It mentions Bob's involvement in some animated shorts (control yourselves, Mona and B-L ... "animated shorts" refers to little quickie videos!)
"Also announced in San Diego will be a series of four-minute animated shorts for the web and cell phones that will tell stories from the Greatest American Hero. The Flash animation will differ from the comic books because it will fill in a gap between the first two seasons. "We have Connie, Bob and Bill on board [to do voices] and we will do our best to get the supporting roles," said Christopher Folino, Katt's partner at Catastrophic Comics."
And it mentions again that William Katt, Connie Selleca, and our man Culp will be at a TGAH panel at Comic-con this Thursday.
And William Katt also posts on his "Catastrophic Comics" site. He also mentions Bob and Connie being at the Comic-con panel with him.
Yep, Culp & Katt at Comic-con Together (with Photos) ....
July 25 2008, 1:17 AM
Seems like the cast of "The Greatest American Hero" did indeed get together at Comic-con this afternoon in beautiful San Diego - along with a gazillion other people!
I just found this photo on a blog on Google of Culp and Katt with some stunt people.
and Culp, Katt and the lovely Connie Sellecca together again
And in honor of Comic-con, we'll throw in this one from an old MAD Magazine ....
And Mona, in case your friends at TGAH board haven't seen this blurb - one of the blogs had this to say ....
"It’s been reported that actor WILLIAM KATT confirmed during his day one appearance at COMIC-CON that writer/producer STEPHEN J. CANNELL has completed a script for the big screen version of 70’s tv cult fave, THE GREATEST AMERICAN HERO.
Actor William Katt confirmed at “The Greatest American Hero” panel on Thursday that producer Stephen J. Cannell has a finished script for the feature film adaption. The actor went on to say that he has read the script and thought it was fantastic. He also said that Cannell is currently looking for funding/a distributer and is in talks with 20th Century Fox and director Stephen Spielberg.
Katt also confirmed that the three original actors would make an appearance in the new film. “He’s not making it with out us,” said the actor. He went on to announce that a comic version of the show, that his company Catastrophic Comics is putting out, will be available in November followed by a series of animated internet shorts in early 2009 with the original cast lending their voices to the shorts."
This message has been edited by tatialoringnw from IP address 98.233.225.147 on Jul 25, 2008 2:15 AM This message has been edited by tatialoringnw from IP address 98.233.225.147 on Jul 25, 2008 1:37 AM
I can see that I can never beat you to the NEWS punch--you're too quick at the computer! Yes, the info is quite exciting for Culp and TGAH fans at the Comic-Con. One thing else that has been bandied about: apparently, in September, there are plans to have a TGAH specific event, for stars (including we can assume, Culp), crew and fans. It will be somewhere, probably, in California. If anyone ever wants to meet me in person, you will be able to find me there!
Mona
This message has been edited by mmDerdekea from IP address 72.223.82.116 on Jul 25, 2008 10:02 AM
Yep, "Information R Us Tatia" always tries her best to keep up with things.
For those of you following all "The Greatest American Hero" news coming out of Comic-Con, here's 3 very detailed and informative articles about the future TGAH projects and the Comic-con panel session.
GREATEST AMERICAN HERO
Greatest American Hero Soars On Nostalgia, But Will Its Comeback Crash?
And here's one more very interesting article from Comic-con about TGAH - and Culp, Katt, and Connie Sellecca. The author Chris Folino is involved with Catastrophic Comics.
I’m sufficiently recovered from the 4 ½ days of San Diego Comic-Con International to report on the parts that are relevant to the Forum. I attended The Greatest American Hero panel early Thursday afternoon. Tatia has provided links with photos and information that exceeds by far anything I can call up 5 days after the event, but I’ll provide a few observations from my own perspective.
When I walked into the room William Katt, Robert Culp and Connie Selleca were standing together on the dais facing a wall of photographers three or four deep. I realized that this was probably their first public appearance together in a very long time. I should bare my soul here. I know very little about TGAH. I tried to watch the show when it first aired in 1981 because of Robert Culp’s presence, but his Bill Maxwell character turned me off. I was looking for at least a little Kelly Robinson in there, and found absolutely none. I suppose this is a tribute to his acting ability. I didn’t see another TGAH episode until a few months ago when I watched “Vanity, Says the Preacher”. That’s been it to date.
Anyway, the three of them seemed reasonably chummy. The fourth member of the cast present was Dennis "Danger" Madalone who doubled the stunts for William Katt. Madalone, Selleca, Culp and Katt were introduced in that order with a separate compilation film for each. Madalone’s was the best and by far the longest. They must have collected every clip in which he dives into a tree or dumpster, or through a window or wall during the run of the series. The cumulative effect was very funny. We were all very impressed and a little amazed that he was able to walk away from all that. The intro films for the other three were far shorter. I was amused, and sort of pleased in a perverse way, that for Culp’s they played the I Spy theme underneath. It is true that Culp got the only standing ovation, though it wasn’t as if the entire room leapt to its feet, but a number of people did stand, and I interpreted that as an appreciation for his entire body of work.
From where I sat, five or six rows into the audience, Connie Selleca looked remarkably like she had in the series. Whether this was due to my distance from her, good genes, healthy living or modern surgical magic, I cannot say.
Of course, the four principals were asked why the show still has so much appeal today. The general consensus (except for Culp) was that it provided a kind of wish fulfillment. An ordinary guy gets this suit and becomes extra-ordinary. Culp drew a parallel between Hinkley-Maxwell and Arthur-Merlin. He expressed it very well and I won’t try to paraphrase it here. Tatia’s links contain the essence of his statement. Culp’s other main contributions to the panel were his explanation for the premature cancellation of TGAH and the story behind “The Greatest American Heroine” for which a test film (not quite a pilot) was made. Again, I refer you to the links for elaboration, and TGAH mavens probably know all this stuff anyway.
The mood on the panel was definitely upbeat and happy. Someone made a comment that it was nice to see them all together again, and Culp said something about them being family (I forget his exact phrase). Connie Selleca kidded him about always referring to her as “The Skirt” and he seemed to enjoy that. Most of the questions from the audience had to do with wanting to know if certain aspects of the series would appear in the comic book. One guy asked if the “Gray Suit” would appear again. William Katt himself seemed puzzled by this reference until either he remembered or someone reminded him. The artist of the comic book series, also on the panel, took his camera out into the crowd and photographed the guy with the good memory, claiming he would draw him into a background scene. Even though I’m not particularly interested in the series, I was able to enjoy vicariously the excitement of many of the people in the room.
For the rest of the event, Robert Culp and William Katt were present at the Catastrophic Comics booth. I never saw Connie Selleca there (robbing me of a closer examination), but she does appear there in one of Tatia’s images. I swung by a couple of times a day and usually saw Culp and Katt there, interacting with folks. Culp had a number of photographs from Trackdown, Outer Limits, I Spy, Hannie Caulder and TGAH (and probably others) which he would personalize for twenty bucks. I spoke to him briefly (and bought an autographed photo of him and Arlene Martell from “Demon with a Glass Hand” for his trouble). I asked him if anything was happening with the “Terry and the Pirates” project. His answer was a firm, emphatic, almost angry “No!” I’m sometimes slow on the uptake, but I got a clear message that he didn’t want to elaborate or hear any more questions about it. Just to be sure he wasn’t actually pissed off at me (and there was no reason he should have been) I asked about the 7 September 2008 TGAH event at the Screen Actors Guild building. He confirmed it was going to be in the James Cagney Room. This exchange was quite friendly and so I was relieved. No angry words were going to be exchanged. Then he took care to get my name right and warned me not to touch the ink for about 20 seconds until it dried. We wished each other a good day and I walked away with my autographed photo and a song in my heart.
I must say, Jimmy, I’m impressed with your ability to worm/weasel/charm/bribe your way into a sold-out event. Obviously those years in spy school paid off.
And thanks for asking about “Terry and the Pirates,” even if you had to risk a punch in the nose to do so.
Regards—
This message has been edited by BulwerLytton from IP address 76.191.192.53 on Jul 31, 2008 2:49 PM
I VERY MUCH enjoyed your "Close Encounters of the First-hand Kind" Agent Mitchell. Thanks, Jimmy, for your great Comic-con report!!
I'm just back from my quick assignment .... errr ...."photo shoot" -
and I ran across this interview with our man Culp at Comic-con - with a gentleman from the "Comic Book Movie.com " site. Bob discusses his views on the current crop of "super-hero" comic book movies out there - and how they compare to "The Greatest American Hero."
For your continued research brilliance. I have put both links up on the TGAH Forum site, as I have a few photos and such. Everyone is very appreciative of this great info!
Jimmy said he didn't like Bill Maxwell as that character was so unlike Kelly Robinson but there are indeed some similarities between the two of them:
1. Highly loyal to the USA and to partners/friends
2. Has a rather "tough guy" job with heavy gun use, and is pretty tough, but has many vulnerabilities deep inside which they cannot hide at times.
3. Both characters had older relatives as mentors in their lives.
4. A tendency to like alcohol, and turn to it when very emotionally upset, although Maxwell did not perhaps drink as much as Kelly, (but Maxwell's mom was an alcoholic).
5. Bosses who could give them grief.
6. Not bigoted at all, and both had African American partners with whom they were close (John Mackie was Bill's partner in the pilot, who was killed in the show)
7. Both had problematic friends who went "bad" and had to be stopped.
8. Both were incredibly witty and had great senses of humor.
9. Both are smart men, though not brilliant, but both are very street savvy (Kelly is better read and has a college education; we assume Maxwell doesn't but aren't sure. In general the FBI hired those with college education).
10. Both were in the Korean war.
11. Both are injured quite a bit in fulfilling their work duties.
And of course there are some pretty graphic differences:
1. Kelly is pretty much a roue; Maxwell is a gentleman with women, usually, but seems relatively disinterested in sex and hardly ever gets any.
2. Kelly's true love is sex: Maxwell's true love is nature, hiking and fishing.
3. Kelly is a fashion hound; Maxwell is not.
4. Kelly is good at parties, chitchatting and the like: Maxwell is not.
5. Kelly knew karate; Maxwell had a solid right punch, but no karate.
6. Kelly shot to kill; Maxwell shot to wound.
O.K. Tatia, girl photographer, gets pretty excited when we can find some current photos of our man Culp out there. Usually this task is quite daunting, with new shots few and far between, often months apart.
Well, thank goodness for COMIC-CON .... boy, are we in business!!
Seems like every blogger and his camera at Comic-con, stopped by the booth, and shared their photos on the web. And we are delighted they did.
"Whew! That must have been the 300th 'Believe It or Not, it's Robert Culp!!' today!"
We are still awaiting "The Greatest American Hero" Panel to be put up on YouTube. Looking forward to seeing it.
As always,
Tatia
P.S. I enjoyed your analysis of Kelly and Maxwell, Mona. It's truly a great compliment to Mr. Culp's immense talent that we can never see Kelly in any of his other roles - in Bill Maxwell, or Hoby Gilman, or Thomas Luther Price, or Chuang-Tzu, or Trent, or the Colonel, or Ace Galvin, or .... well, you get the idea!
I’m surprised that no video of the TGAH panel has turned up yet on YouTube or similar sites. I saw a number of video cameras in operation at the event. I just had a look and I did find a short segment, about a minute long, which follows a Darwyn Cooke interview (creator of the limited comic book series DC: The New Frontier).
The TGAH stuff begins about a minute ten in. You get a little of the panel (with one of the moderators talking) and then part (a small part) of the Dennis "Danger" Madalone clip segment, and finally a tiny bit of the introduction of William Katt.
I found your Kelly/Maxwell comparison quite interesting Mona. I think back in 1981 I was sort of hung up on the notion that Robert Culp WAS Kelly Robinson. I’m not laboring under that misconception any more and I certainly can view Bill Maxwell with an open mind today. I didn’t particularly like “Vanity, Says the Preacher” which I saw recently, but it didn’t turn me off either. Now it’s just a matter of picking up the first season DVD set and sitting down and watching some episodes. I think the thing that could pull me in would be the Hinkley-Maxwell relationship. I hate to use the word, but if there was some chemistry there, I might get interested.
It brought back memories, seeing all those pictures of Robert Culp in his various outfits at the Catastrophic Comics booth Tatia. The day I spoke to him (Friday) he was wearing that sleeveless jacket over the shirt with the vertical blue stripes.
Well, you can imagine how happy I am for you, mixed in with a little jealousy, that you got into Comic-Con and had that chat--however awkward at times in regards to "Terry and the Pirates-with Mr. Culp.
I hope I will be attending the TGAH event in Sept, and want to thank you for giving us TGAH fans the exact details of the 7th and where it is. The TGAH Forum had not yet uncovered that info.
I dislike "Vanity, Sayeth the Preacher" intensely, too, to be honest. I think it is the only Culp written show that has not worked for me, although as Tatia knows, I really struggle with Magic Mirror, too. I tend to have that TGAH episode be just a hallucination Bill or Ralph had in during some flu bug fever.
I'm glad you are going to give the show another chance. I rediscovered it myself with the DVD release and wound up falling in love with it and Culp's magnificent Maxwell, all over again, just as I did with the very different and spectacular "I Spy" when those DVDs came out. Let me know if my little list stands up upon your viewing the episodes or not, in your opinion. Different eyes see different aspects of the characters and the shows. But, there is no doubt that during the show's short run, Ralph stayed the exact same, and did not grow or change at all, but Maxwell, based on the writing and Culp's wonderful acting, changed and showed us very complex aspects of his personality and truly became the most interesting character of the show. But, then again, I am biased!
