The Incredible Hulk (TV Series) Stop the Presses (1978) User Reviews

Hulk Versus McGee

[flarefan-81906 · 8/10 · 8 March 2017]

This episode doubles up on female eye candy: not one, but two restaurant owners with a romantic interest in their dishwasher, David. It's a bit funny, but for all intents and purposes the two women share the same role in the plot. Their cook, ably portrayed by Pat Morita (fresh off his first stint as "Arnold" in Happy Days), adds a splendid dose of comic relief.

But the restaurant shares a town with the National Register. McGee's fixing to nab the Hulk with a tranquilizer rifle, and one of their reporters is planting garbage in the restaurant so he can do a scandal story. And when David spots him in the act, the reporter snaps his photo. This all works as a fine excuse for a deeper look at the National Register, but afterwards it hit me that the premise doesn't make sense: Why would David go to the town where McGee hangs his hat, unless he had a lead to a cure there (which he didn't)?

Still, however weak the excuse, finding out more about the man pursuing the Hulk is a gratifying venture. Colvin plays the role with subtlety, and there's a beautiful tragedy to the character that is wholly unlike Banner's: though he wants to be a crusading do-gooder, it seems he only ever gets the opportunity to refuse to do wrong. Of course McGee's problem is that he doesn't actively seek ways to help other people, but his position is an easy one to sympathize with because it's one we've all held, some of us for our entire lives.

The finale has a major implausibility: McGee shoots himself with the rifle and is less affected by it than the Hulk is! Plus we never get to see the villain, the slimiest one of the series yet, get his comeuppance. Still, this is yet another excellent episode and has something of everything: drama, action, humor, and heart.

The Pizza Parlor

[AaronCapenBanner · 7/10 · 19 November 2014]

David Banner(Bill Bixby) works as a dishwasher in Chicago at a pizza parlor run by two women(played by Julie Cobb & Mary Frann) who become the target of an unethical reporter from the National Register who falsifies evidence of filth in their kitchen for a phony expose. Unfortunately, they get a picture of David, who must infiltrate the paper in order to retrieve the negative(and expose the sleazy reporter) while dodging the attentions of Jack McGee(Jack Colvin) right in his own place of work... Fun episode with a good guest cast(also including Pat Morita) and a struggling Jack McGee given a golden opportunity to catch the Hulk in the last place he ever expected!

Great Metrano week: day five

[Chip_douglas · 6/10 · 26 September 2014]

It was Art Metrano's birthday earlier this week, so this reviewer is looking at 7 guest starring roles from the 70's & 80's by the man also known as The Great Metrano. Today is day five: The Incredible Hulk: Stop the Presses.

Yes indeed, true believers, on November 24 1978, Art Metrano became the first and only man in history to be thrown around by two different TV superheroes from separate publishing houses on the same night and on the same network. First he faced DC's Wonder Woman (see yesterday's entry in this week of reviews) and immediately after that, he went up against Marvel's Green Goliath, the Incredible Hulk. Unfortunately for this reviewer, Art's part only lasts for about half the episode, so this might be an extra short review...

At least T.G.M. is front and center in the first shot of the show, bothering our favorite Hulk hunter Jack McGee at work: the New York offices of the National Register (established 1860). Our Art is 'Charlie' and he makes a buck selling pictures to the Register. But McGee knows Charlie likes to sell the same photos to different reporters and get paid twice. So tells him to stick to working with Joe Arnold, a young, unscrupulous newsman who likes to bend the truth to make his articles juicier.

Joe and Charlie's modus operandi is certainly unusual. They visit Bruno's, a promising new Italian restaurant run by two women and an Asian cook called Fred (Pat Morita, who else?). There they throw some firecrackers in the dumpster at the back so Fred and the new dishwasher (a certain David Banner) run out. While the staff is distracted, Joe and Charlie enter the kitchen, Charlie dumps garbage everywhere and Joe takes pictures. I thought Art Metrano (Charlie) was supposed to be the photographer here, but I guess reporter Joe didn't want to get his typing hands dirty.

Naturally Jill & Karen, the two girl owners (named after writers Jill Sherman and Karen Harris) are upset that a the health scare is about to be reported about Bruno's. Meanwhile dishwasher David is especially worried because Arnold managed to snap his picture. Strange character, that David. Clearly overqualified to be a mere dishwasher and much better at fixing the girls taxes and liquor license. But J&K don't want to see him leave because they both really fancy him.

For some reason Arnold and 'Cockroach' Charlie don't feel like they've done enough damage at Bruno's so they return for round two. But this time David is there. Unfotunately for him, Charlie used to be a wrestler and in no time David is face down in the food and thrown under the table. Somehow that happens to him in every episode. The baddies and bullies always dump Bill Bixby somewhere out of their eyesight for a few minutes so he has time to change places with Lou Ferigno. Then Lou comes out as the Incredible Hulk, pushes the entire kitchen counter at Art, picks him up and throws him out the door. Unfortunately that's the last we see of Art Metrano in this episode, as well as Pat Morita's Fred. They both decide to leave town after the first Hulk-out.

There are a few more things worthy of mentioning about this episode, because Karen & Jill (the writers, not the restaurant owners) keep throwing out more far fetched plot fabrications. David finds a snapshot made by the girls just before the fist garbage incident which just happens to have a newspaper with a readable date visible on it, as well as a clock showing the time. This is proof that Arnold (the reporter, not Pat Morita as he was known in Happy Days) came in later with other people's garbage.

But the evidence means nothing as long as they don't have Arnold's original negatives. So they have to sneak into the newspaper-building and dark haired Jill has to distract the guard by wearing a slinky black dress. The three of them manage to get the negatives, but then Jill, who earlier on mentioned that she briefly worked at the Register, figures out by looking at a 'runsheet' hanging on the wall that some of the pictures have already been duplicated and are at the presses, about to be printed. And of course one of those photographs shows David's face.

So, David sends the two women home and goes down to the presses. It's unclear what he was hoping to achieve on his own, because it sure doesn't look like he planned to get his denim jacket caught in the spinning press, causing him to Hulk-Out faster than usual and smash the entire printing press to pieces. I guess the Hulk must have retained a bit of Banners intentions this time around.

But the fun's not over yet. In another subplot, Jack McGee had just acquired a big game hunter's riffle and while he was just sitting at his desk after hours, admiring his weapon, he gets word the Hulk is on the premises. But McGee proves himself even clumsier with his rifle than Banner was with his jacket: he shoots a tranquilizer dart into his own leg. And that's how we get a scene of David Banner, (transformed back into Banner faster than ever) face to face with his hunter Jack. Only Jack is too groggy and woozy to make out David's face.

What a silly comic book episode this was. It must also be mentioned that a lot of scenes obviously had lines dubbed in at a later stage, whether it's a scene the two girls walking down the street or The Great Art wisecracking 'I Ain't gonna wrestle this guy' during his far too brief confrontation with the Hulk.

7 out of 10

The Great Metrano week will continue tomorrow with another classic: The A-Team: Uncle Buckle-Up

the hulk and McGee

[trashgang · 7/10 · 2 May 2013]

David has found a job in Chicago at Bruno's restaurant washing dishes. Soon Bruno's is in trouble when a sleazy journalist from The National Inquirer. The journalist takes pictures from the restaurant but before he does he's throwing trash and rotting flesh in the kitchen. But David is working when it happens again and his picture is taken. So he need those pictures to stay undercover. But not only that. McGee is almost losing his job because hunting down the hulk all over America costs a lot of money and nothing gets solved so McGee decide to buy a gun to shoot animals with. He will uses when he comes across the hulk which he does when David get stuck in the presses and is turning into the hulk. The hulk is shot but McGee too. Just when the hulk is turning into David McGee is fainting out. Will he recognise David Banner?

This episode was given on the box of season one as an extra and you can see that it was shot more professional. The hulk himself got black hair in stead of the green from season one. It's a very interesting episode because it was used twice in an episode an a film as a flashback.

Also we can see that Banner wasn't doing his own stunts, a double is seen in the fight scene with Banner and Charlie. A very strong series this is, it still stand the time of writing and so far I never have seen a really boring episode. Most of the power of the series lays in the hands of Bill Bixby.

Gore 0/5 Nudity 0/5 Effects 3/5 Story 3/5 Comedy 0/5