Tuesday, June 17, 2008

and the mutant poodle too

As part of my new commitment to including content on my site that adds value to internet discourse, and partly because I find you attractive, here is a list of all the animal-related reasons David Banner became The Hulk on the seventies TV show. The full list of hulk rationales can be found on Kenneth Johson's highly funny Hulk Out List.

Trouble with animals:

Being mauled by a bear

Being bit by a dog

Being pushed down a mountainside by a bigfoot impersonator

Somehow running into a bear trap

Placed in a small room with a ravenous black panther

Kicking over a beehive and then being surprised when the bees are mad at him

Being placed in a cage with an angry gorilla

Trying to run away from a nasty prison work camp, only to fall through a rotted bridge, and then being bitten by a rattlesnake

Falling in a pitfall set by the crazed man who is hunting David on his private island, and then being stung by the scorpion when trying to climb out

Being thrown under a New Orleans Mardi Gras parade float by a mean guy in a gorilla suit who gives David a few kicks for good measure

Being thrown into a holding pen with an angry bull by mean cowboys, hitting his head on the ground, and while he lays on the ground trying to recover, having the bull literally kick his behind (and his side, and his leg, and his gizzard, etc)

Being placed in a dumpster by the two garbage collectors who think he's a thief, and who don't believe him when he says "Hey! There are rats in here!", and then being bitten by rats, which would upset me too

*

Okay, I'll go you one better than animals. Here are all the water- and fire-related reasons.

Water:

Being hit with a blast of steam in the face while trying to turn off a nuclear reactor in mid-meltdown

Having two mean football players snap wet towels at him and shove him into a steam room, which they've turned on to full blast

Falling into the churning water of a boathouse, and then inexplicably being dragged repeatedly over the paddlewheel

Attempting to turn off boiling hot water for a wax maker, only to have the faucet break off in his hand and scald him, and then inexplicably slipping and rolling around in same boiling hot water

Helping Ray Walston out with a magic trick by allowing himself to be chained up and put in a tank of water, only to find that ole drunk Ray forgot to leave the escape key inside the tank

Wandering around in the service ducts of a hotel a la Die Hard, only to accidentally yank several of the steam pipes loose and get a full blast of hot steam

Beaten up by a couple of punks under the Santa Monica Pier, who ask him for his wallet, query him why he only has $5 on him, and then forcibly baptize him several times

Being lassoed by mean cowboys and dragged behind their horses across a bunch of dirt and rocks, and then being dragged into the river

Being beaten up and thrown down a well

Tied up by the Japanese mob in San Francisco and thrown in his bathtub with the shower blasting scalding hot water on him (why he doesn't simply get out of the tub is a mystery)

Trying to help a sweet old lady with her robbery, only to have one of her mean friends chain him up and throw him into the bay. (underwater hulkout)


Fire and 'splosions:


Having a burning plank fall on his head while trying to get a horse out of a burning barn

Getting trapped in the middle of a forest fire

Getting trapped in the middle of another forest fire so that burning branches keep falling on him and setting him on fire, and a giant, burning tree falls directly on him as the last straw

Being caught in an explosion on the edge of the fire that throws him into a tumbling, rolling pile of large, heavy pipes

Foolishly trying to open the door to the shed of airplane propellant that is on fire, and then being caught in the explosion

Foolishly running in and trying to help a man who brought a lit cigarette into a room full of toxic vapors, only to have an explosion throw him across the room and into the row of heavy C02 containers, which all fall on him

Trapped in a burning room with ten other people by the crazed mercenary who is trying to capture the Hulk, and then trying with everybody else to ram open the door with a jagged metal shelf set, only to get his hand caught between the edge of the shelf set and the door during a group ram

Having several clay pots broken over his head in the middle of the now-burning room (why is the room always burning?), and then knocking an entire case of same clay pots onto same head, and then, while lying very still and struggling not to get angry, having his pants catch fire

Smacked in the head by a crazed bible quoter in a back storeroom, and then waking up to discover that not only has the guy set the room on fire (again!) but that David himself is now on fire


There are at least one hundred more things that have angered David Banner sufficiently to push him over the edge. A quick scan of the list makes it clear that a) Banner lives in a Hobbesian nightmare of brutal criminals, thuggish cops and a criminally apathetic populace; and b) he is incredibly, unbelievably clumsy.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I know David Banner made a big show of not liking to lose his temper, but after a while, it must have developed into a habit with him. Shoelace busted? Hulk smash! Cat pounce you out of a sound sleep? Hulk smash!

Hair trigger, is what I'm saying. The rest is David Banner trying to make himself look good in his own memory, which surely explains why the excuses become progressively flimsier and more implausible.

Anonymous said...

That show must've been a hoot to write for.

palinode said...

pork - I see you subscribe to the whole notion of personal responsibility when it comes to Hulkouts. But have you considered that Banner's increasingly flimsy reasons for going green may have been the result of years of government neglect of programs designed for gamma-poisoning victims?

sir - I agree. It must have been pretty exhausting after a while trying to come up with fresh situations, but I bet it became a game with the writers to see how crazy they could make the scripts.

Bruce Johnson said...

I think god was playing a terrible, terrible practical joke on Mr. Banner.