NBC's 1980s Superhero TV Show Was An Intriguing But Disappointing Sci-Fi Flop

In the days before cable television got serious about creating original programming, the networks were just about the only game in town if you wanted to watch a new hour-long drama or half-hour sitcom. This meant it was on three broadcast entities to serve a diverse array of viewers with cop procedurals, family-friendly comedies, urbane farces, nighttime soaps, Westerns and science fiction. There were certain formulas that worked and got rehashed as needed, but the networks were always on the lookout for something out of the ordinary, a smarter-than-average take on one of the aforementioned genres, or, even better, a daringly innovative series that captured the public's imagination. Shows like "Soap," "St. Elsewhere" and "Twin Peaks" pulled this off with stunning élan, but when a network risk went south there was always the chance that you'd wind up with a pop cultural punchline like "My Mother, the Car," "Supertrain," or "Cop Rock."

"Manimal" is one such canceled punchline. Created by network genre specialist Glen A. Larson ("Battlestar Galactica" and "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century") in 1983, the show sought to fill the broadcast superhero void left by the cancellation of "The Incredible Hulk" the previous year. I think. It probably wasn't that calculated. Most likely, NBC was high on rising television star Simon MacCorkindale, a British actor of note who'd impressed as Lucius Caesar in the legendary BBC production of "I, Claudius." He was dashing, erudite and very at home in nighttime soaps like "Dynasty." But would he be believable as a wealthy adventurer who could shapeshift into animals to help the police solve crimes? Would anyone?

I was nine years old when "Manimal" premiered on NBC in the fall of 1983, and the timing was not ideal when it came to taking MacCorkindale seriously in, well, anything. Two months prior, I'd seen the dashing, erudite MacCorkindale portray the arrogant shark hunter Philip FitzRoyce in "Jaws 3-D." He was a big jerk in the movie, and got his just desserts when the SeaWorld-crashing shark ate him. This wasn't an automatic negative. Robert Shaw got eaten in the first "Jaws," and that didn't hurt his career. Dying three years later did, but, fortunately for MacCorkindale, he didn't have that kind of booze mileage on his body.

Unfortunately, MacCorkindale's FitzRoyce wasn't swallowed whole. At the end of the film, we see the undigested adventurer stuck in the beast's craw with an undetonated grenade still in his grasp. On one hand, FitzRoyce is the hero; Dennis Quaid, Bess Armstrong and Lou Gossett Jr. would've been toast without that piece of ordinance. But the unintentional hilarity of this moment damaged my ability to take MacCorkindale seriously, and there's not a chance that I was the only young viewer who had this hang up. Suffice it to say, "Manimal" was fighting an uphill battle from jump. It didn't help that the show was a tonal boondoggle.

"Manimal" could've easily worked as a high-camp hoot à la ABC's "Batman" or "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century," but Larson clearly wanted to mimic the neo-serial magic of "Raiders of the Lost Ark." The transformation sequences were handled by the master Stan Winston, and the episodes leaned heavily into MacCorkindale's undeniable charms. Even though you couldn't explain the premise to another person without breaking into a giggle fit, Larson seemed to view "Manimal" as elevated pulp.

One of the biggest missteps with "Manimal" was making the character an unabashed ally of the police. These kinds of do-gooders are always more interesting when they have, at the very least, a quarrelsome relationship with law enforcement. Basically, ACAB including Manimal.

There wasn't a lot of talent that passed through "Manimal" in terms of writing. Melody Anderson (Dale Arden from 1980's "Flash Gordon") was a fun addition to the cast as MacCorkindale's cop liaison, but they invited bad juju by moving on from the great Glynn Turman after the pilot. The show might've been able to survive in a friendly time slot, but NBC put it up against "Dallas" on Friday night, which, in 1983, was begging for cancellation.

Despite the impassioned intervention of David Letterman, "Manimal" only lasted eight episodes. In 2012, Adam McKay and Will Ferrell toyed with a comedic film adaptation, but it never came to fruition. MacCorkindale found a soft landing at the CBS nighttime soap "Falcon Crest" as the British lawyer Greg Reardon (whose arc ended with him waltzing off with Morgan Fairchild's Jordan Roberts), but he'll always be the difficult-to-digest Philip FitzRoyce to me.