George Washington? Captain America? How about William Katt, as teacher Ralph Hinkley?

For those of you who are not well versed in early-80’s sitcoms, William Katt played Ralph Hinkley, a recently divorced teacher who just happened  to wear a superhero costume that granted him amazing powers, including super strength, the ability to fly, invulnerability to projectiles, invisibility and a host of other cool tricks. 

The “magic jammies,” as crime fighting partner Bill Maxell (played by Roberty Culp) called them, were given to Hinkley by an alien, under the premise he was to utilize them for the good of mankind. The problem was Hinkely lost the instruction manual to the suit, which meant hilarity insued every time he put on the costume. Flying more like a wounded duck than Superman, Hinkley was forced  learn all about his new powers, and limits, through a trial and error process of physical comedy that only the 80’s could provide.

Now, how did we get on this topic in the first pace? Isn’t it kind of random? Well, yes of course it is. We’re Merlot and this is The Water Cooler. 

We got here because while discussing Monday night’s season premiere of Heroes, I pointed out that the actor who played the reporter was a hero himself: The Greatest American Hero.

Credit (or blame) my 80’s education for this knowledge. I will take it as a compliment.  In fact, in the world of random, insignificant trivia and observation, I’d have to say it was on par with Matt correctly idetifying Meshach Taylor as the man in Designing Women.

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