Heat Vision and Jack

I thought it sounded interesting when I first read about it. Then I saw it. It's like Lovecraft funny. Like "human language is inadequate to describe the horror blah blah" funny.

It's like every action/adventure show EVER packed into a half hour, but the most obvious comparisons would have to be "X-files" and "Knight Rider." (Heat Vision is KITT) The only thing I didn't like was Owen Wilson's flat reading of Heat Vision's lines. And even that wasn't bad the whole time.

So why didn't it make it on TV? It's a half-hour live-action comedy without a laugh track. How many of those have EVER made it? (Apparantly people need to be told when it's funny.)

...well, not really.

As far as I know, only one episode was made of this show, Episode 14. It's a fantastic bit of parody... of what, I do not know.

Some elements of the Fugitive, Knight Rider, and the Six Million Dollar Man all thrown into one wacky package.

Check it out if you can, but I had to download a crappy copy of it. Maybe it'll be a hidden DVD feature on some other Jack Black, Ben Stiller, and Owen Wilson project.

I would probably watch this show if it were real... because it's pretty funny.

Not as funny as Tropic Thunder, mind you... but what is? This almost seems like a joke pilot made for fun. It's "episode 14" too, so that should tell you something.

The cast is interesting... a lot of the same players who do appear together in a lot of stuff... (Night at the Museum -- Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson... Tropic Thunder -- Ben Stiller and Jack Black)... it's quite possible these are all friends who just wanted to make a funny movie pilot.

If I had as much money as they do, I'd still have to find some time to do some stuff not for profit... but for fun -- that's how you keep your goals in check and not purely based on how much money your next gig pays... keeps you straight, in line with your actual creative goals.

Created originally as a pilot for Fox, created and written by Rob Schrab and Dan Harmon, directed by a young Ben Stiller, and starring (the voice of) Owen Wilson and Jack Black as the leads Heat Vision and Jack respectively. What was in hindsight the set up of a powerhouse of a series, we never got more than the single original episode after Fox passed on the series. Following Jack Austin (Black), a former astronaut who is exposed to solar energy giving him extreme intelligence (but only in the day), and his best friend and talking motorcycle Heat Vision, who was an old roommate shot by a raygun, merging is mind with the bike. Obviously a ridiculous and over-the-top series from the get-go, it reminds me much of Garth Marenghi's Darkplace or Danger 5, in its campy, schlocky style. The jokes are pretty funny for what it was, and Jack Black of course gives a fantastic performance. With Harmon and Schrab behind the writer's room I'm sure this could have turned into a pretty fun ride, and its unfortunately we never got to see it. If you like any of these people, sure, was a fun thing to flip on for as short as it is.

made entirely of brilliant TV pilots (called "The Network") that were never picked up and this was by far the best. I couldn't stop laughing. It's a real tragedy the show didn't get any air time -- I bet if Jack Black and Owen Wilson switched places it would have been huge.