Misfits of Science
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This article is about the television series. For the New Zealand hip hop group, see Misfits of Science (group).
| Misfits of Science | |
| Genre | Serial drama Science-fiction |
|---|---|
| Created by | James D. Parriott Tim Kring |
| Starring | Dean Paul Martin Kevin Peter Hall Mark Thomas Miller Courteney Cox Jennifer Holmes Max Wright Mickey Jones |
| Country of origin |  United States |
| Language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 16 |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | James D. Parriott |
| Running time | 60 mins |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | NBC |
| Original run | October 4, 1985 – February 21, 1986 |
Misfits of Science is an American superhero fantasy television series that aired on NBC from October 1985 to February 1986. It featured a cast of super-powered humans and their madcap adventures. The show was co-created by Tim Kring, later the creator of the NBC show Heroes. A double-length pilot and 15 additional episodes were created; all episodes but one were broadcast in the United States during its original run. In France, the series was known as Superminds.
Contents |
[edit] Cast members
- Dean Paul Martin played Dr. Billy Hayes, the non-powered yet undisputed leader of this misfit team. Billy was a young research scientist at the Humanidyne Institute who specialized in "human anomalies" and a fast-talking but good-hearted schemer full of boyish enthusiasm who often got the team into as much trouble as he got them out of. Although easily distracted whenever an attractive woman walked by, he was honestly interested in getting involved in a serious relationship with Jane Miller even after she showed up pregnant by another man.
- Kevin Peter Hall played Dr. Elvin "El" Lincoln, Billy's colleague and close friend. El was a towering black man who gave himself the ability to shrink for minutes at a time from his height of seven-foot-four to eleven inches via hormonal treatments which he activated by pressing a nerve on the back of his neck. A recurring joke after such transformations was that he always had to put on the tiny change of clothes he carried with him for his small size. The character was shy and struggled socially, and despite being so tall he played basketball poorly.
- Mark Thomas Miller was Johnny Bukowski, a.k.a. Johnny B. He was a rock and roll musician who was electrocuted on stage, thus giving him formidable electrical powers. Wearing sunglasses because his eyes glowed when he was fully charged, he could hurl lightning bolts and run at superhuman speed, easily outracing in one episode a parody of the Six Million Dollar Man, but he was vulnerable to water which short-circuited him and burned his flesh. He was a big Chuck Berry fan, in the pilot singing Johnny B. Goode when he went into battle.
- Courteney Cox played Gloria Dinallo, a troubled telekinetic teen with a history of juvenile delinquency and a mother in a mental institution who claimed Gloria's father was from outer space. She had a major crush on Johnny.
- Diane Civita played the scientists' secretary Miss Nance who, although she usually seemed more interested in doing her nails, going on her coffee break and watching her soap operas, was actually the one who kept their department running and was always there at the end of the show to turn off the lights and, in a running gag, say good-bye to the invisible man who Billy always forgot had been quietly waiting all day to see him.
- Jennifer Holmes played Gloria's probation officer, Jane Miller. Although attracted to Billy, she was often put off by his eccentric behavior. Her character appeared only in the earlier episodes.
- Max Wright portrayed Dick Stetmeyer, the uptight director of the Humanidyne Institute. Unlike the other cast members, he was not actually considered to be one of the Misfits.
- Mickey Jones played Arnold "Beef" Beifneiter a.k.a. the Ice Man, who got his power to freeze anything he touched from placing himself in an experimental cryogenic suspended animation unit back in 1937 due to grief caused by the loss of his beloved Amelia Earhart. The team would drive around in an ice cream truck because the lumbering and now rather simpleminded Ice Man would die if he got too warm, so they kept him in the freezer. Beef only appeared in the pilot episode due to legal objections from Marvel Comics who published a similar character in X-Men, but the characters continued to use the ice cream truck.
[edit] Episodes and air dates
- "Pilot" (October 4, 1985)
- "Your Place or Mayan?" (October 18, 1985)
- "Guess What's Coming to Dinner?" (October 25, 1985)
- "Lost Link" (November 1, 1985)
- "Sort of Looking for Gina" (November 8, 1985)
- "Sonar... Yet so Far" (November 15, 1985)
- "Steer Crazy" (November 29, 1985)
- "Fumble on the One" (December 6, 1985)
- "Twin Engines" (December 13, 1985)
- "Grand Theft Bunny" (December 27, 1985)
- "Grand Elusion" (January 10, 1986)
- "Once Upon a Night" (January 17, 1986)
- "Center of Attention" (January 31, 1986)
- "Against all Oz" (February 7, 1986)
- "The Avenging Angel" (February 21, 1986)
- "Three Days of the Blender" (Unaired on NBC)
[edit] DVD releases
On January 25, 2008, the series was released in Germany where it was known as Die Spezialisten Unterwegs as a five-disc DVD box set (Region 2) that includes all episodes (including the originally unaired final episode) with both English and German soundtracks and German subtitles.
