The Greatest American Hero

Did You Know?

• Anchor Bay Entertainment released the complete series on DVD in Region 1 in 2005, and a special 13-disc boxed set on October 3, 2006.
• In July 2008, William Katt announced he was writing a comic book series based on the show for his publishing company Catastrophic Comics in conjunction with Arcana Studios.
• In 2026, Amp Comics published a 5-issue miniseries set 43 years after the show ended, written by Don Handfield with art by Alper Geçgel and Faradilla Nurmalize.

Premise

Ralph Hinkley works as a remedial education teacher in Los Angeles. During a school field trip, extraterrestrials give him a suit that grants superhuman abilities and instruct him to collaborate with FBI Special Agent Bill Maxwell to fight crime and injustice. Attorney Pam Davidson, who handled Ralph's divorce, later encounters the aliens and occasionally joins their missions. Ralph's students Rhonda Blake, Tony Villicana, Cyler Johnson, and Paco Rodriguez appear regularly, as does Bill's FBI supervisor Les Carlisle. The suit provides powers including flight, super strength, invulnerability, invisibility, precognition, telekinesis, X-ray vision, super speed, pyrokinesis, shrinking, psychometry, and the ability to detect the supernatural. The suit enables flight but not skillful landings, so Ralph frequently crashes unharmed. In the episode "Fire Man" he shows resistance to fire and uses super exhalation to blow out a flamethrower. After exposure to high doses of plutonium radiation, Ralph exhibits mind control abilities. In "Lilacs, Mr. Maxwell" he controls a dog via hologram. In "The Shock Will Kill You" the suit becomes strongly magnetized.

Cast and characters

William Katt portrays Ralph Hinkley, a high school special education teacher. Robert Culp plays FBI agent Bill Maxwell, and Connie Sellecca appears as lawyer Pam Davidson. Faye Grant plays Rhonda Blake, Michael Paré plays Tony Villicana, Jesse D. Goins plays Cyler Johnson, Don Cervantes plays Paco Rodriguez, and William Bogert plays Les Carlisle. After the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan by John Hinckley Jr. on March 30, 1981, the character's surname was changed from Hinkley to Hanley in two episodes. In "Here's Looking at You, Kid" the change was accomplished by overdubbing "Mister Hinkley" to "Mister H" and dropping audio over mentions of the surname. In "Reseda Rose" the name was overdubbed to Hanley whenever spoken. For the rest of the abbreviated first season the character was called "Ralph" or "Mister H". Episode 9 showed the name "Ralph Hanley" on a door plaque. By the season 2 premiere the surname returned to Hinkley.

Production

Stephen J. Cannell originally planned the series to emphasize real-life problems, with the powers residing in the suit rather than the man, and Ralph solving ordinary problems like corruption in Major League Baseball or an assassination attempt. The series initially focused on "character comedy" based on human flaws such as envy and hypochondria. After a change in ABC management, new executives requested more heroic, save-the-day episodes, pushing for stories involving nuclear war and a Loch Ness Monster-type creature. For the season two finale, Robert Culp wrote and directed "Lilacs, Mr. Maxwell", concerning a KGB mole-agent in the FBI. Cannell gave Culp free rein to produce the episode. The Greatest American Hero was the first of Cannell's series to feature the "Stephen J. Cannell Productions" logo; his earlier series Tenspeed and Brown Shoe did not use it.

Revivals

In 1986 the original principal cast reunited for a pilot movie for a new NBC series titled The Greatest American Heroine, which was not picked up and never broadcast by NBC. The pilot was later re-edited as an episode of the original series, added to syndication sets, and became the final episode. The episode's title card appends the letters "i n e" to the original title with NBC chimes. The pilot reveals that years after the final episode, Ralph's secret identity became public, making him a celebrity. The aliens charge him with finding a new hero to wear the suit; once the transfer is made, all memory of Ralph's exploits will be purged except for Ralph, Pam, and Bill. Bill searches for candidates, but Ralph finds Holly Hathaway (Mary Ellen Stuart), an elementary school teacher who spends her free time looking for lost kittens, raising environmental awareness, and serving as a foster mother. Holly arrives flying in a new version of the suit and pledges to help Bill. The original trio say farewell, and Bill shows emotion. The episode follows Holly learning to use the suit with Bill's guidance, and ends with Bill suggesting Holly may be the right person after all.