Manimal was the "My Mother The Car" of hour long dramas: a huge failure, it was only on for a few months, but the premise (and the name) was so goofy it's never quite been forgotten. I heard a reference to Manimal just a couple of weeks ago while watching "Party Down" on Hulu.
Could we work in Nightman and M.A.N.T.I.S. while we're at it? We can call it the Man-train Power Hour; it's like a generational Super Sentai team-up special, except complete shit.
I always wondered that too. I was amazed this wasn't on here as I loved the show when I was a kid and loved the Germs when.. well I will always love the Germs, but the "reunion" without Crash because of the biopic was travesty. Darby's Manimal is more of a philosophical one that has to be caged like Meursault and Manimal's Manimal is.. well you're looking at it. He solves crimes by by means of anthropomorphic transfiguration. Very Kafka-esque, when you think about it. We might never know, but we can always imagine that most writers in hollywood had great ideas that were interrupted by "but can he solve mysteries too?"