Steve Austin, a man barely alive. I need to make the world's first Wyoming man. Steve Austin will be that man. Stronger.
Hello and welcome to Retrospection. In this episode we're focusing our bionic eyes and getting our super grip on the American series, The Six Million Dollar Man, which initially ran from 1974 to 1978. My name's Colin and do you understand me? Are you a man?
Well, that's a complicated question Colin. I mean, we could debate this for hours, couldn't we? We could. Yeah, we could need diagrams, we need samples.
I was more concerned with your grip. I don't like hearing about your grip. My super grip? Yeah, yeah.
Give me chills. Well honed. Well what? Honed.
Oh right, okay. My name's Paul and it looks like you're sitting on a volcanic vent. No, it's okay. It's itchy piles.
Oh, is that what it is? Itchy piles? Yeah, good prop, rock band. Hey, there we go.
I've dumped on that one for a while. Oh yeah. I'm sure we have. You know, it's a classic, so we'll go with it.
Okay. DMDB says, Follow the adventures of Steve, Austin, cybernetically enhanced astronaut, agent employed by the OSI under the command of Oscar Goldman and supervised by the scientists who created the cybernetics really well. Steve uses his superior strength and speed provided by his biometric arm and legs and enhanced vision provided by his artificial eye to fight enemy agents, aliens, mad scientists and a wide variety of other villains. Who wouldn't want to watch that?
All right, that sounds good. For some reason, we're not doing the pilot. All the TV movies are the first episode of the show. We're doing season three, episode 17 and 18, the secret of Bigfoot per one and two, which aired in 1976.
Can I explain yourself, why Paul? Well, I just thought when we decided to do the $60 million, I just thought the Bigfoot episodes are so fixed in people's minds. They're so famous these episodes, aren't they? And I just thought, they're fun.
So let's do that. All right. Well, this episode's there as Lee Majors, as Colonel Steve, Austin, Richard Anderson, Oscar Goldman, Stephanie Powers, as Shalom, seven Durden, as Appleye, Hank Brant as Ivan Burkey, and Andre the Giant as Bigfoot. Yeah, only in these two because we should say Bigfoot comes back in subsequent seasons.
It does, yes. And he's played by Ted Cassidy later in the series. He's the guy from the Adams family. Oh, right.
Right. I can see that. Yeah. The show was produced by Kenneth Johnson, who also created the Bionic Woman and Jamie character.
He also created V, the Incredible Hulk and Alien Nation. That's a good pedigree, though, isn't it? It is, yeah. Also, executive producer is Have Bennett.
Yeah, and he's probably best known for keeping Star Trek going in the 80s, isn't he, after the motion picture? Yes, yes. Yeah. He was well known for bringing things in, like, under budget, wasn't he?
And on time. I think he was quite, he was quite good at management. Right. Managing money, managing people, managing time, is what he was best known for.
That's what you want as a producer? It is. Why don't we go on? Because we don't spend any money.
We don't make any money. I should say we do spend money, actually. This makes cost money. We don't make any money.
That's why I could produce it. Look at us and go, what? You two waisters. What's the point?
What is the point, Paul? Don't go down. All right. I was mad at that.
Right. Don't think about it. I think $1,000 today would probably just get you a bionic finger. But what could you do with that finger?
Well, wouldn't you not want to do with that finger? Absolutely. Absolutely. That finger would get you in a lot of trouble.
It has. About $6 million worth of trouble. I think they'd let me away throw away the key. They have?
Many times, yes. I had a $13 million to $6 million man as a kid. A version I had came out in 1977 because there were slight differences between them. And I had the bionic transport and repair playset.
But don't remember watching any of the episodes. I had the exact same toys. The playset was like a rocket ship that opened up and opened up and put his arms and things into it. Yeah, he laid it.
Never had any of the figures. Never had a big foot figure because I know they made one. But never had an Oscar. Never had any of the...
What were your performances? Thank you. Never had any of the other characters. I think they did the Jamie Summers who was the spinoff bionic woman.
Right. Never had one of the fembots, unfortunately. In many ways. No, no.
No, unfortunately for them. What do you say? You know what I'm saying. But yeah, because it was kind of...
we were too young for it really, weren't we? Yeah, because I'm thinking if that tie came out in 1977, I would have been three years old. Yeah, but then again, I remember having Star Wars figures for the first time. Was that when Star Wars came out?
Was that late? Came out in 1977, I guess I figured came out in 1978, 79, there was a couple of years later. But I was probably playing with my Steve Austin figure. Well, way into like the late 70s, early 80s.
I can even remember the crunch, crunch, crunch noise that the thing on his back made when you used to lift his arm up. Yeah, the trigger ratchet thing at the back. Yeah, he came with a fake car engine that you could lift up. Ah, no, mine didn't come with a car engine.
Mine came with a fake girder. Oh, right. So there's variations like that then? There is, yeah.
I do remember watching it, but I only have like vague memories of it. I remember I probably liked it at the time. But I'm wondering whether my memories of watching it weren't when it was initially on book like reruns. Because this was rerun on British television for years, wasn't it in the early 80s, I think?
Yeah. I think that's where my memory of watching it from. It's from not when it was original. Yeah.
So I'm watching them now. Mm-hmm. There's a few surprises. I'm surprised in the episodes with Lindsay Wagner as the bionic woman that Lee Major's breaks into song about Jamie a few times.
I've seen the episode where they having a montage moment and he does a full-on song over the song. Is that the one you're talking about? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The song is Jamie. Jamie had a magic touch. Land, they held to scale faster and faster to Cuckoo Land. Yeah, that was one of the songs, right?
You know, somewhere in time there's a tape of me singing that as a secure old boy. That particular song, yes. I love Jamie in his mind. That doesn't.
I was always upset when my torch didn't actually make a portal into the floor that I could just jump into. We were all upset about that. Well, I didn't find a portal that I could jump into. All right.
I'll keep driving, you can't let you know. And also he sees a voice that's wearing a mustache. Yeah, but he saw look changes, doesn't it? I think that I read somewhere that that's because he went and had a little bit of a touch up here and there.
Oh, I just imagine the first day of shooting. Have you seen mages? Yeah, yeah. Do you want to tell him he looks like a world war two spear who's out selling illegal night ones?
Nah, just let it be. Let it be. You'll now remember the village people. Yeah, it's a strange look.
I'm in the third season. I just watched an episode where a criminal steals the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia and takes it to a clearing and rigs a bomb on permit. No attempt to make the place look like Philadelphia. Where is it really then?
Oh, it's clearly California. Oh, right. Okay. It's California mountains.
It's California. Not that brown grass. California has got anything like Philadelphia. Doesn't in the pilot he goes to, he's supposed to go to a Middle Eastern country and he's basically just out in the dunes outside of LA.
I can imagine. Yeah. The series was based on Mertin Cadence, 1972 novel Cybark, which was the working title of the series during pre-production. Yeah, because it wasn't a series at first.
It was a series of TV movies, wasn't it? Yes. Another very different in tone. I close the book and the series works, I think.
Yeah, I've not read the books. I couldn't really say. But I understand what you're being. There'll be more serious in the technical side, I guess.
Yeah. And Steve Austin's attitude to having bionic limbs is a lot more pessimistic in certainly in the first couple of movies, I think, than it is in the TV show. Yeah. But although they do bring that back later in the TV show, when a novel bionic man is created and has trouble with his limbs.
Isn't he called the $7 million man? He is more expensive inflation. Well, obviously, it was the 70s. It was a crime.
I think he has two arms, that extra round. That's right. But Steve still beats him spoilers. You know, he does.
For this, what? 50 year old TV show? Whatever it is like. Yeah.
This weird. So he has a bionic right arm, he has two bionic legs and he has a bionic left eye. Yeah. Which, if you think about it, the things he does with his bionic arm, he still won't be able to do it because when he lifts off and he's heavy, you use your back and your muscle.
So he still gets crushed. Yeah, always back with just completely crumbled, wouldn't it? Yeah. So he would have to go after it if they gave him a bionic spine as well, wouldn't it?
Yeah. And I was saying, after a point, because you watch the show and he gets you feet in certain ways, you think like maybe he would just go, you know, why don't you just take the other arm off and bring it back? And you just take the other arm off and replace that and do both eyes. I always wondered why he didn't have both arms done.
Yeah, he might as well. Two for one. You've got to have a say one on that, haven't you? Yeah.
Both eyes. Go by and it knows so you can smell really fair. Well, that was going to be what I was going to ask you. If you could have one part of you turned into a bionic part, what would it be?
Oh, it's a tricky one because you know, we want to keep it clean. You know, I don't mean wash a lot. I mean, lower the tone. I wondered why, but okay.
So, let's think. By any kind. Yeah. Why?
Just, you know, playing video games and things like that. Actually, you mean you don't get repressive strain injuries when you're... Yeah, yeah, it would be typing would be fast. Two bionic hands, maybe, because it's type of both hands.
Yeah. Well, not always. Yeah. All right.
Yeah. I suppose so. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Or bionic liver. So that it could take all the alcohol and it would just pour it away. I'm still hoping they're going to invent one. See, I didn't think about internal arbins.
That's not a bad idea. Yeah. You can have anything, couldn't you? Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Any part of your gizzard could be... Yeah.
Any part of your gizzard could be bionic. Bionic. That's a word. Yeah.
Gizzards. You know, you flocks. Yeah. Capacic acid one, yes.
As you can tell, we're still in medical school. I never left. No. Always learning.
It's like Dr. In the House. Yeah. There's always time for learning.
There is, yeah. So, I can have titles. I sometimes mistakenly call it the bionic man. So do I.
In fact, my notes are headed by a bionic man. But it's not. It's always a six million dollar man. But the bionic woman was called the bionic woman.
It's been up show. I'm sure I remember my perage referring to it as the bionic man show. And I think that's just because it's just easier to say bionic man than six million dollars, isn't it? Yeah.
I agree. Yeah. Bionic man's a better title as well. It would have worked better with the spinoff as well because then you got the bionic man.
You could do the bionic dog. It would. They had a bionic dog, didn't they? In the bionic woman?
No, no, no. No, not too. Yeah, in the bionic woman. There was a bionic dog in the third season.
I haven't started that yet. Because I've actually got a viewing order of all the episodes for the two shows so that I can switch between the shows and the right places. Yeah, because it was a weird one as well. So I used to start a storyline in one show and finish it in the other show.
That's what I was worried about. Yeah. You've got to be careful of that. Apparently, the level of violence, a bit like Staskin Hutt, we did talk about this.
It decreased as the show went on because Steve Austin was becoming a children's favourite. And it's not surprising really. I mean, he is basically a comic book hero. Yeah, it's just throwing people at the end of the time punching them.
Yeah. And he was starting to become a role model for kids. Ah, alright. I do like the way that characters reappear as well in later episodes.
Not what we played by the same actors either. Rudy Wells changes. Yeah, there's a couple that changes. He changes.
Well, there's one where in an episode where he finds a Japanese soldier who still thinks the war's going on in the Philippines. And then he comes back and it later episodes when they're looking for a wolf boy. And he helps him. Yeah.
I'll look forward to that one. I'm watching it as well. Oh, OK. In 77, before production started on the final season, producers were considering replacing Lee Majors because there was a lot of contract issues going on.
I think he was asking for various things and they didn't know what to do. He was using all these different actors, actually. So you had Bruce Jenner, now Caitlyn Jenner. Yeah.
The one that I could have seen seem like a natural progression from an easy sell would be Gilgorad. Oh, definitely. Yes. He's got that same, like, abable, charismatic personality.
Yes. He's kind of a wish Lee Majors, isn't he? Yeah. He's like the Burgen Basin.
That's the one. He's the, when your parents got to buy your Transformers and come back with a go-bar. He definitely is. He definitely is.
And the weirdest one is Harrison Ford. No, that I'm not keen on. Neither were they. And apparently they said it was because they couldn't see him as an action, sir.
Oh, right. Well, proved him wrong a bit, didn't they? They did it. Yeah.
One fact that I'm sure we will dispute later on as we get into the episodes is that, according to Lee Majors, he did about 90% of his own stunts. Now, I'm sure that dispute is not between us two because I think we're both on agreement. Not only did he not do 90% of the stunts, I'm not even sure he did most of the walking because in the Blu-ray versions of the $6 million. It's quite clear where the stuntman's being used.
Yeah, definitely. Definitely. I mean, he didn't even hide it sometimes, did he? No.
He comes right in the guy's face. And because it's all his slow motion as well. Yeah. And sometimes it's a stuntman when you think, I either use a stuntman for that.
He's just running. I mean, clearly it's not because it's a stuntman. It's because obviously Lee Majors wasn't on set that day and they didn't need him for that bit. So they filmed with somebody else's book.
Yeah. All right. Yeah. I think there's debate there.
Yeah. It's like I do 90% of my own stunts for this podcast. No, I can see us. No, no.
Go for 100. No, no, no, no. I know, for 100. No, I'm still on the ledge.
Oh, you're inside your window. Yeah. Ready to jump. Don't do it.
Just the way the podcast affects me. Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it.
Go back inside. Yeah. Hold on. Producers only Majors had to write letters to children explaining that the show was a work of fiction.
Because apparently some kids were trying to injure themselves so they could gain bionic limbs. All right. Yeah. Great.
It was the 70s. It was the 70s. What could you say? I mean, yeah.
But even as a kid, did you ever try to, did you ever try to act out some of the stuff you loved as a kid? I mean, I love chips, but you don't see me wanting to jump on a motorcycle. I do. I do have vague memories of doing the slow motion run from the show.
But that's not dangerous, is it? Because he's just running this slow motion. You sure that just wasn't your normal speed? Well, this was in my living room.
You know, doing the whole, you know, doing that. I didn't do that. I suppose that's copying stuff from the show, isn't it? Yeah, but you weren't throwing yourself off the top roof hoping you get bionic legs.
No, I didn't chop myself off the garage roof. No. It's a difference. Yeah.
I hope it's up. I'm strange. Yeah. And we're with a parent.
I mean, it was a 70s. They probably done a pub, weren't they? Yeah, yeah, they didn't go. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Just come back when it goes to the hook. You've got your grifter. Get outside. Yeah.
That sounds like there was some kind of cat shack or someone. You know what I'm doing. I do. I do.
Yeah. It was a bike. It was a bike. It was a bike.
It was a bike. It was a bike. It was a big boxer. And it had those terrible handlebars that were a death trap.
Yeah, I think it's a rally. Ah, right. I just remember it being weighted wrong and you just went to face over all the time. I mean, that was just me.
Yeah, you don't know how to ride a bike. Not really. Ah, that explains it. You're running around in slow motion.
You can't ride bikes. Did you have any friends with you or kid? I tried. I did try.
I just never really took to it. No. No. Imagine how the bike felt.
I mean, that's why I always used to get chopped off it. It was like Herbie. Yeah. He's a movie there.
Did he? Yeah. Going back to what you were saying about your watching this at the minute and you've got like a little stuff on that. It's a spreadsheet, isn't it, of what you're?
Someone's done a website. I'm just copied his website. I'm using that. Are you going to include the bionic reunion movies that they make in the 80s and the 90s?
Yes. I have the box sets. Oh, right. OK.
So there's three of those. There's a return of $6 million man. Bionic's show down. Sounds right.
Yeah. And then a bionic breakdown, which is where they get married. And who is in one of those, the later ones? One.
Sanjay Bullock. Yes, it's coming back to me. Does it she play like the person that's going to take over from them? Yes.
I believe so. I guess they were hoping for a spinoff, I never spin off. Yeah. Isn't Mackie Waltberg supposedly doing a $6 billion man film?
Oh, that's been talked about for years, isn't it? I think that's felt like the love of the radar, no. Yeah. Well, we do have a Lee Major's spinoff reboot movie coming out, starring Ryan Boslin, don't we?
Do we? Oh, the Fall Guy. Yeah. Yeah.
You see in the trailer? Thankfully no. Yeah, don't bother. Okay.
All right. I mean, have a Thomas in it? He doesn't. Well, they'll point.
He doesn't even have a sneaky, you know, nod on a wink cameo by Lee Major's, which you think you would have, wouldn't you? You think so? Yeah. Yeah.
About T.U. I don't know. I mean, I remember Dogg the Bounty Hunter. Oh, yeah.
He was a thing, wasn't he? He was. He was. And the only thing I was going to mention is that Farrah Fawcett was, she turns up in the show quite a lot a couple of times.
She was his wife at the time, Lee Major's. She plays a journalist. But apparently he pushed for her to get the role of Jamie Summers. But obviously she lost out to Lindsey Wacker.
Wow. I can't imagine her as the Barnum, can you? And I love Farrah. Right.
She's no Barnum woman. You're a dramp. No. All right.
Well, we've been talking forever for an hour, so we probably should actually get into the episode. Let's go. I mean, we have a narration at the beginning which explains the show. And it's pretty concise.
It's okay. So we all got, are still in a helicopter. Lots of helicopters in the show. Like that.
Just going back to that narration, I just wanted to say that that sequence is iconic, isn't it? Yes. It's a real crash, isn't it? That they use.
It was apparently an M2F2 lifting body configuration. Something like that. That's what I wrote. Sorry.
It's just the fact that you tried. For about a nanosecond, you tried to pass it off as like you do what you were talking about. And then I gave up. It was so music.
That's my approach to life, Colin, as you know. Yeah, it is. Yeah, yeah. You do it every day.
I do. No, hang on. The pilot of that test flight, the crash. Is he behind it now?
No, Bruce Peterson, his name was. He hit the ground at 250 miles per hour and he lost the use of his right eye due to infection after the crash. So it wasn't the crash that affected him. He was in the hospital after care.
I guess so. He often said that he hated reliving that crash week after week on television. Just don't want it. Yes, I want to show.
I'll skip to opening credits. Go make a cup of coffee. It would be a lot worse if they used real footage of something where someone actually died. Yes.
No bionic parts for him. No. No. Why didn't they give him a bionic eye?
Have you got an infection in it? Oh, she really only explained to you why. Are you going to tell me because he's not real, aren't you? Yeah, that's right.
It's all make believe, Paul. Sorry. It felt futuristic in how I take that. I mean, I'm not going to tell you that you're a kid, didn't it?
The whole, you know, the way that they do the quote, computer graphics, unquote, in the title sequence. I mean, it's animation, isn't it? Yeah. But yeah, the whole concept of bionics and cybernetics and all that kind of thing was futuristic back then.
Yeah, definitely. And was the end thing. I mean, it can't robots. Well, robotics is in now, but it's more realistic of idea what a robot is now.
Did you read the other day that a robot killed a guy in Korea? No. Yeah, in a factory, it was taken in for a box of vegetables and crushed them. I mean, you're laughing, Paul.
He's dead. Well, I didn't know the guy. Oh, it's how it works. It's funny when you don't know what.
Dallas. Dallas. Very callous. Yeah.
Yeah. It's a name of the robot. The AI was coming. Yeah.
You started you on. Oh, the robots. Of course. Yeah.
Anyway, no resistance moving for us. We're straining with them. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
We're signing up to be Quizzlings. Absolutely. I'll be some robots, bitch. I don't mind.
So, yeah, I was in a gold with a helicopter looking at a major fault line. And then there's earthquake sensors that have been planted in an uninhabited area. There's two scientists out there, Marilyn and Ivan, but we see a hairy man. It's not me.
Definitely, though. Definitely. It's too tall. Yeah.
You're too tall, or creatures too tall? These two people are geologists, aren't they? Yeah. That's what they are, isn't it?
Yeah. I've got with that. Oh, that was good guess. And they're apparently husband and wife, right?
Mm-hmm. I'm not trying to, you know, I don't know. Oh, we're as a good. But rather than predicting earthquakes, I think she needs to learn how to predict strokes because a lot older than her, isn't he?
That's all I'm saying. Right. It's the 70s. How can you tell?
Oh, come on. She looks about 25, he looks about 55. Well, I didn't notice. Right.
So they set up camp. Right, Steve Austin and Goldman and soldiers. So you start very careful about using his powers, is he? See, this is something I never realized.
So it's a secret that you've got these powers, isn't it? It's supposed to be, yes. But every week in every story, he uses them in front of people. Yeah.
Yeah. So you've got to be a nine to know about it. Yeah. Yeah.
That's a common line. Or he just says, like, what you're going to see, you never saw a kind of thing. But yes, every week, usually somebody new learns about his powers. So about a time you've done it, there's like about 400 people who know that there's a bionic man around.
Isn't there a running gag through some of the early episodes when he uses his special vision? People say, oh, I can you see that? He says, oh, you like carrots or something like that? That is a line.
One of the episodes and he does offer lots to get around. You can only do that for so long. I'm going to check. Yeah, that's true.
Let's try. Yeah. But yeah, so he jumps on the truck to fix the antenna and I just thought, yeah, he's not very careful. This way he's given up.
Yeah. Just doesn't care. Oscar trauma is too distract people. Too a bit diversion.
Look at that over there. That's literally what he does. Yeah. So Berlin gets a strange reading like a high pressure volcanic event, but there's no volcanic occurrences.
But a hairy man attacks Merlin and Hank. And not in that guy way. We don't mean attacks. No, no, he's just smashing the equipment and beating everybody up.
It's not really a good way to be attacked. Really is not a bad way and a good way. You either attacked or you're not attacked. Yeah, I was wondering what you're going to say.
You sounded like you were saying it was a good way to be attacked. Don't put words in my mouth. Don't put words in my mouth. No.
At the campsite we meet the character Tom Rangtree. What is he? What is he? What would you say?
Well, he's a negative stereotype. He's a negative stereotype. He's a negative stereotype. He's a negative stereotype.
He's a negative type of person. He's a negative American, isn't he? But he's supposed to be some sort of geologist expert on earthquakes. He's a tracker.
Obviously he's a tracker. He's a native American. He's a native American. He's every cliché that you see in all these kind of things.
He's the only one with the nature of it all. He knows about Sasquatch later and all that kind of thing. Right, because Austin and everybody here attack happening. But they're not in the same location.
And then eventually they find the discarded equipment all smashed up. And the tracker, what is his name? Tom Rangtree. Rangtree.
He's got a free pass on. So he finds a giant footprint and he says it's Sasquatch. And they're not just into a monologue about it. He does.
If Ernest Austin and Golden find it hard to believe. After everything they've seen so far in what, three seasons of the show? Yeah, you think they'd just be like, oh, okay. Because there's like, oh, it's hard to believe.
And the guy says, yes, it's eerie. He's like, oh, you mean hurry. You know what I find hard to believe is the fact that these white slacks are practical for running around in the forest. They're not early.
Oh, no, no, this actually brings me up to a conversation. I think you managed to choose the most soterially barring episode of the entire series. Steve Austin was the most amazing outfit in the six billion dollar man. They're fantastic.
The whole costumes of everybody in the show is amazing. But you managed to choose the one where they just were beige. That beige sure. The entire...
Beige sure. He's kind of iconic for it though, isn't it? It is. It doesn't work as often as you think.
I think it's just iconic to me because it's the one that he's wearing on the cover of my Bionic Man. Bionic Man. Did it again? Six million dollar man.
And you will. But I still have. Oh, what year is that for? Just name some year.
It's around that year. I'll take some pictures and show you. I have one of those shirts as a kid. There's a picture of me.
I'll show it to you. I'll take a photo of it and send it to you. Oh, you should put it on the RetroStru Facebook page. Do you know what I'm doing in that picture?
Oh, hold on. Is this one of those that comes back from boots with a sticker on? So this is why I'm wearing. I'm wearing the picture of me.
I'm probably about eight or nine. You do realise we're not on Tinder. People might like this. Are they eight or nine?
They're not those people. They're actually about eight or nine. That's a very different album. Full head of blonde hair.
Right? Full head of blonde. You remember when I remember? No.
No, no, you remember when it was real. Right? Yeah. Slick back.
Remember when it was real suggested it's not now. So anything now. Right now you're back. Slick back.
I'm wearing that self-same militaristic bayshirt that you were in this episode with the things on the shoulders. Yeah. And the pockets. Right?