WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.899 So picture this. It is the late 1970s and you 00:00:03.899 --> 00:00:05.980 are living in Brazil. Right. And you're living 00:00:05.980 --> 00:00:09.099 under a very strict military dictatorship. And 00:00:09.099 --> 00:00:11.019 the government has just announced this massive 00:00:11.019 --> 00:00:14.820 change to how power is distributed. So Instead 00:00:14.820 --> 00:00:17.339 of citizens electing their own senators and governors, 00:00:17.620 --> 00:00:19.660 the president is simply going to appoint people 00:00:19.660 --> 00:00:22.420 directly to those positions. Bypassing democracy 00:00:22.420 --> 00:00:25.260 entirely. Exactly. They are just installing their 00:00:25.260 --> 00:00:27.679 own chosen officials. And, you know, the public 00:00:27.679 --> 00:00:30.960 is furious, obviously, but outright protest is 00:00:30.960 --> 00:00:33.420 incredibly dangerous. So they need a code word. 00:00:33.899 --> 00:00:36.920 They need a metaphor to describe this artificial 00:00:36.920 --> 00:00:39.960 government installed power. So what do they end 00:00:39.960 --> 00:00:42.439 up calling these unelected politicians? Well, 00:00:42.500 --> 00:00:44.820 they actually look to an American sci -fi television 00:00:44.820 --> 00:00:47.200 show, a show about a guy in a red tracksuit running 00:00:47.200 --> 00:00:50.000 in slow motion, and they start calling them bionicos, 00:00:50.700 --> 00:00:53.500 bionics. Yeah, it really is such a striking piece 00:00:53.500 --> 00:00:55.560 of history. You know, it's this piece of light 00:00:55.560 --> 00:00:58.000 American entertainment that somehow provided 00:00:58.000 --> 00:01:01.020 the exact political vocabulary a whole nation 00:01:01.020 --> 00:01:03.820 needed to protest a dictatorship. It's wild. 00:01:04.000 --> 00:01:06.000 And that is exactly what our deep dive is tackling 00:01:06.000 --> 00:01:08.859 today. We've got a massive stack of sources here, 00:01:09.079 --> 00:01:12.239 mostly centered around this comprehensive Wikipedia 00:01:12.239 --> 00:01:15.549 article that details the lore. the production 00:01:15.549 --> 00:01:18.269 and just the massive cultural legacy of the six 00:01:18.269 --> 00:01:20.670 million dollar man. Oh, absolutely. So our mission 00:01:20.670 --> 00:01:23.689 for you today is to look past the pure nostalgia. 00:01:23.989 --> 00:01:26.329 Like we all know the catchphrase, you know, gentlemen, 00:01:26.329 --> 00:01:28.609 we can rebuild him. And we all remember the slow 00:01:28.609 --> 00:01:31.969 motion running. But we are going to unpack how 00:01:31.969 --> 00:01:34.930 this show literally wrote the playbook for on 00:01:34.930 --> 00:01:38.450 screen superheroes, how it laid down these incredibly 00:01:38.450 --> 00:01:41.170 strict rules for grounded science fiction that 00:01:41.170 --> 00:01:44.849 Hollywood still uses today and how it acts. caused 00:01:44.849 --> 00:01:47.230 global political ripple effects. Yeah, because 00:01:47.230 --> 00:01:48.849 when you really get into the machinery of this 00:01:48.849 --> 00:01:50.790 series, you start to realize it wasn't just, 00:01:50.790 --> 00:01:52.989 you know, a retro TV show of the week. Right. 00:01:53.230 --> 00:01:55.150 It was almost this cultural processing plant. 00:01:55.290 --> 00:01:58.810 It was the 1970s trying to figure out where humanity 00:01:58.810 --> 00:02:01.129 ends and where rapid technological advancement 00:02:01.129 --> 00:02:04.849 really begins. Exactly. And, you know, the character 00:02:04.849 --> 00:02:07.250 of Steve Austin, who was played by Lee Majors, 00:02:07.349 --> 00:02:10.050 he's burned into our collective memory as this 00:02:10.050 --> 00:02:13.030 highly moral, very down -to -earth heroic guy. 00:02:13.150 --> 00:02:15.460 Oh, definitely. But if you actually look at the 00:02:15.460 --> 00:02:17.500 source material, the origin of this character 00:02:17.500 --> 00:02:20.439 is incredibly dark. I mean, the television show 00:02:20.439 --> 00:02:23.900 is based on a 1972 bestselling novel by Martin 00:02:23.900 --> 00:02:27.479 Caden called Cyborg. And the Steve Austin in 00:02:27.479 --> 00:02:30.120 those pages is not the guy you want saving your 00:02:30.120 --> 00:02:32.800 cat from a tree. No, not at all. I mean, in the 00:02:32.800 --> 00:02:35.099 original novels, Austin is effectively a weaponized 00:02:35.099 --> 00:02:37.500 human being. Yeah. And he operates exactly like 00:02:37.500 --> 00:02:40.580 one. He's much darker. And frankly, he is a cold 00:02:40.580 --> 00:02:42.800 blooded killer. The government spent millions 00:02:42.800 --> 00:02:44.939 turning him into a machine. And in the books, 00:02:45.139 --> 00:02:47.900 he just leans entirely into that mechanical ruthlessness. 00:02:48.379 --> 00:02:50.639 And there is this perfect comparison in the sources 00:02:50.639 --> 00:02:52.979 to illustrate this. There's a TV episode called 00:02:52.979 --> 00:02:55.819 Love Song for Tanya. Right. I know the one. Yeah. 00:02:55.939 --> 00:02:58.500 And later on, a writer named Mike John actually 00:02:58.500 --> 00:03:01.379 wrote a novelization adapting that specific television 00:03:01.379 --> 00:03:04.180 episode. But he kept the gritty, lethal tone 00:03:04.180 --> 00:03:07.819 of Caden's original books. So. Tell me how the 00:03:07.819 --> 00:03:09.960 book version of Austin handles an enemy agent 00:03:09.960 --> 00:03:12.360 compared to the television broadcast we all saw. 00:03:12.639 --> 00:03:15.199 Oh, it is just night and day. So in the book 00:03:15.199 --> 00:03:17.500 version of Love Song for Tanya, Austin confronts 00:03:17.500 --> 00:03:19.900 an enemy agent and literally shoots him dead 00:03:19.900 --> 00:03:22.819 using a bionic poison dart gun. Wow. Yeah, a 00:03:22.819 --> 00:03:24.400 dart gun that is built directly into his hand. 00:03:24.699 --> 00:03:27.460 It's an assassination. But on the television 00:03:27.460 --> 00:03:30.139 broadcast, facing the exact same scenario, Austin 00:03:30.139 --> 00:03:32.580 simply overpowers the guy and captures him. No 00:03:32.580 --> 00:03:34.860 hidden poison darts, nobody dies. It's such a 00:03:34.860 --> 00:03:37.560 massive shift and the journey from You know, 00:03:37.639 --> 00:03:40.060 Poison Dart Assassin to Family Friendly Hero 00:03:40.060 --> 00:03:42.639 was pretty bumpy road for the production, too. 00:03:42.659 --> 00:03:47.300 The very first TV pilot movie in 1973, it tried 00:03:47.300 --> 00:03:49.020 to thread the needle by making him a civilian 00:03:49.020 --> 00:03:51.620 astronaut with a really distinct James Bond flavor. 00:03:51.719 --> 00:03:54.560 Yeah, it was slick. Very slick. Spy focused, 00:03:54.599 --> 00:03:57.780 he wore a tuxedo. But then producer Harv Bennett 00:03:57.780 --> 00:04:00.659 takes over the regular weekly series and he strips 00:04:00.659 --> 00:04:03.259 all of that gloss away. He makes Steve Austin 00:04:03.259 --> 00:04:05.819 an Air Force colonel, just a regular guy. Well, 00:04:05.819 --> 00:04:08.270 Bennett... fundamentally understood that if you 00:04:08.270 --> 00:04:10.129 were going to put a cyborg in living rooms every 00:04:10.129 --> 00:04:12.129 single week, the audience needs to trust him. 00:04:12.250 --> 00:04:15.210 Right. And Lee Majors completely bought into 00:04:15.210 --> 00:04:17.290 that vision. Majors actually has this great quote 00:04:17.290 --> 00:04:19.230 where he explains that Austin hates the whole 00:04:19.230 --> 00:04:22.589 idea of spying. Really? Yeah, he finds the espionage 00:04:22.589 --> 00:04:26.170 game repugnant and degrading. Majors played him 00:04:26.170 --> 00:04:28.750 as the most reluctant spy imaginable. See, this 00:04:28.750 --> 00:04:30.490 is where I struggle a bit with the adaptation 00:04:30.490 --> 00:04:33.470 process. It's kind of like taking the Terminator. 00:04:33.680 --> 00:04:36.259 You know, a machine built solely for infiltration 00:04:36.259 --> 00:04:38.899 and assassination, and deciding, well, let's 00:04:38.899 --> 00:04:40.899 make him a high school guidance counselor who 00:04:40.899 --> 00:04:42.839 just wants to help people. That's a funny way 00:04:42.839 --> 00:04:44.860 to put it, yeah. But usually when you take a 00:04:44.860 --> 00:04:48.519 gritty, violent anti -hero and you sand off all 00:04:48.519 --> 00:04:51.000 the sharp edges for a mass audience, you ruin 00:04:51.000 --> 00:04:53.839 the character. You make them boring. So why did 00:04:53.839 --> 00:04:56.480 completely neutering Steve Austin's lethal edge 00:04:56.480 --> 00:04:59.800 actually make the show a massive hit? Well, I 00:04:59.800 --> 00:05:02.279 mean, it really comes down to the immense power 00:05:02.279 --> 00:05:04.579 disparity. Think about the physical realities 00:05:04.579 --> 00:05:07.139 of the character. He has the strength of a bulldozer. 00:05:07.399 --> 00:05:10.079 He can run at highway speeds. If you have a character 00:05:10.079 --> 00:05:12.800 who possesses that level of devastating superhuman 00:05:12.800 --> 00:05:15.699 force and he is a willing, cold -blooded killer, 00:05:16.240 --> 00:05:18.620 you haven't created a hero. You've created a 00:05:18.620 --> 00:05:21.600 monster. He becomes terrifying. A villain. Basically. 00:05:21.740 --> 00:05:25.000 Right. Exactly. But by making Austin highly moral 00:05:25.000 --> 00:05:27.819 and deeply reluctant to use violence, he isn't 00:05:27.819 --> 00:05:30.899 just a walking weapon anymore. He is a vulnerable 00:05:30.899 --> 00:05:33.980 human being who is actively grappling with the 00:05:33.980 --> 00:05:36.399 trauma of being treated like a piece of government 00:05:36.399 --> 00:05:38.699 hardware. Because he didn't choose this. Exactly. 00:05:38.740 --> 00:05:41.100 He didn't ask to be rebuilt. The government made 00:05:41.100 --> 00:05:44.279 the choice for him. His reluctance is what gives 00:05:44.279 --> 00:05:46.939 the machine a soul. It gives you, the viewer, 00:05:47.439 --> 00:05:49.720 a reason to root for the man inside the metal. 00:05:49.879 --> 00:05:53.019 That makes perfect sense. The humanity grounds 00:05:53.019 --> 00:05:55.139 the fantasy, and that philosophy of grounding 00:05:55.139 --> 00:05:57.660 the fantasy bled directly into the actual bionics 00:05:57.660 --> 00:05:59.360 themselves. Oh, absolutely. Let's talk about 00:05:59.360 --> 00:06:00.920 the hardware, starting with the title of the 00:06:00.920 --> 00:06:04.639 show. The Six Million Dollar Man. Now today, 00:06:05.120 --> 00:06:07.240 six million dollars might buy you a nice penthouse, 00:06:07.660 --> 00:06:13.459 but it certainly isn't funding. No, we definitely 00:06:13.459 --> 00:06:17.019 have to factor in 1970s economics here. If we 00:06:17.019 --> 00:06:20.379 adjust that $6 million for inflation from 1973 00:06:20.379 --> 00:06:25.379 to 2026, it equates to roughly $44 million. The 00:06:25.379 --> 00:06:28.459 $44 million, man. I mean, it loses a little bit 00:06:28.459 --> 00:06:30.199 of the poetic rhythm, but it certainly sounds 00:06:30.199 --> 00:06:32.560 like a more realistic defense contract. Yeah, 00:06:32.600 --> 00:06:35.060 it does. But the show's commitment to realism 00:06:35.060 --> 00:06:37.860 started way before they installed the $44 million 00:06:37.860 --> 00:06:40.939 worth of parts. It started with the very first 00:06:40.939 --> 00:06:43.180 frame of the opening. credits. Right, the crash. 00:06:43.879 --> 00:06:46.199 The horrific crash that mangles Steve Austin's 00:06:46.199 --> 00:06:48.360 body isn't some Hollywood special effect using 00:06:48.360 --> 00:06:52.279 a plastic model on a string. It is real classified 00:06:52.279 --> 00:06:55.160 military footage. It's the crash of the M2F2 00:06:55.160 --> 00:06:57.839 lifting body aircraft. This happened on May 10th, 00:06:57.860 --> 00:07:00.459 1967. And for those of us who aren't aerospace 00:07:00.459 --> 00:07:03.060 historians, what exactly is a lifting body aircraft? 00:07:03.180 --> 00:07:04.959 Because looking at the footage, it doesn't even 00:07:04.959 --> 00:07:07.980 look like an airplane. No, it really doesn't. 00:07:08.079 --> 00:07:10.649 That's because it essentially has no wings. A 00:07:10.649 --> 00:07:13.189 lifting body aircraft looks like a flying bathtub 00:07:13.189 --> 00:07:16.490 or, you know, a heavy aerodynamic teardrop. Wow. 00:07:17.089 --> 00:07:19.269 The military was testing how spacecraft could 00:07:19.269 --> 00:07:21.889 re -enter the atmosphere and land like airplanes 00:07:21.889 --> 00:07:24.889 without traditional wings. And because they lack 00:07:24.889 --> 00:07:27.529 wings, they drop out of the sky incredibly fast, 00:07:27.670 --> 00:07:29.720 kind of like controlled bricks. And the test 00:07:29.720 --> 00:07:32.079 pilot in that footage was a man named Bruce Peterson. 00:07:32.680 --> 00:07:35.819 He hit the ground at about 260 miles per hour, 00:07:36.240 --> 00:07:38.819 and the aircraft tumbled violently six times 00:07:38.819 --> 00:07:41.819 across the desert floor. It is deeply unsettling 00:07:41.819 --> 00:07:44.600 footage to watch. It really is. Peterson actually 00:07:44.600 --> 00:07:46.720 survived, though he tragically lost an eye to 00:07:46.720 --> 00:07:49.319 an infection caused by the crash later on. But 00:07:49.319 --> 00:07:52.639 the producers looked at this near -fatal, horrific, 00:07:52.759 --> 00:07:56.240 real -world aviation disaster and decided Yeah, 00:07:56.240 --> 00:07:58.560 that's our superhero's origin story. Well, imagine 00:07:58.560 --> 00:08:01.300 you're turning on your television in 1973, right? 00:08:01.300 --> 00:08:04.139 Right. The evening news is filled with very real, 00:08:04.259 --> 00:08:07.180 very visceral footage of the Vietnam War and 00:08:07.180 --> 00:08:09.439 the Cold War arms race. Very true. The audience 00:08:09.439 --> 00:08:11.860 was highly attuned to the harsh realities of 00:08:11.860 --> 00:08:16.399 military service. By using the actual M2F2 crash 00:08:16.399 --> 00:08:18.980 footage, the show immediately anchors itself 00:08:18.980 --> 00:08:21.459 in that stark reality. It tells you the danger 00:08:21.459 --> 00:08:24.259 isn't cartoonish. The consequences of this life 00:08:24.259 --> 00:08:26.759 are brutal. Therefore the technology used to 00:08:26.759 --> 00:08:29.199 put this man back together needs to feel equally 00:08:29.199 --> 00:08:31.579 grounded. Which brings us perfectly to the rules. 00:08:31.899 --> 00:08:34.279 The producer, Kenneth Johnson, set incredibly 00:08:34.279 --> 00:08:36.259 strict boundaries on what Steve Austin could 00:08:36.259 --> 00:08:38.909 actually do. He really did. Let's look at the 00:08:38.909 --> 00:08:41.730 specs. He has a bionic left eye with a 20 .2 00:08:41.730 --> 00:08:44.789 to 1 zoom lens and infrared capabilities. He 00:08:44.789 --> 00:08:47.110 has bionic legs that let him run at 60 miles 00:08:47.110 --> 00:08:49.330 per hour. There's actually a gauge in the episode, 00:08:49.450 --> 00:08:51.429 The Palmeer Escort, that clocks him at exactly 00:08:51.429 --> 00:08:54.009 67 miles per hour. And he has a bionic right 00:08:54.009 --> 00:08:56.549 arm. But Johnson famously instituted a rule for 00:08:56.549 --> 00:08:58.490 the writer's room. He said, they can jump up 00:08:58.490 --> 00:09:00.289 two stories, but not three. They can jump down 00:09:00.289 --> 00:09:03.169 three stories, but not four. He was just fiercely 00:09:03.169 --> 00:09:05.470 protective of the show's physical logic. But 00:09:05.470 --> 00:09:07.309 hold on. I need to push back on this a little 00:09:07.309 --> 00:09:10.519 bit. You are building a massive television superhero. 00:09:11.379 --> 00:09:14.440 The whole appeal is the fantasy of ultimate power. 00:09:15.340 --> 00:09:18.259 Why neuter your own hero? What do you mean? Well, 00:09:18.259 --> 00:09:20.440 because the bionics have massive liabilities 00:09:20.440 --> 00:09:23.720 too. Extreme cold disables the mechanical parts. 00:09:24.139 --> 00:09:27.120 In space, cosmic radiation causes them to severely 00:09:27.120 --> 00:09:30.279 malfunction. Even his bionic eye is vulnerable 00:09:30.279 --> 00:09:33.320 -like. If he's hit with an ultrasonic attack, 00:09:33.639 --> 00:09:36.139 the eye causes massive dizziness and blindness. 00:09:36.720 --> 00:09:39.399 If the government just spent $44 million rebuilding 00:09:39.399 --> 00:09:41.860 me, I'd be pretty upset if I couldn't go outside 00:09:41.860 --> 00:09:45.440 in a blizzard, you know? Why put such rigid caps 00:09:45.440 --> 00:09:48.330 on his abilities? Because unlimited power destroys 00:09:48.330 --> 00:09:50.909 narrative tension. If a character can do absolutely 00:09:50.909 --> 00:09:53.409 anything, if he can effortlessly leap over a 00:09:53.409 --> 00:09:55.149 10 -story building instead of struggling to clear 00:09:55.149 --> 00:09:58.149 a two -story wall, or if he's completely immune 00:09:58.149 --> 00:10:00.470 to the environment, then there are zero stakes. 00:10:00.850 --> 00:10:02.789 You are just watching a god punch his way through 00:10:02.789 --> 00:10:05.570 paper obstacles. Ah, the Superman problem. If 00:10:05.570 --> 00:10:07.970 he's invincible, the writers have to invent kryptonite 00:10:07.970 --> 00:10:09.990 every single week just to make the fight fair. 00:10:10.509 --> 00:10:12.690 Exactly. Kenneth Johnson's two -story -is -not 00:10:12.690 --> 00:10:15.669 -three rule is a master class in how you write 00:10:15.669 --> 00:10:19.409 compelling science fiction. By defining exactly 00:10:19.409 --> 00:10:22.549 what the bionics cannot do, it makes what they 00:10:22.549 --> 00:10:25.610 can do feel earned. Right. When Austin succeeds, 00:10:25.850 --> 00:10:28.049 he isn't just relying on his expensive hardware. 00:10:28.629 --> 00:10:31.470 He is forced to use his human ingenuity and his 00:10:31.470 --> 00:10:34.070 tactical training to overcome the limitations 00:10:34.070 --> 00:10:36.480 of the machine. The boundaries are what make 00:10:36.480 --> 00:10:38.559 the character interesting. And we really can't 00:10:38.559 --> 00:10:40.940 discuss those bionic powers without talking about 00:10:40.940 --> 00:10:43.340 how they were presented visually. I mean, the 00:10:43.340 --> 00:10:45.360 legendary slow motion running. Oh, of course. 00:10:45.539 --> 00:10:47.279 According to the sources, the public initially 00:10:47.279 --> 00:10:50.259 dubbed this kung fu slow motion, but the actual 00:10:50.259 --> 00:10:53.019 inspiration came from sports. The producers saw 00:10:53.019 --> 00:10:55.480 how NFL films presented football highlights in 00:10:55.480 --> 00:10:57.899 slow motion to emphasize the sheer power and 00:10:57.899 --> 00:11:00.759 grace of the athletes. It was a brilliantly economical 00:11:00.759 --> 00:11:03.200 visual shorthand. I mean, you have a limited 00:11:03.200 --> 00:11:06.360 1970s television budget. You can't afford massive 00:11:06.360 --> 00:11:08.720 visual effects to show a man running at 60 miles 00:11:08.720 --> 00:11:11.919 per hour. No, not at all. So counterintuitively, 00:11:12.340 --> 00:11:15.360 you slow the film down. It isolates the movement. 00:11:15.940 --> 00:11:18.059 It forces the viewer to focus entirely on the 00:11:18.059 --> 00:11:20.279 mechanical effort and the massive power being 00:11:20.279 --> 00:11:22.879 exerted. And you pair that slow down visual with 00:11:22.879 --> 00:11:24.980 the greatest sound effect in television history, 00:11:26.059 --> 00:11:28.600 the dit dit dit dit. Yes. Which, interestingly 00:11:28.600 --> 00:11:30.980 enough, wasn't even designed for Steve Austin's 00:11:30.980 --> 00:11:33.580 bionics. The sound department originally created 00:11:33.580 --> 00:11:36.659 that electronic pulsing noise for a robotic clone 00:11:36.659 --> 00:11:39.019 in the fourth episode of season one. I didn't 00:11:39.019 --> 00:11:41.440 know that. Yeah, but it worked so well it just 00:11:41.440 --> 00:11:44.059 became the permanent auditory signature of the 00:11:44.059 --> 00:11:46.759 bionic man. Well, because those physical rules 00:11:46.759 --> 00:11:49.659 and that grounded presentation worked so flawlessly, 00:11:50.360 --> 00:11:53.350 the universe inevitably had to expand. The concept 00:11:53.350 --> 00:11:55.850 was simply too rich to be contained to one character. 00:11:55.870 --> 00:11:57.929 Let's enter the bionic woman, Jamie Summers. 00:11:58.029 --> 00:12:00.289 Played brilliantly by Lindsay Wagner. They introduce 00:12:00.289 --> 00:12:03.830 her in a 1975 two -part episode. She's a professional 00:12:03.830 --> 00:12:06.429 tennis player and an old flame of Steve Austin's. 00:12:06.809 --> 00:12:09.269 But she suffers a catastrophic skydiving accident 00:12:09.269 --> 00:12:11.750 when her parachute fails. So the government steps 00:12:11.750 --> 00:12:14.250 in and gives her bionic parts too. But this is 00:12:14.250 --> 00:12:17.379 where the show takes a massive risk. The initial 00:12:17.379 --> 00:12:20.340 storyline they wrote for her is incredibly dark 00:12:20.340 --> 00:12:23.379 for a primetime action show. Very dark. After 00:12:23.379 --> 00:12:26.399 the surgery, her body medically rejects the bionic 00:12:26.399 --> 00:12:29.639 hardware, and she dies. It is a brutal narrative 00:12:29.639 --> 00:12:32.639 choice, but it completely aligns with their grounded, 00:12:33.000 --> 00:12:35.840 realistic approach to science fiction. Organ 00:12:35.840 --> 00:12:38.659 rejection is a very real, very dangerous medical 00:12:38.659 --> 00:12:41.389 complication. Why wouldn't the body reject mechanical 00:12:41.389 --> 00:12:44.190 parts? Exactly. But they underestimated their 00:12:44.190 --> 00:12:46.830 own success. The character resonated so deeply 00:12:46.830 --> 00:12:48.830 with viewers that the network was flooded with 00:12:48.830 --> 00:12:50.950 angry letters. They simply couldn't leave her 00:12:50.950 --> 00:12:53.509 dead. The fans basically demanded a resurrection. 00:12:53.889 --> 00:12:56.409 So the following season, the writers miraculously 00:12:56.409 --> 00:12:58.610 reveal that she didn't actually die. She was 00:12:58.610 --> 00:13:01.250 saved by an experimental cryogenic procedure. 00:13:01.669 --> 00:13:04.029 A classic sci -fi pivot. Right. So she survives. 00:13:04.129 --> 00:13:06.549 She gets her own spinoff series, The Bionic Woman. 00:13:06.690 --> 00:13:09.470 And suddenly we have an interconnected shared 00:13:09.470 --> 00:13:12.690 television universe decades before Marvel made 00:13:12.690 --> 00:13:15.370 that the standard Hollywood business model. The 00:13:15.370 --> 00:13:17.629 longevity of these characters is staggering. 00:13:18.429 --> 00:13:21.110 Even after both series were canceled in 1978, 00:13:21.649 --> 00:13:23.809 the audience still wasn't done with them. They 00:13:23.809 --> 00:13:26.870 reunited for three highly successful television 00:13:26.870 --> 00:13:29.350 movies, The Return of the Six Million Dollar 00:13:29.350 --> 00:13:33.409 Man and The Bionic Woman in 1987, then Bionic 00:13:33.409 --> 00:13:36.639 Showdown in 1989. which introduced a brand new, 00:13:36.899 --> 00:13:39.000 younger Bionic woman played by a largely unknown 00:13:39.000 --> 00:13:41.440 actress named Sandra Bullock. Such a great piece 00:13:41.440 --> 00:13:43.720 of trivia. Isn't it? And they finally concluded 00:13:43.720 --> 00:13:47.940 the saga with Bionic Ever After in 1994, where 00:13:47.940 --> 00:13:50.019 Steve and Jamie actually get married. But the 00:13:50.019 --> 00:13:52.720 true test of this franchise's cultural weight 00:13:52.720 --> 00:13:54.840 is what happened when modern Hollywood tried 00:13:54.840 --> 00:13:57.259 to reboot it. The movie adaptation is a textbook 00:13:57.259 --> 00:14:00.039 example of development hell. Every decade, someone 00:14:00.039 --> 00:14:02.000 tries to revive it, and the pitches perfectly 00:14:02.000 --> 00:14:04.580 reflect the shifting tones of Hollywood. Like, 00:14:04.799 --> 00:14:07.539 in 1995, Kevin Smith writes a screenplay. It 00:14:07.539 --> 00:14:10.700 goes nowhere. Right. By 2004, Jim Carrey pitches 00:14:10.700 --> 00:14:13.039 a comedic take on the material. Which tells you 00:14:13.039 --> 00:14:15.080 everything you need to know about the early 2000s. 00:14:15.440 --> 00:14:17.100 They couldn't take the earnestness of the premise 00:14:17.100 --> 00:14:19.019 seriously, so their instinct was to parody it. 00:14:19.279 --> 00:14:21.860 I mean, imagine Jim Carrey doing the slow -mo 00:14:21.860 --> 00:14:24.940 run. It would have been pure slapstick. But then, 00:14:25.120 --> 00:14:28.120 starting around 2014, the pendulum swings back 00:14:28.120 --> 00:14:31.100 the other way. Mark Wahlberg gets attached to 00:14:31.100 --> 00:14:34.629 star in a dramatic... gritty adaptation and the 00:14:34.629 --> 00:14:37.850 title of his project the six billion dollar man 00:14:37.850 --> 00:14:40.570 inflation once again It is the perfect metaphor 00:14:40.570 --> 00:14:42.830 for how blockbuster franchises have ballooned. 00:14:42.929 --> 00:14:46.090 We go from six million to six billion, and Wahlberg 00:14:46.090 --> 00:14:48.509 has been white -knuckling this project for a 00:14:48.509 --> 00:14:51.730 decade. As recently as August 2024, he was still 00:14:51.730 --> 00:14:53.730 giving interviews saying he is hopeful the film 00:14:53.730 --> 00:14:56.409 will happen. It's wild. Why is it so impossible 00:14:56.409 --> 00:14:59.049 for the biggest studios in the world to get this 00:14:59.049 --> 00:15:00.789 character back on screen? Well, because they're 00:15:00.789 --> 00:15:03.269 trying to strip mine the nostalgia without understanding 00:15:03.269 --> 00:15:06.320 the context that made it work. It is incredibly 00:15:06.320 --> 00:15:08.740 difficult to capture lightning in a bottle twice. 00:15:09.179 --> 00:15:11.659 Very true. The original show hit a very specific 00:15:11.659 --> 00:15:14.840 cultural sweet spot in the 1970s. You had the 00:15:14.840 --> 00:15:18.259 post -Vietnam, post -Watergate cynicism, a deep 00:15:18.259 --> 00:15:20.559 distrust of the government and the military industrial 00:15:20.559 --> 00:15:23.179 complex. Right. But that was paired simultaneously 00:15:23.179 --> 00:15:25.639 with the awe and optimism of the Apollo space 00:15:25.639 --> 00:15:28.879 program. Steve Austin was the perfect avatar 00:15:28.879 --> 00:15:31.500 for that moment. He represented the power of 00:15:31.500 --> 00:15:34.519 the government, but he maintained his own stubborn, 00:15:34.659 --> 00:15:38.210 independent moral compass against it. Modern 00:15:38.210 --> 00:15:41.049 CGI heavy spectacles struggle to replicate that 00:15:41.049 --> 00:15:44.330 level of earnest storytelling because our cultural 00:15:44.330 --> 00:15:46.750 anxieties have fundamentally shifted. And speaking 00:15:46.750 --> 00:15:49.470 of cultural anxieties, this brings us full circle 00:15:49.470 --> 00:15:51.950 to where we started because the expansion of 00:15:51.950 --> 00:15:54.409 this franchise wasn't just limited to spinoff 00:15:54.409 --> 00:15:57.210 shows, Sandra Bullock cameos and failed Mark 00:15:57.210 --> 00:16:01.070 Wahlberg movie pitches. The show bled into international 00:16:01.070 --> 00:16:03.710 politics in ways that are genuinely hard to believe. 00:16:03.909 --> 00:16:05.889 Oh, the global syndication of the six million 00:16:05.889 --> 00:16:08.970 dollar man. arguably its most revealing legacy. 00:16:09.429 --> 00:16:11.879 When you export a story this potent... other 00:16:11.879 --> 00:16:14.000 cultures use it as a mirror. Which is exactly 00:16:14.000 --> 00:16:16.500 how we end up in Brazil during a military dictatorship. 00:16:16.840 --> 00:16:18.519 Like we discussed at the top of the dupe dive, 00:16:18.700 --> 00:16:21.539 between 1964 and 1985 the Brazilian government 00:16:21.539 --> 00:16:24.220 started subverting democracy. They stopped letting 00:16:24.220 --> 00:16:26.860 citizens elect mayors and governors in key areas 00:16:26.860 --> 00:16:29.279 and the president simply appointed them. And 00:16:29.279 --> 00:16:32.120 the Brazilian people watching this American import 00:16:32.120 --> 00:16:34.740 on their televisions looked at these installed 00:16:34.740 --> 00:16:37.799 politicians and called them bionicos. Think about 00:16:37.799 --> 00:16:41.179 what that means for a moment. Pop culture? provided 00:16:41.179 --> 00:16:45.000 a shared subversive vocabulary. What is a cyborg 00:16:45.000 --> 00:16:47.720 in the context of this show? It is a man who 00:16:47.720 --> 00:16:51.039 has been rebuilt and heavily controlled by a 00:16:51.039 --> 00:16:55.299 shadowy, well -funded government agency. He possesses 00:16:55.299 --> 00:16:58.139 extraordinary power that is entirely artificial. 00:16:58.759 --> 00:17:01.200 To the Brazilian public, that became the perfect, 00:17:01.539 --> 00:17:03.919 undeniable metaphor for an unelected official. 00:17:04.640 --> 00:17:06.640 They used the language of American science fiction 00:17:06.640 --> 00:17:09.519 to safely critique government overreach. It's 00:17:09.519 --> 00:17:11.740 a profound testament to how deeply the core themes 00:17:11.740 --> 00:17:14.420 of the show resonated. But sometimes when Hollywood 00:17:14.420 --> 00:17:16.859 exports a massive hit, the cultural translation 00:17:16.859 --> 00:17:19.279 requires a much heavier hand. Take Israel, for 00:17:19.279 --> 00:17:21.619 example. The network there realized they had 00:17:21.619 --> 00:17:24.019 a massive problem with the title. They could 00:17:24.019 --> 00:17:26.200 not broadcast a show called The Six Million Dollar 00:17:26.200 --> 00:17:28.539 Man. They had to completely retitle it to The 00:17:28.539 --> 00:17:31.920 Man Worth Millions. That was an absolute necessity. 00:17:32.400 --> 00:17:34.640 You were talking about a post -World War II Jewish 00:17:34.640 --> 00:17:38.779 state. The phrase 6 million inextricably evokes 00:17:38.779 --> 00:17:41.380 the estimated number of Jewish victims of the 00:17:41.380 --> 00:17:43.920 Holocaust. Exactly. The Israeli network wisely 00:17:43.920 --> 00:17:46.400 understood that the profound cultural trauma 00:17:46.400 --> 00:17:49.259 and weight attached to that specific number would 00:17:49.259 --> 00:17:51.619 completely obliterate any attempt to enjoy a 00:17:51.619 --> 00:17:53.720 piece of science fiction entertainment. You just 00:17:53.720 --> 00:17:55.539 cannot decouple the phrase from the history. 00:17:55.680 --> 00:17:58.000 It is a stark reminder that pop culture does 00:17:58.000 --> 00:18:00.440 not exist in a vacuum. It crashes into local 00:18:00.440 --> 00:18:03.099 reality. And sometimes that collision produces 00:18:03.099 --> 00:18:06.400 pure absurdity. Because on the total opposite 00:18:06.400 --> 00:18:09.220 end of the spectrum from heavy political metaphors 00:18:09.220 --> 00:18:12.289 and historical trauma, you have Indonesia. This 00:18:12.289 --> 00:18:14.230 is one of my favorite details. It's so good. 00:18:14.470 --> 00:18:17.650 In 1981, a massively popular Indonesian sketch 00:18:17.650 --> 00:18:20.390 comedy group called WarCop released a film called 00:18:20.390 --> 00:18:25.730 Manusia, $6 .00000. It wasn't a subtle homage. 00:18:25.990 --> 00:18:28.789 It was a direct, localized parody of the premise 00:18:28.789 --> 00:18:31.289 used for pure slapstick comedy. Which just goes 00:18:31.289 --> 00:18:33.690 to show how universally adaptable the core concept 00:18:33.690 --> 00:18:36.549 was. The idea of a surgically enhanced, wildly 00:18:36.549 --> 00:18:39.150 expensive human being wasn't just an American 00:18:39.150 --> 00:18:41.799 fascination. It provided a flexible framework 00:18:41.799 --> 00:18:44.799 for the entire globe. Right. Brazil used it for 00:18:44.799 --> 00:18:47.640 political resistance, Israel adapted it around 00:18:47.640 --> 00:18:50.740 historical grief, and Indonesia used it for sketch 00:18:50.740 --> 00:18:53.650 comedy. Everyone found a different way to process 00:18:53.650 --> 00:18:56.369 the idea of the cyborg. So we have traveled quite 00:18:56.369 --> 00:18:59.089 a distance today. We started with a gritty hyper 00:18:59.089 --> 00:19:01.690 violent novel about an assassin shooting poison 00:19:01.690 --> 00:19:04.049 darts out of his hand. We sure did. We watched 00:19:04.049 --> 00:19:06.269 that evolve into a family friendly television 00:19:06.269 --> 00:19:09.009 staple bound by incredibly strict rules about 00:19:09.009 --> 00:19:11.829 how high a hero is allowed to jump. And we saw 00:19:11.829 --> 00:19:14.589 how those strict rules built a global cultural 00:19:14.589 --> 00:19:17.509 touchstone that gave citizens a covert way to 00:19:17.509 --> 00:19:20.309 mock a dictatorship. It really proves that the 00:19:20.309 --> 00:19:22.880 six million dollar man was far more than just 00:19:22.880 --> 00:19:24.779 a man in a tracksuit running in slow motion. 00:19:25.160 --> 00:19:27.759 He was a true pioneer in televised science fiction. 00:19:27.980 --> 00:19:31.619 And you really don't need to be a fan of 1970s 00:19:31.619 --> 00:19:34.400 television to see its impact today. Every single 00:19:34.400 --> 00:19:36.619 time you sit in a movie theater and watch a modern 00:19:36.619 --> 00:19:39.279 superhero movie spend 20 minutes meticulously 00:19:39.279 --> 00:19:41.980 establishing the strict rules and physical limitations 00:19:41.980 --> 00:19:44.539 of a character's powers, you are seeing the DNA 00:19:44.539 --> 00:19:47.000 of Kenneth Johnson's two stories, not three rule. 00:19:47.079 --> 00:19:49.019 Absolutely. Every time you scroll through social 00:19:49.019 --> 00:19:52.299 media and see a political meme using a blockbuster 00:19:52.299 --> 00:19:55.099 movie to criticize a politician, you are seeing 00:19:55.099 --> 00:19:59.859 the exact same cultural as the Brazilian citizens 00:19:59.859 --> 00:20:03.019 calling their leaders bionicos. The playbook 00:20:03.019 --> 00:20:04.819 was written 50 years ago. You know, the opening 00:20:04.819 --> 00:20:07.180 narration of the show proudly declares, we have 00:20:07.180 --> 00:20:09.380 the technology to make the world's first bionic 00:20:09.380 --> 00:20:12.259 man. In the early 1970s, that was the height 00:20:12.259 --> 00:20:15.079 of fantasy. But today, we actually do have that 00:20:15.079 --> 00:20:17.930 technology. Yeah. We really do. We rely on life 00:20:17.930 --> 00:20:20.529 saving pacemakers to regulate our hearts. We 00:20:20.529 --> 00:20:22.730 have neural implants actively connecting human 00:20:22.730 --> 00:20:25.250 brains directly to computers. We have incredibly 00:20:25.250 --> 00:20:28.069 advanced motorized prosthetics that respond to 00:20:28.069 --> 00:20:30.670 muscle impulses. The show treated the idea of 00:20:30.670 --> 00:20:32.950 spending millions to rebuild a human body as 00:20:32.950 --> 00:20:35.529 a wild science fiction premise. But today we 00:20:35.529 --> 00:20:38.130 are constantly rebuilding, augmenting and upgrading 00:20:38.130 --> 00:20:40.609 ourselves. So here is a question for you to think 00:20:40.609 --> 00:20:43.109 about long after we sign off today. As our world 00:20:43.109 --> 00:20:45.109 becomes increasingly integrated with the machinery 00:20:45.109 --> 00:20:48.349 we At what point does the technology we rely 00:20:48.349 --> 00:20:51.309 on stop being merely a tool and start becoming 00:20:51.309 --> 00:20:53.710 a fundamental part of who we are? We can rebuild 00:20:53.710 --> 00:20:56.670 him. It turns out they weren't just writing a 00:20:56.670 --> 00:20:58.529 catchy opening line for Steve Austin. They were 00:20:58.529 --> 00:21:00.250 making a prediction about all of us.