80s Larson TV Week: Manimal

Welcome back folk to another slathering heap of Larson 80’s TV Week.  Now we have covered two very successful creations providing entertainment and probably more topless man chest than I ever needed to see.   Now I thought we would take a gander at one of the bombs of the 80s that held promise but not enough interest.  Bear in mind this is also these are the audiences that needed Friday the 13^th sequels left and right so this could be part of the problem.  A professor of criminology (thank you Jay for looking that up) who prowls the night in search of criminals and show them the error of their wicked ways all the while being a vigilante?  This is Manimal.

Thought we were gonna watch the game, not Spring clean!

Dr. Jonathan Chase…wealthy, young, handsome.   A man with the brightest of spoilers.  A man with the darkest of pasts.

Dr Chase (Simon MacCorkindale of Hammer House of Horror, Macbeth, The Sword and the Sorcerer, Falcon Crest, Counterstrike, Poltergeist: The Legacy, Casualty and Night Wolf) apparently glob trotted from Cambridge England, to Africa to the far reaches of Tibet…stuff happened??   Okay the skinny is thus, Chase found through an accidental transmogrification he could shape shift into multiple animals.  Why wouldn’t he want to use that new found ability to FIGHT CRIME??!!!   Of course he would.  That is perfectly logical from all the angles I have examined it at.  

Frosted Flakes won't save you, criminal scum.

Other than the audience only two other people knew his secret.  One being a lovely lady cop Detective Brook McKenzie (Melody Anderson of Flash Gordon, Dead & Buried, St. Elsewhere, Policewoman Centerfold, Phillip Marlowe, Private Eye and Firewalker) and his buddy Ty Earl (Michael D. Roberts of Heartbreaker, The Ice Pirates, Earthlings, Double Trouble, Manhunter, Rain Man and Sleepstalker) in the atypical buddy cop/crime fighter story arcs of the day, this series lasted all of 8 episodes due to poor Neilsen ratings.   The audience did not get to delve into Chase’s back story at all and were in fact robbed at a potentially clever series.

I had a few comments about the show now.   The creature transformations were brought to us by Stan Winston’s Creature Shop and while they were amazing manifestations from man to panther.  Most of us had issues with his clothes somehow never tearing or morphing with his flesh into these various creatures.  I guess Simon MacCorkindale in his tighty whiteys might have been a problem but personally as well built as the guy was you would thought it would improve the ratings overall.  For crying out loud, Magnum didn’t have a shirt on half of the time and I heard no complaints from straight women and gay men so who can guess.

Due to the costs of Stan Winston’s SFX team, co-coordinators and various animal wranglers the executives felt the cost was too great for the low ratings and ultimately pulled the plug on a superhero vigilante that could have really gone places.  Located in New York you already got the vibe of the Avengers, Fantastic Four or Spiderman but even great locale, special effects and decent writing cannot always survive the first year as this was rated one of the worst of the 50 TV shows of all time in 2002 by TV Guide.   Somehow nonsense like Jackass and The Jersey Shore got more love.

Special guest star: Michael Corvin of Underworld!