By Geno McGahee
David Banner (Bill Bixby) begins working for the Chicago Bears as an “ankle wrapper.” He’s had many jobs over the years and has done them all incredibly well. It sucks that he can’t get a real job because of his identity crisis. All these jobs paying him under the table definitely short-change him, even though he’s probably the best employee that they have…although he does meddle. He can’t mind his own business and that is the case in the 1978 fantastic episode “KILLER INSTINCT.”
John Tobey (Denny Miller), a football player, is heading into the championship, but there are some red flags. He’s having anger problems and is intentionally fouling people on the field. He even puts one quarterback in a wheelchair. Dr. Byron Stewart (Rudy Solari) is treating him using hypnotherapy and bringing him back to his childhood where all of his problems stem from. This leads to one of the best moments in Hulk TV history. Denny Miller, the actor in the role of John Tobey, is an absolute prize. His screaming of “lousy stinking cheaters” three times was priceless. He hates cheaters. This is not the guy that you want to meet if you are a Patriots fan.
Banner sits in on one of the sessions and sees that John should not be playing football, but nobody will listen to him. When the other players get wind of Banner’s meddling, they confront him and start snapping him with towels and lock him in a steam room. He turns into a sweaty Hulk (Lou Ferrigno) and beats the two down. When the coach is told, he insists that the players get off of “whatever they’re on.” I can understand if they said that they saw a big green man and reported that, but there was physical evidence that something happened there. A smashed helmet, two beaten tough guys and a door ripped off its hinges and destroyed. Put all that together along with the two player’s testimony and you got a legit Hulk sighting and why didn’t they suspect Banner of either being the Hulk or being in cahoots with the Hulk? After all, the Hulk came out of the steam room where Banner was trapped and there was no sign of Banner after that. These players weren’t too smart, but maybe that’s why the coach questioned their story.
As the behavior of Tobey gets worse, Banner becomes more forceful. He calls out the Stewart, noting that he won’t do anything because of his grant. If he benches Tobey, they’ll take it away. Stewart erupts, screaming that it was 225 thousand dollars, but he didn’t owe Banner that. He should have just told Banner to get the fuck out of his office. Because of that money, Stewart won’t help and the team needs Tobey, no matter how potentially violent he will get. One last attempt is made to reason with Tobey, who admits that he blacks out and wants to kill the quarterback…not just take down, but actually murder. When Banner lets him know that he is his friend and is just looking out for him, Tobey yells that he has 75 thousand friends that all cheer for him. I’d rather have 75 thousand fans then one friend that keeps meddling into my business.
The game begins and Banner is banned from the stadium, but he climbs a fence. He is quickly detained and placed with some drunks in a holding cell, but they are listening to the game. Upset about Tobey and about being stuck with sleazy drunks that look like they walked off the set of TO CATCH A PREDATOR, Banner transforms into the Hulk, screams at them and then hauls ass. He gets onto the field just in time to stop Tobey from killing the quarterback, but what damage was he doing?
I have never played football. I do not watch football. BUT, I suspect that punching a person wearing a football helmet would hurt your hand more than their head. Right? I guess they would feel it, but if I was wearing a helmet, I would think that I would be pretty protected and isn’t that what they are for? If Tobey wanted to kill this guy, he should have ripped off his helmet and then beat him with it until his entire face was smashed in. Then he could have ripped off the guy’s head and held it up to his 75 thousand fans as Banner sits there and says “told yah the bitch was crazy.” That didn’t happen…maybe a deleted scene.
KILLER INSTINCT was about as amusing as it gets and it’s due largely to the over the top performance by Denny Miller. Miller did basically all TV work throughout his career, but I doubt he found the magic he found in the INCREDIBLE HULK series. I loved this episode.
Rating: 9/10
I imagine the players would not have dared mention the part about locking David in the steam room to their coach to begin with. So even if they had suspected David of being linked with the Hulk, they would have found it difficult to express their suspicions. And the coach wouldn’t know about David being in the steam room, but the Hulk coming out. And nobody seemed to realise that it was the Hulk on the field later on, so maybe the Hulk wasn’t widely known about in those parts.
VERY good points. It makes sense.