Created by Glen A Larson,
master of gimmick TV,
Manimal was a short-
lived blend of fantasy
series and crime show -
just one of a large number of
such shows that came and went
in the late '70s and early '80s. It
starred British actor Simon
MacCorkindale, reasonably well known in the
UK for assorted TV series (most interestingly
as scientist Joe Kapp in the 1979 Quatermass
serial), films (such as Death on the Nile
and the 1978 adaptation of Erskine Childers'
The Riddle of the Sands), and being married
to actress Susan George. MacCorkindale's
career, though promising at one point, never
really took off, and choices like Manimal
ought begin to explain why...
MacCorkindale played one Jonathan
Chase, a wealthy anthropologist who taught
"animal behavioural science" at New York
University, and moonlighted as a consultant
to the NYPD. Of course, his crimefighting
activities were secretly much more substantial -
and greatly aided by his unique ability to
transform himself into a variety of animals,
which he used to bring criminals to justice
Batman-style. Only two people knew his secret
- young policewoman Brooke McKenzie
(Melody Anderson), and Tyrone Earle (Michael
D Roberts), a friend of Chase with whom he'd
shared time in Vietnam.
There was, of course, no reason why the
clearly British Chase would have been anywhere
near Vietnam, except for the fact that this had
become a compulsory biographical detail for all
leads in early '80s American TV drama. These
were the boom years for action adventure
shows, many of which were laced with sci-fi
elements to distinguish them from the crowd. It
was a field dominated by three producers -
Stephen J Cannell, Glen A Larson, and Donald
Bellisario. Larson's offerings were the simplest
of the three, often inspired by movie hits, and
also included Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers
in the 25th Century, Knight Rider, The Pall Guy,
Sword of justice, BJ and the Bear, Switch, and
the first draft of Magnum p.i.
Manimal's 70-minute pilot episode was
directed by Russ Mayberry (a veteran of many
of the better '70s crime shows, including Kojak,
Harry O and The Rockford Files), from a
script by Larson and co-creator/co-producer
Don Boyle. It was, by and large, a
competent and tightly edited production - a
mixture of monster films like Jekyll and
Hyde and An American Werewolfin
London, and James Bond. It
under-used its strong guest cast, including
Lloyd Bochner, Ed Lauter and Lara Parker,
although it partially made up for it by
throwing in a few genuine surprises, largely
provoked by the outrageous premise and the
novelty of the special effects. One amusing
moment had Melody Andersen's
policewoman character furtively conversing
with a snake, under the impression it's our
hero, only to have the human Professor Chase
walk through the door - at which point she
promptly faints away! This was a genuinely
funny moment, but there were too few of
them in the subsequent series.
Manimal was very obviously filmed back-
to-back with sister show Automan (about a
cop who partners a computer-generated
hologram!), even to the point of using the same
sets, guest actors, and, in one case, the same
scene (an exploding taxi booby-trap!). For a
while, it seemed Larson might be on the brink
of a multi-show operation like that of Irwin
Alien in the '60s, or Stephen Cannell in the '80s,
but no - both shows were too formulaic to
catch the imagination, and soon success began
to wane.
With the rapid demise of Manimal (after
seven episodes) and Automan (after 13), the
networks naturally became a little sceptical of
Larson's shows - essentially Saturday morning
cartoons writ large - and his output began to
disappear from the schedules. Indeed, Larson's
only other fantasy show for the '80s was to be
the similarly short-lived The Highwayman
(Knight Rider with a giant, futuristic truck),
starring Sam (Flash Gordon) Jones, Jane (V)
Badler and Tun (Star Trek: Voyager) Russ. The
general consensus of opinion is that the likes of
Cannell succeeded where Larson largely railed
because Cannell's shows made the effort to add
a degree of wit to their equally formulaic
adventure proceedings, widening the appeal
beyond their natural juvenile audience. Or, put
more simply, they were just better.
WHO'S WHO?
Larson had a James Bond/Burt Reynolds
fixation, and the heroes of all his shows
tended to be based primarily on one
or the other character. In Professor
Jonathan Chase what we got was
little more than a variation on the
Roger Moore-era 007.
MacCorkindale had showed some
promise in earlier roles (he was in
British TV's Jesus of Nazareth, and had
made a likeable leading man in The Riddle
of the Sands, et al.), but reverted to type as the
smoothie Chase. It wasn't one of his most
distinguished performances.
But if Chase had no real depth or
background, the supporting cast were even less
well-served, being little more than lifeless
cardboard cut-outs. Still, the cast must have had
some kind of magic - after all, one British
reviewer was mystically transformed into a cat
while penning copy. "MacCorkindale's wrinkle
is to turn himself into a whole series of animals
just by exercising what appears to be deep
thought..." he wrote, "but it is nice to see
Simon - scarcely our most distinguished export
to Hollywood - make something of himself,
since the metamorphosis to actor is clearly
beyond him!" Meeeoww!!
WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
Simon MacCorkindale,
a classically trained
British actor whose early credits had shown
promise, made some bad choices in Hollywood.
He put in a stint on Falcon Crest (1985-7),
starred in The Sword and the Sorceror (1982)
and Jjaws 3D (1983), and, today, is just as likely
to be spotted playing Macbeth on stage as he is
to be caught on a Dukes of Hazxard re-run -
both of which can be found on his resume. He
once told The Daily Express that the reason
he'd signed on for Manimal was that he
assumed he'd be off-screen most of time while
animal actors and their wranglers did the hard
stuff! Instead, he found himself enduring hours
in the make-up chair for the transformations,
during which his face would puff up and blow
out while he metamorphosed painfully into the
latest episode's guest creature. He's not exactly
high profile today.
Melody Anderson, who played his platonic
cop partner Brook McKenzie, had co-starred as
Dale Arden in the 1980 feature Flash Gordon,
and appeared in an episode of Larson's
Battlestar Galactica. Michael D Roberts, a
frequent TV guest star and Larson show regular,
was best known in the '70s as the Huggy Bear
clone "Rooster" in the cop show Baretta.
Another TV regular was Reni Santoni, who'd
been Clint Eastwood's doomed partner in
Dirty Harry (1971), and spent the next
20 years in station-house roles on
nearly every cop show going.
Manimal was one of his a rare stabs
at an on-going series role, despite
being typecast yet again as the
"cop friend."
However, perhaps the best actor
the series attracted was Glynn Tunnan,
most recently seen in the undeserving
sitcom A Different World, who played Tyrone
Earl in the pilot episode. Sadly, he didn't
become a series regular.
SO. WAS IT ANY GOOD?
Manimal's gimmick was the fact it showed
Jonathan Chase transforming into his animal
alter egos. The film An American Werewolfin
London had recently shown it could be done
convincingly, while the success of The Incredible
Hulk TV show had demonstrated that a
transforming hero had series potential. From the
beginning, however; it was clear credibility was
not a factor with Manimal - the size of the
animals Chase turned into certainly wasn't a
limiting factor, for a start (no explanation was
made as to where the extra mass would come
from when turning into something big, or where
the rest of MacCorkindale's body went when he
transformed into something small, for instance).
Clothes would rend and tear, but, mysteriously,
when our hero returned in classic Clark Kent
"What-did-I-miss?" fashion, his attire was
always immaculate. In this respect, with
Professor Chase often coming round face down
in the mulch after a transformation, his reaction
was often like that of a man reviving after a
drunken spree - but with the advantage of
finding his clothing fully presentable!
Beyond the "amazing" transformations,
there was little else to Manimal, and once the
novelty had worn off, viewers drifted away. The
casting was "paint-by-numbers," and the plots
mere variations on your standard action-
adventure scenarios. Interestingly enough, one
of the great ironies of the ill-informed "violence-
on-TV" debacle is that of all the '80s action-
adventure shows from the Cannell-Larson-
Bellisario camp, it was the most successful and
prominent - The A-Team - that took all the
flack from the save-the-children brigade. In fact,
as even the show's detractors will admit, hardly
anybody ever gets hurt in that show, whereas
the likes of Manimal, Blue Thunder and Airwolf
all demonstrated an amusing penchant for
sadism that sailed over most people's heads.
That said, of course, Manimal himself never
participated in the mayhem, which was the sole
prerogative of the bad guys. If he was a panther,
he would never rip anyone to shreds, but
instead just run out in front of their car. He
might as well have been a poodle... And where's
the fun in that? "Some might call it a very great
gift," says Professor Chase in the pilot, but it's
one the series completely threw away...