Believe it or not, July 4 Syfy Greatest American Hero Marathon
- Thread starter Mr. Adventure
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Yep, that's the one. If they'd just listened to Pam and read the whole book before trying anything, they would've been better off, but of course the male ego ruined everything as usual.
Also having memories of thinking how hot Connie Selleca was then (me as a 13-15 year old then), and overlaying my adult "ideas" on top of them now.
I was just a year younger than that at the time, and I'm trying to remember my reaction to Sellecca. I seem to have the impression that I wasn't fond of her. I think I thought she was too cold or something. I don't know, maybe on the dinky black & white set I had at the time, I couldn't tell how lovely her eyes were.
They were. Well, early 20s. It's long been typical for twentysomethings to play high-school students in TV, due to child-labor laws, I guess. It was right after leaving this show that Faye Grant went from playing a special-ed high-school student here to being a scientist/resistance leader in V.
The Agony Booth website did a recap of a TGAH episode recently and pointed out that Ralph's students were basically clones of the Sweathogs from Welcome Back, Kotter. That's really not wrong. Tony is Vinnie Barbarino, Rhonda is "Hotsy" Totsy, and the other guys are Washington and Epstein. They even have a curly-haired teacher.
The music sounds similar because it's by the same composers, Mike Post & Pete Carpenter, who did every Stephen J. Cannell show back then and a few others besides. Post, either with Carpenter or by himself, thoroughly dominated the musical sound of 1980s US television. It's rather sad that for the past couple of decades he's been limited to vague atmospheric dronings on Law & Order.
And yes, those absolutely were the TOS bridge sound effects on the alien ship. Although that particular audio ambience was created and used before TOS; I believe it can be heard in a Twilight Zone episode or two.
Heck, I knew that, even back then. I remember there were comments like, "How come a kid growing up in CA has a [NY or NJ accent]?" Tony, naturally. Though I did like his interaction with Bill (Robert Culp).
Bought the series on DVD a while back, but couldn't resist watching some of the marathon anyway. It was such a fun show, and I'm always amazed at how sharp and witty the writing and character banter was, and how well it holds up.
And after all these years, I still think that's one of the cooler superhero costumes out there (even though it was never actually meant to be cool).
And after all these years, I still think that's one of the cooler superhero costumes out there (even though it was never actually meant to be cool).
Yup, there was an episode where they were trying to find a kidnapped clown, so both Ralph and Maxwell got jobs at the circus. The elephant was trained to sit on a red stool, and when it saw a red VW bug, it sat on it just when Maxwell needed the car to chase the bad guys.
I ended up staying up to watch all but the last episode. There was even an Andre The Giant sighting in an ep somewhere around 3 AM.
Watched several episodes of GAH yesterday. Impressions:
- Ever wonder why Ralph flies along city streets and freeways and nobody seems to notice? Only when he lands in a tree or in somebody's potato salad ("Could use some mayonnaise...")...
- Bill Katt and Bob Culp are one of the greatest comedy-action duos ever.
- Connie Selleca: fairly hot, but her comic timing was phenomenal. I read a Starlog articles years ago: apparently she was quite the practical joker back in the day -- who knew?
- Magicam -- barely adequate at the time, downright cheesy today. Oh, for some Smallville-style effects -- but then again, GAH spent the money on good writers, so...
- Now, the suit did not protect his head from bullets, did it? Just the parts that covered his body. OTOH, they did use the "friction-based-super-hear bare hands" gag in a couple of episodes, so this was not consistent.
- Yes, the pseudo-Sweathogs were a little long in the tooth, but in the 80's, finding actual teen actors that were any good was difficult. And most of them went on to bigger things: Michael Paré for on. I still see Jesse Goins doing commercials nowadays...
I suppose it was hinted by the fact that she married John Tesh.
I kind of liked the lo-fi FX, there's a certain charm to them.
I dunno... I find the color scheme too uniform. Just red, red, red with a black cape.
And as a longtime superhero fan, it seems a little odd to see a show about a superhero who has no nom de guerre, who just goes by his real name or remains anonymous. Sure, the idea of the show was evidently to deconstruct standard superhero tropes and feature a hero who found it all rather silly, but still, it feels a bit odd.
Okay, there's a fun question: If you had a chance to coin a superhero name for Ralph, what would it be? I'm trying to think of something that might work. The Red... Guardian? The Scarlet Sentinel? (Which is apparently the name of a variety of maple tree.) Or given the way he flies and lands, maybe more like... the Crimson Klutz!
Yeah, given how crowded LA is, there would be tons of spectators. Also, you'd think that with so many different bad guys telling stories about a flying guy in a red suit, officials would begin to catch on that they aren't all crazy. But this was the early '80s where continuity was largely absent in TV.
I find Katt a run-of-the-mill actor, but he did have a good rapport with Culp.
Magicam did very good work on Cosmos. I think that because it was a video technique, it worked better with video footage than film.
Watching the marathon skipping across three seasons, I noticed that the Magicam effects on the flying sequences improved over time -- as, indeed, did Ralph's flying.
He did cover his face with his arms when he was being shot at, implying that his head wasn't protected. On the other hand, he was able to deliver superstrength punches with his bare hands and smash through walls and windows without sustaining concussions or severe facial lacerations, so the suit must've been augmenting his overall strength and durability.
Yeah, I've seen Goins in various shows over the years (most recently Castle) and found the name familiar, but I'd totally forgotten it was from this show that I first knew him.
And hey, these were supposed to be Special Ed students anyway, so maybe it makes sense that they were older than normal high school students.
I like this. I could see Ralph getting caught on camera a couple times and have this name be what he is dubbed by the press.
Or how about "Captain Klutz"? "Crash-Man"? "Crash-Pool"? "Splat-Man?"
Well maybe "cool" isn't the right word, but for something that was intended to be awfully silly, I think they came up with a design that actually feels pretty unique and well thought out.
This COULD have just been a generic Superman knockoff with the underwear outside the pants and the standard superhero boots (that you see on the great majority of superheroes), but they clearly put a lot more thought into it than that. The grey piping gives it a little bit of flair, and the red makes it kind of dashing I think.
And for me the genius of the idea was that Ralph was just this skinny, everyday guy who could be a superhero simply by putting on a supersuit. As a kid, that was always much easier for me to identify with than some big, buff dude with alien superpowers or expensive gadgets.
Faye Grant ( the blonde student) went on to play Dr. Julie Parish in the original V.
I knew she looked familiar, but I could not "put her".
I knew she looked familiar, but I could not "put her".
OTOH, this was probably of enormous benefit when DC Comics sued the creators of GAH for copyright infringement. No way you could mistake Ralph for Superman.
Worked when they sued Fawcett over a certain Big Red Cheese.
It makes for an awesome pop culture T-shirt
I've been meaning to get myself one for a few years.
I like this. I could see Ralph getting caught on camera a couple times and have this name be what he is dubbed by the press.
Or how about "Captain Klutz"?
I think that one's taken already.
The only problem I had with it is the lack of a mask or anything to conceal his identity. I had a hard time understanding how he could keep operating without anyone recognizing him-- though, as others have pointed out, a version of L.A. with hardly any people does help.
Still, if I were Ralph, I'd contrive something. It doesn't have to be a full cowl or even a mask-- maybe just a helmet with a visor. Heck, even a paper bag over his head wouldn't make him look any sillier than he already did.
Yeah at the very least I'd wear a baseball cap to hide that big-ass 80s hair.
Although it's also possible he felt most people would be too distracted by the flashy red costume to pay too much attention to his face. And as we also saw, the vast majority of people he encountered simply thought he was a weirdo who liked dressing up in a superhero costume. Not very many of them saw him actually using any superpowers.
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