After last week’s exhaustive look at Kenner’s Six Million Dollar Man Steve Austin figures, you’re probably saying to yourself “What could be left?” Quite a bit, it turns out — Steve had a few friends (and enemies), as well as some imitators who tried to steal his bionic thunder. The adventure has only begun, so grab your exploding briefcase, put on your John Saxon mask, and aim the hole in your head at a bright light as we take a look at more Six Million Dollar Man toys!
Ever walk down the aisle of the toy store and think “They made that guy into a figure?” Well, here is that guy.
His name is Oscar Goldman and he’s gonna eat your lunch and pop the bag. As to why Kenner made him, the answer is right there on the box — he’s STEVE AUSTIN’S BOSS. That’s right, kids, even the Bionic Man has someone to make him do homework and brush his teeth.
Oscar comes fully equipped with the smug sense of self-satisfaction that comes from having a perfect George Hamilton-style tan and clothes cooler than anything in your closet. He sports a turquoise turtleneck and plaid jacket over sensible pants – but that’s not all.
Check those radical kicks. Style, thy name be Goldman. Oscar comes with a briefcase because guys like this always do. But unlike the other aforementioned briefcases, this one has a secret. Open it the wrong way and it “explodes!”
It’s a cute little trick – slide the handles and the “regular” interior is shown. But open without sliding the handle and the “exploded” interior is exposed. Hey, way to make bureaucracy exciting. So when can we wiretap Nixon’s phone?
I covered the BIGFOOT figure in a previous column just two weeks ago – https://thefwoosh.com/2013/02/bigfoot-toys-of-the-1970s
Here’s the breakdown. Cool toy, but not a lot of articulation (his head doesn’t even move). He does have his pop-out-robotic-panel thing, but it’s pretty low on the list of fun bionic play features. Odds of finding this particular figure in a hipster’s house: 1 in 10.
Kicking things into high gear is the legendary MASKATRON, all powered up and ready to wreak havoc on bejumpsuited men everywhere.
This was one of my all-time favorite toys as a child. I loved his design, but was too young to pick up on the “inspiration” provided by Yul Brenner and the far-out special effects of 1973’s Westworld.
Pretty ominous. Keep in mind this was still a few years before George Lucas changed the way moviegoers thought about robots. They almost always malfunctioned and went berserk in movies up to that point — you know, “man’s hubris,” “meddling in God’s domain,” and all that. It wasn’t until the benevolent ‘droids of Star Wars came along that the pattern was broken. But by then, Maskatron was loose.
Unlike Bigfoot, this figure projected a genuine air of menace; in spite its human appearance, this was an unfeeling thing of metal and circuits, designed to eliminate and replace us. There was no reasoning with it, no compromise — your only choice was to stop it before it killed you. That’s a pretty compelling “play pattern” for an 8-year-old to be enacting, but 8-year-old me was into it. The figure came with three masks: Colonel Steve Austin, Oscar Goldman, and, uh, Maskatron.
You might notice that the Steve Austin mask has both eyes — this was the only representation of the Colonel unmarred by the “bionic vision” feature (the big hole in his face). Ironically, this makes the robot appear more human than Austin ever did. Looking a bit like a sinister sou chef, old Masky here may want to ask Oscar Goldman for a few style tips — what’s he supposed to be, a killer robot or a dental assistant? The figure featured two nifty weapon arms: one a fearsome-looking claw, and the other a suction cup. The suction cup was a cool concept but didn’t work very well, resulting in a lot of broken Maskatron figures.
In 1976, Jamie Summers became the Bionic Woman, because television has never met a concept it couldn’t dilute. At the same time, by sheer coincidence, she also received her own toy line. Weird, huh? Anyway, as a kid I never really paid these figures much mind — even then it felt like the cynical cash-grab of a desperate toy company hoping to exploit a fad before it ran its course. Also, bionic or no, they were girl’s toys. My Steve Austin figure will remain a bachelor until Kenner makes a Jenny Augutter as Dr. Leah Russell figure.
Nice John Goodman hair, Steve. It suits you.
Now, I may not have thought much of Jamie Summers, but her series did give us one of the crown jewels in the bionic line. Boys and girls, children of all ages, I give you FEMBOT!
Great googly-moogly! This is some serious nightmare fuel here. How freakin’ upsetting is this thing? I don’t know why, but Fembot bothers me so much more than Maskatron. I mean, Maskatron is a robot; he’s sexless. In spite of the fact he disguises himself as a man, when his clothes are taken off he lacks any noticeable “male detailing.” He’s smooth. But Fembot is a different story. Take off her clothes and she looks like this:
Unsmooth. In other words, this is a robot with bewbs. I’m very uncomfortable with that. That’s how the robots are gonna win — they’ll make us really uncomfortable and just take over before we can say anything. I mean, isn’t it obvious, people? Also, let me apologize for the quality of the picture — it proved much harder to find a picture of a shirtless Fembot on the internet than I expected. Go figure. Anyway, the character may have been introduced on TV, but it was forever immortalized by Frank Zappa in the song “Fembot in a Wet T-shirt.” Go look it up. I’ll wait…
The Bionic Woman line lasted two years, in which time lots and lots of outfits were sold. After all, there’s no point in being bionic if it can’t be done in style. For a little while Jamie appeared to be even more popular than her masculine counterpart, appearing on posters, beach towels and, most tellingly, in the dreams of adolescent males everywhere.
That sticky note ends the chapter on Kenner’s Bionic figures — but it’s not the end of the story. Steve Austin had some rather blatant imitators and hangers-on, like this godforsaken hunk of plastic here.
Ah, Dr. Kromedome. What can I say that a hundred snarky toy columnists haven’t said before me? You suck — that’s a given. But it’s your level of suck that’s worthy of further consideration. Are you one of the truly great knockoffs, like the beloved Mister Rock?
Or are you simply mediocre, like Tomland’s so-bland-we-can’t be-sued-over-them “Bionic Couple?”
However you slice it, Kromedome here earned the distinction of being the first Steve Austin “villain” by beating Bigfoot and Maskatron under the Christmas tree. In the lead-up to the 1975 holiday season, retailer Montgomery Ward decided the Bionic Man needed a bad guy to mix it up with. The problem was Kenner had focused solely on their star, neglecting to fill out his supporting cast. Fearing that a single large-scale figure would not fare well on his own, Montgomery Ward drafted Mego to come up with a quick fix.
Power, baby!
The ‘Dome (as his friends call him) is a barely-articulated lump of rubber. Seriously, the only way this thing could be a threat to Steve Austin is if you picked it up and beat him with it. Mego phoned it in big-time; the good Doctor here is a testament to just slapping together a product using whatever you have lying around. Obviously there was a lot of magenta fabric at the factory that day.
Next up, what appears to be a bionic camp counselor.
This is Mike Power and it’s OK to laugh. He was Hasbro’s take on “bionic” phenomena, shoehorned into their failing GI JOE line. Interestingly enough, Hasbro beat Kenner to the punch by getting their knockoff to the shelves before Steve Austin in 1975. Kids knew the difference and and grudgingly played with him, but when the official Six Million Dollar Man figure finally became available, they dropped Mike here like the hot sack of bionic crap he was.
Unlike Steve, Mister Power’s ro-bits were all too apparent — no “rubber skin” here. What ya got was clear plastic, which looked cheap even then, and has not aged well.
Pretty creepy. He’s like the unholy spawn of a crash-test dummy and a televangelist. The fact that Mike came wearing tiny shorts and combat boots only adds to his mystique.
PULSAR was either the Ultimate Man of Adventure or a victim of exploratory medical science taken to ghastly extremes — I’m leaning towards the latter. As you can see, Pulsar featured a “working” circulatory system: push the button on his back and his lungs inflate, while the heart pumps blood through his visible veins. Also, you could lift his face off and insert a CD into his brain. Hey man, put on 2112!
That’s a pretty weak point of sale — he almost “comes alive!” That’s like getting excited because the pretend medicine almost “works!” Sheesh.
At 14″, he was actually taller than his bionic competition, but that may have counted against him in the end. Kids accepted the large scale of the Steve Austin figures because that was the only way to play Bionic Man. In contrast, Pulsar was a character no one had ever heard of, with no media tie-ins or compatible figures for him to interact with. Sure, Mattel hurriedly added a playset and a villain for him to fight, but by then, it was too late.
It’s too bad, because Pulsar was a neat toy. Sure, he was too big and looked like Lorne Greene, but the figure was still clearly ahead of his time — the blood-pumping feature appeared in future Mattel toys such as Gre-Gory the Monster Bat and Mosquitor from the original Masters of the Universe line — giving Pulsar some degree of immortality.
Of course, no look at Steve’s pals would be complete without checking in with El Hombre Nuclear. Why, here’s his box now.
Hey, cool, he looks kinda like James Coburn from the Flint movies. Wonder what he looks like inside that box?
Yeah, I know — pretty weak cheese. Unless you own one, that is; there are only eight known to exist, making him infinitely more valuable than even the mint-est mint-in-box Steve Austin. This was a Mego-style figure, meaning the standard 8″ style body, rubber head and cloth costume. He had no “bionic features” or action of any kind — he was just a doll in red clothes, a statement I’ll most likely get flamed over by all of you El Hombre Nuclear fans. Sorry, the truth hurts.
Out of the package it looks more like G.W. Bush than Steve Austin, but it’s not bad for a Mego-esque sculpt. Points for the cleft chin, and hey, you can never go wrong wearing a picture of yourself on your shirt, especially one where your eyes are rolled up into your head. Sublime.
The character of Steve Austin has enjoyed a resurgence in popularity as of late. He is featured in his own comic from Dynamite Entertainment and has a new toy line, courtesy of Bif Bang Pow! Kenner’s Six Million Dollar Man figures remain highly collectible, as do the “knockoffs” we’ve chuckled over here. None of them have sold for six million dollars yet — but give it time!
Jason R Mink IS The Man In The Ant Hill! – 02/19/13
