Misfits of Science: Making superheroes funny in the ’80s

[TMC]

https://mutantreviewersmovies.com/20...ts-of-science/

I’ve never reviewed a whole series before. I think that’s what’s been holding me back. I like to do the job properly, y’know? Encapsulating my impressions of an entire series into a thousand words or so is really forking problematic. I mean, I can get positively Homeric over a single movie – and Misfits of Science (1985-86) had fifteen episodes! SO MUCH TO SEE! SO MUCH TO SAY!

And yet it vanished. Like… tears. In… rain.

Or not. Actually, you can still find it on YouTube of all places. But why would you want to?

Why? Because it’s fun!

1985/86 was a weird time for me. I was busy having a life. Lots of it. There wasn’t much television involved, but there was plenty of other activity, oh yes. (Look, I was at university living in shared accommodation. I could afford a TV, or I could afford mind-altering substances. Let’s be honest. In the eighties, who in their right mind would have taken the TV?)

But I did regret not seeing more of Misfits of Science. I caught the opening episode and a couple of others (when I was visiting friends whose parents could afford televisions) and by all the dark gods, I wanted more! MOS was an early stab at the superhero ensemble concept, with a healthy dash of comedy. It was the sort of thing that more or less pointed the way to the kind of work James Gunn has been doing with Suicide Squad and Guardians of the Galaxy, except set in Reagan-era Los Angeles and equipped with the sort of budget that would have embarrassed a BBC science fiction show.

(For those not familiar with the legendary tight-arsedness of the Beeb in regard to genre stuff, I urge you to check out Blakes’ Seven. More on that anon.)

So, there’s this scientist Billy Hayes (Dean Paul Martin. He used all three names in the credits. Wonder why?) who works for A Big Corporation called ‘Humanidyne.’ What kind of scientist is Billy? Who knows? But he’s got a seriously eighties haircut. And he’s the nice-guy central figure of the show, cajoling and collaborating and co-ordinating and other things starting with ‘c’ to bring together the team of Misfits, who are:

• Gloria Dinallo, played by a young (and seriously cute) Courteney Cox. She’s telekinetic. We know this because sometimes she touches the back of her head with both hands, and then the screen image strobes into negative for a brief period, whereupon stuff moves inexplicably around the set. Oh, yeah: dig those crazy eighties SFX!
• Dr Elvin Lincoln (Kevin Peter Hall), a 2.13m tall black scientist who hates basketball and has the ability to shrink down to 15cm for brief periods. (Yeah, I live in the metric world. Suck it up, you primitive screwheads!) Cue a lot of fairly sad green-screen work, and plenty of gags about finding clothing to fit a guy the size of a Ken doll.
• Johnny Bukowski (Mark Thomas Miller), a rocker with the ability to absorb electricity, hurl lightning, and run super-fast. But don’t get him wet, ‘cos he’ll short-circuit and die. (No explanation is ever offered as to how he manages not to die by dehydration. Okay. No big deal. I’m good.) Johnny B also has a slicker version of the haircut that eventually thrust MacGyver to international stardom. Didn’t work so well for Johnny, though.

There are also a few regular support characters. Dick Stetmeyer, the uptight boss of the lab where Billy “works” is played by Max Wright, who would flee the MOS ship as it went down to join the muppet-alien extravaganza that was “Alf.” (Shame on you, Max. Shame!) Diane Civita plays Miss Nance, the long-suffering “secretary” of the lab (why does a research lab have a secretary more or less in the middle of things?) And then there’s the lab itself, and of course the team’s vehicle – their trusty ice-cream truck.

“I’m sorry,” you say. “Did you say ice-cream truck?”

Yeah. I did, and it definitely qualifies as a support character. That’s how this super-team gets around, and it’s the perfect symbol for the show as a whole. You see, in the first episode Billy pulls this team together along with a big frozen guy who’s been in cryogenic suspension since Amelia Earhart disappears. He’s got ice powers, but all he ever says is “Amelia” in a heartbroken howl. He’s also blue, with cheap-ass Xmas-tree frosting on his beard and eyebrows because yeah, savagely shoddy eighties FX rule! Anyway, the only way they could keep Ice-man (which is what they called him) alive was by transporting him in cold storage. Hence the ice-cream truck, and attendant comedy hijinks.

Now, what makes the truck such a perfect symbol is the fact that Marvel Comics had an Ice-man (X-Men) character, and apparently they took umbrage to MOS borrowing the name. And of course, Marvel had lawyers while MOS had… I’m not sure what, to be honest, so Ice-man appears only in the very first episode of the series and is never seen again – but they still drive everywhere in the ice-cream truck!