Maybe you’ve heard of Harve Bennett. Maybe you haven’t. He passed away last Wednesday.
But the television programs he produced – you remember them. You’ve watched them, you grew up on them. Harve Bennett was a master of 70’s genre television, and many of his shows – which featured fantasy and superheroes – are still enjoyed in reruns today.
Here’s examples of some of Harve Bennett’s most popular and successful output.
THE MOD SQUAD
Three juvenile delinquents become undercover informants for the police. This show was wildly successful, lasting for five seasons, and Harve Bennett co-produced the show with Aaron Spelling.
THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN
If you thought The Mod Squad was popular, wait until you meet Steve Austin – an astronaut who survived a test pilot accident and was rebuilt with myoelectric circuitry – okay, two bionic legs, a bionic arm, a bionic eye and the ability to fight in slow motion with lots of sound effects.
THE BIONIC WOMAN
This spinoff of The Six Million Dollar Man featured Lindsay Wagner as Jaime Sommers, tennis player and parachutist who, after her own near-fatal accident, was repaired with bionic legs, a bionic arm and bionic hearing. She also ended up on another network, so at one point in time you had two half-human, half-robotic crime fighters on different channels. Another Harve Bennett production.
THE INVISIBLE MAN
Somewhere between his time as The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and his time with NCIS, David McCallum portrayed a man who, after suffering a laboratory accident, had his body turn completely invisible. He now had to wear a latex mask and gloves to keep his invisibility a secret. Unfortunately, the ratings were just about as invisible as McCallum’s character.
GEMINI MAN
The Invisible Man was retooled with this fantasy series. Now the main character simply pressed a button on his LCD wristwatch to turn invisible – at least for a total of 15 minutes in a 24-hour period. Although I’m not sure how Harve Bennett got the Gemini Man’s clothes to disappear for 15 minutes during that 24-hour period as well… Hmm…
STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN
Harve Bennett was called in to find a way to make a new movie in the Star Trek series, after the original “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” stiffed at the box office. He actually watched all 79 episodes of the original series, until he found the episode “Space Seed” that introduced Khan Noonian Singh. And from that episode, came this movie. He also worked on the next four motion pictures in the Star Trek series.
TIME TRAX
Bennett was also responsible for producing this early 1990’s syndicated show, about a time-traveler from the future who tries to capture criminals that transported themselves back to the past – and by “the past,” I mean “our present time.”
Rest in peace, Harve Bennett, and thank you for all the great genre television that you helped produce.
Much appreciated.
Chuck The Writer 
Except for Traxx I watched all those, including Gemini Man! Looking over his IMDB profile I see he also did Andy Griffith’s Salvage I. I actually liked that show.
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Star Trek 2. IMHO, best of the Star Trek Movies by far.
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Speaking of the Invisible Man…has anyone seen the link to Jango’s blog?
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Mike Huber has seen it, he can confirm it exists.
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Still no sign of Jango’s blog, either on Chuck’s blog or in cyberspace.
But let’s set the record straight: my sense of humor *does* exist. D357’s been making me laugh my {TU sez no curse words} off!
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