The BEST episodes of The Greatest American Hero

Every episode of The Greatest American Hero ever, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of The Greatest American Hero!

A special-ed teacher, an FBI agent, and a UFO? That's right, you've guessed it -- The Greatest American Hero. This show was first aired in 1981, and was both a comedy and a drama. A special "power suit" that only works on him is given to the teacher by the aliens, and he is paired up with the gumshoe FBI agent who keeps them both busy with his scenarios. The suit of "unearthly powers" gives the power of strength, flight, invisibilty, flames, telekenesis, vision of events without being there, protection from bullets and fire (if he remembers to cover his head!), and some others that he must figure out as well because; HE LOST THE INSTRUCTIONS THAT CAME WITH THE SUIT!

Last Updated: 3/4/2024Network: ABC (US)Status: Ended
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Just Another Three-Ring Circus
star
8.57
14 votes

#1 - Just Another Three-Ring Circus

Season 2 - Episode 12 - Aired 2/3/1982

Ralph takes a job at the circus as a human cannonball while trying to help Bill bust a crime ring that involves a phony dating service.

Directors: Chuck Bowman
Watch Now:Amazon
Live at Eleven
star
8.56
9 votes

#2 - Live at Eleven

Season 3 - Episode 7 - Aired 1/20/1983

An Aging TV anchorman plans to retire in grand style. He hires a band of mercenaries to sabotage a nuclear plant, hoping that his coverage of the event can launch a Presidential campaign. Ralph must stop the plant from exploding, but the saboteurs, now dying of radiation poisoning, are determined to succeed.

Directors: Arnold Laven
Watch Now:Amazon
Dreams
star
8.45
11 votes

#3 - Dreams

Season 2 - Episode 17 - Aired 3/17/1982

An act of kindness backfires when Ralph uses the suit to help a coworker with a personal project. This leads his other co-workers to take daring chances for their own shots at success. Soon, he must don the super suit not only to prevent them from ruining their lives, but also to save Bill from a vengeful, recently paroled killer.

Directors: Bruce Kessler
Watch Now:Amazon
The Shock Will Kill You
star
8.45
11 votes

#4 - The Shock Will Kill You

Season 2 - Episode 13 - Aired 2/10/1982

A space shuttle is about to crash, and only Ralph can save it. He does so, but ends up supermagnetized, perhaps permanently. Worst of all, a strange creature aboard the shuttle heads towards Los Angeles, electricuting all who get in its way.

Watch Now:Amazon
Now You See It
star
8.29
17 votes

#5 - Now You See It

Season 2 - Episode 10 - Aired 1/20/1982

While practicing flying in the desert with Bill, Ralph gets a vision of a plane crash. It's the suit showing it to him, and Bill can only see it when he touches Ralph. They rush to the scene to find no plane, and figure out that it must be something that hasn't happened yet, and they're supposed to prevent it. We come to find out that Pam is on that plane, and it's been hijacked. To make matters worse, the plane has an experimental cloaking device that makes it invisible to radar, and the Air Force would rather shoot it down than have the plane in enemy hands.

Watch Now:Amazon
A Train of Thought
star
8.29
14 votes

#6 - A Train of Thought

Season 2 - Episode 9 - Aired 1/13/1982

Ralph crashes head first into a train, and gets amnesia. Pam and Bill have to convince him that the suit really works.

Directors: Lawrence Doheny
Writer: Frank Lupo
Watch Now:Amazon
The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea
star
8.23
13 votes

#7 - The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

Season 2 - Episode 15 - Aired 2/24/1982

Ralph and Bill hunt for the sea creature "Carrie" in the Bermuda Triangle thinking that the monster may be responsible for all of the boats that disappear there. They undercover a stolen boat ring, and never find the creature.

Directors: Sidney Hayers
Writer: Frank Lupo
Watch Now:Amazon
The Newlywed Game
star
8.20
10 votes

#8 - The Newlywed Game

Season 3 - Episode 5 - Aired 1/6/1983

Ralph and Pam's wedding is almost ruined when Ralph receives special orders from the President to fly a mission over the North Pole. Bill discovers the orders were faked, and that Ralph has accidentally given the Russians valuable military secrets.

Directors: Chuck Bowman
Watch Now:Amazon
It's All Downhill from Here
star
8.17
12 votes

#9 - It's All Downhill from Here

Season 2 - Episode 16 - Aired 3/3/1982

Ralph skis like a pro with the suit on, and stands in at the Olympics for a Russian skiier so the man can defect to America, and hand over top secret information that he stole.

Directors: Sidney Hayers
Watch Now:Amazon
The Hand-Painted Thai
star
8.14
14 votes

#10 - The Hand-Painted Thai

Season 2 - Episode 11 - Aired 1/27/1982

Years ago, prisoners of war were brainwashed to respond to a code phrase. Now, someone is using them to commit acts of sabotage. Bill and Ralph investigate, but Bill inadvertently falls under a hypnotic trance, leaving the heroics up to Ralph.

Directors: Bruce Kessler
Watch Now:Amazon
Desperado
star
8.00
9 votes

#11 - Desperado

Season 3 - Episode 12 - Aired 2/24/1983

A weekend in the country leads Ralph, Pam and Bill into a race to save a wild stallion from a cruel rancher. The man blames the horse for a crippling injury. His men are also selling horses for use as dog food.

Directors: Chris Nelson
Watch Now:Amazon
It's Only Rock and Roll
star
8.00
9 votes

#12 - It's Only Rock and Roll

Season 3 - Episode 11 - Aired 2/17/1983

Bill is called by the manager of a rock group that is aboard a plane threatened by a bomber, who has hidden a device set to explode if the plane descends below 1000 feet. Ralph flies into action, but matters escalate when Pam is kidnapped and a band of bikers threaten Bill's life.

Watch Now:Amazon
Heaven is in Your Genes
star
8.00
12 votes

#13 - Heaven is in Your Genes

Season 3 - Episode 6 - Aired 1/13/1983

A former Nazi genetic engineer fakes Bill's death to use him in an experiment, but Ralph realizes his friend is still alive. He flies off to rescue Bill and the evil doctor's other victims, but a genetic horror created in an earlier experiment waits to battle him.

Watch Now:Amazon
Plague
star
7.92
12 votes

#14 - Plague

Season 2 - Episode 8 - Aired 1/6/1982

A psycho military cult leader tries to spread the small-pox virus.

Directors: Arnold Laven
Watch Now:Amazon
A Chicken in Every Plot
star
7.92
12 votes

#15 - A Chicken in Every Plot

Season 2 - Episode 14 - Aired 2/17/1982

Ron O'Neill, John Hancock, Thalmus Rasulala, Lincoln Kilpatrick Scenario: When an old FBI buddy invites Bill to his Caribbean retreat, Maxwell takes Ralph, Pam and the students along. Unfortunately, they find themselves involved in a voodoo plot to take over the island's government.

Directors: Rod Holcomb
Watch Now:Amazon
Divorce, Venusian Style
star
7.92
12 votes

#16 - Divorce, Venusian Style

Season 3 - Episode 1 - Aired 10/29/1982

Bill and Ralph can't agree on anything, and keep fighting. Ralph decides to quit the partnership, and gives to suit to Bill. Ralph takes a bullet meant for Bill, and the aliens drive them to Palmdale for a meeting. The American Nazi Party gets their hands on the suit, and after the aliens give Ralph and Bill a tour around their old condemned planet; the pair is told to try harder of suffer the same fate as their old planet did. They also give them another instruction book and, now they have to get the suit back.

Directors: Ivan Dixon
Watch Now:Amazon
This is the One the Suit Was Meant For
star
7.91
11 votes

#17 - This is the One the Suit Was Meant For

Season 3 - Episode 3 - Aired 11/12/1982

Pam has had enough and is convinced that as long as Ralph has the suit, there can be no relationship between them. Ralph promises her a week away from all the problems and the suit, and from Bill Maxwell. Ralph and Pam's vacation plans fall through so Bill sends them to a beautiful resort to get away from it all. Bill, of course, has alternate reasons to send them there than just being Mr. nice guy. Bill secretly tags along with the suit and convinces a very hesitant Ralph to hologram into a criminal ring that has stolen some very special government equipment, a spyplane to be exact, citing "This is the one the suit was meant for!" Ralph actually succeeds in foiling the plans of the criminals, leaves Bill to tidy up the mess, and gets back to Pam in time so as she doesn't even notice he's gone. All is well? Not so. With the suit still on, Ralph is hit on by a friends wife. Pam, of course, walks in on them. So not only does Pam catch Ralph in the arms of another woman, he is wearing the suit

Directors: Ivan Dixon
Watch Now:Amazon
Vanity, Says the Preacher
star
7.90
10 votes

#18 - Vanity, Says the Preacher

Season 3 - Episode 13 - Aired 3/3/1983

It seems that 30 years ago Bill helped some revolutionaries overthrow a corrupt regime in an unnamed Central American country, where he is now regarded as a hero. But now Bill's old revolutionary compadres have turned up, and they soon kidnap him and try to get him to help lead another revolution.

Writer: Robert Culp
Watch Now:Amazon
There's Just No Accounting...
star
7.89
9 votes

#19 - There's Just No Accounting...

Season 2 - Episode 18 - Aired 3/24/1982

Bill convinces the parents of a kidnap victim to pay the ransom, certain that Ralph can recover it when he saves their little girl. Ralph finds himself being audited by an overzealous IRS agent who's convinced he took the ransom money. Meanwhile, Ralph and Bill keep getting shot at in drive-by shootings, but by who?

Directors: Ivan Dixon
Writer: Frank Lupo
Watch Now:Amazon
Lilacs, Mr. Maxwell
star
7.89
9 votes

#20 - Lilacs, Mr. Maxwell

Season 2 - Episode 22 - Aired 4/28/1982

Bill falls in love with a female FBI agent, and wants to tell her about the suit. She turns out to be a spy, and is ordered to kill him.

Writer: Robert Culp
Watch Now:Amazon
The Good Samaritan
star
7.88
8 votes

#21 - The Good Samaritan

Season 2 - Episode 19 - Aired 3/31/1982

Tired of using the suit to fight crime, Ralph decides to branch out. He tries to intervene in a battle between an old man fighting for his home and the city taking it away, but Bill has him on the hunt for bank robbers.

Directors: Bruce Kessler
Watch Now:Amazon
Space Ranger
star
7.78
9 votes

#22 - Space Ranger

Season 3 - Episode 8 - Aired 1/27/1983

One of Ralph's students invents a radio telescope capable of decoding Russian satellite messages. The KGB tries to steal his system. When that maneuver fails, they decide to kill him before he can share his discovery with the CIA.

Directors: Ivan Dixon
Watch Now:Amazon
The Beast in Black
star
7.71
17 votes

#23 - The Beast in Black

Season 2 - Episode 6 - Aired 12/9/1981

Ralph finds a window into the 4th dimension while scouting an old house. Bill gets possesed by a woman's spirit, and Ralph must return her through that window.

Directors: Arnold Laven
Watch Now:Amazon
Fire Man
star
7.69
32 votes

#24 - Fire Man

Season 1 - Episode 7 - Aired 5/6/1981

Ralph lends Tony a hand by finding him a job as a car repossesser. When Tony is arrested for arson, Ralph and Bill team up to find the real criminal.

Writer: Lee Sheldon
Watch Now:Amazon
Who's Woo in America
star
7.67
9 votes

#25 - Who's Woo in America

Season 2 - Episode 21 - Aired 4/14/1982

Ralph's mother is re-marrying to a man who planted a much wanted micro-chip in her engagement ring.

Directors: Bob Bender
Watch Now:Amazon