The Rise and Fall of Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future

I am a child of the 80s. As such I was prey to one of the most prolific periods in the entertainment industry’s cartoon as toy commercial era. GI Joe, Transformers, Thundercats, He-Man, and so many others…  my favourite shows, all nothing more than toy commercials wrapped in thin plot and sent to me 6 days a week via the cable box. If this sounds a bit jaded, perhaps it is. Sometimes I think I was just a dumb kid. And I probably was, but I really wanted that new GI Joe, Transformer, or Thundercat character. It seems that new folk would arrive on the cartoon scene only to reappear, mere days or weeks later on toy department shelves. I was a sucker. But I guess with all my action figures and mighty robots I was a happy sucker, blissfully unaware of the marketing machine that punctuated my childhood. But it seemed that most of our parents were unaware of it too. Or they didn’t think much of it. What ever the case if my friends and I needed new school gear, we’d choose the Transformers stationery kit (complete with pencil case, pencil, ruler, eraser and pencil sharpener- all painted and emblazoned with the images of our favorite characters). If we needed new bedding, we’d lobby for the sheet set that matched our current favourite show as well, again the images of the heroes and villains adorning every inch. (It is with no small irony that as I write this, I am staying at a friend’s house in the spare room, on a bed covered in He-Man sheets.)

Yet still I don’t remember anyone complaining about it. That is until 1987 or so. That’s when the kid’s show marketing machine: “went too far”….  or more reasonably, when the link between the show and the toys became more visible than ever. Few other kids shows were mired in this kind of controversy.   That show was Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future. 

Captain Power’s story begins shortly after the release of the live action He-Man movie produced by Toronto’s Landmark Entertainment. With the He-Man movie, Mattel Inc. was able to sell a whole new line of He-Man toys that coincided with the film’s release. This “success” prompted Mattel to approach Landmark about a new “interactive” technology that would allow kids to play with their toys and interact with the TV program. However they had no show to attach the toys to. Gary Goddard, president of Landmark pitched to them the basic story of Captain Power. In the future, machines had taken over. Mankind had lost the “machine wars”, and now an evil cyborg dictator named Lord Dread ruled over everything. Enter a ragtag group of rebels led by Jonathan Power. These rebels have access to a technology called “power suits” which enables them to become one man armies. The show is the story of their struggle to free the last remnants of man from the clutches of the “bio-dread empire”.

Whew. Post-apocalyptic fare, not the usual light and fluffy kiddie show. But there it was, a show with toys that “interacted” with this dark and often broody kids show. The toys themselves were varied; from your average 3.3/4” action figures, to various vehicles and playsets. It was the battery operated vehicles and playsets that “interacted” with the TV show. Oh they interacted, but it was on a very limited (dare I say analog) scale. In the show there were tons of stroboscopic effects added; whether it be on the chests of various bad guys (either the stormtrooper-like “Dreadtrooper or the CG generated bio-dread), or in the form of laser blasts pointed at the screen much like they would be if you were watching a 3D movie (the blasts coming right at you). The toys were designed to “shoot” at the screens. Each vehicle had a number of IR sensitive sensors, as well as an IR beam emitter, also each had a pistol like grip with a trigger for “shooting” at the screen. (Imagine either a white plastic jet, or a black plastic jet, each with a pistol like handle underneath so you could hold it in the direction of the TV like a toy ray gun.)

So while watching the show, kids could play with these toys, racking up points as they shot the screen. However, should you not fire in time, you would lose points. When your points reached zero, the jets would make these crazy buzzing sounds and the cockpit would eject sending your (presuming you also bought them) action figure hero flying through the air.  And speaking from experience it was a fun game. (I still have a bunch of the stuff in storage.) However parents groups were outraged at the idea of buying toys that interacted with a TV show. Some claimed the advertising insinuated that one could not enjoy the show without the toys, thus the controversy. Due to this (and perhaps a lack of sales) the show was cancelled after only one season. Now what were poor kids who had bought the toys to do? There was no show to interact with!

Then came the second (if brief) life of Captain Power: the VHS market. The first release were tapes specifically designed for interaction with the toys that had been previously released. They were called “game” tapes. 3 were released as the  “Captain Power: Future Force Training Game”. Each one boasted a different “difficulty” level (either 1,2, or 3). These were the only tapes to ever be released that did not use footage from the TV series. Rather each “level” in the game was a short animated sequence full of those stroboscopic target goodies as in the TV show. Now I have to say this was no cheesy animation. It was very well produced anime that gave the tapes a wonderful high end sci-fi feel. After about 30 minutes of game time, all a kid would have to do is rewind the tape and play- again and again.

In addition to the animated game tapes, a kids video distribution company called High Tops picked up the series for a VHS run. However, only six tapes were ever released- each one having two or three episodes on each. Given that the series had a full run of 24 episodes, that leaves almost half of the series to be never released at ALL!

Although I think that sort of makes sense. If you think of the show as an extension of the toy, then it follows that tapes some would be released for the post-TV market. But this is not a time when whole series were often released to VHS. I imagine the VHS releases were simply distributed to save all those poor kids who bought the toy, then found out the show had been cancelled. Surely they would still want to play with their new gizmo, and material was needed. So distribute the show for the toy market, because as the critics mentioned, the show was designed with the toys in mind in the first place.

There are also a few other tapes that got released that are much more rare.  My favourite is Captain Power’s Greatest Hits, a compilation of music videos made from clips from the TV series, and boy what music! Imagine the cheesiest of synthy hiphop tunes, over which silly samples of dialogue from the show is played: “P-P-P-P Power on. Power on.”… and more of the same. Although I am not certain, I am betting that this was the last tape to be released. One last chance to capitalize on the Captain Power phemon before it disappeared into children’s closets, and eventually garage sale toy bins.

So I’ve gone on at length about the toys, how they interacted with the show, the tapes etc. But I haven’t mentioned much about the meat of this show. And in spite of the many criticisms, you did not have to have the toys to enjoy the series. And in spite of some obvious allusions to Star Wars, the show really did stand on its own, gaining some critical clout from television critics, as well as turning into an adult sci-fi favourite at the time.

The show was produced in Toronto, having a fully Canuck cast and crew. The main writer and continuity/ story editor was J. Michael Strazinsky, who went on to create the critically acclaimed series Babylon 5, plus its spin offs. Now, two of the characters on the show were the first ever CGI rendered characters on TV: Lord Dread’s lieutenants Blastaar and Sauron the Sky Sentry. Both characters were very blocky and shiny as primitive CG would have them be at that time, but nonetheless it illustrates just how vanguard this production was then. Actually many hailed the “high production value” and “adult themes” of the show, even though its duration was that of a half hour children’s program, rather than the usual one hour adult drama.

In retrospect many of it appears quite dated by today’s media standards, however some of the stories hold up well. Once such episode that comes to mind is “Flame Street”, where Captain Power jacks into the ‘net in order to glean information about Lord Dread. The episode seems to have more in line with a chapter out of a William Gibson novel than the series, but again it seems to prove how the show tried to push its own limits. We are even privy to a “virtual battle” between digital versions of Power and Lord Dread! Ooh how Cyberpunk.

And that’s the big irony of the show for me, since it was a series borne of the analog age, designed to have an analog (linear) interactivity. The show’s main episodes centred around Dread’s “digitizing” of the remnants of humanity. Essentially a process where the minds of these poor souls were added to a large database and becoming part of Dread’s super computer the Overmind! All the while the show never took off enough to have its entire run released to the home video market. What remaining tapes are left in this world are all that remains of Captain Power’s great legacy, one that, due to its tie-in and marketing agenda, will probably never see the light of day in a DVD release.

So Captain Power fans, hold onto those tapes. When the machines rise, you’ll be the only ones with the technology to defeat them! Power on!

Appendix: VHS “game consoles”

While Mattel had its Captain Power tapes and toy line, other companies also tried to get in on the idea of VHS gaming. Once such company was Worlds of Wonder. In 1987 the company released the ActionMax system. Now unlike the Captain power line, this system did not need any tapes, merely a VCR to plug into. It also used an infrared technology similar to the Mattel toys.

Even the Classic View-Master tried to get into the game with its own “View-Master Interactive Vision”. Kids would plug in the console, pop in a tape and watch their favourite Disney and Sesame street characters give them prompts to respond with the toy’s controller, a strange multi-buttoned magic wand of sorts.

And finally comes Bandai’s (Japan) entry; the TELEBIKKO system (above).  Again, the same IR gun technology that all the other systems use, except this time Bandai got licenses from other Japanese characters such as Ultraman and Godzilla!! Oh my! There were a ton of other types of toys too that interacted with the TV in similar ways such as the V-Tech video painter and others. But Time and Space being what they are, lets leave it at that.

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Originally published in Vol. #1, Issue #19 (the ever-popular VHS RIP issue).