It solely ran for 2 and a half seasons from 1981 to 1983, however The Greatest American Hero—starring William Katt as an unassuming instructor who receives a super-powered swimsuit from aliens, then promptly loses the directions—has left an indelible mark on pop culture. You in all probability have already got the theme track caught in your head (“Consider it or not, I’m strolling on air…”) after simply studying the headline on this put up.
Why has The Best American Hero, which co-starred Robert Culp as reluctant hero Ralph’s FBI liason, Invoice, and Connie Sellecca as Ralph’s girlfriend and lawyer, Pam—develop into such an everlasting favourite? The Best American Hero Companion, a just-released e-book by Patrick Jankiewicz, digs into the ABC sci-fi comedy with nice enthusiasm, profiling the artistic group concerned, exploring particular person episodes in addition to the present’s broader influence, and surfacing random trivia which will shock even longstanding followers of the sequence. It encompasses a foreword by sequence star Katt; io9 will get a shout-out due to our 2018 roundup of the show’s “most ridiculous” episodes— which we wrote once we discovered the reboot starring Hannah Simone wasn’t getting picked up—so it’s no secret we’re followers of Ralph’s misadventures. We hopped on video chat with Jankiewicz to be taught extra.
“[Creator Stephen J.] Cannell had some enormous hits [like The Rockford Files, The A-Team, and 21 Jump Street], however that is [now] the most well-liked of all his reveals,” the creator mentioned. “Even he couldn’t determine it out—that is the best-selling on DVD and Blu-ray. You need to hit 5 seasons to enter syndication, and this present didn’t even come shut. It’s his solely full-on style present, the one sci-fi superhero kind present he ever did, and he wasn’t used to all of the clichés. The community requested him to do a superhero present, and as soon as he did it, he made it [in his own style], like his different reveals. It’s a present about private duty, which I believe may be very humorous.”
Jankiewicz, who has additionally printed “companion” books on The Unbelievable Hulk and Buck Rogers within the twenty fifth Century, discovered his subsequent topic by chance, although it’s clearly in his wheelhouse. “It was when covid hit. It was a Saturday morning, I used to be consuming espresso with my brother, flipping by means of the channels, and we got here throughout an episode of the sequence,” Jankiewicz recalled. “It was from the primary season, an awesome episode known as ‘The Greatest Desk Situation,’ which was primarily based on an actual assassin of an actual reporter, and it was actually well-written. Cannell’s reveals are very, very massive on character. [With The Greatest American Hero], they have been trying to do The Rockford Recordsdata with a superhero. It’s a Marvel Comics model of Rockford Recordsdata. The hero is good-hearted, however no person actually is aware of it; all people misjudges him. Rockford is a personality—you want him, you want his life, you discover him attention-grabbing. And it simply so occurs he’s a detective. It’s the identical factor right here: Ralph simply occurs to be a superhero. However you just like the character, you want his associates, and also you just like the scenario. I had forgotten what a captivating, humorous present it was!”
It’s exhausting to choose a favourite episode amongst The Best American Hero’s 45 whole, however Jankiewicz thinks one particularly stands out. “I like the pilot. I believe the pilot is admittedly, actually sensible; you spend about half-hour attending to know Ralph as a personality earlier than the aliens and every thing else occurs. The present may be very personality-driven, and because you just like the characters, you care about what occurs to them,” Jankiewicz mentioned. Nonetheless, he additionally admitted to liking the goofier, extra supernatural path the sequence took in its later episodes. “I like when the present embraces the style; one week he’s combating a biker gang, one other week is ninjas, a ghost, aliens. I believe that’s the most effective half, the place you don’t know who you’re going to run into week in, week out.”
As Jankiewicz factors out, Ralph was an distinctive character on TV—and throughout the panorama of superhero-centric leisure—again in 1981. “One of many attention-grabbing concepts within the present is he’s relentlessly dumped on. Even with the swimsuit on, individuals don’t admire him. Folks look down on him. The entire present is form of fanfare for the frequent man. He’s acquired this swimsuit and it doesn’t enhance his life one bit. It makes it worse! It’s very charming, however there’s a cynical edge to the present,” the creator mentioned. “It broke the principles within the superhero style earlier than there have been even guidelines set. You need to bear in mind when the present got here on, there have been no stay motion superheroes occurring. The Unbelievable Hulk was on its manner out. Buck Rogers was about to be canceled. Superheroes had gone to the films. The yr the present debuted was once we acquired the primary Indiana Jones, and [in 1982 we got] the second Christopher Reeve Superman. So there have been no actual superhero guidelines. Should you take a look at the Greg Berlanti shows—Arrow, Supergirl, The Flash—it’s all concerning the group surrounding the hero. That [was never part of the] style till it was established by Stephen J. Cannell. Pam and Invoice are his group. They know every thing Ralph is aware of. That was an enormous distinction from each superhero that got here earlier than.”
As followers will recall, a reboot—which might’ve changed the Ralph character with a tequila-loving Indian American woman named Meera—very almost made it to the airwaves just a few years in the past, however wasn’t picked up by ABC. “I can be sincere. I attempted and tried to get a glance, and so they wouldn’t even cough up a script for it. William Katt hasn’t even seen it,” Jankiewicz mentioned. However he hasn’t given up hope that The Best American Hero will fly once more sometime. “I’ve a sense that Cannell’s daughter Tawnia [McKiernan, a veteran TV producer and director] goes to make it right into a film. It’ll be enormous, particularly with the Marvel components, the place individuals are prepared for snarky, humorous… the entire present is about there aren’t any idealists anymore. Ralph is the one idealist on the present. Invoice and Pam are cynical and I imply, they’ll assist him, however they assume it’s tilting at windmills. The entire present is an idealist surrounded by pessimists and so they’re making an attempt to avoid wasting the world. I believe there’s room for that. When [Phil] Lord and [Chris] Miller couldn’t get it going, two of essentially the most artistic—you noticed what they did with Jump Street. The studio ought to have gotten down on their knees and begged them to do that. They need to have simply given these guys carte blanche, however they didn’t. By the point they needed to get the property again to them, they had just won the Oscar for Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse … The horrible factor is, they acquired Cannell. Should you take a look at [the Jump Street movies], they have fun all of the cheesiness of a Cannell present, then they embrace it and play it up and it’s simply, this ought to be the best [decision].”
You can’t finish any dialogue of The Best American Hero with out speaking about perhaps its biggest and most relentless superpower: its theme track, which as soon as heard will linger in your mind for an unsettling period of time. “My sister known as me once I was writing the e-book—she was modifying it for me—and he or she goes, ‘Dammit, I can’t get that track out of my head.’ After which she mentioned she and her household have been watching Free Man with Ryan Reynolds [which used the Greatest American Hero song], and he or she couldn’t cease buzzing the theme track for the remainder of the week,” Jankiewicz laughed. “However to me, that theme track has saved the present alive. That track won’t ever, ever go away. It’s been used as a cultural touchstone by different style reveals, not simply Seinfeld. The theme track was within the prime 10 longer than the Buddies theme, which ran for 10 years. I imply, it blows my thoughts—it was battling ‘Bette Davis Eyes’ for the primary track of the yr!”
The Best American Hero is extensively out there on streaming (together with Peacock, Prime Video’s Freevee, and YouTube); you may decide up a duplicate of The Best American Hero Companion here.
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