil.  Hunk agreed but now, with the deadline approaching, Hunk isn’t so sure that he wants to condemn his soul to eternal damnation.  Is being the hottest guy on the beach really worth an eternity of burning in fire and being poked with those little pitchfork things?

Now, it probably won’t come as a surprise to our regular readers to discover that this film was produced and distributed by Crown International Pictures.  From the 70s through the 80s, Crown International specialized in low-budget exploitation films, with a surprisingly large number of them taking place on the beach.  Nowadays, of course, the Crown International filmography can be found in countless Mill Creek boxsets.  Hunk can be found in several.  I own enough Mill Creek boxsets that I’ve probably got a dozen copies of Hunk in my DVD and Blu-ray collections.

That said, while the film’s low budget is obvious in every frame, Hunk is actually slightly better than the typical Crown International beach film.  While it seems to take forever for Brady to become Hunk, the film has got a likable cast and it actually delivers its message about self-acceptance with a surprising amount of sincerity.  This is the rare Crown International Film with a heart and, for every joke that falls flat (and there’s several), there’s at least a few unexpectedly clever moments.  The film takes an especially strange turn once Hunk becomes a celebrity and starts to wonder if he should accept the devil’s invitation to become a demon and help start a world war.  Steve Levitt and John Allen Nelson both do a good job playing Brady and his alter ego, though all of Nelson’s dialogue appears to have been dubbed.  James Coco delivers his evil lines with a properly devilish glee.  Incidently, this was also Brad Pitt’s first movie.  While he had no dialogue and went uncredited, he can be easily spotted as an extra in one of the beach scenes.

See him?

If you’re looking for silly and occasionally strange 80s beach movie, you could do worse than to check your Mill Creek boxsets for a copy of Hunk.

The Incredible Hulk Returns (1988, directed by Nicholas Corea)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Scientist David Banyon (Bill Bixby) has a secret.  His real name is David Banner and he has spent the last ten years in hiding, traveling up and down the highway and searching for a cure to a very strange condition.  As the result of getting dosed with gamma rays, David Banner sometimes transforms into an angry green monster known as the Hulk (Lou Ferrigno).  The world believes that David Banner is dead and Banner must let them continue to believe that until he can find a cure for the monster within.

The Incredible Hulk Returns is a continuation of the old Incredible Hulk television series, which was the first (and, until the MCU came along, only) successful attempt to build a live action show around a Marvel super hero.  Premiering in 1978, The Incredible Hulk ran for 5 seasons and got good ratings and, for a comic book series, surprisingly decent reviews.  However, it was also expensive to produce and it was abruptly cancelled in 1982, before the show got a chance to wrap up David’s story.  When The Incredible Hulk ended, David Banner was still alone and hitchhiking from town to town.  Six years later, The Incredible Hulk Returns caught up with David and tried to sell viewers on a “new” Marvel hero as well.

David “Banyon” is now living in California and working at the Joshua-Lambert Research Institute.  It’s been two years since he last turned into the Hulk.  He controls his rage by being careful not to get involved in any dangerous situations.  He also has a girlfriend, Dr. Maggie Shaw (Lee Purcell).  David is designing the Gamma Transponder, which he thinks will cure him of his condition.  Life’s good until Donald Blake (Steve Levitt) shows up.

A student of Banner’s, Blake recognizes his former teacher and approaches him with a crazy story.  When Blake was in Norway, he stumbled across a tomb that contained a hammer that contained the spirit of Thor, a Viking warrior who was banished to Earth by Odin.  To prove that he’s telling the truth, Blake commands Thor to emerge from the hammer.  When Thor (played by Eric Kramer) does, he makes such a mess in the laboratory that David transforms into the Hulk.

Thor is not Banner’s only problem.  Jack LeBeau (Tim Thomerson!) and Mike Fouche (Charles Napier!!) want to steal the Gamma Transponder and turn it into a weapon.  Also, reporter Jack McGee (Jack Colvin) s back in town and still obsessed with proving that the Hulk exists.

The Incredible Hulk Returns may be a continuation of David Banner’s story but the main reason it was filmed was so it could serve as a backdoor pilot for a Thor television series.  The Thor TV series never happened and, for those who are used to Chris Hemsworth’s comedic take on Thor, it’s jarring to see Eric Kramer playing the role like a third-tier professional wrestler.  For fans of The Incredible Hulk TV series, it’s even more jarring to see the Hulk fighting alongside a viking.  Unlike the comic book, the TV series usually tried to ground its stories in reality, with Banner’s transformations into the Hulk serving as the show’s only concession to its comic book origins.  The villains played by Thomerson and Napier both seem like typical bad guys from the show’s heyday but Thor just doesn’t belong.  Fans of the show will resent Thor taking the spotlight away from David Banner and the Hulk while fans of Thor will notice that this version of Thor is apparently not the god of thunder but instead just an egotistical viking who got on Odin’s nerves.

Bill Bixby was always The Incredible Hulk‘s not-so-secret weapon, taking and playing his role very seriously.  He continues to do that in The Incredible Hulk Returns but how seriously can anyone come across when they’re speaking to Thor?  By the end of the movie, Thor and Blake head off on their own adventures while Banner resumes hitchhiking.  Thor and Blake would not be seen again but David Banner’s adventures would continue in The Trial of the Incredible Hulk.