The Fall Guy
Dead Ringer
TV Flash files “Dead Ringer” as a desk essential hour — The Fall Guy (1981–1986) on ABC, season 5, episode 1, aired 1985-09-26, 60 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S05E01: listed hour 90 of 111 in the The Fall Guy guide, first listed hour of season 5. It aired 1985-09-26 (60 min). The listed hour before it is “Reel Trouble” (S04E22). Next is “The King of the Stuntmen” (S05E02).
Essential hour: “Dead Ringer”. Dead Ringer is a late-run double title: Seavers still moonlighting, the hat-tip to stunt craft still the point.
Catalog log
Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.
An ex-con is being blackmailed into forging a new will for a man's "sickly" uncle.
Viewer FAQ
Where does Dead Ringer sit in the The Fall Guy guide?
S05E01 is listed hour 90 of 111 — first listed hour of season 5, season 5 episode 1.
When did The Fall Guy S05E01 air?
Dead Ringer aired 1985-09-26 and is listed at 60 minutes.
What's the double life?
Hollywood stuntman and freelance bounty hunter. Cases exist to justify the jumps; the job description is in the theme song.
In the series
Why this series still plays
Majors charm plus stunt-world celebration — action TV that actually tips its hat to the people who hit the ground. Colt Seavers moonlights as a bounty hunter between takes; Larson's truck jumps included. Theme song alone is a time machine. Post–Six Million Dollar Man reinvention, pure stunt poetry.
He hits the ground for a living, then moonlights in a truck. ABC's The Fall Guy (1981–1986), Glen A. Larson, reinvents Lee Majors post–Six Million Dollar Man as Colt Seavers: movie stunts by day, bounty hunting between takes. Douglas Barr and Heather Thomas along for the gags as Howie and Jody. The theme song advertised the job description better than any pitch meeting. *Denim, a GMC, a body as choreography, Hollywood as the fitting room.* Style is the plot. **This was not a soft launch of a second action brand;…
Filed against
- Lee Majors as Colt Seavers
Lee Majors’s Col. Steve Austin made The Six Million Dollar Man a national slow-motion language — 1970s catalog cyborg adventure, better-stronger-faster as a family-hour religion. The Bionic Woman and The Fall Guy kept the jawline in…
- Douglas Barr as Howie Munson
Douglas Barr rode shotgun as Howie Munson on The Fall Guy — stunt-world celebration, bounty-hunter moonlighting, and 1980s action that actually tipped its hat to the people who hit the ground. Lee Majors had the charm; Barr had the crew…
- Heather Thomas as Jody Banks
Heather Thomas played Jody Banks on The Fall Guy — Lee Majors charm, stunt-world celebration, Colt Seavers moonlighting as a bounty hunter between takes, truck jumps included. Theme song as a time machine. TV Flash files her as 1980s…