Just what the hell is Photon? In the early 80's, Photon was a craze that took the U.S. (and Canada to some extent) by storm. It's probably better known by its knock-off comeptitor Lazer Tag. Basically you strapped on awkward acessories that included a big honkin' receiver to your torso and run around with a "Lazer Pistol" that you would then shoot at someone's receiver while they tried to shoot at you in a sort of high-tech paint-bell-esque game. Photon actually came out before Lazer Tag and, in its hey-day, openned over 40 "Arenas" around the U.S. where families could go and shoot each other sensless with glorified flash-lights shaped as pistols. In all this fury, the folks who dreamt up Photon partnered with toymaker LJN to produce toys based on the property. But LJN needed more than just cheap guns to base a figure line on. And so the Photon TV show was born. And this wasn't some cheap cartoon. No, no! This was in live-action, no less.
Ah, the 80's! It was a time that embraced care-free high adventure and joyful violence with larger than life colourful creatures. And that's just what this show did. By today's standards, the show has such cheese-ball special effects, with just about everything enmired in bluescreen effects. But this stuff was incredibly ambitious for its time. Half the cast is animatronic for eff sakes. And it's 1986!
Basically, the story revolves around an earth kid who gets recruited into an intergalactic team who protects Photon, a light that has been around for eons and is important for some reason (the bad guys want to extinguish that light of course). The good guys consist of a talking lizard named Leon, a big booger-looking creature named Pike, a masked, female chauvanist (I wish I were lying) a big robot dude with a mullet (!) and some orphan earth child genius (and yes, you guessed it, he's annoying), not to mention the highly eye browed new recruit Bhodie Lee whom the show revolves around.
It's a fun little show and all the creatures are wicked. The action is very Star Wars esque with lots of flips and jumps before actually shooting someone. And the music! Every top 40 hit is here from Dancing on the Ceiling to Whip It is here whenver the action gets heavy. It's all about the cheese, people! Looking at the toys and the cool looking characters, it really is a shame that the Photon TV series didn't catch on with kids. Still, it remains an interesting footnote in pop culture and a virtual time capsule of 80's campy adventure series.
And now, I leave you with the first episode of this masterpiece:
And now, I leave you with the first episode of this masterpiece:Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Until next time,
Deceptisean
Photon! Pho-pho-pho-Photon!
ReplyDeleteYeah, my brother and I grew up with this stuff. He had the red helmet, and I had the green. There was a thick and stiff wire that came out of the helmet that attached to the chestplate. You also hooked up your gun to the chestplate, so that if your gun got shot, you'd take a hit. Being a small kid when it came out, the equipment was quite clunky and cumbersome....those helmets hurt when you accidentally moved the wrong way, reulting in the helmet edge digging into your collar bone!
We also watched the show in its original airing. We knew it was badly produced, but that didn't stop us from watching it!