Posted in: Movies | Tagged: manimal

RIP Simon MacCorkindale, 1952-2010

Published Fri, 15 Oct 2010 17:01:24 -0500

Last updated Fri, 15 Oct 2010 17:01:32 -0500

Alistair Robb has written this tribute to the late Simon MacCorkindale especially for the readers of Bleeding Cool.

For those of us that were coming of age in the early 80s there were certain defining moments in British pop culture: Not the Nine O'Clock News, The New Romantic Movement, Tyne Brand Pie fillings and…Manimal! Thankfully The New Romantics have gone away and I haven't seen a tin of Tyne Brand Pie Filling in at least 20 years, but Manimal has lived on in memory, in one wee fond corner.

Manimal was about a shape-shifting doctor called Jonathan Chase who had the ability to turn into any animal he wanted to, but generally chose a hawk or a black panther. Sure it was hokey, the effects were dumb, but they were done by an emerging Stan Winston. Manimal was a superhero who selflessly used his powers to help out the smoking hot police detective.

What always attracted me to the show was Simon MacCorkindale. He was of the Pierce Brosnan school; the charming good looks, the transatlantic accent and the fun he had fighting the bad guys and getting it on with the ladies. I can't believe that it lasted only eight episodes!

Well, yesterday Manimal met a foe he couldn't conquer as Simon MacCorkindale finally succumbed to the cancer that he had been battling for the last four and a half years.

Yeah, I know you've been watching him on Casualty and Holby City for the last 5 years. He was also in I, Claudius and Jesus of Nazareth. His other genre outings have included the 80s Quatermass mini-series, Earth: The Final Conflict and Poltergeist: The Legacy. But to me he will always be Doctor Jonathan Chase.

Farewell Simon and rest in peace. (Simon MacCorkindale 1952-2010)

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