The Incredible Hulk's Absurd Reason For Changing Bruce Banner's Name
The 1970s Incredible Hulk TV show changed Dr. Bruce Banner's name to David, and the reasons behind that big decision are downright absurd. Long before Mark Ruffalo portrayed the big green smasher in various MCU films, and even before director Ang Lee split opinions with his 2003 Hulk movie, the masses outside the comic book sphere got their first taste of the Marvel hero on TV. The late, great Bill Bixby starred as the man behind the monster, while former pro bodybuilder Lou Ferrigno played the Hulk.
The formula for the show was pretty simple, Banner did his best to live a quiet life, but was thought to be dead, and thus needed to constantly be on the move and keep a low profile. Unfortunately, a reporter named Jack McGee was persistently hot on the Hulk's trail, and as much as Banner didn't want to, each episode would see events happen that forced the Hulk's involvement. While Banner and the Hulk saved many lives, that didn't put them in the clear.
The Incredible Hulk was one of the first successful screen adaptations of a Marvel character, and to this day many consider Bixby and Ferrigno the definitive actors to portray the complex and often tortured hero. However, the show also stands out for an odd reason, its renaming of Bruce Banner to David. While a few reasons have been offered for the change, one stands out as being particularly stupid.
While it was based on Marvel Comics, The Incredible Hulk TV show was developed for TV by a man named Kenneth Johnson. Johnson wasn't a fan of comics, and felt that a heavy focus on making the show like the comic might turn off audiences of the time. He made the decision to not have the Hulk speak, meaning that lines like "Hulk Smash!" never made it into the scripts. Accounts differ as to exactly why Bruce Banner became David Banner though. For his part, Johnson has said that he did it to further separate the show from the comics, due to Marvel characters often having alliterative names. He also later said he named the character David after his own son.
Comic book fans are liable to think that reasoning is laughable on its face, especially considering what a media juggernaut Marvel movies and TV shows have since become. Where things get really groan-worthy though is with an alternative explanation for the name change offered by both Stan Lee and Lou Ferrigno. They claimed that CBS executives demanded the name Bruce not be used because it was "too gay," and feared that the audience would believe Bruce Banner was a homosexual character.
Obviously, the idea that a fairly common name like Bruce carries an inherent association with being gay, and that anyone with that name must therefore be gay themselves, is ludicrous. It's thankfully almost impossible to imagine anyone floating that reasoning for not naming a TV character something today. As a compromise of sorts, Bruce was made Banner's canon middle name, as seen on his tombstone in Incredible Hulk's pilot episode and opening credits sequence. Naming absurdity aside though, the show itself does hold up pretty well, and went on to be a favorite of Hulk creator Lee, despite the changes.
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