Like many geeks of my generation, I have a special place in my heart for old shows, cartoon and live action, from my childhood. And like many geeks with a reasonable amount of disposable income, I have tried watching some of these old shows again.

They don’t always hold up. The years have not been kind to the quality of film, to the acting, to the writing in the show.

But sometimes they do. And do so well. I think so, at least.

Two of my all-time favorite shows from the 80s were the Centurions and the Bionic Six. I had a discussion about old shows with a friend recently, and decided to look for footage on YouTube. I was not disappointed. (Warning: My opinion on these shows is positive, but your mileage may vary.)

The Centurions was about three (then later, five) rugged men, all built like barbarians, who used special suits that fused with various weapon systems. These weapon systems allowed Ace McCloud and his friends to fight the forces of the evil ‘Doc Terror’, and his cyborg lackey, ‘Hacker’. The show was kind of hokey, and no one ever died, but the action was neat, the ideas were interesting, and they even had ‘science lessons’ at the end.

Most importantly, the toys were pretty cool. (I had Jake Rockwell and his base weapon system.)

The Bionic Six was also set in the near future, and centered around the Bennett Family; an unusual group that, through adoption, covered much of the ethnic rainbow. Through a fairly strange contrivance, the family, sans the father, falls comatose due to the influence of an alien device. Only by ‘bionic-izing’ the family, as the father already has been, can they be saved. Once the family was made bionic, they ended up fighting Scarab, a mad genius bent on world conquest, and his twisted minions.

Neither of these shows have been released on DVD yet (not officially, at least), but if they ever are, I will be one of the first in line to get them. I’d be behind a remake, too, just to see how they treated the licenses.

So, what are some of the special shows from your childhood? Have you watched them again recently? Do you still love them, despite the passage of time? Do you think they would be good fodder for a remake? And will I ever write anything interesting again?

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 1st, 2008 at 1:15 am and is filed under Television, Fandom, Richard Kim. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. Both comments and pings are currently closed.