By Geno McGahee
Dr. David Banner (Bill Bixby) has no problem finding work. The guy has got incredible skills, helpful and knowledgeable at everything he does. Imagine how many employee of the month awards he would take home if he weren’t on the run from the cops and that SOB Jack McGee! He’s the ideal employee…unless you get him angry. He would not be a good hire for a place where there is a lot of stress, like those repo shows where that family full of slobs take back cars and the one time owners run out and protest. Well, Banner could never do that job. He’d Hulk up in five minutes, literally tearing the rowdy owners a new asshole.
Now Banner’s new occupation is at a race track, working with a group to fuel up the cars in the pit stops and whatever else needs to be done. He befriends Ricky (Micky Jones), a mentally challenged guy.
Ricky’s brother is a driver that is winning nearly every race and watches over his younger brother, but Ricky wants to be the star. He jumps into his brother’s car, starts it up, and then soon becomes overwhelmed by the fumes and passes out. He’s locked in a garage, on death’s door, and who do you think finds him? If you guessed Banner, you would be correct.
He attempts to break in and rescue him, but he cannot, but the Hulk can, and does. He picks up and carts Ricky’s fat ass out of the garage and saves his life. There is a ridiculous scene where Ricky teaches Hulk how to drink soda and Hulk even smiles and drinks. What a stupid scene! Minus one point for complete nonsense.
The Hulk would not drink soda. He would take the soda can and bash it over the head of Ricky until he was a bloody heap, or throw him like he did that bear he fought with in that other episode. I hate when they put this sort of shit in the episodes. Hulk does not drink soda! What’s next, he orders a Starbucks? Hulk is an animal, more or less, and although some chimpanzees smoke cigarettes and dress up like people, they need to be trained for years, and Hulk was not trained.
We have a couple of bad guys in this thing too…a rival racing duo that wants to win some money and plans on sabotaging the car. When that doesn’t work, they elect to convince Ricky that he would help his brother by entering the car into a demolition derby…and he does that and begins to do well, but unfortunately, the car is not equipped for it and bursts into flames. Hulk comes to the rescue again and saves the day and saves Ricky for the second time. What? I say that there should be a rule that the Hulk saves a character only once per episode. Ricky should have died there. Hulk could have saved somebody else.
There is a definite message to the episode. It’s either Hulk likes Nascar, which I don’t believe. Banner took the job out of necessity, not because he enjoyed watching cowboys drive around aimlessly on a track. The true message is that you cannot underestimate anyone, and Ricky went to a special needs home where he could sculpt something horrible at the end. I think that the message failed. They should have had Ricky bail out the Hulk once.
I wasn’t a huge fan of this one. I thought that Micky Jones played a slow person really well, and Bixby was as likable as ever, but it was almost too bubble gum-ish for my tastes. I know the purpose of the episode and it got its point across, but it was way too nicey-nice.
Scared Stiff Rating: 5/10. Hulk Like Nascar.
