Man-nimal or something like that about this guy who could turn in to an eagle, snake or lion? I vaguely remember it, I think
V - and if so why did they take it off the air, everyone I talk to about it, loved it.
I remember Manimal. I think he could turn into either a wolf or a hawk. The effects weren’t so good. He would kind of moan, and then curl the tips of his fingers under his hand and twitch a little. What were there, about four episodes?
And then there was V. I loved it when I was twelve. Saw it again a couple of years ago. God-awful.
I remember “Manimal.” I really liked Melody Anderson after seing her in “Flash Gordon.” She has since left acting and is employed as some kind of counselor/social worker (LA?).
“V” was OK as a miniseries. But, let’s face it–TZ did a much better variation on the “It’s a COOKBOOK” theme.
Now, Pynchon’s “V.” made into a series/miniseries–that might be interesting.
Manimal was SUPPOSED to be able to turn into any animal. I guess either the budget was bankrupt or the writers were. It might have saved the show to have him turn into, say, an ostrich and peck the bad guys into confessing.
V was a great 2-part movie as an allegory to the Nazis. Then they turned it into a pretty good miniseries. But when they made it a weekly show, they camped up the villains and it got really stupid.
Yeah, Manimal! Despite bieng about ten years old I do remember that. About 1982.
I recall the hero of the show was supposed to be an ex-Vietnam vet who got lost in the jungle and stumbled upon a shapeshifting wiseman-ninja sorta’ guy who taught him the tools of the trade.
That was a really weird television season. It was the same one that had “Misfits of Science” and “Supertrain” and some kind of ninja-in-America show (I remember thinking "Hmmm, do I wanna’ watch “Square Pegs” or do I wanna’ plug in my Atari and play “Frogger” again?).
Wasn’t the star – um, what’s his name – Patrick something? He played Bobby Ewing in Dallas.
Duffy. Patrick Duffy. Right?
No it was that british guy, who’s in all of that crap.
V would be stupid now, true, true, but it was really cool then.
pluto, you may be thinking of ‘The Man From Atlantis’, which starred a young and buff Patrick Duffy in a show with perhaps the stupidest premise since ‘My Mother the Car’ and before ‘Manimal’.
shantih you are right, of course.
From the IMDb:
Jonathan Chase was played by Simon MacCorkindale.
well well said the royal desiccation my political opponents back home always maintained
that i would wind up in hell and it seems they had the right dope
Don Marquis
archy interviews a pharaoh
Another along the same lines as Manimal:
Misfits of Science, 1984 or 1985.
anyone? anyone?
V (the series) was so incredibly stupid that it deserved a mercy killing.
My mother made one of the best put-downs. Commenting on the wedding of the two aliens, she said “It looked pretty much like a Jewish wedding, only instead of breaking a glass, they ate a rat.”)
Science fiction is about imagination and the writers of the series had less imagination than the average turtle.
“East is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does.” – Marx
Read “Sundials” in the new issue of Aboriginal Science Fiction. www.sff.net/people/rothman
V was incredible at the time. I remember having nightmares for weeks about being on a ladder in one of those tubes when the power turned back on! (You’d think I’d worry about the lizards or frozen people or something, but it was the tubes that scared me!)
Of course, I rented it a few years ago and was less than enthralled. Sigh…
Ok, despite my young age (i was what, 6, in 1984?), I remember all of these shows. I even liked “Misfits of Science” and “V”. I recall not liking “Manimal”.
And there was another one, “Car-man” or something like that, about a guy who had something to do with computers, who had a neon laser-pointer thingy with which he could draw himself a car. Or maybe that was just my then 6-year old imagination.
when i first glanced at the question, i thought you were asking about bravestarr.
what is essential is invisible to the eye -the fox
Nerd, no the computer-dude show was for real. He was some cyberconstruct who for some reason only had a realistic head and hands and under his neckline was some blueish glowing wireframe or something. His little buddy was a floating cursor named… erm… “Cursor” and looked like the old block style cursors as opposed to the Windows line version. Anyway, Cursor was the thing that’d turn into a wireframe car which would solidify into a real car (Lamborghini Countache) for a while. Eventually Cursor would run out of power though. I think Cyber-Man (I have no idea what his name was) would run out of power as well. I think in one show (out of about seven) he was infected with a bug, in the programming sense, which made him all weak and his wireframe car fell apart before it could solidify. I was just thinking about that show the other day for some reason.
“I guess one person can make a difference, although most of the time they probably shouldn’t.”
I should note that Cyber-Boy wore a suit, so the blue glow of his body was 99% hidden and only slightly exposed when someone was supposed to know that he was something other than human. Personally, I think they just blew the entire special effects budget on the car.
“I guess one person can make a difference, although most of the time they probably shouldn’t.”
That was Auto-man, and it was his program that came to life, and could create the car. I remember that the program would never slow for corners, and the programmer would slam his face into the passenger window.
How about Ranger Lonestar, the tech-western kinda cartoon? With his robotic horse, 30-30, curium, Tex Mex, and he could take on ‘eyes of the eagle’, ‘strength of the bear’, and ‘speed of cheetah’. I loved that show.
Auto-man? I saw an episode of Auto-man on Sci-Fi a while back. All I remember was that in that particular episode, he was a male stripper. Weird.
Changing my sig, because Wally said to, and I really like Wally, and I’ll do anything he says, anytime he says to.