The Return of the Greatest American Hero?

Stephen J. Cannell's THE GREATEST AMERICAN HERO is a series I recall fondly from its run from 1981-83.

The show had a good sense of humor, a nice cast -- I especially loved Robert Culp as the long-suffering FBI agent -- and it didn't hurt that it also featured one of the all-time great TV theme songs, Mike Post's "Believe It or Not."

My kids have watched the entire series on DVD and liked it too. One of my daughters was quite excited when the "Hero" himself, William Katt, turned up recently on HEROES -- nice touch there -- but sadly he was killed off immediately!

(For movie trivia fans: Katt is the son of Bill Williams and Barbara Hale; he appeared with his mother in the series of PERRY MASON movies in the '80s, where he played Paul Drake Jr. In the early '70s I saw him singing "Sixteen Going on Seventeen" when he played Rolf in a Los Angeles Civic Light Opera production of THE SOUND OF MUSIC, starring Sally Ann Howes.)

Now comes word that the GREATEST AMERICAN HERO series is being revived in two different formats. Star William Katt has launched a comic book line continuing Ralph's adventures, and creator Stephen J. Cannell says there will be a feature film based on the series:

"We have a script. We have a director. I'm in the middle of making the deal now for distribution. We have a bite now. It will happen. It's a PG movie, not a PG-13. We want to have all kids be able to go see it. I want all the 7-year-olds to be able to go and their parents will remember the show and want to share it with them. It needs to be funny but with one foot on the ground in reality."

Cannell promises the original cast members will make appearances in the film and that we'll also hear the familiar theme song.

This all sounds like a lot of fun to me. We'll be there!