It solely ran for 2 and a half seasons from 1981 to 1983, however The Best American Hero—starring William Katt as an unassuming trainer who receives a super-powered swimsuit from aliens, then promptly loses the directions—has left an indelible mark on popular 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 publish.
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—turn out to be such an everlasting favourite? The Best American Hero Companion, a just-released ebook 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 impression, and surfacing random trivia which will shock even longstanding followers of the sequence. It incorporates a foreword by sequence star Katt; io9 will get a shout-out because of our 2018 roundup of the present’s “most ridiculous” episodes— which we wrote after 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 large 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 stated. “Even he couldn’t determine it out—that is the best-selling on DVD and Blu-ray. It’s important 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 accountability, which I feel may be very humorous.”
Jankiewicz, who has additionally revealed “companion” books on The Unimaginable 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 the channels, and we got here throughout an episode of the sequence,” Jankiewicz recalled. “It was from the primary season, a fantastic episode known as ‘The Finest Desk Situation,’ which was based mostly on an actual assassin of an actual reporter, and it was actually well-written. Cannell’s reveals are very, very huge on character. [With The Greatest American Hero], they had been trying to do The Rockford Information with a superhero. It’s a Marvel Comics model of Rockford Information. The hero is good-hearted, however no person actually is aware of it; everyone 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 state of affairs. I had forgotten what a captivating, humorous present it was!”
It’s arduous to select a favourite episode amongst The Best American Hero’s 45 complete, however Jankiewicz thinks one particularly stands out. “I really like the pilot. I feel the pilot is actually, 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 stated. Nonetheless, he additionally admitted to liking the goofier, extra supernatural path the sequence took in its later episodes. “I really like when the present embraces the style; one week he’s combating a biker gang, one other week is ninjas, a ghost, aliens. I feel that’s one of the best 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, folks don’t respect him. Folks look down on him. The entire present is sort of fanfare for the widespread 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 stated. “It broke the foundations within the superhero style earlier than there have been even guidelines set. It’s important to bear in mind when the present got here on, there have been no stay motion superheroes occurring. The Unimaginable Hulk was on its manner out. Buck Rogers was about to be canceled. Superheroes had gone to the films. The 12 months the present debuted was after 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 reveals—Arrow, Supergirl, The Flash—it’s all in regards to 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 lady named Meera—very almost made it to the airwaves just a few years in the past, however wasn’t picked up by ABC. “I might be trustworthy. 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 stated. 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 large, particularly with the Marvel method, the place individuals are prepared for snarky, humorous… the entire present is about there are not 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 attempting to avoid wasting the world. I feel 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 Soar Road. 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’d simply received 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 needs to be the best [decision].”
You can not finish any dialogue of The Best American Hero with out speaking about possibly its best 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 after I was writing the ebook—she was enhancing it for me—and she or he goes, ‘Dammit, I can’t get that track out of my head.’ After which she stated she and her household had been watching Free Man with Ryan Reynolds [which used the Greatest American Hero song], and she or he couldn’t cease buzzing the theme track for the remainder of the week,” Jankiewicz laughed. “However to me, that theme track has stored 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 Pals theme, which ran for 10 years. I imply, it blows my thoughts—it was battling ‘Bette Davis Eyes’ for the primary track of the 12 months!”
The Best American Hero is extensively accessible on streaming (together with Peacock, Prime Video’s Freevee, and YouTube); you may decide up a replica of The Best American Hero Companion right here.
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