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The Greatest American Hero (1981~1983)
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Pow
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 28, 2020 10:34 am    Post subject: The Greatest American Hero (1981~1983) Reply with quote

TGAH ran on the ABC Network for 3 seasons and 45 episodes.

The series was created by prolific television producer Stephen J. Cannell.

Mike Post created the theme song which became a huge hit.

Synopsis } Ralph Hinkley (William Katt) & FBI agent Bill Maxwell (Robert Culp) encounter an alien spacecraft while in the desert.

These other worldly beings gift Ralph with a suit which allows the wearer to have astonishing superpowers.

Ralph & Bill join forces, along with Ralph's lawyer girlfriend, Pam Davidson, to utilize this amazing suit to perform acts of heroics in a troubled world.

Only one catch though: Ralph lost the instruction book for operating the super suit. Looks like it's going to have to be a case of learning by trial and error for the high school teacher.

Stephen J. Cannell's vision for his sf TV show was to have it be one of "character comedy." He wanted the series to rise above the typical superhero antics and truly explore just what it would be like for an average Joe to come into possession of an alien suit that gave him a wide array of superpowers.

What could he do with it and how would he affect the lives of others, as well as himself, in the real world with the suit?

What would be his moral responsibilities? Could the suit cause more problems than it solves? Just how would being the only one the suit worked for affect him?

SJC wanted to avoid the save-the-world types of show as seen in comics, film, and other TV series about superheroes.

When SJC's supportive ABC executives Marcy Carsey and Tom Werner left the network, ABC purchased the series. ABC now pushed for exactly the cliche types of episodes that SJC had always wished to avoid.

In one episode, "Don't Mess Around with Jim", we discover that the same aliens once gave a super suit to Jim "J.J." Beck prior to Ralph. Beck misused the suit to ruthlessly acquire vast wealth & power.

In the episode "Vanity, Said the Preacher" humans are seen in suspended animation on board the alien vessel that bestowed the super suit to Ralph. It is revealed later that the aliens home planet has been destroyed.

TGA Super Suit Abilities: Flight, super strength, invulnerability, super speed, invisibility, shrinking, precognition, telekinesis, pyrokinesis, X-ray vision, detection of the supernatural.

And those are merely the suit's abilities that Ralph has stumbled upon. Who knows what else it is capable of doing?

William Katt found the costume uncomfortable and hated having to wear it. The production set up the shooting schedule so that Katt would not be required to wear the costume for an entire day.

The symbol on the chest of the suit was actually a pair of scissors. When creator SJC met with the costume designer, Cannell had no idea just what the suit's emblem should look like.

The costume designer had a pair of scissors on his desk and he picked them up. Holding the scissors upside down he remarked to Cannell, "Here's your emblem."

William Katt & Robert Culp initially had trouble getting along, and this tension was utilized by them for their characters being at odds on the show.

Eventually Katt & Culp resolved their differences and became good friends during the run of the show.

Connie Selleca's character of Pam Davidson was intended to appear only in the pilot of TGAH. The original plan was to have a recurring joke of Ralph having a different girlfriend each week.

CS so impressed the producers with her performance in the pilot that they retained her and made her character a regular cast member.

DC Comics filed a lawsuit against the ABC Network & Warner Brothers claiming copyright infringement to DC's Superman character. The suit was dismissed.

As someone correctly noted; TGAH actually has more in common with DC's Green Lantern as far as the origin goes for both characters.

I really enjoyed TGAH's mixture of sf, action-adventure, comedy and characterizations. It was a fun show due to Ralph being the ''every man'' propelled into this astonishing and life changing event.

He was not at all the perfect superhero. With the instruction book lost he was forced to improvise with the suit and that often resulted in accidents.

Ralph's heart was in the right place all the time. Bill Maxwell was the tough, no nonsense FBI agent. He knew how to deal with criminals, foreign spies, nationalists and most anyone else you could think of that law enforcement has to battle.
Ralph & Bill could clash over an assignment & the methods on how to deal with it all.

Pam, like Ralph, also had a big heart and often had to function as a peacemaker between Ralph & Bill.

Pam could also counter Ralph's loftier idealistic views with her practical & commonsense approach.

TGAH was an entertaining show that ended too early and had many more stories to tell.
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 28, 2020 1:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

Yes indeed, it was a fun show! The title theme made the Top 40 and peaked at number 2. (I can't read that without hearing it in Casey Kasem's voice).

Enjoy it a the link below.


__ The Greatest American Hero - Believe it or Not


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Here's a full episode, complete with the series opening . . . which unfortunately demonstrates the way the show runners thought that shots of the hero smashing into things was a lot funnier than it really was. Rolling Eyes

The Greatest American Hero - Season 1, Episode 3


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Try as I may, I just can't see this chest logo as being inspired by a pair of scissor. Confused


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Actually it looks a bit like the appealing logo used by Scott Hudgens Realty in Atlanta, which I saw on signs in the early sixties and thought would make a great superhero chest emblem! It was an S in an interesting font, backed by a rectangle with concave sides.

I can't find a picture of it . . . Sad

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PostPosted: Tue Sep 29, 2020 2:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Watched the pilot & first episode of TGA recently on Youtube.

Series holds up very nicely with the writing and the lead characters interactions & disagreements with one another as they attempt to navigate their lives after the aliens present the super suit.

The conflicts, action, humor, and plot of the week are all fun and entertaining.

Unfortunately, one issue of the show has not dated well at all and that is Ralph's flying.

I recall reading in Starlog Magazine back then that TGA was on the cutting edge with its flying sequences utilizing the FX technology of Magicam.

Didn't work out so well.

I realize that they all did the best they could given the technology at hand at that time. Add to that the budget & intense shooting schedule and you have some real mountains to climb for sure.

So I never mean to unfairly critique a lacking of a particular visual FX since we have to judge these visuals within the context it existed in that era.

However, we can't pretend to not notice the weaknesses either.

They have made amazing advances in humans flying FX since TGA. Heroes was stunning to behold with what they were able to achieve.

Same with the various CW superhero TV series.
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ralfy
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 01, 2020 5:16 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

"Believe it or Not I'm Walking on Air..."

(an interview with Stephen Cannell):

http://www.tvparty.com/80hero.html

http://www.tvparty.com/80hero2.html


Quote:
Hicks: Greatest American Heroine was on very briefly.

Cannell: Yeah. We only made a pilot. We didn't sell it.
Hicks: Why did you decide to revisit the character as a woman?

Cannell: It was actually Robert Culp who wanted to do that and he came to me with that idea and wanted to do it. I said OK, so we did it.

A clip from the pilot incorporated in the syndicated version of the show:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6GmlK-Cmeo
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 21, 2021 1:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Pow wrote:
They have made amazing advances in humans flying FX since TGA. Heroes was stunning to behold with what they were able to achieve.

Same with the various CW superhero TV series.

You're comment reminded me that the same thing can be said for "weightless" FX in movies that show astronauts in zero-G.

Destination Moon worked hard to pull off such FX with actors dangling on wires. They chose to minimized such scenes with the old standby — magnetic boots.

2001: A Space Odyssey tried to convince us that lunar passenger liners would have flight attendants who chose not to float around effortlessly. Instead, they preferred to walk on Velcro shoes, constantly yanking their feet free of the floor and making that "ripping" sound with every step (which the movie covered up with the Blue Danube Waltz so we wouldn't have to hear it.) Rolling Eyes

Decades later we were finally treated to believable weightless scenes in movies like Gravity, which had Sandra Bullock appearing to be just as light as the stars of Apollo 13, who had to endure several scenes being shot in NASA "vomit comet" to achieve actually weightlessness for brief periods.

Yes indeed, we've come a long way since the days of the Superman TV series which forced poor George Reeves to lay on a board in front a rear projection screen and have the end of his cape tugged on to make it clap in the breeze.






Or worse, to hang from wires! Shocked



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PostPosted: Thu Oct 21, 2021 3:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Having the Stewardess walking with Velcro makes sense. It would give the passengers a familiar look, as apposed to floating around the cabin like a balloon. It is also safer, less chance of some poor person getting clocked in the head by an errant foot. Laughing

David.
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 21, 2021 6:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

David, you crack me up! Laughing

You can present such silly arguments for your ideas as if they made perfect sense. Amazing!

We've all seen videos of astronauts blissfully sailing around the ISS, totally weightless and loving ever minute of it. And I doubt that any of them ever get "clocked in the head by an errant foot". Rolling Eyes

Besides, how are the passengers in the lunar shuttle supposed to sleep like we see Dr. Haywood Floyd doing when the stewardess is tromping around in her silly Velcro shoes, making those annoying "ripping" sounds ever time she tears her shoes loose form the deck? Rolling Eyes

I swear that if I traveled to the Moon and had to listen to that maddening sound for 240,000 miles, I'd end up strangling the bitch before we were halfway there! Evil or Very Mad

David, please . . . let's just admit that 2001 proposed the most ridiculous method Hollywood every used to avoid portraying weightlessness!

Hell's Bells, even the two guys on the Discovery had to fake weightless in every damn scene which took place outside the rotating section — other than the quick scene when Bowman blew himself into the emergency airlock!

No sir, I submit that the only thing dumber than magnetic boots for all the astronauts who would be perfectly happy flying around like Peter Pan would be those godawful Velcro shoes! Sad

David, please explain to me why the dimwitted bimbo in the video below took a full 60 second to walk on her useless Velcro shoes over to this pointless rotating gizmo and then slooooowly climb around it until she finally reached an opening on the top left — which she could have simply floated through effortless in a few seconds!
Shocked

David, my friend . . . I rest my case. Very Happy

___________________ zero g flight attendant


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~ The Space Children (1958)
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 21, 2021 7:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Bud Brewster wrote:
David, please explain to me why the dimwitted bimbo in the video below took a full 60 second to walk on her useless Velcro shoes over to this pointless rotating gizmo and then slooooowly climb around it until she finally reached an opening on the top left — which she could have simply floated through effortless in a few seconds! Shocked

Kind of hard on the stewardess there Bud. But that one is easy. It is so they could show her walking up the wall until she was upside down. If you think about it, the layout of the ship makes no sense. It was all for the visual.

I wasn't talking about Astronauts, I was talking about the average person traveling in space. You are going to wan to make them comfortable, and reduce the risks of a lawsuit from being hit in the head by a crew member.

The Velcro would probably be very weak, just enough to hold the foot in zero gravity. That wouldn't be very loud.

Now on the Discovery, that is a different matter. These men are trained Astronauts, and should be able to maneuver in micro gravity with ease. But suspending the actors from wires in a closed set would at the least be a logistical nightmare, if it were even possible.

David.
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 22, 2021 11:53 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

Excellent points, David. Even the ones I don't fully agree with are good subjects for discussions. For example —


Krel wrote:
I wasn't talking about Astronauts, I was talking about the average person traveling in space. You are going to want to make them comfortable and reduce the risks of a lawsuit from being hit in the head by a crew member.

Quite true, but I suppose the passengers aren't going to be required to wear the Velcro shoes, right? Shocked

I've flown thousands of miles on employee passes (Dad worked for Delta for 35 years, I worked for Eastern for 16), and I'm pretty sure that the poor passengers who are in a hurry to reach the zero-G toilet during the trip to the Moon are NOT going to want to walk slooooowly down the aisle when their bladders are full! Laughing

It seems kind of unfair that the passengers can float around the cabin, but all the crewmen are required to slow-motion walk around in the Velcro shoes. Sad


Krel wrote:
The Velcro would probably be very weak, just enough to hold the foot in zero gravity. That wouldn't be very loud.

Hmmm . . . the problem with that idea is that if the Velcro is weak, it will be less effective in helping the wearer use their feet to do some of the things necessary.

Here's what I mean.

On Earth, gravity holds our feet to the floor, and if we get bumped or loose our balance we can use our feet and our calve muscles to counteract the force (forward or backward) to keep us from tipping over.

In zero-G, Velcro shoes (and magnetic boots) and supposed to hold the feet to the floor so we can keep ourselves upright.

That's easy when we're standing still, but when we're walking forward and then try to stop, the forward momentum must be counteracted by our heels remaining stuck the Velcro deck while our toes push down to prevent us from pitching forward!

If the Velcro is weak, we'd always have to walk very slowly (like the 2001 flight attendant), because whenever we tried to stop, our forward momentum would cause our bodies to keep moving, while our attached feet rolled up onto our toes and pulled the shoes from the deck, causing us to float! Shocked

Of course, all this is equally true for "weak" magnetic boots that are meant to be easily detached from a metal deck when the wearer is walking. Otherwise he'll have to struggle to pull his boots loose! Laughing

However, I suppose that "hi-tech" magnet boots could be designed with electromagnets in the toes and heels. Sensors in the boots would switch off the magnets when one ankle is titled forward before a step is taken.

(The reason I said "one ankle is tilted forward" is because I suddenly realized that if the wearer is bumped from behind and pitches forward, he'd need both feet secured to the floor to regain his upright position.)

Since only one ankle tilts at a time while we're walking, the boots would be designed NOT to switch off the magnets if both ankles are tilted.

As the wearer finishes each step, the boot on the forward foot would sense the floor contacting the heel, and the magnet would switch on again.

The wearer could also manually switch off both magnetic boots if he needed to float up from the deck.

What do you think?
Cool
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 22, 2021 1:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The reason I theorized about weak Velcro is the closeup scene of the Stewardess walking. Maybe it was on purpose, but it appeared that she was having difficulty maintaining her balance. You would want the Velcro to be just strong enough to keep your feet anchored, but not so strong as to make walking difficult.

The passengers would wear slip-on Velcro covers over their shoes. Inexperienced passengers would be helped by the Stewardess. In-fact, to keep order, all passengers would be required to have assistance entering and exiting. I'm sure that there would be regulations against the passengers Peter Paning around the cabin.

Bud, have you ever seen "Ikarie XB-1"? There is a scene where they explore a derelict spaceship. Their space suits have electromagnet shows that work like the ones you described.

David.
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 22, 2021 4:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

I applaud your thinking on the subject, David — but gee whiz, don't be such a party pooper! You want everybody to either be strapped in or shuffling around like invalids, when they out to having the time of their lives! Very Happy

Yes, some of the passengers might need assistance — but the Blue Horizon flights (like the recent one with Shartner) have demonstrated that regular people are ecstatic about being weightless — in fact, they're paying big bucks just to enjoy a few minutes of it!

So, I believe most of the passengers on a space flight would be quite happy to "Peter Pan" around the cabin as much as they were allowed to.
Laughing


Watch William Shatner and crew in zero gravity during Blue Origin spaceflight


__________



And if a flight to the Moon took several days, like the Apollo missions, the passengers would need to get what little exercise they could from flying around. In fact, the space craft would need to have a zero-G gymnasium for the passengers to work out in from time to time.

Or better yet, how about Zero-G Pilates classes!

"Loose all your excess weight, and THEN some . . . in space!"


Krel wrote:
Bud, have you ever seen "Ikarie XB-1"? There is a scene where they explore a derelict spaceship. Their space suits have electromagnet shows that work like the ones you described.

Hey, what a coincidence!

Just a few hours ago I was looking at the thread for that movie, which we have listed as Voyage to the End of the Universe.

I watched a little of the excellent YouTube video posted on the thread, including the scene in the derelict spaceship. I noticed that one astronaut seemed to float down a ladder, but then walk on the deck when he got to the bottom.

Now I know why! Those Czechs stole my idea!!!
Shocked
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 22, 2021 7:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

"Journey to the end of the Universe" is the American, dubbed, edited and reworked version. YouTube use to have "Ikarie XB-1" with English subtitles, it's well worth watching.

David
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 22, 2021 7:14 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

I assume you mean this one, which is on the thread for this movie — as I said above.


Voyage to the End of the Universe ("Ikarie XB 1" 1963) [1080p] - full movie with English subtitles


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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 29, 2021 1:31 pm    Post subject: Re: The Greatest American Hero (1981~1983) Reply with quote

Pow wrote:
These other worldly beings gift Ralph with a suit which allows the wearer to have astonishing superpowers.

Only one catch though: Ralph lost the instruction book for operating the super suit.

This is one aspect of the series that didn't appeal to me. Having the hero be a klutz who "lost" the instruction book make him a bit too dumb to be the one who was chosen to receive the suit.

I'd have preferred to have him struggle to get through the lengthy instructions because they were so long and complex.


Pow wrote:
In one episode, "Don't Mess Around with Jim", we discover that the same aliens once gave a super suit to Jim "J.J." Beck prior to Ralph. Beck misused the suit to ruthlessly acquire vast wealth & power.

The fact that the aliens were either unaware or unconcerned that the power of the suit was being misused doesn't speak well to their own sense of responsibility.
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 16, 2022 6:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

It occurred to me today that an advanced race of aliens who would give a super-suit to a klutz who wasn't intelligent enough to use it correctly would be like the Green Lantern League giving a power ring to the first person they found who had a necklace that complimented it, jewelry-wise. Rolling Eyes

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