The Incredible Hulk (TV Series) Never Give a Trucker an Even Break (1978) User Reviews

The Incredible Hulk - Never Give a Trucker an Even Break

[Scarecrow-88 · 6/10 · 11 December 2015]

I guess if you like a prolonged "vehicle chase" plot in the vein of Duel or Smokey and the Bandit, "Never Give a Trucker an Even Break" will be up your alley. It has its infamy in just how much the show depends upon Spielberg's classic "psycho truck" desert road film footage, but we do get to see the Hulk knock down a power pole, lift it up, and break it across a big rig chasing after David and his newest acquaintance, a truck driver named Joanie (Jennifer Darling). A crew of thieves truck-jack big rigs that drive down a Nevada stretch of highway, and Joanie's was the latest victim, losing her own diesel truck (a rather unsightly rig, looking mighty weathered and worn) to Ted (Frank Christi) and his gang (including recognizable character actor, Grand Bush, known to show up on action movies and shows). David is just hitchhiking when Joanie gets him involved with getting her rig back after picking him up and tricking him into handing over a supposed birthday card to Ted, which was in fact a warning to them. So David is once again caught in the middle of a dispute.

This is played for kicks and giggles. The drama of David's situation is put aside for a lighter tone, with humor certainly taking over when David gets so mad at an operator for not transferring him to a police station and that he didn't have enough change to call the number himself that the Hulk emerges! That is quite a unique way to see David's alter ego return, but the whole power pole smash is one for the highlight reel. I think the Duel footage incorporated into the episode does add an intrigue and provided a notoriety as those at Universal saw a cheap way to keep from spending too much for chase scenes available to them in their library…and damn to the filmmakers who might balk! There is a great deal of David and Joanie in a Plymouth (after seeing them for a time in the rig *chasing* after the Plymouth) while Ted and Mike (Bush) either chase them or vice versa. Anyway, there is a lot of traveling down dirt, desert roads in Nevada. As for the location, I was won over, but this is nothing more than a road chase with David and Joanie bonding over the 45 minute running time…good chemistry between Bixby and Darling helps a lot. Making Ted and Mike a rather hapless (but still dangerous if they could just catch up with their quarry) duo, often outsmarted or duped further emphasizes the lighthearted tone of this episode. The car being pushed into the truck, and its going over the cliff are given star treatment…Universal had every reason to be proud of the footage. I imagine many came away from this show quite impressed, not knowing that it was stolen (oops, I mean, *reused*) from a great film. There's a desperate attempt to bring McGee up in the show since he doesn't appear, with a mention of his reporter "in the area asking questions about the sightings of the Hulk from locals".

The Trucker

[AaronCapenBanner · 7/10 · 18 November 2014]

David Banner(Bill Bixby) is hitchhiking out of Las Vegas when he is picked up by a woman named Joanie(played by Jennifer Darling) who uses him as a diversion to steal her truck back from them, as they are a bumbling gang of big rig thieves out to use them for their own nefarious scheme, and now chase both of them to get her big rig back. Infamous episode for using footage of "Duel" to save on costs, that displeased director Steven Spielberg. Also uses much humor that proved unpopular with some fans, but I found this a most amusing episode, with both the pay phone and self-aware "I really need shirts that stretch!" scenes being highlights.

you can spot the clips used from the flick Duel

[trashgang · 7/10 · 2 May 2013]

I did like this episode even as it was a simple rip-off of the notorious cult flick Duel (1971). After leaving Las Vegas David is picked up by a woman Joanie who asks him a favour to give a letter to a man. Seeing no danger in it he does deliver the letter but once opened it is written that the man is going to be killed. The reason is simple, he stoled a truck from Joanie. Once she's in the truck she wants to overrun the thieves but things don't go as planned. And from their on we got a duel between the truck and the car full of thieves.

It do alternate between the drivers of the truck and the car but it do works out fine and is again an episode full of suspense. The hulk do appear a few times and is doing what he must do. It's funny that it reminded me of Duel because they even used stock footage from that flick. But still, a must see for hulk fans.

Gore 0/5 Nudity 0/5 Effects 2,5/5 Story 3/5 Comedy 0/5

Not Good

[samwa-27311 · 6/10 · 26 September 2019]

B Actors, as usual, as guest stars, rarely is good, and this one shows it.

Idiotic dialogue, between the two villians, who are chasing Banner and the girl.

Very weak story.

Chase Scenes

[flarefan-81906 · 5/10 · 7 March 2017]

There's a striking simplicity to this episode: set on the open road, the only real characters are David, the obligatory attractive woman, and the obligatory evil thugs. It certainly makes the episode stand out, but the story can be overly crude.

It starts with David hitchhiking in Nevada (nice continuity), and his ride gets him to deliver a surprise birthday card. Turns out the "birthday card" actually contains a death threat, which puts David in a fix and leads you to believe the plot is going to be more complex than it is. See, it turns out the card's recipient is the head of a band of hijackers, and David's slender and buxom ride is no baddie; she's just taking the law into her own hands. Nothing wrong with that, right? Apparently David is more blinded by her roguish charms than I am, as he just stops himself from offering her a fist pump shortly after (a good bit of humor).

What follows is mostly a series of car chase scenes, which are fun to watch, as the young lady is a master of car chases. But the episode drops major credibility points through these scenes, mainly because there's absolutely no consistency on how fast each vehicle can go compared to the other. In addition, at one point the lady stops the car to call the police with the bad guys mere seconds behind. This serves only as an excuse for them to switch drivers, which is a problem in itself because it has no impact on the plot, and um, how is it that David drives with the same skill as the mistress of the road?

On the plus side, the Hulk fight sequences are terrific, full of genuinely cool feats, and the episode culminates with one of the most awesome vehicular crashes ever. This episode is big, dumb fun, with equal emphasis on "dumb" and "fun".

The Incredible Hulk meets Duel. What's not to love?

[Chip_douglas · 9/10 · 7 December 2006]

This is the infamous Incredible Hulk episode written to incorporate footage of Steven Spielberg's Duel. Some sources say Steven stumbled across it while flipping channels and was astonished to see the Hulk driving the monster truck of his 1971 hit TV movie. However, the Hulk never drives the rig in this episode. Spiel must have been thinking about another episode from the first series, '747', which saw the Hulkster trying to land the plane from "Airport 1975". Quite a few episode from the first season made similar use of stock footage from Universal movies; including one that featured several clips from "Earthquake". Although Spielberg made sure none of his movies could ever be used as stock footage again from then on, Universal still managed to recycle the skateboard chase from Spielberg production "Back to the Future" in a mid eighties episode of "The Fall Guy" (with Lee Majors jumping over Biff's car instead of Michael J. Fox).

Written by Incredible Hulk developer Kenneth Johnson, who wrote some of the most dramatic episodes in the series, 'Never give a trucker an even break' instead plays out like a comedy. The plot is pretty ludicrous to begin with. David Banner is picked up on his way from Las Vegas (where the previous episode was set, compliments on the continuity) by Joanie (petite Jennifer Darling, the secretary to the Six Million Dollar man, the Bionic Woman and Wonder Woman). She uses him as a patsy to get her stolen rig back from a gang of thieves who plan to use it to smuggle 'very expensive computer components'. These crooks also went to the trouble to dirty up her nice big truck, which sort of explains what a nice girl like her is doing with a big old disgusting rig like that.

As soon as the chase is on, composer Joe Harnell kicks in with some "Bonnie and Clyde" banjo music (as opposed to the Hitchcockian score written by Billy Goldenberg for Duel). The main bad guys, Ted & Mike (Frank Christi and Grand Bush) are the kind of comical blunderers usually confined to Disney movies. As a running gag, Bush (Slowpoke from Stir Crazy) keeps whining about his car being hit several times over. At one point, Bill Bixby even makes a joke about having to buy stretch-shirts. Best of all, the episode features one of the funniest Hulk-out's ever, when David runs out of money in a telephone booth ands shouts: I don't have 25 cents!

Of course, knowledge of Duel makes watching this episode even more amusing. First of all, we get to see inside the monster truck as Joanie and David use it to chase Ted and Mike in their red Plymouth. Notice that Ted is wearing the same blue shirt, sunglasses and mustache as Dennis Weaver did as 'David Mann' in Duel. However, since Weaver was the only Mann driving in the original, Kenneth Johnson had to come up with ways to make sure the passenger seat appeared empty in all wide angles (i.e. stock-shots). Therefore, Mike repeatedly ducks out of sight looking for bullets in the glove compartment and on the backseat. Later on, David and Joannie take turns driving the Plymouth (both of them wearing blue shirts as well) and tiny Joannie keeps slipping down her chair and out of sight during the most exciting scenes (shame on her for not wearing her seat belt).

One also wonders how much time and money was saved on this episode when whole scenes consists of two people in a mock up car with back projection out the windows, reacting to footage from a 1971 movie. They used so many shots from Duel in here (much more than the footage of Aiport 1975 and Earthquake in the other two episodes), that you might even spot Steven Spielberg reflected in the Plymouth's rear view mirror. Of course they did bring back the monster truck and the red Plymouth for some new footage, most noticeably a new stunt involving the Hulk throwing a telephone poll against the monster rig.

In later seasons of The Incredible Hulk, there were no more episodes specifically written around clips from the Universal backlog. However they did fall back on stock shots of forest fires in at least four episodes and had numerous flashbacks to older episodes, especially the pilot movie and 'The Incredible Hulk: Married'. They still did it in more original ways than the king of clip shows, "Family Ties", though.

9 out of 10

Script written to fit existing movie footage

[warthogcc · 2/10 · 21 June 2020]

They took all the footage from the movie Duel (1971) and wrote the script to fit it. And did it very poorly. They didn't even try to hide it. There was even one clip that they used twice! When the truck smashed the Mazda and turned the VW Bug on its side. As if we wouldn't know we just saw the same thing 15 minutes earlier. They went so far as to make whoever was driving the orange car at the time wear the same shirt so that it would match the footage. In one scene, they even made the passenger in the car duck down (to supposedly look for a gun) just so they can use a close up shot from behind that only shows the driver. But almost all the significant shots from Duel were used in their entirety. The car hiding behind a hill for the truck to pass. The multiple reverse angle shots of the truck chasing the car at full steam. Even the sequence of the car overheating and slowing down on a steep grade. All of this making it quite obvious to anyone who has seen the movie. Not sure why they made such a poor episode in a TV show that scores mostly high numbers. My guess is that they assumed not many people have seen the movie Duel 7 years earlier and were convinced no one would notice.