i want you to hit me as hard as you can today we are going to talk about a superhero show
with a twist a show that featured a superhero without a cape a story about a boy with a heart
of gold a hero who always did the right thing and brought out the best in people a young boy
who begins his quest learning how to control his powers and struggling to help people in need i of
course am talking about the revolutionary show my secret identity aha you thought i was going to say
smallville now didn't you well joke's on you long before clark kent got tied up in that cornfield
andrew clements was floating around his living room as played by the lovable jerry o'connell
every week viewers were treated to andrew's adventures living as a secret superhero in the
fictional suburb of briarwood many people may not remember this series nowadays but for those who do
it still holds a special place in their hearts let's get ready to open up our comic
book collection and shake up our aerosol spray cans for this episode of gone but not forgotten
my secret identity aired from october 9th 1988 to may 25th 1991 and was created and developed by
brian levant and fred fox jr the series revolved around young andrew clements a huge comic book
fan who gets zapped by an experimental laser and becomes a real life superhero with the help of
his wacky scientist neighbor dr benjamin marion jeffcoat andrew secretly fights crime and learns
life lessons along the way now fox and levant had previously worked together on happy days you
probably have heard of levant as he has directed some of the classic movies of your childhood
like the flintstones and jingle all the way while fox was one of the producers behind a sitcom that
would end up defining the 1990s family matters brian got a chance to tell us in this exclusive
interview about the origin of his show i brought a project with the uh then happy days associate
producer nick abdul to robert harris who was uh an executive at universal tv and movies of the week
and and what i believe happened was uh i i believe who is this brandon tartikoff the legendary uh
programmer was the head of nbc then and um and i believe he you know when when studios called say
what are you looking for when when you know when major production companies and agents say what
are you looking for you know they usually have like a list and i think one of them one of them
was i want something like like uh back to the future with with a kid and a scientist
or an adult figure so he comes to me and and immediately i kind of uh thought of myself at 10
and being you know starting to be a really avid comic collector and and how into it i was
and and how and how you know when you read a comic if if sometimes it moves you to think you are
batman you are a superman and and i thought to myself you know what if a kid
whose dream came true who who who somehow developed powers and abilities far beyond
those of and it jumped out and it kind of formed kind of easily and in my head and
for but comedy wise and comedy's you know always at the core of what i do i said well
what's funny about that and then i really thought well what if his powers aren't great
what if you can float but you can't fly you know well what if you're invulnerable but
you could be drowned and according to fred fox the journey of this show from script to screen
was also pretty interesting and what was interesting in production-wise you know
i've been used to doing um you know um happy days uh lauren shirley you know the three camera and
the usual process would you know we'd shoot three go down a week and then write some producers that
keep working but then um when i flew to toronto to discuss the production schedule they go okay um
we'll do eight in a row go down a weekend or grow go down a week and eight in a row and i went whoa
and then yeah we'd be on location too and you know since he had superpowers and
i thought that schedule would be you know extremely tough in which what added to
that there was a ryder strike in 87 and usually over hiatus on happy days when surely we'd have
we'd write scripts over the hiatus so we'd have five or six to begin with so
excuse me when we started on secret identity we had no scripts
we had to have half canadian writers and half american and then all canadian directors and
obviously i wasn't familiar with the talent there so it was it was probably one of the toughest
toughest thing shows i did because there were five different entities it was universal studios
sunrise film paul saltzman uh c-tv telephone so it was i i had to pitch stories to all five entities
and you know maybe one would get back in two days when it went back in five days
which would you know in that schedule with having no strips was pretty you know pretty crazy and
hectic and i thought on a saturday if i walked up to have lunch i was goofing off because we did
we just had so much you know so much work to do now the show kicks off with an excellent pilot
episode as we introduce andrew as a huge comic book fan living next door to an uptight scientist
named dr jeffcoat played by derrick mcgrath mcgrath is a veteran canadian television and film
actor who's been in multiple classic shows and films such as star trek voyager charlie bartlett
and many more i really enjoyed his acting talents on this show he could be funny arrogant and have
touching emotional moments jerry o'connell has said that he learned a lot from mcgrath while
working with him on the show he stated quote a lot of how i behave on sets is what i learned
from another canadian treasure derrick mcgrath little mosque on the prairie look him up he's a
legend and every time i step onto a set i really think about him and everything he sort of you
know i was 15 16 17 when i worked with him and he really shaped me he's a paternal figure in my life
and i not only owe a debt of gratitude to him but i guess that we'll call it the canadian way treat
people with respect and try and make it funny now even though back to the future had some very
minor influence on the show brian was smart in running their relationship as a bit more realistic
in the pilot andrew is more of an annoying kid who happens to do chores for the doctor instead
of the wacky friendship doc brown had with marty mcfly andrew is constantly pestering jeffcoat
which is what leads to andrew being zapped by the experimental laser and that's when he gets
his superpowers once andrew discovers his amazing abilities he performs the classic superhero oath
in brightest day or blackest night no evil shall escape my sight and i vow to fight
a never-ending battle against the forces of evil as power man no i already was a power man
ultraman look it's ultraman yeah that's good tomorrow the world shall know me as ultraman don't
tell him i joke but fred has actually confirmed this connection to the actual japanese ultraman
now andrew's powers were also not exactly great instead of flying he could only float and had to
use aerosol cans to get around well for the flying thing we want to do something different than the
other regular flying and then as you know first used the aerosol cans to propel them and then
you know environmental and stuff we thought well we shouldn't do that so the aerosol dropped was
because of environmental that was yeah that was the main interest kind of got some you know yeah
i got some complaints or um so yeah that was one of the reasons then sometimes it just seemed
it was easier not to have the cans because you know if you had to fly oh i have to stop and get
some cash other powers that andrew possessed were super speed and invulnerability although
he wasn't exactly great at being able to use them sometimes unhand her or answer to ultraman
oh my new shirt my mom's gonna kill me as the first season progressed his powers did change
he got zapped again and lost his invulnerability but gained super strength he also developed a
weakness from radiation at the dentist the rest of the show's cast was quite good wanda cannon
played andrew's mother stephanie clements playing her as a very loving single mother i can't really
put my finger on it but cannon's portrayal was so earnest that she just won me over
one episode that stands out about stephanie and andrew's relationship was in season one
in the third episode only trying to help in it stephanie reads andrew's journal and freaks out
over what's in it as andrew has been chronicling his adventures as ultraman she then tricks andrew
into speaking to a psychiatrist and what i enjoy about this episode is her massive overreaction
it just reminded me of all the moms i knew growing up that would flip out over these stupidest things
what's my hangers doing in this closet when i told you no wire hangers ever
i for one think the best season of the show was the first season it was stuffed with a
lot of comic book references and andrew was just a complete idiot especially around girls
hi hi it's andrew from the track i remember uh well i haven't seen you
for a while but with my brutal training schedule it must take a lot out of you
well not everything i was wondering yeah what's your name cindy oh that's pretty
where did you get a name like that my parents gave it to me oh that's the best way yeah smooth
a great reason why the first season was so great was because they did not make fun of andrew's love
of comic books back then it was common to make fun of characters who were in the comics but
this show chose to go a different route by making his love of comics a boon instead of a joke andrew
was shaped into being a good person by reading the adventures of superheroes i also thought it
was cool that there were real comic books on this show mostly marvel comics would be featured but
not just your standard spider-man or hulk comics but obscure stuff like alpha flight or cloak and
dagger you have to understand guys back in the day we didn't have the mcu we were desperate for
any comic book content on the big or small screen gary o'connell was cast as andrew because of his
performance in the now classic film stand by me as you know from that film jerry is a great actor
and he brought that enthusiasm in every scene he was in by all accounts including that of fred fox
jr he was also a joy to work with jared was great working with because you know sometimes the shoots
would be you know in winter and very cold and he'd we'd be shooting at night he'd be in a you know
flying harness and he'd be free never never once complained and i think my first day when we're
shooting uh you know it was freezing and i'm wearing like pumas or something and i said um
uh mr america and it might be wise if you got some safer shoes so these are just freezing so it was
a new experience for me finally i could not talk about the show without mentioning
the kick ass theme song this is better than my imagination this is more than a dream come true
without the slightest bit of hesitation i knew what i was meant to do
this theme was written and performed by legendary music producer fred mullen mullen is a legend in
the music industry as he's known for creating iconic television themes such as forever knight
and beverly hills 90210 this show's song is so catchy you will be humming it to yourself for days
seriously i dare you folks to try to get this out of your head now even though the series has
some great episodes the memorable ones for me were the more silly episodes such as the
second episode of the first season a walk on the wild side in it andrew infiltrates a local gang
in order to recover one of the inventions dr jeffcoat has created the funniest bit
of the episode was this gang that he joins up with which looks like an off off off off off
off-broadway production of greece things began to change in the show's second season as the comic
book aspect would be dropped i for one thought that was a mistake as the show began to focus
more on teenage melodrama although new characters were introduced this season the most important was
andrew's best friend kirk stevens played by christopher bolton the show would involve andrew
always getting into trouble or having adventures with kirk and after 72 episodes fred fox would
end up leaving the show and in my opinion the series began to go a bit downhill from there now
i couldn't find a concrete reason why the show ultimately ended although the common thought is
because of low ratings and jerry o'connell moving on to different projects even though this show has
been off the air for decades now i for one still think it's a great property that should come back
onto the airwaves and i'm not alone in thinking this way oh during the pandemic ryan and i thought
we wanted to revive it and bring it on get it on again and um we met with jerry
and he was very interested it was then it was kind of like a twilight zone we didn't hear from him
for a long time and then he called and said you know hey you know it's a great idea let's do it
so we had a zoom call with with jerry brian got two or three of his agents a manager um oh we
had done what's called a pitch deck you know you know what would happen all that kind of stuff so
um when the agent said okay you know maybe you can expand the pitch deck you know give
you know more information and then another agent said well now before before we do that
um i'll go you know contact universal and see if they're interested i've never heard back it's just
i think sometimes i'm the most naive prior producer what do you think
you know how hard is it for them to call you know we should have you know said well
you know what happened we haven't because i still think it can be a good you know fun series
one could only hope that fred fox's dreams will someday become a reality personally i would love
to see andrew getting married and giving birth to twins who develop into tweens and develop
superpowers now not only are they trying to keep their identity secret from the world
but maybe even their father himself it would be a cool dynamic to see how the relationships
between parents and their teenagers go through hills and valleys i think it would work but the
trick is to not make it too serious while also not becoming a silly nickelodeon show
sadly the show has never been released on dvd or blu-ray most people buy bootlegs of the show at
conventions but you people are in luck because as of this recording all three seasons are available
to watch on youtube it's a fun show to watch when you just want to relax and i highly recommend you
folks do so my secret identity is one of those shows that has a warm place in its fans hearts
it may seem outdated by today's high superhero standards but it accomplished something decades
before superheroes would end up ruling our tvs and movie theaters when i was a young comic book fan
this show was a way for me to have hope that i was not alone in being a geek i
wasn't a loser i just had that secret that i was actually a cool guy that was my secret identity
so for that i thank you brian lavonne and fred fox jr for giving me the hope that i needed
as a child so go sit back and watch the adventures of a floating geek having some wacky superhero
escapades when you see the joy popping up on his face i promise you viewers that you
will be feeling the very same joy and that is something you won't need to keep secret
this is better than my this is more than a dream come true without the slightest bit of hesitation
knew what i was gonna do
never know what you'll see
i'm jesse shades speaking on behalf of dave arroyo for joeblow.com and thanks again for
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