William Katt

William Katt plays Ralph Hinkley on The Greatest American Hero, the 1980s Cannell hour whose alien suit arrives without the instruction booklet, so the superhero is a klutz who keeps crashing into trees. Robert Culp’s barking FBI handler, and that Joey Scarbury theme — Believe It or Not — do more cultural work than the plots. Katt is the teacher in the suit: earnest, airborne, a face that treats flight as a problem set.

1980s television, ABC papers, 1981–1983 on the spine: The Greatest American Hero. Ralph gets an alien super-suit with missing instructions; FBI agent Maxwell co-opts him for good. William Katt plays Ralph Hinkley as 1980s superhero craft: the teacher who made flying look like a dare you could flunk. Watch him when the title card needs a body instead of a brand.

Begin at s01e01. The Greatest American Hero (1) is alien suit, no booklet: Katt crashes into trees, Culp barks, Scarbury's theme already doing the cultural work. s02e01 is the fluent middle: The Two-Hundred-Mile-an-Hour Fastball is season two's sports title: klutz-cape still the joke, the theme still outworking the plots. Hold s01e09 for the later stake — The Best Desk Scenario is Cannell superhero TV learning to smirk, years before the cape genre owned prime time. Watch him in those seats. Position, not invented plot.

Superhero television before the armor looked expensive. On TV Flash Katt is 1980s genre heat: not a poster in a cape, a lead who made the power look borrowed. Watch the crashes. Ralph is why the theme still outruns the schematic.