Tuesday, November 9, 2010

The Six Million Dollar Man DVD

Lee Majors sporting some attire that looks like it could be fashionable again. Count me in.

I'm like a kid in the proverbial candy store with the arrival of The Six Million Dollar Man on DVD. It's official! The DVD is slated for shipping this month. The site indicates "now shipping" over the previous "shipping November" over the previous "November 4."
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People have yearned, longed, pined, lost hair, gone completely bald and waited ever so patiently while our favorite hero has aged to the point of performing Miracle Ear commercials. Well, the Bionic Man is finally back!
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As a tribute I post for you this two page spread from SciFiNow and a feature dubbed The Bluffer's Guide To.... The Bluffer's Guide To the Six Million Dollar Man presents a terrific action shot of Lee Majors as a our fearless hero Colonel Steve Austin moving in slow "ehn-ehn-ehn-ehn" motion and to the rescue. There's something incredibly nostalgic about the series for me. Perhaps he reminds me of my late father a little, a cross between Lee Majors and Erik Estrada. God bless him.
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Some interesting facts crop up in this little spread that surely whet my appetite for finally revisiting The Six Million Dollar Man right here at Musings Of A Sci-Fi Fanatic. It will happen my friends. You'll get all of the terrific The Six Million Dollar Man mythology right here. We'll learn about the Office of Strategic Intelligence [OSI], the Bionic Woman [Lindsay Wagner], the bionic dog, a Bigfoot android performed by both Andre The Giant and Ted Cassidy [Lost In Space, Star Trek, The New Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn], unlikely Academy Award winner Sandra Bullock in a bionic guest role and our man the Shat!- YES! William Shatner as Josh Lang. All of this jam-packed, slow motion action complete with Lee Majors as Colonel Steve Austin and the always dependable Richard Anderson as Oscar Goldman in the adventure series of a lifetime and a series like no other. The goodies will be headed my way and, over the course of time, your way. The question remains, does it hold up? Does it stand the test of time? Has age been kind to a series held in such high regard in our memory banks? Time will tell.
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Speaking of time, I'm quite pleased to see Time Life finally release The Six Million Dollar Man The Complete Collection on 40 DVDs including 5 bonus DVDs. Unfortunately, it's at top dollar exclusively through Time Life until October 2011. But, who cares? This is freaking Lee Majors in one of the most pivotal pop culture classics of all time! New interviews, all three Pilot films, all three reunion films, Bionic Woman crossovers and commentaries. My only disappointment is this quote from Time Life. "Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the DVDs." Well, Time Life also has the technology and more impressive would have been a Blu-Ray release. Can't we move beyond the DVD release already? They may hurt us with the move to Blu-Ray down the road, but I'll take this Six Million Dollar DVD version over a superior format just to see this series once again if it means no longer waiting. Stay tuned because I'll be bringing you The Six Million Dollar Man, The Bionic Woman and The Incredible Hulk into the new year. What do these shows have in common beyond their inception in the 1970s and those wonderfully mesmerizing slow-mo techniques? Each was, on some level, the brainchild of Writer/ Creator/ Director/ Producer Kenneth Johnson. More to come. See you soon. Ehn-ehn-ehn-ehn....

5 comments:

John Kenneth Muir said...

SFF:

I...can't...wait.

Seriously, it's wonderful that The Six Million Dollar Man and his universe (bionic sasquatch, Death Probes from space...) are about to be introduced to a whole new generation. I can't wait to see these episodes again for the first time in, literally, decades.

Good to know you're making an event of it here too! I'm very enthusiastic about the direction you're heading with Bionic Woman, Six Million Dollar Man, Wonder Woman and The Hulk.

Count me in!

best,
John Kenneth Muir

SFF said...

Counting the days myself John. Should be a hoot to sit back on these classics and rekindle the memories.

Glad you'll be with me for the additional commentary. I can't wait to see what we discover together on these collections.

Cheers my friend.

Anonymous said...

Nice article. Time Life's site changed yesterday to "now shipping."

SFF said...

Thanks for the update. They indicated Nov 24 to me by phone. This is an interesting development. Still no contact in the old Inbox. But you've got me excited. : ) Thanks for stopping.

TFKoP said...

When I was a kid, I had the Six Million Dollar Man doll with the space ship/"we can rebuild him" lab combo.

Be funny to find that laying around Mom & Dad's house somewhere (it isn't).

--joe