Although it doesn’t get much press today, The Six Million Dollar Man was a certified sensation when it hit the air in 1973. Blending espionage, science fiction, and the super-hero genre, the series was fast-paced and exciting enough for children, and engagingly written enough for their parents. Even though it was a certified hit with kids, licensors were surprisingly slow to produce Six Million Dollar Man products. This changed in 1975, when Kenner finally gave kids what they all wanted for Christmas that year: a 12″ action figure of Steve Austin (Lee Majors), the Bionic Man, complete with an array of accessories, playsets, and vehicles. These toys were some of the vanguard of licensed TV action figure lines, and represent an industry in the midst of a massive upheaval.
For decades, conventional wisdom was that film and television merchandise should be low-cost, low-risk, and low production run: the concern was always that by the time the product hit shelves, consumers would have moved on from the film or series. That began to change in the early seventies, when companies like Mego experienced major success with licenses like Planet of the Apes and Star Trek. In the wake of Mego’s Star Trek line especially, companies like Kenner and Mattel were looking for the next kid-friendly action-adventure property to license, and nothing on the airwaves fit the bill better than The Six Million Dollar Man. Kenner outbid several larger manufacturers for the license, and it helped put them on the map as a major player in the boys’ action figure product segment — handy when a year later, a director named George Lucas began knocking on doors soliciting the toy rights to his upcoming film Star Wars. Before that, these Six Million Dollar Man figures were Kenner’s claim to fame, and they hold a nostalgic place in the heart of seventies kids — especially when mint-on-card, just as they would have seen them on shelves back then. That powerful nostalgia has already driven bidding for a near-mint carded Steve Austin on auction at Hakes up to $500 with nearly two weeks still left to bid.
The original 1975 Six Million Dollar Man line consisted of a figure, a playset, and two vehicles. The headliner was the Six Million Dollar Man himself, who came replete with action features to recreate his bionic super-powers. The original 1975 issue Steve Austin came with a telescoping “bionic eye” that kids could look through, a removable piece of rubber skin on his arm that revealed bionic parts underneath, and “super strength.” Through a button-activated mechanism on the figure’s back, it could lift up to two pounds, and included a plastic engine block for kids to imagine these powers in action. The “Bionic Transport and Repair Station” was a combination playset-vehicle; it let kids imagine repairing Steve Austin’s bionic components, before sealing the repair station into a rocket and flying him off to his next mission. The “Bionic Mission Vehicle” and “Tower and Cycle Set” were pure vehicles, and the Cycle was even able to be shot into the air or across the rug through an included pump and launcher.
No “bad guy” character was issued with the line’s first year, and retailer Montgomery Ward had a peculiar solution: they contracted Mego to make one, resulting in “Doctor Kromedome,” an unofficial companion figure produced to scale with the Kenner Steve Austin and advertised alongside it in Montgomery Ward catalogues. Kenner rectified this the following year with “Maskatron,” an evil android master of disguise inspired by the episode “Day of the Robot.” He came with three rubber masks to fit over his android face, including Steve Austin, Oscar Goldman (Austin’s boss at the top-secret Office of Scientific Intelligence), and Major Sloan, the target of the robot’s impersonation in the original episode. The Sloan mask sculpt sported the likeness of cult legend John Saxon, making it his first and to date only action figure. A full figure of Oscar Goldman was also produced in 1976, alongside a refreshed Steve Austin with new action features (a “bionic grip,” namely). Several playsets and vehicles were also added to the line, including an “OSI Headquarters” to help justify the admittedly-bland Oscar Goldman figure, who was after all a man in a suit.
1976 saw a bionic spin-off come to both ABC and retail shelves with The Bionic Woman, which began airing in January of that year. From 1976 to 1978, Kenner’s Bionic Woman line ran in conjuncture to their Six Million Dollar Man line, and included figures of Jaime Sommers (Lindsay Wagner) and a “Fembot” villain (a female Maskatron, functionally), as well as playsets and vehicles. Intended primarily for girls, The Bionic Woman line also incorporated a Barbie-esque fashion doll elements, with Kenner producing numerous interchangeable outfits for the Bionic Woman figure. Similarly, the Six Million Dollar Man line branched out to incorporate “Bionic Adventure Sets,” inspired by G.I. Joe or Big Jim. The “Bionic Adventure Sets” were markedly less successful than the Bionic Woman “Designer Collection:” sixteen outfits were made for the Bionic Woman over two years, versus just three for the Bionic Man in 1976.
Several playsets were shared between the two lines, with a Bionic Woman version incorporating the basic mold and tooling of an existing Six Million Dollar Man with revised theming. The OSI Headquarters became Jaime Sommers’ classroom (part of her civilian cover), while the inflatable “Bionic Mission Command” became the “Bionic Woman Dome House.” The Bionic Woman had several awesome, unique playsets and vehicles of her own, including the massive “Bionic Woman Carriage House,” which was two feet tall and the largest item Kenner had produced up to that point, and the “Bionic Woman Sports Car.” These were released predominantly in 1977, the most prolific year of Bionic Woman product. The Six Million Dollar Man line released a new “Bionic Cycle” vehicle, along with numerous accessory sets and a new villain character. Based on the 1976 two-parter “The Secret of Bigfoot” and its sequel episodes, the “Bionic Bigfoot” was the hit of Christmas, 1977, and is today the best known and most collectible figure in either bionic toyline.
The Bionic Bigfoot is one of those toys that’s so cool, even collectors who aren’t otherwise interested in The Six Million Dollar Man want one. Mint-in-box, Bigfoot sells for a minimum of $700, and can often command prices north of $1k. It isn’t so much because the figure is rare: Bigfoot was a strong seller (owing in part to the era’s fascination with the cryptid), but demand outstrips supply to such an extent that an eye-watering price tag is the result. Even loose, the toy fetches a couple hundred, with or without his button-activated “exploding” panel, meant to simulate the robot’s circuitry exploding after a blow from the Bionic Man. The figure also featured rubber-band coiled “grasping arms,” prone to breakage over the decade — a problem also endemic to Kenner’s later Alien figure. Bigfoot was the last major release in the line, which fizzled in the face of declining ratings and kids’ shifting interests. An elaborate “Venus Space Probe” vehicle was issued in 1978, though it saw limited release and is today one of the rarest items in the line.
The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman alike left the air that same year, though Kenner would hardly have noticed: their priorities had shifted as well, and the decision to take Lucas up on licensing Star Wars paid off in a major way. In 1978, Kenner finally had their 3.75″ Star Wars action figure line ready for launch, and its success would change both Kenner and the toy industry forever. While kids may have forgotten their Steve Austin and Jaime Sommers action figures then, they remembered them as they grew up, spawning a dedicated collector base for Kenner’s Six Million Dollar Man and Bionic Woman lines alike. Though the iconic 1975-issue Steve Austin is the marquee item in the upcoming Hakes auction, several other bionic collectibles are on offer, including an equally case-fresh 1976 Bionic Woman, Oscar Goldman, and Maskatron. For at least one collector, the auction is sure to bring back some fond childhood memories, even with figures in “stronger, faster, better” condition than they remember.
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