There is one thing about Bill Bixby’s new TV series which is more incredible than the massive raging creature that appears when he is transformed into the Hulk. It’s the ratings.

Since the TV debut of  “The Incredible Hulk” in a CBS movie last Novemeber, the subsequent sequel, and the resulting weekly series (Fridays at 8PM on CBS Ch. 2), the program has dominated the competition, usually taking the timeslot for CBS and placing high in the national Nielsons and often even higher in Chicago.

“Chicago has been our highest rating,” said Bixby, taking a lunch break from filming one of the season’s last episodes. “I’m not being facetious about this. The saying around here is, ‘so goes Chicago, so goes the Hulk’. The national numbers have lived up to Chicago.   L.A. and New York’s ratings both have come up now.”

The instant consistent popularity of  “The Incredible Hulk” has guaranteed the series a slot on CBS fall schedule. It also has amazed the TV industry which initially ridiculed CBS and Bixby for becoming involved in what sounded like schlock kiddie fare.

“At first everyone was saying, ‘You’re doing what?!’ recalled Bixby. “-‘Come on, Bill, after ‘Steambath’ ‘Rich Man, Poor Man’  ‘Eddie’s Father’ you’re going to do that?’ They really got on me and I said, ‘Just watch the show.’

“There is something I knew up front: You hear the title ‘The Incredible Hulk’, and it brings out the intellectual snobbery in the viewing audience, but most of all the critics before they even saw it. We have overcome not only our title but the negativism.”

The show has done more than overcome the ridicule. It has started a trend.

“Isn’t that funny, when we started, everyone said, ‘pooh, pooh,’” remarked Bixby. “Here it is six months later and everyone is saying ‘We’ve got to have a show like the Hulk.’”

Comic book characters have become TV’s newest heroes. NBC has ordered pilots for Mandrake the Magician and a remake of Buck Rodgers. Sword of Justice, a Zorro-type adventure has been scheduled as a weekly NBC series in the fall.

In addition to the Hulk, CBS will air “The Amazing Spiderman” as a series of specials next fall and winter.

“It’s just amazing, it really has taken off. Our adult audience is just as large as our children’s audience,” said Bixby. “The demographics go all the way from 5 to 95.”

Bixby spends several hours in makeup for the transformation from Dr. David Bruce Banner to the initial stages of the Hulk. As the metamorphosis continues, Lou Ferrigno, former Mr. America, and Mr. Universe, assumes the role.

“It’s very difficult. It takes tremendous writing. Most writers have a tendency to overwrite,” explained Bixby,  “And we have to go back and take away and make it as real as we can. The more we stay with reality, the better the Hulk will be.

“What I love about it is that children are not afraid of the Hulk. They understand. You’re allowed to look at rage, to look at the physical manifestation of anger.  It may not be attractive but pay attention to it.”

And that’s just what viewers are doing each Friday night.

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