Marvel Comics has been around for over 80 years, but it’s only semi-recently that they started flooding the market with movies and TV shows. In fact, it took them a few decades to even dip their toes in moving images. Their third-ever show, The Incredible Hulk — their second live-action, after the short-lived The Amazing Spider-Man — bowed in 1977, well before computers took over. Back then, they couldn’t do what they do now, in the Mark Ruffalo era, and create a green behemoth with CGI. Instead they simply painted a body builder green and told him to act angry.
That body builder was Lou Ferrigno, and on Friday he decided to remind MCU heads of the good old days, when the Hulk wasn’t willed into existence by an army of techies sitting at computers. Back then it was one guy, working out religiously, turning his body into a mass of muscle. And Ferrigno didn’t want to you forget it.
https://twitter.com/LouFerrigno/status/1406054220088807425
“Can’t think of another superhero that isn’t in costume or CGI,” he wrote on Twitter. “Worked damn hard on my diet and exercise for the Hulk. Wasn’t going to let anyone down. The hulk was my hero as a kid as well.”
Was this a not-so-subtle knock at today’s superhero stars, who are pretty normcore, allowing CGI to do most of the work? Seems like it. He covered his bases, too, throwing in a bit about costumes, meaning he couldn’t exempt the one ripped MCU star, Chris Hemsworth, who is nearly as bulky as Ferrigno was back in the day.
The Incredible Hulk ran on CBS over five seasons, plus a smattering of TV movies. Bill Bixby played mild-mannered Bruce Banner, and when he got mad — which he did early and often — he was suddenly replaced with Ferrigno, painted green and laying down the law. Ferrigno reprised the role, sort of, in the 2008 movie The Incredible Hulk, with Edward Norton, doing the voice of the Hulk and also doing a cameo as himself. You can watch the Hulk show on NBC.com.
(Via THR)
