The Greatest American Hero (1981): 20 Things You Never Knew!

[@robertcoggeshall3071]

One of the best original superhero shows out there. That theme song is awesome!

[@CappyLarou]

The theme song was the first music I ever bought with my own money, bought it on 45 and listened to it for days on end...lol

[@rockywatchesmovies]

Proper memories, no one will remember the first song they downloaded. We were lucky living in that era .

[@heyjarrod]

@@rockywatchesmovies I’m sure they will, why wouldn’t they.

[@daverage4729]

Great show...one of my favourites from the 80's. Original, funny and a great cast to boot.

[@jbazinga2385]

Agreed. As a mid-teen and not a young kid, I still thought this was funny and a great show.

[@MikeCee7]

This theme song, & “Welcome back Kotter”, and “Chico and the Man” were my 3 favorite TV theme songs.

[@sethkaicer319]

I was nine years old when that came out I watched it every week faithfully

[@BilTheGalacticHero]

Great show. They also made a Greatest American Hero video game. I was at ComicCon years ago and saw the sign and said to my friend "whatever happened to Robert Culp". The guy in the booth heard me and said "He's right here!" and pointed to him. It was great to meet him and I got lucky because I almost said "Is Robert Culp still alive"!

[@lilorbielilorbie2496]

All I know is. Connie Sellecca is way fine.

[@HM2SGT]

*A modern version would have the aliens download the instructions as an app onto her phone, but she'd have to sign up and agree to all sorts of stuff and pay a monthly fee to use it*

[@danjones2680]

I was 2 when the show came out and watching it with my dad and singing the theme are some of my earliest memories.

[@skatemonk]

Connie Sellecca was my favorite part of the show!

[@RobertSchroeder-f9c]

We loved and enjoyed this show. Don’t forget that Micheal Pare got his start on this show which led to movies like The Philadelphia experiment and streets of fire and Eddie and the cruisers.

[@charlesbronson4282]

This and Bosom Buddies had the best opening theme

[@eddierascalhaskell4954]

I do remember when they used to play the whole theme on the radio.

[@davidbeaman1050]

Loved this show 😬

[@catmomof2261]

I lost it when Free Guy played the theme song. And realized I can still remember the lyrics.

[@ontheroadaustralia-soleman1911]

Great video, thanks mate.

[@EweChewBrrr01]

I remember watching this as a boy and this is the first time I've heard about aliens and the suit having the powers. I just thought he had the powers and was learning how to use them. Thanks for this mate. I enjoyed watching it.

[@rockywatchesmovies]

You're welcome

[@FlanaFugue]

I liked this show so much as a small child I held up a tape recorder to the speaker to badly record the theme song... still have the cassette somewhere with "Greatest American Hero" scrawled in barely legible writing.

[@dhenderson1810]

Stephen J Cannell also had success after "The Greatest American Hero" with his next show, "The A-Team".

[@stephenmilberry7796]

Didn't mention that the suit logo was designed that way so they could shoot the flying scenes in one direction and then just reverse the pic for flying in the other direction without the logo becoming backwards. It was a problem they seen in the old Superman show with George Reeves. The design avoided the problem.

[@TheNameisPlissken1981]

Robert Culp also wrote an episode for season one that they didn't get to make called 'The Long Fall at 10, 2 & 4". I read it 30 years ago. It had to do with Bill & Ralph going undercover at a Cowboy stunt show after two of the show's trick shooters steal some kind of formula from a government lab. Needing a way into the show so to investigate, Bill convinces the owner of the western show that Ralph can draw huge crowds by making three death defying jumps in one day. The script was not Culp's best effort. It was too early in the show's production and he really didn't know how to write for it yet. Thankfully, by the second season, though, he did and if you were to read The Long Fall & Lilacs, Mr. Maxwell one after the other, you'd see the difference.

[@rockywatchesmovies]

That's really interesting, thanks.

[@Voodoomaria]

Without watching the vid, the FIRST thing i know about this series was, the main character was named "Hinkley" until a guy named Hinkley took a pot shot at President Ronald Regan in a misguided attempt to get into Jodie Fosters Knickers. Then the producers changed the name. Let's see what the vid has. Okay, That was the SECOND thing they covered. Can one-Up you on the Barbara Hale link though. Katt went on After Hero to join his Mother in the caste of the New Perry mason series, where he played "Paul Drake Jr." Son of the P.I. [Played by William Hopper] who did all of Mason's Leg Work.

[@DocFunkenstein]

It's so odd that one show that could actually benefit hugely from a "reimagination" is practically the only series *NOT* being remade. Hollywood is so damn dumb.

[@dhenderson1810]

If they reimagine it, do it properly instead of casting a girl, do it very similar to the original series but more updated. However, I think the quirkiness of the show would be lost on today's audience who would find it corny and TV stations wouldn't be interested unless it was a DC or Marvel property.

[@LastBastian]

So, I have this memory as a kid, of watching a Saturday morning cartoon where the plot was: Laverne and Shirley find the Greatest American Hero suit, but one of them only wears the top half, while the other wears the bottom half, giving them different abilities... I've searched the Internet trying to corroborate that this was a thing that existed... But so far, I've found nothing. Somebody please tell me this rings a bell? ...or did I make it all up? lol

[@rockywatchesmovies]

Are you sure you weren't dreaming? 😂 😂

[@LastBastian]

@rockywatchesmovies Haha... That's what I'm trying to figure out! I swear I remember pretty clearly: A spaceship coming down and giving the girls the suit. The one who wore the bottom part could run super fast, the one with the top part could fly, etc... but they of course both struggled and did everything awkwardly... Goofiness and whacky hijinks ensued!

[@BCBaron]

I believe this is the episode in question: kzbin.info/www/bejne/Y33LaXijarllpcU

[@LastBastian]

@BCBaron *YES! THANK YOU!!* I'm not crazy! Lol! That is it!

[@IamSnowbird]

I loved the show and I love the song.

[@briwanderz]

while i have little to no faith in hollywood i would actually like to see a soft reboot / sequel, if not a series, maybe a mini series. if it ended up bad, well, i just wouldn't continue to watch it, if it was good, then great. the main hurdle i can see is how to get a new story going with whoever has the suit ending up not knowing how it works. i can think of a rather cheesy way in just simply either the new person does lose the instructions again, or somehow gets amnesia either as a side effect of a new person trying to get the suit to work, or maybe they forget they don't have the suit on and fall... i mean it should be ok to have some silly stuff in it.

[@chadharger9323]

I think a good twist is that the instruction manual isn't lost but can't be read by any human because the language is so alien that no human linguist can make heads or tails of it. The alien that gives the new hero the manual forget to translate it to English. A sub plot can be about trying to keep the manual out of the wrong hands(human or alien).

[@dhenderson1810]

Two bad things about the DVD set I have of this show. For one, the season 3 episodes are out of order. This is more noticeable because in some eps Ralph and Pam aren't married, others they are engaged and others they are married, yet having the eps out of order is more noticeable. Also, the music has been replaced. This is most noticeable during an episode called "Operation Spoilsport" (which is one of my favourite eps BTW) where Ralph must prevent WW3.. There is a scene where Ralph is on the phone to Bill, saying that the aliens want to see them because "Eve Of Destruction" played on his car radio. In the original screenings, it played the song "Eve Of Destruction" by Barry McGuire. But in the DVD, they changed the song and the singer, due to music rights. This is made more obvious because Ralph actually refers to the song, even though in the DVD versions, it is a different song altogether.

[@robertcoggeshall3071]

Yeah, hated that in the DVD. Guess they didn't have the rights to use it.

[@VinnieBartilucci]

After the DC lawsuit failed, Cannell went and revealed the origin of the suit in season 2. Said origin was almost a complete lift of the Green Lantern Corps - a powerful alien race distributing powers to worthy individuals. That had drive DC crazy, cause they knew they weren't going to be able to sue AGAIN...

[@robertcoggeshall3071]

Nah, a ufo giving Ralph his superhero suit wasn't a gl ripoff. Ufos were huge in the 70s and 80s.

[@Harry_Wagstaff]

I had Greatest American Hero Underoos as a kid.

[@HM2SGT]

Because 97% of reboots are crushing disappointments

[@rockywatchesmovies]

I'm jealous

[@kevinluschak5241]

I wanted the red suit.

[@davebooshty299]

5:57 Cosby.

[@jamesbonnen]

I love these but please no AI just get the names right!!

[@davebooshty299]

6:34 Sell Ah Kah

[@bradjorban]

Respectfully, Sellecca is pronounced like the Toyota car model Celica. "SELL-ick-uh." And, there's Bill Cosby or Bing Crosby, but no "Bill Crosby."

[@dhenderson1810]

When I was a little kid I thought his name was Bill Crosby and that he was the adopted brother of Bing Crosby.

[@tonythornhill9156]

I was 13 at the time and I was already into superhero comics and thought it was funny watching this bumbling buffoon type character who was in over his head but tried his best, Maxwell was my favorite character though. Nothing like Superman at all, Warner Brothers was really reaching with that one. I guess they figured it worked once with Captain Marvel (Shazam) and that it would work again, glad they lost the lawsuit.

[@rpriske]

What did you say 'thankfully' the reboot never happened?

[@rockywatchesmovies]

Yes, I'm pretty sure it would have been disappointing, as most reboots are.

[@courtlandbates2683]

interesting, but the AI narration leaves something to be desired. Connie Sell-Lecka?? How hard is it to say "SELLeca"

[@murder.simulator]

RTFM

[@karlepaul6632]

A reboot where they changed the gender of the main character? Now that's weird...that's just never been done before! I'm surprised they didn't go all out and make her black too! 😆 (It's cool... I'm black💁🏿‍♂️)

[@dhenderson1810]

They did it with the original snow's spin off pilot "The Greatest American Hero".

[@markshade8398]

I could never take Robert Gump seriously in anything, but especially not in this. He is a dork and not believable. I just could not take him at face value.

[@charlesbronson4282]

This and Bosom Buddies had the best opening theme