Thursday, April 6, 2017

From Primetime to Daytime: Swamp Thing (1990)

After 2 feature films in the early 80's, DC Comics' Swamp Thing made the transition to television in 1990 when producers Michael Uslan & Ben Melniker, hot off the success of Tim Burton's "Batman" a year earlier, put together a deal with MTE, a lesser known arm of MCA, and with DIC, which had experimented with live-action programs for children, to bring the character to life once more.

Only Dick Durock, who essayed the title role, returned from the two movies, with Swamp Thing more eloquent than he'd been presented in the comics up to that point. The series represented a blending of elements, if you will. Scottish writer Alan Moore had rebooted Swamp Thing a few years earlier as a plant elemental, but there were also concepts based on his original origin, as conceived by Len Wein and the late Berni Wrightson in the 70's. The series lasted three seasons on USA, and the series now airs Saturday afternoons on Heroes & Icons (check listings) with back-to-back episodes at 12 noon (ET).

There are no complete episodes available. As we did when we first reviewed the series over at The Land of Whatever, we'll give you the intro, this from season 2.



Between seasons 1 & 2, an animated miniseries, produced by DIC, aired first on Fox, then on NBC as part of Chip & Pepper's Cartoon Madness, with Len Carlson taking over for Durock as Swamp Thing.

Rating: B+.

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