Everyone makes fun of these, but if you were a Marvel comics fan back then THESE WERE ALL WE HAD and they will always hold a special place in my heart.

I was at the Hollywood Christmas Parade in 1983. In those days, towards the end of the parade line, you could walk up to your favorite movie star and shake their hand. That night i shook hands with Lou Ferigno, William Shatner, and Ted McGinley. It was an awesome night.

I really liked that version of Daredevil as a kid. John Rhys-Davies as Willson Fisk

At least the TV version of Thor wore his helmet!

I remember watching the Hulk movie with Thor with my mother back in the day she really liked Hulk, she has passed now and I completely forgot about that movie,... watching this made me remember her and put a smile on my face, I wish I knew how lucky I was back then watching it with her.

I never knew I missed out on a Rex Smith Daredevil series. That would have been AMAZING.

I would’ve wanted to see a Hulk and Spider Man team up. I think that’s what the fans REALLY wanted to see.

Steve Levitt, who played Donald Blake was in a movie called Hunk where he played a nerdy guy who transforms into a muscular man. Guess that was good practice for the Thor stuff!

John Rhys-Davies as Kingpin is really wonderful casting, just needs a better look and script, but what a great actor for that role. Oh, what could have been

Reportedly, there was a real effort at one point to get the Nicholas Hammond "Spider Man" show into a crossover with Bill Bixby's "The Incredible Hulk", but that too, went by the boards...

The Hulk series always frustrated me that Hulk never fought anyone super powered or interesting. Just local bullies and thugs which quickly got boring. The movies finally gave me what I wanted. Hulk vs Thor. Daredevil and Kingpin. I loved how Thor was portrayed in the 80s movie too. Shame neither got their own series

Fond memories about those movies.

I remember watching all the made for TV Hulk Movies !! Great Video !! 👍

8:21 that "Yep, Harry Hamlin." Line is hilarious, i had to pause the video until I stopped laughing.❤

Gabriella Reese as She Hulk would have been awesome

Very enjoyable video, always like learning about these back door pilots. I used to watch The Incredible Hulk all the time on CBS, but don’t think I ever saw these movies. Great to see Lou Ferrigno show up recently in the miniseries The Offer playing the actor Lenny Montana who played Luca Brasi in The Godfather.

Thor, Chuds, Mummenschanz...this one's got it all!

Fun fact: The origin of the Ninja Turtles is based on Daredevil. Many things TMNT are. For example: The evil ninjas in TMNT are called "The Foot" in tribute to the Daredevil evil ninjas called "The Hand". Kevin and Peter (TMNT creators) are huge Daredevil and Frank Miller fans. :)

Super premium content. Keep up the great work 💫

If the Thor spinoff had been a success, maybe Thor and Dr. Blake would have become separate characters in the comics or the MCU.

I remember really enjoying the Hulk and Thor tv movie when I was a kid. My father really enjoyed the scene where Thor encounters the Jack McGee reporter character from the original TV series played to perfection by Jack Colvin. Such a fun scene.

Ok so the black daredevil suit was way before its time and calling Kingpin Wilson Fisk was dope to me🤷🏾‍♂️

It's not clear from the video if you already know, but Eastman and Laird intentionally cribbed Daredevil's origins for the Ninja Turtles. Hell, the Turtles comics originally implied in a copyright friendly way that it was the same truck.

4:42 "I am what I always will be, and I need to drink!"❤

Very cool video and thank you for sharing this with us! The initial idea for each spinoff sounds fantastic and I l particularly liked the Daredevil series idea since it is very rare and unique. I definitely need to check out these stories myself someday in the future!

Your forgetting Captain America 1978

Great video Atomic Abe Productions I totally enjoying watching your the first MCU shows

Wow that was cool to see The Man and King cameos

I knew that was a dream sequence as soon as the hulk started choking the lawyer. The Hulk don't do that kind of thing.🙂 Very good informative video 👍

Can we go back to these days

Fun channel idea. Didn't know about Smallville and hulk doing these backdoor pilots. Makes sense when a show goes on long enough as some spinoffs work. 10:19 tmnt used the foot which was a parody of the hand from daredevil lol.

As a kid watching The INCREDIBLE HULK TV SERIES, I often wondered if there could have been A CROSSOVER EPISODE(S), PART 1 AND 2) with THE WONDER WOMAN SERIES.

In the trial you can see ones of first StanLee cameo when David was judged and Stan is in the Jury. 😮

Lou Ferigno also voiced the Hulk in the 90's cartoon.

The courtroom scene must have been a dream sequence because right off the bat I noticed how Hulk could hurl a whole witness stand railing at the wall of book shelves and not disturb a single one! Haha!

Death of the Incredible Hulk featured a Russian female spy who was, essentially, Black Widow.

Great Video! As a kid in the 80's THIS was one of a few GREAT comic adaptations on TV, so yeah, we watched them, regardless if you were a Marvel OR DC fan. Yes, that's me to the left and YES, I'm a HUGE Flash fan! I met Lou at a couple comicons and yes, he's one of the coolest guys out there! He did a Q&A and basically told his life story...WOW! Anyway, it's shows like this that keeps the superhero shows on TV...today(2024)!

little known fact: the same barrel of toxic stuff that blinded daredevil went into the sewers and also created the ninja turtles. look it up.

I’m surprised you didn’t make a Thor Shazam comparison

Thank you for a positive fun video on some sentimental favorites!

8:48 it's cool seeing the Hulk wearing purple pants like in the comics.

That multiverse idea would never fly, they could've used Nicholas Hammond as a Peter B. Parker type character in the Doctor Strange multiverse movie, but they didn't!

Jasmine was a LOT like Black Widow. I was certain they were the same character. Loved these movies! Edit: typo

My only complaint about Death of the Hulk was that Magee wasn't in it to finally realize the Hulk didnt kill Banner in the lab explosion.

Oh wow. Thad Castle is an EXCELLENT choice for Aqua Man.

New to channel and thoroughly enjoying it!

As someone who got to see Mummenschanz live back in the late 70s I hurt myself laughing.

While these may draw laughter today, for those of us who followed the xby/Ferrigno Hulk, they were a fan's delight in those days. Rex Smith did a fine Daredevil, and his costume was a little closer to the original 1960's version by a bit. Thought Eric Kramer's Thor was a blast as well; it's a crime the "suits" thought there was only room for one superhero on TV then. "Though I enjoyed John Wesley Shipp's "Flash" a great deal, too. Had She-Hulk shown up, I would've preferred Gabrielle Reese -- green! -- by far. Bittersweet thinking how the world's changed in so many other ways, and of what could have been...

15:08 Whoa Whoa! She Hulk with gold skin and red hair?! and they thought green wasn't a pretty color?! I never knew that. It's kinda sad that they used the Hulk as a springboard to get other Marvel Super heroes their own shows, I think they could've worked well on their own.

I liked that old daredevil too and him with hulk woulda been 🔥 fire

Silver Sable was supposed to be in Death of Hulk.

Glad that you reference that daredevil was the inspiration of TMNT

Could you talk about the last two episodes of Green Acers. Both were failed city based sitcoms, since CBS was going through the "Rural Purge".

You know , one thing i mever understood was the the change to the donald blake/ thor . In the comics donald black with strike his cane on the ground becoming thor . Here he holds the hammer calling odin .i mean the whole interaction thing but still... It was weird

I remember watching the premier of Death of the Hulk as a little boy. Seems cheesy now but that death scene made me cry lol

This series was pretty good for the time! Although granted I’m assuming they didn’t have that big a budget due to not having the Hulk fight well known Hulk villains.

No way that Rex Smith music video is real 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

An extra for the American ninja pt 4!! Turtle power!! 🤣🤣 HILARIOUS, dude!!!

That mullet-wig on Ferrigno killed everything!

Well for the death of the Hulk, Banner did say the damage had to be catastrophic. 1st being onboard a plane that explodes, then falling a great distance to the ground before your body can recover will do that.

Don't forget they almost teamed the Hulk and Spider-Man on Tv too

A Daredevil show was more viable than a Thor show. Man, how many writer guild strikes happened through the decades?

The TV adapts did the best they could, granting not merely the then-current social norms but also available FX. (In fact, they actually did pretty good!)

i love when actors and writers go on strike , entertainment gets BETTER hahaha

Strange how the MCU Thor seemed based on this one.

Kramer had a great turn in “True Romance.”

I love how Netflix did "the Turk": "I'm Turk Barrett, baby. The door ain't been built yet that can hold me back!"

Oh my God. I have never laughed 😅 so HARD!! THANK YOU ❤😊

Spider-man VS Chud, the crossover we absolutely needed.

I always wonder why, in TRIAL, why Banner, in his dream, maintained a beard but Hulk did not. In a way it makes sense, I guess.

Good video, but you didn't mention that Captain America guested on some Incredible Hulk episodes - I assume that was in hopes of another TV series.

I wonder how Rhys Davies career would have gone had the series gone long term. 🤓😎✌🏻

Kramer is also in American Wedding and TNT's Rough Riders

I thought in the death of the hulk it would work better if Black Widow was in it

I watched The Hulk TV series when it aired but missed the movies. If you didn't have a family member record these specials on the VCR you were just out of luck, with no way of telling when or if they would air again. I looked up what was on TV May 22, 1988 when The Incredible Hulk Returns aired at 8pm on NBC. It was The Gary Shandling Show on Fox, Baby M TV movie on ABC and My Father My Son TV movie on CBS. As a side note, The Tracey Ulman Show aired at 10pm so you could see shorts staring an early incarnation of The Simpsons.

The Trial Of The Incredible Hulk was actually pretty good for it’s time. The Thor back door pilot? Not so much.

I'd love to see them make an "Immortal HULK" mini series, starring Lou Ferrigno. The show could focus on the *body horror* and less on the hulk requiring a uber-jacked look. They could say that, without banner, the hulk has an altered look BUT is still just as much a threat.

Didn't John rys Davies also voice kingpin in the animated series?

He fought the old hulk once in a double episode. Also, they didn't have the budget or the special effects to have hulk fight other super heros as you suggest.

The hulk returns and the trial of the hulk are great movies

I had no idea about any of these either. I knew of the Incredible Hulk 70's series but didn't know about the 80's movies and attempt at spin-off's. At least they tried, because had they not, then we might not have seen the amazing Marvel movies that came out several years later.

Why the bad background music throughout the video?

If they were going to bring the Marvel TVverse,. they would have done it in Multiverse of Madness. (I hear Raimi TRIED tracking down Peter Hooten for a cameo.)

This should be retitled. These 3 movies that aired in 1988, 1989 and 1990 were "sequel films" to the original series NOT "spin offs". The television world definition of a spin off is taking a character (or more) from a regular series and giving them their own series. It (a spin off) is NOT AND NEVER WAS a continuous of the original regular series which is what these 3 films were.

You unlocked a childhood memory in me with that Mummenschanz comment

I remember watching these two on Space around early 2000's.

When I saw header I immediately figure Thor and Daredevil. Lol Trial of the Incredible Hulk also features Stan Lee's very first cameo in a Marvel movie. 😀

Sadly I was able to watch reruns in the 80's (I was D.J.ing in clubs) and missed this second series!!!

4:05, 4:11 - I like the way that dork just nonchalantly keeps handing Thor his hammer.... so much for the mythology...

I love both those movies

Well there were plans for yet another Incredible Hulk tv movie where David is brought back to life by Dr Ronald Pratt and this time when he transforms into the Hulk he keeps his intellect. Due to Bill Bixby's declining health and death plans for a 4th Incredible Hulk tv movie were cancelled. 🧟🧟‍♂📺🎥

Stone Cold Steve Austin with a Ballpeen Hammer playing Thor? I’m in!

You completely overlooked the Dr. Strange spin-off of the same era.

Why does Banner’s beard go away when he becomes the hulk? Does it sink into his face?

Would love to see the early hulk , Thor , Spider-Man , captain America's , Wonder Woman and dare devil. Get together. Like they did with. Early Batman. Movie. With all the bad guys

Loved these TV movies as a kid. I remember that Thor was the guy John Goodman popped in the mouth on an episode of Roseanne, and used to watch Street Hawk with the guy who played Daredevil. Wish they would have had a hero for the Death Of The Incredible Hulk

They also tried to do a hulk and spider-man crossover movie with the live action spider-man series that never got made. Neat fact hulk is not stan lee's first live cameo it is an episode of muppet babies comic book capers where he was in live segments along with animated spider-man and hulk cameos! He next hosted a tv special spider-man on the move before showing up in hulk.

There was a backdoor pilot in the original series as well. Oddly it starts as a sequel to an earlier episode with a San Fran dojo. In the BDP, David returns to that dojo and meets wounded cop Rick Springfield.

If Daredevil 90s TV series was a big hit I think we can get backdoor pilot for Live action TV series of Venom Lethal Protector TV series I will watch that

Wait, what about the quasi-Iron Fist episode season 2, episode 17 'The Disciple," during the series' original run with Rick Springfield, or season 2 episode 6, "Another Path," a rough version of Dare Devil's mentor "Stick" or season 2 episode 19 "Kindred Spirits" a quasi-Sasquach/Wendigo being similar to the character(s) in Alpha Flight comics or season 3 episode 18 "The Psychic" introduces mutants to the small screen or the backdoor quasi-SHIELD episode season 4 episode 1 and 2 "Prometheus" or the 1st iteration of Savage Hulk in season 4 episode 4 "Dark Side" and season 4 episode 5 "Deep Shock" we see aspects of the Hulk's precognitive abilities, separate from his comic book 'talents.' Then there is the two-parter "The First" in season 4, episodes 12 and 13. A reimagined version of Frankenstein monster and the comic character "The Abomination." Prometheus and The First are my favorite Sci-Fi episodes, and one more I didn't mention before. It's a two-part episode that is very tragic and brings Dr. Banner's sorrow to bear. Season 1 episodes "The Bride" and "Bride of the Incredible Hulk." The performance from the guest star Mariette Heartly was so good that she was nominated for and won an Emmy for "Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama!" All but unheard of in a Sci-Fi show or movie, even some forty years later. If you don't tear up after watching it, you ain't human.