Culp and Katt in GAH

Wow! We got a conversation going here. I do believe that Ralph was supposed to be the liberal. In the 1980's a liberal was not a vegan or animal rights or PETA lover. Personally I love animals and having owned many dogs, cats, and horses, I dislike PETA. They foolishly agitate against horse sports not understanding that without the sport, horses would not be subsidized. It is quite expensive to feed and keep horses with out the interest of the owner in sport like fox hunting, cross country, dressage, jumping and racing. Only racing makes money all the others sports are done for the competition and fun.

I meant liberal as in only believing in the best in people when it is obvious that people can be generous, loving, mean, petty and violent. In the Hogs episode it was done so overtly with the negative strokes and positive strokes and then the wild and violent motorcycle gang and Ralph think that appealing to their mercy and appearing weak would engender good will.

Maxwell was adamant that acting weak was bad idea. He finally got his guard angry enough to come close enough for a leg sweep and so he could escape. Meanwhile Ralph had allowed himself to be used to hijack a 18 wheeler, to stop the sheriff from fighting against the bad guys and is in jail without the suit.

The scene where Maxwell drives the Hog to rescue Ralph was great. I thought the music should have been Born to be Wild by Steppenwolf not Trouble.
Still Maxwell got the suit to Ralph and they saved the town.

I do like the scene in the pilot when Maxwell pulls a gun on the knife wielding punk, Tony. Many people do carry guns and if a knife is pulled they will draw a gun for the stand off. It allows the knife wielder to back off as happened in this scene.

If I was at food place eating a meal and some punk come on at me aggressively and pulled a knife , I also would draw a gun if I had one. Acting weak when an aggressor starts a fight is stupid It encourages the aggressor. That was the theme in Hogs, Maxwell was consistent with pushing back when he got pushed. Even at the cost of broken ribs. Ralph as the nice foolish liberal tried appeasement and conciliatory talk which failed as well. Now this was written for the Ralph's character but was done more foolishly than Ralph often was. Ralph knew well from handling difficult kids that being weak was not the answer. But it was written that way in this episode. That was why I thought the episode as an allusion to the weekend getting in touch with your feelings like the weekend encounter in Ted, Bob, Carol and Alice.


I never heard that Katt was a line by line actor and it may have annoyed him to have Culp adlib. Culp had been rewriting and adlibbing lines from his earliest years and it generally worked out. Plus Culp is the more experienced actor.

Culp was an incredible actor and his character Maxwell is quite different from Culp's own personality other that the impatience. Culp is an animal lover, I believe is generally liberal in political beliefs. But he is not the type of actor that pushes his beliefs except for animal welfare.

I regret if I offended anybody by saying Katt has not aged as well. Culp has stayed very good looking and handsome into his 80's and Katt, 20 years younger, looked like an aging hippy. From my own womanly perspective Culp is still very attractive and Katt is not.

I never like the shaggy hair that Katt had on the first year and also in the recent photo. So that may be part of it. I can like long hair on a man. See Khan on Star Trek as a manly man with long hair.

If I was the writer and director I would be annoyed if the actor tried to change things. But as an actor if you are investing yourself into the character then you have a vested interest in being a perfectionist and pushing for changes. Culp seems to be that type of actor. Trying for that extra bit.

So from the perspective of a viewer Culp's work is amazing and I haven't seen Katt in anything else.

Now I can understand that Culp can be a prickly personality, that does not bother me since I am not trying to be his friend. I appreciate him as an actor, writer and director. As a writer I think he was too dark and that was not going to acceptable to audiences. He needed someone to balance that.

Culp is not the charming Kelly Robinson, but he played it to perfection. Gilman is more dour but perceptive. Maxwell is loud spoken, impatient and always certain of himself.
The one aspect is all his characters had depth and showed flashes of more that was hidden from view. His characters were always intelligent.

Culp seems to have very high intelligence and may have shown the arrogance of that trait.

Still the writers never allowed Ralph to develop as a character but Maxwell did. That had to be from Culp's insistence.

My favorite characters that Culp played, though I like Maxwell, is Kelly Robinson and Dr Keppel in Columbo's 'Double Expoaure".