I’m getting complaints that the comments section of this blog isn’t working for some people with Internet Explorer. I have a Mac and use either Safari or Firefox, and both browsers work with the blog. If you’re having trouble commenting, please switch browsers and let me know what’s up in the comments section. I’m betting it’s only older versions of the IE browser that are having problems.
The Incredible Hulk movie has a new trailer, and it’s still pretty “meh” for me. Being a former comic book junkie, I ought to be excited, but I’ve never been much of a Hulkist. I never read the comic, and I hated the first movie, which was an artsy, self-indulgent mess. Nick Nolte looked like he’d come to the set directly after taking his mug shot photo.
But I still love the Hulk, although most of my appreciation for the character comes from the Bill Bixby TV series, which is far removed from the comic version and has none of the ancillary supporting characters – Rick Jones, Betty Ross and her military father, Doc Samson, et al. The show was pretty loopy, considering all the stupid tricks they used to piss Bixby off that stretched credulity to the breaking point – how often does your average joe shove their hand in a hornet’s nest, for instance? But each episode needed a requisite of two “Hulk-outs” per hour, and so if he had to accidentally fall into quicksand in the middle of Los Angeles, then, by gum, the quicksand was there.
What made the Hulk TV show so good was that it seemed to be taking place in the real world, and it maintained, amid the silliness, a genuine sense of melancholy. That was due primarily to the Hulk piano theme, dubbed “The Lonely Man” by its composer. It was so elegiac that, in the words of Nigel Tufnel, you would weep instantly every time you heard it. I personally didn’t weep, because I’m very manly, but surely some of you lesser mortals did. Or you will, once you hear it in the YouTube video below.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_m4dAB7o2Cc&hl=en]
It just so happens that when I was on my mission in Scotland, I spent one of my days off adding words to “The Lonely Man” theme. That may seem like a waste of a precious day off, but sometimes the soul yearns for Bixbyesque beauty.
So, once again, crank up the YouTube “Lonely Man” theme, and then sing along with these plaintive lyrics:
He’s loud and mean
To top it off
His skin is green
He’s mad
And when he’s really mad
He’s bad
Incredible!
That Hulk’s Incredible!
His greenness is incurable
And that’s why
He’s incredible-y
Sad.
It’s over. You can stop weeping now.
*sniff*