The Greatest American Hero
| The Greatest American Hero | |
|---|---|
| File:GAH2.jpg Cover for the second season DVD of Greatest American Hero | |
| Starring | William Katt as Ralph Hinkley Robert Culp as Bill Maxwell Connie Sellecca as Pam Davidson Michael Paré as Tony Villacona Faye Grant as Rhonda Harris |
| Country of origin |  United States |
| No. of episodes | 44 |
| Production | |
| Running time | 60 minutes (per episode) |
| Original release | |
| Network | ABC |
| Release | March 18, 1981 – February 3, 1983 |
The Greatest American Hero is an American television series which aired for three seasons from 1981 to 1983 on ABC. It premiered as a two hour movie pilot on March 18, 1981. It starred William Katt as Ralph Hinkley, Robert Culp as Bill Maxwell, and Connie Sellecca as Pam Davidson.
Premise
The series is a superhero drama-comedy. Ralph Hinkley is a schoolteacher for 'special students,' and is determined to get through to them. Coming back from a field trip late one night, the school bus begins to break down, then start up again, forcing Ralph to walk back through the desert to get help. As he walks down the desert road, he encounters a swerving car driven by Special FBI Agent Bill Maxwell (Culp). Maxwell claims that his car also was acting up. The car starts up and they drive on until they are stopped and locked into the car as bright lights above them down and almost blind them.
They are surprised to find that lights are coming from an alien spacecraft. The aliens tell Ralph and Bill (by way of the car radio) that they are to work together to save the world and Ralph will be given the power to change it. They are given a black case. Later he opens it up to reveal that they have given him a special bright red suit which endows him with superhuman abilities.
The novelty of the show was based on Hinkley's inability to properly learn to use the suit, and even learn of its various capabilities, other than by trial and error, due to his having clumsily lost the instruction manual. A common gag involves Ralph clumsily trying to strip off his outer clothes to reveal the suit before his enemies can get away. The show is typical of producer Stephen J. Cannell's style of character-driven quirky drama where the plot is secondary to the relationships between the characters.
In practice, Hinkley's superhero is more akin to a Buster Keaton-style clown. For example, sequences where he flies through the air under his own power usually show him flailing his arms and legs, instead of adopting the Superman "arms extended, legs together" pose. In fact, his first flight results in a terrifying experience of him hurtling out of control until he rams head first into a building wall. The basic powers outside of flying included super strength, resistance to injury, invisibility, precognition, telekinesis, super speed, X-ray vision, and psychometry. He also showed signs of being able to control minds.
Maxwell partners up with Hinkley on most adventures to help the schoolteacher use the suit (which he called the "red jammies") to fight crime. (The Bill Maxwell character is widely viewed as a broad send-up of Culp's role in the ground-breaking 1960s action/adventure series I Spy.)
Pam Davidson was an attorney who often joined Ralph and Bill on adventures. She was a corporate attorney who later became Ralph's wife.
Also co-starring on the show were Michael Paré and Faye Grant as two of Ralph's students.
The series was produced by Stephen J. Cannell, and the theme "Believe It or Not" was composed by Mike Post (music) and Stephen Geyer (lyrics) and sung by Joey Scarbury. The theme song became a popular hit during the show's run.
In 1986, the original cast reunited for a pilot film for a new NBC series that was to have been called The Greatest American Heroine. The pilot reveals that several years after the final episode, Hinkley's secret identity was finally revealed to the public. This upsets the aliens who gave him the suit, and they charge Hinkley with finding a new hero to wear the costume and use its powers for fighting evil. Hinkley finds a young woman (Mary Ellen Stuart) who spends her time looking for lost kittens and teaching young children, and most of the episode deals with her learning how to use the suit under Bill Maxwell's guidance.
The Greatest American Heroine did not result in a new series, and the pilot was never broadcast by NBC. Ultimately, the pilot was reedited as an episode of the original series (complete with original opening credits and theme), and added to syndication packages of the original series, where it airs as the final episode.
In 2004, it was announced that a motion picture based upon the television series was in the planning stages.
A North American DVD release of the first season occurred on February 15, 2005. Special features in the three-disc set include extensive interviews with the original cast members, and The Greatest American Heroine pilot episode. Season 2 was released on April 5, 2005 with interviews with Mike Post and Cannell. Season 3 was released on August 2, 2005.
A typical plot
There were 2 typical plots of Greatest American Hero. Stephen J. Cannell explained the differences on the Greatest American Hero season 1 DVD set. As originally agreed to between Cannell and then ABC executives Marcy Carsey and Tom Werner, the powers would be in the suit, not the guy. And also, Ralph would try to solve ordinary-type issues, such as trying to stop a fix in Major League Baseball ("The Two Hundred Miles-Per-Hour Fastball") or an assassination attempt {"The Best Desk Scenario"). The show would center around what Cannell referred to as "character comedy" based on human flaws such as envy (in the aforementioned "The Best Desk Scenario") or hypochondria ("Plague"). What Cannell was trying to avoid were "save the world" type episodes, a la the original Adventures of Superman tv series.
The problem, according to Cannell on the DVD set, was that Carsey and Werner left ABC shortly after the show was sold. The network then wanted the show to be more like a kids show than an adults show. So they pushed the exact types of shows that Cannell did not want. This brought the second type of plot. This type of plot usually involved Ralph trying to save some sort of calamity from happening, including nuclear war ("Operation Spoilsport") and even a Lochness Monster type of creature ("The Devil in the Deep Blue Sea").
Trivia
- The powers of the red suit were somewhat broad in design, but still were 'similar' enough to the abilities of Superman that Warner Bros., the owners of DC Comics, filed a lawsuit against ABC which was, ultimately, dismissed[1] as the premise's core concept of a human receiving an alien costume/weapon to fight evil was closer to that of the Silver Age Green Lantern.
- The main character's name was originally Ralph Hinkley, but after the assassination attempt of Ronald Reagan by John Hinckley, Jr. in early 1981, the character's last name was amended to "Hanley" for the Season 1 episode "Roseda Rose". For the rest of the 1st season, he was either "Ralph" or "Mister H". (The name Ralph was chosen as a tongue-in-cheek reference to the film Superman: The Movie starring Christopher Reeve, wherein Lois Lane asks Superman if he has a name, to which he responds "What do you mean? Like Ralph or something?" After fan outcry, Ralph's last name reverted to "Hinkley" for Season 2, although it was used sparingly.
- The television show is often noted for its popular theme song "Believe it or Not", sung by Joey Scarbury and written by Stephen Geyer and Mike Post. "Believe it or Not" became a #1 hit for Scarbury on the popular music charts on July 18, 1981. It is also one of the most popular of all TV theme songs.
- In the episode "The Susie", of the popular sitcom Seinfeld, George Costanza sets his answering machine message to the tune he himself made that parodies "Believe It or Not". The theme was also used in Michael Moore's documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 and in the 2005 hit comedy The 40 Year-Old Virgin starring Steve Carrell.
- In the episode "Tippecanoe and Taylor, Too" of the WB show Gilmore Girls, the character Lane Kim and her band plays a rock/punk version of "Believe It or Not", as they are asked to play at a candidate's political rally for their town's local election.
- In the August 31, 2005 episode of Battle of the Network Reality Stars, William Katt briefly refereed a touch football game between the various teams. An image of present-day Katt appeared onscreen beside an old photo of him in his superhero costume. Several participants began to sing "Believe It or Not"; Katt smiled and took a bow.
- In the 2001 Homestar Runner Halloween episode, Homestar Runner dresses as the Greatest American Hero for his Halloween costume. Also, when he first appears, he sings a modified version of the “Believe it or Not” theme song ("Believe it or not I'm walking around, I never thought I could trick or tre-e-eat").
- The symbol on Hinkley's uniform resembles the Chinese character "centre" [中]. As the symbol is red in colour, Hong Kong television station TVB called the Cantonese-dubbed version of the show "Sky Flying Red Centre Hero" [飛天紅中俠].
- On the DVD of Season 1, Stephen J. Cannell notes that the symbol was actually based on a pair of scissors that he had on his desk during the design of the uniform.
- In the episode of My Name is Earl that was aired on Thursday, March 2, 2006, Earl and Randy sing "Believe It or Not" while trapped inside a water tower.
- In an advertisement for E3 that aired on G4, three men watching television see an advertisement for the aforementioned convention and begin performing a modified version of the "Believe it or Not" theme song.
- Mayor Mitchell Hundred, a superhero from Brian K. Vaughan's comic series "Ex Machina", has "Believe it or Not" as his cell phone's ringtone.
- Scott Kurtz, Aaron Williams and Giuseppe Ferrario's comic book serial Truth, Justin and the American Way is an homage to many 1980s comedy/action shows, most notably The Greatest American Hero.
- In episode 903 of Mystery Science Theater 3000, the characters riff on a superhero movie called Puma Man. At one point, Crow sings a parody of a lyric from "Believe It or Not" calling for the movie to end.
- Maxwell's unmarked FBI vehicle are late 1970s - early 1980 Mopar sedans, from a Plymouth Volaré (seen in the pilot episode), Dodge Monaco, and/or Dodge Diplomat.
- In the October 5, 2006 episode of ER on NBC, Dr. Archie Morris (the character played by Scott Grimes) is shown driving top-down in his BMW convertible, singing along to "Believe It or Not".
Notes
References
Greatest American Hero season 1 DVD set. 2005.