I was lucky enough to meet Simon MacCorkindale in the mid 2000’s when he was in a production of Sleuth here in the UK, and he was a total gent. Such a sad loss.
I remember watching this as a kid and my mom being greatly disturbed by the "graphic" transformation sequences and assuming they would give me nightmares or something. The same woman who let me watch the "V" miniseries and the premier of the Thriller video that same year, for some reason, thought the sight of Simon MacCorkindale sprouting feathers would be the visual that would scar my little 7 year old mind for life.
I'm french and, as you said, this was a big hit in my country. I'm actually shocked to learn that only 8 episodes were produced as I remember it was broadcasted heavily on french TV. We just didn't get bored of Manimal it seems.
I thought there were more than 8 episodes as well, although I do remember NBC never playing episodes weekly. It was always an episode here and there until there was no more
For a series that lasted less than a season, it had a huge impact on my psyche -- it didn't change my lift or anything but it certainly got itself stuck in my brain. Love that you referenced the Nightman cameo - I was grinning ear to ear when I originally saw that episode. Oh my god I have awful taste Cheers dude, you really pump these out! I think you produce them in the time it takes to watch the DVDs. Great work as always.
Although I thought the premise was pretty ridiculous, I was excited about Manimal because it meant I could watch Simon MacCorkindale every week! I thought he was one of the most beautiful men I'd ever seen my life!
It's great Stam Fine are dedicating such time and effort into reviewing these pre-cynibeximaximoxital shows! This channel never disappoints. The idea behind 'Manimal' always put me in mind of Maya from 'Space 1999'. I think the they handled her character's transformations a good deal more effectively if not as ambitiously.
It is pretty amazing how well this show is known on the basis of 8 episodes, I was surprised by that number as well. How many shows with 8 episodes saw reruns and reairings?
It was such a fun show, with a cool premise! He is a Druid and the clothes become part of his body when transformed! The 80's were the best time to be a teen!
Even though it only lasted a few episodes, Manimal clearly had some impact since a lot of folks still remember it almost 40 years later. Never watched Night Man so I didn't know until now that the character made a brief return in the 90s(looks like they hoped it would lead to a continuation with his daughter taking over as the lead). I really liked the show as a kid but even then it was obvious that the transformation effects were limited by the technology and budgets of 1980s television(Stan Winston made it look better than it probably should've though). With all the streaming outlets constantly looking for some old ideas to revive and reimagine I wouldn't be surprised to see Manimal reappear one day. With modern production values and the right people behind it the concept is totally viable. Gotta also say that Melody Anderson was one of the prettiest actresses of the 80s and her face was one that I never forgot from that time.
Big in France indeed. I remember seeing this on French TV as a kid and really enjoying it. It's one of those shows, like Stingray and The Wizard, that lives up in my head and sometimes leaks out in the form of snippet of a theme tune or the memory of a scene...
I can't believe there were only 8 episodes. Manimal and Automan seemed to be regular fixtures on (British) TV for years when I was a young kid with endogenous cynibeximaximoxital coursing through my veins.
MacCorkindale was in one of the best UK series of the 70s: Quatermass. A very very good looking guy (why can't we have leading men looking like him now?), he died very tragically at only 58. RIP Sir.
"Jonathan Chase, a man shrouded in mystery!" Hah! High school memories! I certainly watched every aired episode of this series. Can't say they didn't dare to be different back in the day. And Melody Anderson was definitely a bonus to watching this show! Thanks for the post.
Where I live, we didn't have any national tv channels until the mid 70s (and once we got one, it wasn't until the mid 80s that our state broadcaster could afford anything which wasn't BBC sitcoms), but we were close enough to Italy that we would receive the Italian channels. At first the series they would broadcast were all in English with subtitles, but at some point in the 70s they started to grow a huge dubbing industry, with voice actors for significant roles becoming as well known in Italy as the actors they were voicing. So I only watched shows like Manimal, Automan, Knight Rider, V in Italian, or in Italian first - kind of weird to see them in English, so many years later. There was one show which I watched the first season in English and by the second season they'd sorted out their dubbing (as well as a cringy theme song) so the rest was in Italian. And that show was Space 1999, which I loved so much. There were no video sets (this was in The Before Time) so I relied on RAI 1's spotty scheduling (which for all I know, they still do - I tried to watch Voyager in the 90s on RAI, and they would literally mix and match episodes from all over, never showing The Year of Hell, but Threshold seemed to be on every other week), and I cried when its place in the schedule was taken over by Return to Peyton Place. Only much later did I find out Space 1999 was cancelled after 2 seasons. There are times that I want to watch it again, but I'm too scared, in case it doesn't hold up!
I was surprised how little i liked this when i rewatched it a few years ago, i used to love it as a kid and also thought it went on for much longer than 8 eps
I remember visiting my grandmother when this aired. She let me watch tv and this was the only thing on (she had three channels at the time). For the longest while I thought she had some special cable tv that showed shows I didn’t get to see at home.
As a pop culture consumer of anything Marvel comics, at the movies or on television, I saw almost everything from this time. However, there were rare exceptions. For television, I'd watch anything with a hint of a sci-fi bend. Yet, even as a preteen with no real discernable critical eye or anything remotely in the vicinity of good taste, I still wanted no piece of this show. The other was an 80's sci-fi wipeout called The Misfits of Science now known for being an early acting role for Courtney Cox. Both Manimal and Misfits were ruthlessly mocked by David Letterman and now finally seeing footage of the actual show with your breakdown of the plot, it's its own parody. It's hilariously preposterous and impossible to have any suspension of disbelief. And I was a huge Glen A. Larson head growing up on a steady diet of 70s television, and most likely asbestos and lead paint. Man, we couldn't shapeshift into apex predators or indigenous birds of prey, but our internal organs did manifest into crippling diabetes and colon tumors. But, that was unrelated to bad diet and 80s television and just years of neglect from unchecked anal warts on my Coney Island white fish, you feel me. Manimal!
Cheers Stam. I have only "Heard" of Manimal. Never actually seen this weird show. I thought it was an Urban Myth! I was somewhat busy in 1983 and watching Simon Charles Pendered MacCorkingdale was not on my List. The concept is just as daft as any other kids' show of the day. If Skippy and Lassie were money makers, then surely Manimal must have sounded like a Winner. What's that Stam? You're dropped Billy down a Well? And Billy has your Medicine?
4:31 Meeno Peluce again?! He's all through this video. Someone is dropping hints for you to do Voyagers! (1982). I'm pretty sure it's not me. It might be me.
I remember watching this back in the day but was only little so probably liked it. There was also an animated thing with three characters who could transform into animals but I think they only had one animal each, and they travelled around in a ship with a giant white holographic head as the computer (I think, I might be confusing two shows though.) Would like to see a review of that as well, and perhaps things like Battle of the Planets and even Urusie Yatsura.
Sounds like the Young Sentinels / Space Sentinels (the title changed). Only one of them was a shapeshifter (Astraea); the others were a super-speedster (Mercury) and a strong guy (Hercules). But I always thought Astraea had the better deal since she could turn into fast or strong animals.
@@MattMcIrvin OMG!! Yes, Space Sentinels, that is the one and I completely misremembered it, so thanks for the correction. Now you lay it out for me it is much clearer. I also agree Astrea had the better deal.
i was 5 when this was on tv..remember loving it..but Knight Rider and Dukes of Hazard and Hulk were the mainstays of my early childhood tv..oh and Cheers and Dallas..
I watched your video because I liked Manimal.But your delivery,content ,production and humour have earned you a like and a sub on the first video of your's I've watched.Don't let me down!!
_The Invisible Man_ with David McCallum (yes...Ducky) was the end of my 5 year old suspension of disbelief. I loved it but even John Vernon (bare a$$ed, invisible and creepy contacts is no way to go through life) could save. I lasted 20 minutes with _Manimal_ and then reverted back to Black Cat explosive revelry. _Small Wonder_ and _Alf_ brought me back.
I loved this show! I used to get so damn excited as a kid whenever he would turn into an animal, and started mimicking the breathing and weird hand twitching lol Good times... 😌
Hey mate would you mind sharing the instrumental music for Manimal you used in the intro and outro of the video? Yours a unique composition, there is barely any fan cover creations. It’ll be great if you can share your version. Thanks
Another fun and informative review. If I recall Desi Arnez Jr (used all my will power not to call him Little Ricky played his Automan character in this or some other series fir an episode, which makes it a shame Night Man never had any team-ups with Automan. More of a shame that we never got a Manimal/Automan Christmas special where one becomes a reindeer and the other a suped up sleigh. I bet Gerry Anderson would've done thaf and had this show running four or five years with a cinema movie and a full line of toys going. Just saying.
I grew up with the show! Fun fact, Simon MacCorkindale was also in "Jaws 3D" and was a potential candidate for James Bond (but lost to Timothy Dalton).
Manimal was great TV show. Have you ever thought about talking about Glen Larson's other TV series Cover Up which is infamous for the death of its star Jon Erik Hexum.
Interesting review! It had lot of potential actually, wish they had taken a little more darker and fantastic direction. I hope one day we do see a more serious iteration especially nowadays when concepts like these are dime a dozen. Nevertheless, mate, may I please make a humble request? Your video seems to have a custom composition of Manimal theme in the background around the intro and outro, would you please be willing to upload an instrumental version of that? It would be really appreciated from us Manimal fans who don't have the luxury of listening to its remixes given its an extremely niche entity. Please consider it?
@@carlrood4457 Not anymore silly than a Batman or a Spiderman which are too on the nose, however, with Manimal there is at least a clever meaning to it with addition of just one letter (you know as opposed to being called Animal-Man or something). But if you watch a poorly constructed show and then it has such a name, of course it will have negative association with it. This show was a victim of its time, that much is apparent, they were too afraid to go full fantasy with this by trying to include all age demographics. It is obvious that the show is all over the place, trying to be a police drama with addition of lukewarm superhero element. Just imagine a cross between a psychological drama and a police procedural show, in some vein of Hannibal tv series (Manimal Hannibal, notice how similar they sound), something like that would be an amazing take on this series with character of Manimal being something of a mystique.
Regardless of its merits or lack thereof, this show had the misfortune of airing opposite Dallas in 1983. That would have been a death knell for any show.
I watched it a few times as a kid. Recently I ordered the DVD from Amazon. It was very OK. I like buying these random cheese filled shows that only lasted one season from the early 80s. Good shows to put on when going to sleep. That way if ya fall asleep...you don't miss anything.
lol, my dad would watch Auto-man religiously. And fall asleep during the middle of it. I hated the show, so as soon as he conked out, I'd change the channel. Then 10 minutes later, he'd wake up and say, "hey, I was watching that! Change it back!"
@@thelionsshare6668 funny. Maybe whatever else you changed the channel to was something he would actually attempt to watch but he needed Automan because it would put him to sleep more effectively than Nytol. (A sleeping pill that was around in the 80s seldom remembered)
I remember watching this and Automan when they first aired. Being young at the time I didn't understand the concept of cancelation and was disappointed to turn on the tv to find a different show in their place. If I watched them again, they'd probably disappoint me.
I vividly remember sitting in the car with my mom (at the corner of Ventura and Topanga Canyon) arguing with her that it WAS possible for a man to turn into an animal.
Mongeese is plural for mongoose? Is that right? Now my brain hurts. My brother loved this show, loved it. (Though also not as much as Automan. Odd) Me? I ran out of cynibeximaximoxital, so not so much. I had actually forgotten about it. So thanks for reminding me, I guess. Frenchies have weird taste in TV.
As a kid, I thought the IDEA of Manimal was great, but the episodes just lacked...something. As a kid, you recognize that some things are sillier than they needed to be, but it's not until you're an adult that you realize just how badly they dropped the ball. The technology just wasn't there, and the problem with Glen Larson shows is that when you remove the core conceit of the show, whether it's "guy can turn into animals...while solving crimes," "talking, indestructible car...that solves crimes" or "trucker travels with chimp and outfoxes the overbearing sheriff...while solving crimes," the shows were otherwise identical and tended to re-use the same basic plotlines like the whole enterprise was just a bunch of modular units. (Wasn't exactly confined to Larson, either. Dukes of Hazzard and MacGyver had the same issues, despite both being in my all-time top 5 shows right up there with Knight Rider.) At the end of the day, the question was "Ok, is it fun to watch, or am I entertained by the actors," and in Manimal's case, the answer for everyone just seemed to be "not even remotely." But I still feel like, in 2022, someone could take it seriously and do a good job with the concept.
I should have went outside to play baseball with the other kids. No, all I wanted to do was watch TV. I liked any kind of fantasy, Sci-Fi, action, animation. I was in a fantasy world of comics, animation, and choose your own adventure books.
Masquerade was actually an interesting concept. Think Mission: Impossible combined with The Love Boat. You know that list of agents that's the subject of every spy movie? Well, in Masquerade it got out in the form a of a tell all book by a disgruntled former agent. In order to keep the agency going, the head of it first recruits two new agents from the LAPD (Kirstie Alley & Greg Evigan) and then each week would recruit civilians with specialized skills to do the spy work. The cover was that of a tour group and the recruits would often have to deal with family members who simply thought they'd won a vacation..
I don't know about the cartoons, but the tv shows in the 80s were kind of weird, One of them was called "Manimal." It's about a crime fighter that can morph into any animal.
the weird part of the show is that the main character seem to transformed into a panther like if he was turning into a damn werewolf during a full moon. the panther was the cool part of the show. I think the show would have been better if they took a bit of modern wolfman premise with the panther and rework the show's title. Manimal would be a great show to reboot since transformation effects nowadays would be more smoother and cool with the right morphing effect.
Even as a fictitious work, a man (or woman) can not possibly transform into an animal that is much larger or smaller than him (her). As well, around that era, the remake of Cat People was released as a cinematic film, with certain tribes of people changing into black panthers under certain conditions.
