powersroc: The Silent Gun(09/09/66}Intriguing concept about a gun created during WWII that made no sound or flash....Always thought that this might have been the pilot episode for the show.TGH has the early style of mask on that would eventually be discarded,but then so do several other episodes....[M]y favorite GH weapon,the Hornet Sting,does not appear on this episode.Oversight,or after viewing this possible pilot episode did someone suggest that TGH needed an additional hand weapon besides his Hornet Gas Gun? That's what I think happened.
Other than a few brief stock shots (most notably some--but only some--stills in the standard opening title sequence and the scene in Reid's garage with the rotating floor and the two cars), "Programmed for Death" is the
only episode in which Van Williams genuinely wears the angularly stylized mask. Bruce Lee, on the other hand, also wears his in "Crime Wave," suggesting that this was the second episode filmed, the first on the weekly schedule. This is surprising, as his gung fu techniques would seem to make his being able to see what he was doing a very high priority.
When interviewed by Will Murray for
Starlog magazine #135, October 1988, Williams stated that there were plenty of problems getting the "gas" gun to work (he said it actually sprayed a fine powder via a tube along his arm), and this was why the Hornet Sting was invented. Problem: the Sting plays a crucial part in "Programmed for Death," which must be the pilot, due to:
1. Both leads wear the angular masks.
2. It comes up first in the syndication package (which is definitely not in ABC's order and therefore must be in production order; whatever variations sometimes exist between production order and actual filming order, the pilot always comes first).
3. It includes the most effective execution of day-for-night filming in the entire run; that would go downhill extremely quickly.
That "Programmed..." is (according to James Van Hise's
The Green Hornet (Book), Schuster and Schuster, 1988, p. 39) "the one adapted for the Viewmaster discs as a tie-in product" is also compellingly consistent with it being the pilot. They would have wanted to get this on the market early and therefore used the filmed-well-in-advance pilot (if someone here doesn't know what the Viewmaster was, it was a device vaguely resembling binoculars in structure; one inserted a disc [a circular piece of pasteboard with "slides" around the edge] and advanced the disc one captioned still at a time to see the story). Van Hise includes in his cast list for "Programmed..." a character "Cathy Desmond" played by "Barbara Babcock," but neither the actress (who appears in two episodes as Britt's date for the evening Elaine) nor the character ever appear (the latter's name is not even dropped in dialogue), let alone both combined. The most plausible explanation of this is, again, that this was the pilot, it came out of the editing room well over 25 minutes, and when the series was bought the re-editing to fit the requisite slot completely excised Babcock-as-Desmond (was the part of Elaine an attempt to make this up to her?). Precedent: Gene Roddenberry's first
Star Trek pilot, 1964's "The Cage," was slightly over an hour long, and if NBC had bought it the creative staff would have had to go back and cut out nearly 15 minutes.
My faves? In the order they come up: "The Frog is a Deadly Weapon" (a very early use of the Howard Hughes-esque wealthy recluse who might be secretly dead, which became a TV crime show cliche 10 years later; Victor Jory's performance as the villain; the unfortunately unexplained back-story about Britt's father having been framed), "The Preying Mantis" (Lee's unusually high amount of dialogue, the fight between him and Mako/Inosanto), "Corpse of the Year" (best storyline, keeps us guessing), "Bad Bet on a 459--Silent" (the Hornet is shot[!] and "his man" invades the
Sentinel city room to alibi Reid's wound, threatening to kill people in the process; goes downhill from there, unfortunately).
I was tempted to include "Hornet, Save Thyself" but the intriguing "perfect" frame of Reid that opens the episode (and forces him to hide from the authorities behind the Hornet's mask, reversing the usual situation) is followed by cliches and an explanation that is too loaded with holes to accept. However, it is interesting to note that Len Wein wrote a Batman serial in
Detective Comics ("Bat-Murderer" in #s 444, December 1974/January 1975 - 448, June 1975) with the same starting premise. Apparently trying to cover one of the holes I alluded to, Wein had Batman say that he felt the gun aiming itself, which even in a comic book was beyond my suspension of disbelief.
The GREEN HORNET Strikes Again!
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