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Post by culpkatt on Apr 3, 2019 7:32:14 GMT -5
I started watching The Phoenix after just tuning in to see the short GAH preemption promos. "The Greatest American Hero will not be seen tonight..." That was actually a pretty cool show. About 20 years ago I bought an original broadcast GAH collection on VHS containing the entire series and the guy who sold it had pretty much recorded every single one of those preemption promos. It was a thrill to be able to view them all again.
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Post by greenguy on Apr 3, 2019 8:41:52 GMT -5
I started watching The Phoenix after just tuning in to see the short GAH preemption promos. "The Greatest American Hero will not be seen tonight..." That was actually a pretty cool show. About 20 years ago I bought an original broadcast GAH collection on VHS containing the entire series and the guy who sold it had pretty much recorded every single one of those preemption promos. It was a thrill to be able to view them all again. Yeah, I liked The Phoenix too. Fantastic deal finding someone selling their 1st generation tapes! 6 or 7 years ago I went to a garage sale, and there was a cardboard box full of VHS tapes. They had the whole ABC run of Battlestar Galactica, original recordings taped at VHS LP speed. I think I nabbed a 1st run Buck Rogers from NBC also. Do you still have TGAH tapes? What city and station call letters?
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Post by culpkatt on Apr 4, 2019 9:12:18 GMT -5
I bought those VHS copies around 1998-1999 and a few years later had them duped onto DVD-Rs. Unfortunately, they no longer play on any DVD/Blu-ray player. Much to my regret, the VHS tapes were disposed of back in 2003 when I went through a phase of purging physical clutter around the house. They were recorded from the ABC affiliate in Portland, Oregon, but I don't remember the call letters. He had about six episodes per tape with all commercials included. It was literally a trip down memory lane watching those original broadcasts, especially with the voice commentary during the end credits. "This is David Hartman..." The last tape in the collection was the one with all the promos (approximately 10 minutes worth) included. It was a goldmine for any serious GAH fan.
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Post by greenguy on Apr 4, 2019 15:20:43 GMT -5
I bought those VHS copies around 1998-1999 and a few years later had them duped onto DVD-Rs. Unfortunately, they no longer play on any DVD/Blu-ray player. Much to my regret, the VHS tapes were disposed of back in 2003 when I went through a phase of purging physical clutter around the house. They were recorded from the ABC affiliate in Portland, Oregon, but I don't remember the call letters. He had about six episodes per tape with all commercials included. It was literally a trip down memory lane watching those original broadcasts, especially with the voice commentary during the end credits. "This is David Hartman..." The last tape in the collection was the one with all the promos (approximately 10 minutes worth) included. It was a goldmine for any serious GAH fan. AAAAAARRRGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! I would have paid you for that clutter. Even though I recorded them myself from ABC, always nice to have copies from another affiliate. I haven't ran into any recordings from Portland, so that's pretty cool. Even though the DVD-R's aren't working, sometimes the material can be recovered. Do you still have those? Do you recall the breakdown of what promo's he had?
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Post by culpkatt on Apr 10, 2019 7:53:17 GMT -5
Yeah, still kicking myself over purging those tapes from my collection of all things GAH. I'd love to get a do over on that one. I tried everyone of those DVD-R's on 4 different brand DVD players, as well as my PC and laptop DVD drives. Nothing. Every disc was unreadable. I ended up purging them, as well. I had them duped by a company called Lifeclips back in the early 2000's. They played great for approximately five years then completely locked up. Since then, I've become a lot more knowledgeable on how firmware updates can affect playback of certain media.
Here's the breakdown of the promos that were included, from what I remember:
Promos for the second season episodes that ran in the lead up to the third season premiere. These were mostly clips of 'Hog Wild' and usually ended with the upward shot of Katt wearing the suit and staring straight into the distance after Preacher tells him to "come in very gently" at the end of the first act.
Numerous promos for when GAH was preempted during the second and third seasons for another series to run in its place-same Hog Wild clips. When Ernie Anderson would announce that GAH would not be seen tonight, they showed a clip of Ralph walking through the brick wall in The Beast in the Black. They also frequently included the clip of Ralph trying to take flight in Classical Gas after being locked up and landing right on his face in the front yard.
Brief promos for the following episodes:
Reseda Rose Operation Spoilsport Hog Wild Fireman Just Another 3 Ring Circus A Chicken In Every Plot Devil and the Deep Blue Sea The Hand Painted Thai It's All Downhill From Here The Shock Will Kill You Captain Bellybuster Who's Woo In America? The Price is Right Space Ranger Heaven Is In Your Genes The Newlywed Game
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Post by greenguy on Apr 10, 2019 15:20:20 GMT -5
Yeah, still kicking myself over purging those tapes from my collection of all things GAH. I'd love to get a do over on that one. I tried everyone of those DVD-R's on 4 different brand DVD players, as well as my PC and laptop DVD drives. Nothing. Every disc was unreadable. I ended up purging them, as well. I had them duped by a company called Lifeclips back in the early 2000's. They played great for approximately five years then completely locked up. Since then, I've become a lot more knowledgeable on how firmware updates can affect playback of certain media. Here's the breakdown of the promos that were included, from what I remember: Promos for the second season episodes that ran in the lead up to the third season premiere. These were mostly clips of 'Hog Wild' and usually ended with the upward shot of Katt wearing the suit and staring straight into the distance after Preacher tells him to "come in very gently" at the end of the first act. Numerous promos for when GAH was preempted during the second and third seasons for another series to run in its place-same Hog Wild clips. When Ernie Anderson would announce that GAH would not be seen tonight, they showed a clip of Ralph walking through the brick wall in The Beast in the Black. They also frequently included the clip of Ralph trying to take flight in Classical Gas after being locked up and landing right on his face in the front yard. Brief promos for the following episodes: Reseda Rose Operation Spoilsport Hog Wild Fireman Just Another 3 Ring Circus A Chicken In Every Plot Devil and the Deep Blue Sea The Hand Painted Thai It's All Downhill From Here The Shock Will Kill You Captain Bellybuster Who's Woo In America? The Price is Right Space Ranger Heaven Is In Your Genes The Newlywed Game Dang...too bad you don't have the discs. There's a local company here that claims to be able to recover "media on any format" be it DVD-R etc. I would have been happy to help you give it a shot with the $ and taking a disc there in person to see if they really could have done it. Although, I doubt if it works every time. I do have the pre-emption promos with clips from Beast and Classical Gas. I do NOT have promos for Devil, Downhill, Woo, Price, Ranger, or Heaven. So those would have filled in gaps in my stuff for sure...LOL. Maybe some day one of us will stumble onto a set that includes those. What I really want to see again are the custom promos with Katt and Culp that ABC made before the pilot aired. It was the both of them talking into the camera Katt: "I'm The Greatest American Hero" Culp: "and I'm not" and I think those shots were cut in between clips from the pilot. It's tough to remember exactly after sooo many years. I keep hoping someone has those and they pop up on You Tube.
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Post by greenguy on Apr 12, 2019 14:54:01 GMT -5
Hey culpkatt, check out this promo for The Newlywed Game. Is this the same as the one you lost? This version is longer than the version I have. Even though the first couple of seconds are chopped off, it's a rare 30 second promo. Heck, even in the 2nd season a 30 second promo was rare as most of TGAH promos were mixed in with The Fall Guy & Dynasty.
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Post by culpkatt on Apr 13, 2019 16:11:18 GMT -5
Yep, this promo was included on the VHS set. I remember the "See it on it's new day" line. I forgot to include this on my list...those VHS recordings I bought also included two interviews with William Katt, the first was a 1982 interview he did with Good Morning America and the second was when he was on the Merv Griffin show. I remember him being on MG because that same afternoon my mom dragged me, my sister and brother to see The Empire Strikes Back. I wanted to stay home and watch Merv Griffin interview The Greatest American Hero instead. :-)
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Post by greenguy on Apr 15, 2019 14:10:33 GMT -5
I forgot to include this on my list...those VHS recordings I bought also included two interviews with William Katt, the first was a 1982 interview he did with Good Morning America and the second was when he was on the Merv Griffin show. I remember him being on MG because that same afternoon my mom dragged me, my sister and brother to see The Empire Strikes Back. I wanted to stay home and watch Merv Griffin interview The Greatest American Hero instead. :-) Oh, I'm curious if the GMA interview was originally recorded by the person you bought the tapes from, or if it was a dub of my original GMA recording. I've never seen it turn up anywhere else, but someone else could have recorded it the same as I did. I also recorded the tease going into the commercial break that shows the time on the screen and a scene playing from The Lost Diablo as David Hartman says "fly for us Billy" I stayed home from school that day, or went in late just to record that GMA Katt interview. David Hartman introduces Katt as "Jim" Probably made Katt think "jeez...why am I doing this" I have never seen Katt on The Merv Griffin Show. Griffin was not syndicated in my area during the 1980s, that would be a brand new interview to me. He didn't grant very many interviews back in the day, so it was rare to see him on something like GMA or Merv Griffin. He also appeared on the local morning show AM Los Angeles. An ad for it is at the bottom of this page on the main site: the-greatest-american-hero.com/photos/printads.htmlI would love to run across a copy of that. Culp appeared on The John Davidson Show during the series 1st season, and on The Tonight Show in the fall of 81. That was right before we had a VCR, so I had to audio record those. It's kinda funny to hear Culp slip in and out of the "Maxwell speech pattern" during the Davidson interview. For anyone reading this that has not listened to those, here's the link: the-greatest-american-hero.com/rare1981culpinterviews.htmlSellecca I never caught on any talk shows during the series run.
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Post by culpkatt on Apr 18, 2019 8:18:43 GMT -5
Greenguy, I had forgotten about Hartman introducing him as Jim. Katt looked uncomfortable throughout that entire GMA interview, especially when Hartman brought up the subject of typecasting. I never caught Sellecca being interviewed until she appeared on the Arsenio Hall show back in the late 80's-early 90's and they brief discussed GAH. A friend of mine used to be the head technical director for one of our prestigious local performing arts centers and he worked with Katt back when he was performing in Pippin. He told me that Katt was a very nice guy, but very quiet. Maybe this explains why he didn't enjoy giving a lot of interviews. There's a recent online interview with WK in which he states that he never watched a full episode of GAH until the 2005 DVD release.
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Post by greenguy on Apr 18, 2019 13:26:54 GMT -5
Greenguy, I had forgotten about Hartman introducing him as Jim. Katt looked uncomfortable throughout that entire GMA interview, especially when Hartman brought up the subject of typecasting. I never caught Sellecca being interviewed until she appeared on the Arsenio Hall show back in the late 80's-early 90's and they brief discussed GAH. A friend of mine used to be the head technical director for one of our prestigious local performing arts centers and he worked with Katt back when he was performing in Pippin. He told me that Katt was a very nice guy, but very quiet. Maybe this explains why he didn't enjoy giving a lot of interviews. There's a recent online interview with WK in which he states that he never watched a full episode of GAH until the 2005 DVD release. I agree, I always thought he looked uncomfortable on GMA. I know in my GAH archive AKA a 4 drawer filing cabinet I have an article from the time period that the series was on, where he makes the comment that he doesn't grant many interviews because of being misquoted. Obviously, it's a whole other kind of interview when it's on television, but something sure made him look uncomfortable. Very cool that know someone who actually worked with him. He was a nice guy when I met him a few years ago, we talked about TGAH of course but also about some of his other work such as Baby Secret of The Lost Legend, etc. He told some stories about the things I asked about. I had plenty of questions, (wanted to get to his other Cannell series Top of The Hill) but I did not want to monopolize his time, and be in the way of the other fans that wanted to meet him. I don't know if I've read that online interview or not, but I'm not surprised. I've many interviews with actors who actually don't watch much of their work at all. Sellecca on Arsenio Hall sounds familiar, I may have seen that. Back onto the promo topic for a moment. Do you remember how networks used to outright lie when promoting their reruns of TV series? At least ABC, and NBC did a lot. An example of that is the Come On Along on Friday night Captain Bellybuster promo. The voice over during that spot says "The mob's been looking for the secret of the suit, and Ralph's the only hero that can stop them" LOL....NBC did that with their action adventures shows too, at least on some of the promos for repeat broadcasts that I have recorded.
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Post by culpkatt on Apr 20, 2019 9:56:49 GMT -5
There was a lot of false advertising with promos back then. I guess they figured that description sounded better than, "Ralph helps a fast food mascot take down the mob." LOL
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