The 80s may have been the golden age for both toys and kids’ TV. He Man, Thundercats, GI Joe… it was the best time in history for action and action figures. Mattel had a grand idea to combine the two into one experience: Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future would not only present a futuristic drama, but also allow the kids watching the show to participate in real-time with interactive toys.
At least… that was the idea.
The reality of Captain Power was a disastrous mismatch of concepts for the Captain Power toys and the show itself. Was the show made for kids or adults? Yes! Was it CGI or live action? Yes! Were the toys awesome, interfacing seamlessly with a television show that would be the next big thing for giant toy-maker Mattel?
No — a resounding no.
Our Captain Power documentary enters the worlds of retro gaming, 80’s toys, and television lore to find out what went so wrong… and what ended up going very, very right.
Special thanks to Captain Disillusion, German Banda, Tom Lieber and Peter Paltridge.
#RetroGaming #80s #Science #technology
@blurglide
April 4, 2024 at 2:32 pm
The children’s television act changed the commercials from toys to junk food, which was ultimately more harmful.
@_Trimaze_
April 4, 2024 at 2:53 pm
😁🤩 Thanks
@franex_paradox
April 4, 2024 at 2:54 pm
I really enjoy videos like these, it’s important to not only hail the victors, but especially the pioneers that may have failed. They may have gotten lost in the woods, but doing so they create the path that those that come after them take to their goal.
@Yourmission9
April 4, 2024 at 3:29 pm
I was born in the early 80’s we were the last generation of free range go out all day just be home for dinner children. Such a cool toy described here, we were at peak engineering with the technology we had available around us and this extended to toys too. Though my main toys centered around hot wheels, micro machines, and legos, this would’ve been a cool addition
@nullnull3355
April 4, 2024 at 3:35 pm
Now we have Onlyfans
@Francois_L_7933
April 4, 2024 at 3:50 pm
I must admit that the angry frustrated moms of the 80’s really took out all the fun from television. They are the ones responsible for the death of Saturday morning cartoons. And just look at what we were left with at those same time slots!
@heidenreich727
April 4, 2024 at 5:23 pm
The Ren and Stimpy Show was my Saturday morning, great times.
@aaronlosey7201
April 4, 2024 at 4:04 pm
A very well-done video. I’m a little surprised; it’s definitely more of an art history thing than a science thing, but still very interesting. It makes me really want to watch the show now.
@seanaugagnon6383
April 4, 2024 at 4:23 pm
Battlestar Galactica?
@freshrot420
April 4, 2024 at 5:02 pm
All they had to do was make the successful adult show first and they could have had it all.
@BangladeshTheBest
April 4, 2024 at 5:13 pm
This is good
@pothos9913
April 4, 2024 at 5:29 pm
The crazy thing about the moral panics of the 1980’s is that every kid today has a smartphone with instant access to super violent movies not to mention the most explicit, violent, and/or bizarre porn 24/7 365 days a year.
@BigTimeRushFan2112
April 4, 2024 at 5:31 pm
I graduated from high school in 1987, so I had no clue this show or toy even existed. I shelved my Atari 2600 and all my Star Wars stuff once I started driving, at that point if it wasn’t a car or a pretty girl it wasn’t gonna capture my attention. Ah the 80’s….
@wayneraabit4097
April 4, 2024 at 5:35 pm
Thank you 😌
@JohnJones-oy3md
April 4, 2024 at 5:36 pm
Goddard, Klein, Siskel, Charren (née Walzer), Rubin, Zicree – the names in this video read like a Tel Aviv phone book.
@bman5988
April 4, 2024 at 5:49 pm
Well, did the toys and DVDs work? What’s your high score?
@watamelon6770
April 4, 2024 at 6:17 pm
Hey Kevin, Have you heard of U.B. Funkeys?
This video reminded me of it because its also an Interactible toy and one of the first “toys to life” game of Matel.
@CDRaff
April 4, 2024 at 6:29 pm
I had a Phantom Striker(the bad guy ship). It was stupid fun at the time. One of our local rental places had several of the episodes on VHS and that was the only way I was able to actually play it.
@Joeyzoom
April 4, 2024 at 6:42 pm
Captain Power is my new Helldivers 2 in game name
@Cormorant1011
April 4, 2024 at 7:29 pm
I remember watching this. It came on in the afternoon on Saturdays back then. It was mostly a filler show for me until the Bugs Bunny and Tweety show came on after.
@afrobuddha
April 4, 2024 at 8:34 pm
I remember getting Captain Power and the Powerjet for my birthday along with having to buy the VHS tape separately which was ‘Raid on Volcania’. The animation and graphics on that were so well done. The TV series was awesome also and so ahead of its time! Later, I collected all the action figures but haven’t seen the TV series finale yet.
@Tazer_Silverscar
April 4, 2024 at 8:38 pm
I understand the creator not wanting to condescend to kids. Kids are a lot smarter than you’d think. And you know, it still sounds like a really cool concept! I keep forgetting this kind of technology was even around in the 80s :O
@tenchi5557
April 4, 2024 at 9:05 pm
I remember these toys! I thought they were a variant of G.I. Joe. My neighbor had them and we played with them with the training VHS. I remember being blown away by it and didn’t understand why there weren’t more people talking about them. In my adulthood so many people didn’t know what I was talking about when I brought them up that I started to think I made them up in my head, that it was just a false memory. This is very vindicating for me. Now if I could just find those toy balls that you could pump up (kinda like Reebok pumps) by continually pushing the little nub/button…
@mrmysterius
April 4, 2024 at 9:16 pm
The influence this show had is very interesting indeed…
@SAP_Music
April 4, 2024 at 9:24 pm
The thought of Duck Hunt crossed with syndicated science fiction television gets the dopamine going
@tec5x5
April 4, 2024 at 9:26 pm
I have the jet and two of the VHS tapes from my childhood still
@CynosZilla
April 5, 2024 at 12:16 am
Oh! I remember this one.
Well, I remember loving this show, but quite a few things about it.
It was broadcasted on a minor channel over here on weird time slots, but I still managed to get some of the episodes. I think the toys where being sold here too, but I only thought they were to be used on the end credits sequence.
I never knew the weird glowing parts on the cast was part of the “game”, I thought it was just the aesthetic of the show.
@memeslich
April 5, 2024 at 12:59 am
I’m Elvis Presley I aways shoot my tv.
@reedsegovia4283
April 5, 2024 at 1:24 am
I needed to see this… Been a fan of since it aired and within the past few years of learning about the technology behind the toys & TV.
I’ve regained my overall appreciation for this show. 🎉 Thanks.🤓🤘
@Fujib4g4
April 5, 2024 at 1:47 am
It’s like the 3D elements in movies. Wear the 3D glasses the whole movie, only have a five minute flying sequence that relied on the 3D glasses.
@Wookiee925
April 5, 2024 at 2:57 am
I’ve spent the last 30 years plagued by vague memories of this show from childhood, I was starting to wonder If I’d made it up😅, thanks for letting me know what it actually was finally
@EarthKingPrime
April 5, 2024 at 3:58 am
pick up the pace. Love the concept but i got bored midway.
@sorejack
April 5, 2024 at 4:17 am
i got this toy, as a kid. i was so exited for it. we were uterrly disapointed in it. used as inteded only once i think. then we took it apart and made other stuff out of it. part of it ended up in my egon costume.
@SuperBROKEN81
April 5, 2024 at 4:35 am
The 80’s was awesome. Miss those days
@andiralosh2173
April 5, 2024 at 4:45 am
I’ve totally seen this toy! Somewhere… hrrm
@jasonblalock4429
April 5, 2024 at 4:49 am
I watched this as a kid and had the toys! And I 100% agree with 22:45. I liked the VHS tapes way more than the show. For a sugar-rushing 9-year-old, it was too dry, too talky, and didn’t have nearly enough pewpew. If they’d paired the tech with a more traditional (and cheaper) SatAM cartoon, it would have worked. Like, Silverhawks with real rayguns? That woulda been awesome!
And yeah, just like in the vid, the more I’ve learned about Captain Power over the years, the more baffled I am by it. And I can’t believe I find myself siding with a money-grubbing toy company over ambitious artists, *but what the hell was the creative team thinking?* Their complete apathy, even hostility, towards the toy side of things is hard to understand, when they were running one of the most expensive shows on television. Where did they think their money would be coming from?
“Escape” the kids’ show label? Honey, that’s your meal ticket!
Oh well, at least we got Babylon 5 out of it, so maybe it all worked out for the best. I’d much rather live in a world with B5 in it, than some alt universe where Captain Power got six seasons and a film.
@andiralosh2173
April 5, 2024 at 5:02 am
I’m glad that we got over that marketing drive to make every media franchise appeal to the whole family in a way that really appeals to no one
@michaelturner2806
April 5, 2024 at 6:36 am
Woah, 21 minutes before the J Michael Straczynski name drop. A lot of other videos I’ve seen lead with that You fit it into your telling of the narrative week though.
@Inglonias
April 5, 2024 at 7:08 am
I forgot that i had subscribed to this channel. My first thought was “moms hated this toy that encouraged kids to damage their TV”. I’m really glad I took the time to watch this.
@shaider1982
April 5, 2024 at 7:24 am
The angry moms here sound like the mother of Karens. Perhaps if they spent time to parent their kids on what to watch or not. Lots of things were demonized then: backmasking, D&D, etc. Sounds silly they even thought like that these days.
@darkwinter7395
April 5, 2024 at 7:49 am
Yeah…. turns out that peaceniks are morally bankrupt and dangerous to your society.
If you – collectively – don’t stand up to evil (which inherently requires violence) then the evildoers win. Evildoers are quite willing to violently violate your – and everybody else’s – rights, privileges, and moral notions.
@lawrenceredmacher4382
April 5, 2024 at 8:16 am
I had one of these. I always got frustrated that I could never hit the villain’s tiny orange eye. I also never even knew about the show, I just had the VHS tapes
@Wh0isTh3D0ct0r
April 5, 2024 at 8:20 am
I never had any of the interactive toys, but I used to love watching Captain Power when I was a kid. And it was many years later when I learned that the head writer of that show also created my favorite TV show ever…Babylon 5.
@davepov
April 5, 2024 at 9:40 am
Ironic that the moms of the 1980’s were so concerned with gun violence, yet today as a country we promote real guns for everyone including kids. I guess TV wasn’t the problem. Those moms are now grandmothers…hey grammas, how about doing something about the rotten politicians today and maybe that will reduce gun violence!
@jonasga
April 5, 2024 at 9:52 am
Studio execs made a bunch of pie in the sky plans without getting an accurate picture of the capabilities of light gun tech of the time. Snowballed into a disaster, it happens.
@Dementia69
April 5, 2024 at 10:48 am
I have the power 🔋
@c.jishnu378
April 5, 2024 at 11:19 am
Commenting so you get recommended by YouTube.
@AnaA-ku2yt
April 5, 2024 at 1:26 pm
TLDW
@Kalekemo
April 5, 2024 at 1:36 pm
oh shit I rented one of the videos for this once as a kid
@BlenderSecrets
April 5, 2024 at 2:37 pm
I was an 8-year old boy in 1987 and I watched this show religiously. But I don’t think they sold the laser gun in the Netherlands. At least, I’d never heard of it or seen a commercial for it back then.
@domi-no1826
April 5, 2024 at 3:22 pm
Is that marathon guy!?
@gryyphyn8639
April 5, 2024 at 10:46 pm
It’s silly and sad that parents of the ’80s apparently forgot shows like The Lone Ranger. 100% kids had their cap guns, plastic holsters, and cowboy hats when it came on and they were absolutely slapping hammers at the TV.
@WolvesDontPray
April 6, 2024 at 3:06 am
Love this channel
@Ampevedyc91
April 6, 2024 at 3:41 pm
Oh my God. I didn’t know what that toy was. me and my son played with that toy almost every day 15 years ago. Alongside all of his Marvel superhero toys
@Ampevedyc91
April 6, 2024 at 3:42 pm
We didn’t understand why the main feature of that spacecraft was to eject the pilot🎉
@puffthecatpuff8931
April 7, 2024 at 4:52 am
My cousin had this, I think.
@KRONIK3636
April 7, 2024 at 9:30 am
The Soldiers look like Mandolorians!
@rickscandon
April 7, 2024 at 10:51 am
My only memory of this is that i had the jet, saw it at my grandmother’s, and saw maybe a single episode.
@perry1972
April 7, 2024 at 5:36 pm
I discovered that using a light-sensitive night light and a piece of white paper, I could replicate the frequencies for the target and damage for the toys.
@nothingelse1520
April 8, 2024 at 1:57 am
I played one of these games as a kid. I thought it was way too simplistic and no replay value.
@martinfobert9407
April 8, 2024 at 7:32 am
I was a huge fan of that show. Had both guns and a bunch of action figure. It was way ahead of it’s time. Star Trek ripped the whole Borg concept off of Captain Power.
@jordanwhite352
April 8, 2024 at 5:03 pm
It’s kind of funny seeing the parental reaction from my mom’s generation (my mom was awesome so I had zero issues) and hearing all of the 10 to 14-year-olds screaming on calms and Call of Duty nowadays.
@liohconvoy
April 8, 2024 at 7:02 pm
Captain Power got a Drew Struzan poster??
@ImmutableWorth
April 8, 2024 at 7:29 pm
Reboot: Captain Power and the Planet Rangers
@HouseboundPerspectives
April 8, 2024 at 7:37 pm
i had one of those and the VHS tape. unsure why, but it seemed cool, but sucked kuz it was the same thing over and over and over
@someguynamedelan
April 8, 2024 at 7:53 pm
I remember this played really really early in the morning where I live. And I had the black ship as a present from an aunt or uncle, maybe it was in the bargain bin. I thought the robots were cool, but I remember how the tone was sort of dark and kind of boring (at least for nine-year-old me).
@mstandish
April 8, 2024 at 8:20 pm
I loved this toy, my parents bought a few vcr tapes to use it with.
@fluffycritter
April 8, 2024 at 8:34 pm
I remember these toys being marketed pretty heavily, and I saw one episode of the show aired once. I remember the marketing making it sound like when you play the game you were also somehow playing in realtime with all the other kids playing, which seemed totally plausible to me at the time but of course in retrospect that’s obviously impossible. But anyway I don’t remember much about the show itself.
@BrowncoatNerd
April 8, 2024 at 9:01 pm
This wasn’t a fever dream! Thank you! I had memories of playing with/watching these at my childhood neighbor’s house. As I got older I would bring up those cool toys that you shot at the TV show. None of my friends remembered these. And I hang out with some big time nerds. I started to think that I had made it all up in my head. I’m not crazy! Well, at least for this reason. Thank you again!
@rolfathan
April 8, 2024 at 9:34 pm
I was given a figure of the CG bird guy when I was a kid in the 90s. I had no idea what it was from until seeing this video now. Haha
Thanks for explaining it.
@joeshabado1431
April 8, 2024 at 11:20 pm
I see your parents spent 500 bucks on the batman toys too lol
@ftrwar
April 8, 2024 at 11:52 pm
i didnt have the jet just captain power figure and maybe the grey robot guy lol
@qurn
April 9, 2024 at 1:40 am
You needed an older brother, significant older to get you into it
@0takudad
April 9, 2024 at 1:55 am
I’m from the Philippines and I watched this during my childhood and actually enjoyed the show. I looked forward to each episode airing every Saturday. I never got the guns / jets though as we could not afford it. But even without it, I enjoyed it greatly.
@qurn
April 9, 2024 at 2:02 am
The ships should also work together, so you should be able to play laser tag with them
@raveracer77
April 9, 2024 at 3:20 am
I still have my ship. You missed the fact that you could use the ships to shoot at other ships in a laser tag mode. You didn’t need the show if you had a friend or sibling with a second ship.
@northprime_unlimited
April 9, 2024 at 4:54 am
I’m proud to say I was one of the first kids to play with these because my friend’s mom worked for Mattel. We had to test them to work before production started. I’d like to start by saying the toys were absolutely awesome! The animation tapes were thrilling to watch. The show was off the charts, very much ahead of its time. Now for the real reason it didn’t do well. It came out at a time when Nintendo was on a roll and kids were getting more into intelligent video games. As good as these toys were they just couldn’t compete with what was to come.
@krisztianunpronounceable
April 9, 2024 at 7:14 am
I loved this show and had the fighter!
@grabedigger
April 9, 2024 at 9:52 am
I was born in 1987, guess most cool stuff was made in that year or the years next to that one. Things are so gray and dull now…
@tabalitigi
April 9, 2024 at 10:07 am
captain power would air at like 6:30 a.m. on saturdays
@bbernard1981
April 9, 2024 at 10:23 am
It’s a easy toy line to collect
@unmanaged
April 9, 2024 at 11:10 am
just hot sauce… great stuff
@unmanaged
April 9, 2024 at 11:11 am
netfix needs to reboot this…
@joeszymanski3540
April 9, 2024 at 11:22 am
I remember watching episodes when I was a kid and liking the show. I could not remember the name of the show, it took me a while to track it down.
@JamesChenisKing
April 9, 2024 at 12:30 pm
I had this. But in the early 90s at the discount shop.
@corporealundead
April 9, 2024 at 12:39 pm
We had this in Canada, I had totally forgotten about it until I seen this vid. I remember being amazed by the 3D characters, but other than that the show was crap, and I didn’t have the toy for the dumb targets. Rather watch Ducktales.
@joeszymanski3540
April 9, 2024 at 1:25 pm
Clearly violence would have never been part of human nature if they just hadn’t put out these dang violent shows.😂
@theghettogourmet6762
April 9, 2024 at 2:18 pm
I had the vaguest recollections of this for the longest time, then I found the tape and gun in a thrift store (in entirely different sections, of course). This was in my 20’s. While married. Thank god we had a kid so I could excuse it. She hated it, too.
@lotterwinner6474
April 9, 2024 at 2:20 pm
I loved this toy, I had a captain power VHS tape and would play this regularly.
@user-oo5pl6io9j
April 9, 2024 at 4:12 pm
My brother and I had the toys with 2 vhs tapes but i never actually saw the show.
@ToddFucxer
April 9, 2024 at 4:38 pm
I still have a Captain Power VHS to this day. I’ve long since lost the spaceship gun
@cheeseheadflipper
April 9, 2024 at 6:21 pm
If a series ever was streaming for a reboot its Captan Power.
@capncaveman2956
April 9, 2024 at 7:58 pm
Me and a couple of cousins had these toys. I loved captain power. It would come on Saturday mornings I think. It was so much wrapped into one. It was a cartoon and show. It was a cool toy and it was laser tag. Even after the show was over I would play with the. Captain power figure with my G.I.Joes. People always say moms hated it. My parents didn’t care they paid good money for the toys we better had played with it!😂
@geralddraper5350
April 10, 2024 at 10:53 am
I got these toys after the show from a discount store lol.
@jettesides420
April 10, 2024 at 11:19 am
This was very poetic. I loved the show and the toys/tapes. Took me 20 years to remember the name. Its not lost media if someone still remembers it. Also, Dead Space clearly nods to the shows costumes as well.
@smileyp4535
April 10, 2024 at 11:55 am
Honestly if the show was really as good as they say the toy thing isn’t even an issue imo, even seeing those ugly red blobs for the toys isn’t really a problem because it works as incentive to buy the toys, it doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the show but you see it and it tells you you DON’T have the toys.
Plus the Vhs’s can be sold with and without those parts for those people who don’t want them (tho I imagine that’s probably something that would be too difficult to do back then)
But even so, from the clips you’ve shown and the fact it was only a few minutes per ep means it’s really not that big of a deal.
I think the main problem was the miscommunication and the mom’s thing tbh (which we could honestly use today with all the advertisements children are being forced to endure these days on mobile stuff!!! It’s honestly inhumane and will have serious negative effects!!)
@smileyp4535
April 10, 2024 at 11:58 am
Good to see Kevin from vsauce doing the exact same thing but probably getting paid more!! 😂👍
@iamthemagnificentjar
April 10, 2024 at 12:37 pm
I remember the commercials for the toys but I never knew there was a tv show.
@fen4554
April 10, 2024 at 1:23 pm
I remember watching this on TV as a kid, and knowing that there were toys that somehow interacted with the flashing symbols, but nothing more. My imagination filled in the gaps and those toys that were nowhere to be seen, were incredible in my mind. They used to play a trench-run sequence during the credits that I was mesmerized by. Amazing miniatures.
@peopleseethis
April 10, 2024 at 1:37 pm
I had the toys, I watched the show, I had fun with them at the time, I never been a violent person. Games don’t make people violent.
@RehabDodger
April 10, 2024 at 1:39 pm
I was a big fan of this show but didn’t know until years later there were toys that went with it. I eventually played the “game” that came with the XT-7 on VHS and it was very disappointing.
@RehabDodger
April 10, 2024 at 1:45 pm
In the 1980s if the kids weren’t being groomed to fight the commies then the world would have ended or something. Angry mom’s were obviously manufactured by the reds.
@seradhe1389
April 10, 2024 at 2:04 pm
This show sits firmly in a list of fond childhood memories. My Dad bought my brothers and I a ship each and the VHS tapes, and we spent hours playing with them.
@adamn.4615
April 10, 2024 at 2:36 pm
I remember Captain Power but don’t remember all the controversy. My brother had a few of the figures from this line, but we never had the interactive ship. I know I saw a few episodes of the show, but if I recall, my 7-year-old self just thought it was boring.
@therizinosaurus214
April 10, 2024 at 2:52 pm
i admit… the ship is dope.
@puanow
April 10, 2024 at 3:05 pm
I loved my captain power ship and VHS
@realtsarbomba
April 10, 2024 at 3:37 pm
I’m 44 from Finland and remember those spaceship guns being sold though I was on my early teens by then and was not interested anymore
@subzippo
April 10, 2024 at 4:22 pm
When I read mothers hated it, I thought you meant the noise the toys made. That’s my mother’s chief complaint.
@friscostreetstories5403
April 10, 2024 at 6:20 pm
Same, I’m 50 and do not remember this toy.
@hawkfirezz
April 10, 2024 at 6:28 pm
I rember this. I won’t that toy so bad but never got it.
@jacobrjager
April 10, 2024 at 6:41 pm
I had the toy but by the time i got it the show was already on the way out. I remember it not being that great, it would react to the tv but at best it was just new for about two weeks… transformers, GoBots, GI Joe and Star Warswere more my style then…the 80’s were a special time, the news constantly had people talking to the government about how oir music, games and videos were literally going to destroy our society…maybe they were on to something….
@targuscinco
April 10, 2024 at 7:33 pm
I remember wanting that so bad. I watched the show but I was salty I didn’t have the toy. I only knew one kid that had it.
@perkins1439
April 10, 2024 at 7:36 pm
I can’t believe the gall of those people I mean all that violence now please excuse me while I go play Grand Theft Auto V
@kingswing00
April 10, 2024 at 7:52 pm
I had the Captain Power toy. It was nothing like the commercial. You only had fixed opportunities to shoot the tv and even then it was almost impossible to make it work. It was actually boring and a little frustrating. I just ended up playing with the gun as a toy. My mom didn’t seem concerned about it and I definitely don’t remember any controversy.
@bytessquared
April 10, 2024 at 8:32 pm
I was 10 in 1987 I had forgotten Captain Power. But I also had a Nintendo with the light gun and Duck Hunt, Hogan’s Alley, and Gumshoe
@spellegren
April 10, 2024 at 8:55 pm
I had this toy! We recorded the episodes, so it didn’t matter much that it didn’t last. I lost interest in it long before I knew it was off the air 😂
I had the Phantom Striker, it was so cool looking. I would play with it with my other toys as well.
@MrWhitman
April 10, 2024 at 9:18 pm
My brother, cousin, and I each got one of the jets and the VHS tape. We had great fun with it ONCE. That was during the Christmas we actually got them. After that, the batteries died and my parents, at least, didn’t spring for new ones.
Not that the VHS tape was often used, but we used them against each other (the planes were designed to “fight” one another). The most violence that came from it was my younger brother angrily attacking me when I started firing on his plane before he had it on his wrist. To be fair, he kept telling me to stop and I wouldn’t listen.
What we didn’t like about it was that putting the pilot into the plane was difficult. Still great nostalgia.
@stratometal
April 10, 2024 at 9:24 pm
I have the ship somewhere in storage. I doubt it works though. After my mom let me play with it ONCE, she confiscated it for the silly reason of me not wanting to share a candy with an older cousin, after I had taken a bite out of it. When I next got a hold of it I disassembled it to learn what was inside and how it worked. Anyway, other than playing with it once and then taking it apart it only sat on a shelf as a decoration for a long long time before I boxed it and put it in store. I think half of the boys in my neighborhood had one and ended up having their moms confiscate it within a month or so, to various weird excuses. Very sus.
@exidy-yt
April 11, 2024 at 9:56 am
I was a teenager at the time Captain Power came out so the toys were beneath my dignity, but the show itself was fantastic. I loved watching it, especially the great early CGI work with the bio-dreads. You could feel J. Michael Stryzinski’s influence in the way the story arc evolved too, it was funny how Babylon 5 would sometimes remind me of Captain Power in strange ways and I would have no idea why until years later when the Internet rose.
@davidbranch1077
April 11, 2024 at 10:18 am
I remember this show, in 1987 seeing itat my grandparents house…
I thought it was kool, however I had more Cobra and Joe’s toys Ghostbusters and one Captain Power figure ( TANK )..
He had to be on G.I Joe’s team 😂😂😂
Women against this show, was mostly single angry mothers.
Men back than, gave their son toy guns ans army figures and toys.
So a show like this ,fit into that particular area of fantasy.
Feminist…plan and simple…
Many of these boys, have now gone on to protect our country…
Manly toys…even the girls at that time liked the show.
I should know, because it was the thing…
A toy interacting with a T.V show was the hype of the year.
Great video ❤😀👍💯
Time stamped 10:17am(4-11-24)
@Gentleman_Jester
April 11, 2024 at 10:50 am
I loved this show when I was a kid. My favourite part was always the end credits scene. They did a Star Wars like trench run which was awesome if you had the Power Jet. I went full blood hound hunting for the bottle cap liners when Coca-Cola had that promotion going. I actually did find all the letters to spell out POWER. I remember my dad driving me to the local Coke bottling plant to collect my Power Jet. Great memories. It’s sad that there isn’t that level of creativity behind television anymore.
Oh and thirty plus years later I ended up working in that bottling plant building which had since been bought by a wine company.
@shortyboh
April 11, 2024 at 11:00 am
So it’s a little bit like Jodorowkys Dune?
@rsmcroberts
April 11, 2024 at 11:44 am
God I loved Captain Power
@joelstiffler5137
April 11, 2024 at 12:16 pm
I wonder why the producers didn’t tell everyone, especially the writers that thE show was being g distributed by a toy company and preteen boys were the Target audience?
@brandonsayer7631
April 11, 2024 at 12:56 pm
I loved this game!
@christopherwiley8360
April 11, 2024 at 12:59 pm
I remember this show and the toys. What killed it was Nintendo…. great idea but too little too late.
@foremanagriculture6108
April 11, 2024 at 1:17 pm
Wait… the fact that you said “black and white TV’s were prevalent in 1987 is a clear indication that you don’t know what prevalent means.
@crookmcstealie
April 11, 2024 at 1:24 pm
My mom bought this for me, I played it all the time. I haven’t watched this video yet but I don’t know what they could have been mad at, my mom was all for it.
@vincebagadonis8016
April 11, 2024 at 2:03 pm
I seem to recall them only showing the Powerjet and the Phantom like once ever on the show!
@someone1tohold
April 11, 2024 at 2:43 pm
no wonder I missed it, I was already 15 years old. I gamed on the Atari before that and skipped the Nintendo. didn’t start gaming again intel I starting working on computer’s.
@jacobishii6121
April 11, 2024 at 2:44 pm
I remember this,the 80s where the shiznit
@obadel5092
April 11, 2024 at 2:46 pm
There are always a Karen, even back then
@jacobishii6121
April 11, 2024 at 2:53 pm
I remember both the televised ads and the show…….I didnt have the toy.I remember watching the show some but it was too sci-fi for my interests.
I lived in a suburb couple mins south of Seattle between Seattle, Tacoma and Bellevue (Nintendo usa and Microsoft originated in bellevue new at this time)
The show was on tv locally in this region.
@jacobishii6121
April 11, 2024 at 3:09 pm
I find it interesting you hadnt heard of it.
We should start to map out where/when it aired in the comments based on the collective memorys of the comment section.
I lived in Washington state about 10 mins south of Seattle between Seattle, Tacoma and Bellevue (Nintendo usa and Microsoft started there)
I recall it being on during the eve/late afternoon during the week.They played on the “whole family interest” thing here looking back,it was on the edge of prime time week day television.
@kyleterpstra1899
April 11, 2024 at 3:25 pm
Same prime demographic, never heard of it
@serpent08n
April 11, 2024 at 3:33 pm
I never got to see the show but I did have one of the tapes and the interlocker and I had a lot of fun
@zaphodthenth
April 11, 2024 at 3:40 pm
I had the toy ship and used them with my Captain Power video tapes.
And I over the years I tracked down and bought the still- working toys. THEN I set out to recreate the flashing light targets using modern electronic components, and succeeded.
@sscam2001
April 11, 2024 at 3:50 pm
I had the black ship, and my brother had the power station/stand for the characters. So fun!
@St.petersEye
April 11, 2024 at 4:11 pm
Yeah never heard of it though the late 80s nore early 90s? Spun*
@liggerstuxin1
April 11, 2024 at 4:26 pm
I was so pissed when I realize this was a gimmick. I remember doing somersaults and thinking I was so cool playing the game. Then after like the third time I tried it. I was like, something up…
@DustinRodriguez1_0
April 11, 2024 at 4:42 pm
As a kid in the 80s and a teen in the 90s, I was always flummoxed and annoyed by all of the adult, who were supposed to be the smart ones, getting agitated by fiction and images on a screen. And now that I am 45 – it continues to baffle me! A parent will look into a room where a kid is sitting, safe and happy, on a couch, pressing some buttons and wiggling some sticks and explode into hysterics, accusing their child of “killing people” and worse. They prove themselves incapable of distinguishing between fiction and reality, something their child has never had any trouble with. And beyond not being able to look at a videogame full of animated characters on a screen without being able to describe it except through describing what the fiction is supposed to make the player imagine, they turn to society and want us to humor them. They want us to hear their claims of “it is so violent and realistic” and pretend like it is anything short of delusional to expect the consequences of viewing/playing such imagery bears some resemblance to the consequences of witnessing such things in real life. They beg us to forget that fiction is not real. They are mad, and they should be taunted for their delusions.
And their delusions are not even consistent with themselves. They see their child play a videogame where a character runs through a city full of ‘people’ and when they press a button and one of the characters falls down, they decry the “violence”… but where were they when, by their logic, their child booted up the game and gave birth to a legion of other ‘people’? Why do they not credit the child with being a progenitor of life when 50 new “lives” spring into being at their command? If you’re going to accuse your child of “killing” and “being violent” because they pressed some buttons, then you ought to at least have the decency to cheer them on when they restart the level and they have resurrected the ‘dead’. Of course that is ludicrous. But no more ludicrous than what they ask us all to hear and not laugh or send them for psychiatric evaluation.
@user-ij7zn1dd7s
April 11, 2024 at 5:24 pm
I had one. Dang VCR ate the tape.
@tarzankom
April 11, 2024 at 6:05 pm
I remember these.
@bakkendr
April 12, 2024 at 10:57 am
I have the xt 7 + training tape; minus cpt Power and the canopy. Well actually it was my cousins. They sold the house and I had the fortune to clean out. Also not related but cool is the second generation Tonka machines, you know big steel, yellow, sand box trenchers.
Thanks for the media.
@Wazza77
April 12, 2024 at 11:00 am
i had one freaking loved it
@HeresWhyItsCool
April 12, 2024 at 11:02 am
I watched the show when it first aired, I was 6yrs old. My brother was 12. Even our sisters watched it with us and LOVED it!!! We didn’t even have the toys til the show was long cancelled and my mom got me the XT-7, the Phantom Striker, and the Interlocker Throne for my 8th birthday from some discount store. And I loved those too!!! They were great rides for some of my smaller Transformers (especially the ACTION MASTERS).
We were smart enough to record nearly every episode, and I wore out that VHS over lots of watch-throughs…. Years later I got that DVD and still adore this show, and lament that these moms had nothing better to do than fight some misguided crusade on a show that taught me many things allegorically. It was…. it IS a brilliant show. It’s too bad it didn’t work out, the season 1 ending is one of the biggest gut-punches of my life. 😭
Thanks for this video, @Popular Science!!! You’ve earned my sub! 😁 I’m glad I stumbled on this!
@nomakewan
April 12, 2024 at 12:05 pm
I actually had an XT-7 as a kid (missing the canopy, the battery compartment cover, and the wing guns) and never had a clue what it was. I knew that the presence of buttons and a switch meant I must’ve been missing out on something electronic, and that the design of the engine nacelles probably meant it had some sort of interactivity (though as kid I didn’t know if it was for laser tag or shooting at a screen). Heck, I don’t even remember how I ended up with it. Very cool video, thanks for shedding light on a part of my childhood!
@chaselarson4224
April 12, 2024 at 12:20 pm
It sounds like a psychopatra that was supposed to be enjoyed by the whole family.
Parents, can you get into it?And the kids were occupied with their toys
@bingo5694
April 12, 2024 at 12:25 pm
I think the “bridge too far” for 80’s toys was stuff like Rambo. The movies (especially the 1st) were VERY much for adults but still that somehow steamrolled into gobs of toys and video games. Robocop too, though to a much lesser extent. Ultra-violent movies that somehow translated into action figures. The only one my mom was ever concerned with was Dungeons and Dragons; because THAT was satanic lol
@ekzrated
April 12, 2024 at 12:36 pm
My mom got me the full set of toys: captain Power, Powerjet, all the bad guys, all the good guys, Phantom Striker, videos, the whole gamut… my mom found them at a discount toy store for about $1 each. The toys were cool, the video animation was fantastic, the concept? So fucking cool!
I then got to see one of the episodes, and had a hard time figuring out what was going on exactly, but honestly? I would LOVE for a rebirth of this property made with less focus on making money, and more on making a good story.
We know that these kinds of stories can do well if treated with respect and taken seriously.
@TonyVirelli
April 12, 2024 at 12:54 pm
Toxic Avengers! This is the a prime example. The movie was in NO WAY MADE FOR KIDS! However, they came out with a cartoon and toys for kids. I remember my aunt for my like 8th or 9th birthday bought me the Toxic Avenger movie on VHS! I was so excited because I loved the cartoon and had all the toys…. LOL she lost it as there was a full naked scene, swearing and violence galore!
@abraxas365
April 12, 2024 at 1:45 pm
👍 For the Babylon 5 reference
@RoboBoddicker
April 12, 2024 at 1:51 pm
This was one of my favorite toys as a kid.
I never actually watched the show because it was on Sunday morning while we were at church.
But it must have caught my eye in the KB catalog, despite Jesus’s best attempts to thwart me.
Noteworthy aspects:
1.) It was a friggin’ badass space jet that a full-size action figure could fit inside (including GI Joes!)
2.) The Captain Power action figures themselves were cool and fully-articulated and I had a few of them as well.
3.) The VHS was an absolutely sick anime laser jet battle tour-de-force, and I remember I would frequently just watch the tape without even playing the “game”
Thank you for reading my diary. Have a nice day.
@goalie40404040
April 12, 2024 at 2:01 pm
I had this game. I remember it being really cool but got old quick.
@AiLiang-hh2zg
April 12, 2024 at 2:05 pm
I wasn’t alive at the time this show was around but this story is fascinating albeit a bit sad from a creators’ standpoint. It could have been more had Mattel let it be what it was meant to be.
@MercenaryX21
April 12, 2024 at 2:19 pm
I had that toy and I still do but it’s the black bad guy one when I got it at Big lots before it was called that, I still have all three of thr VHS tapes and the complete tv series dvds
@arklainquirk
April 12, 2024 at 2:44 pm
I had the Phantom Striker when I was a kid. My dad just came home one day with it, I think he wanted to play with it, so he got me one. I only had the one tape it came with and had never seen the show.
@TheRealZombieWizard
April 12, 2024 at 2:45 pm
The fact that the moms didn’t even watch the show or understand what’s going on speaks volumes about that time period, all they saw was ‘pew pew bang bang’ and was like that’s too violent for children. If you think people were too sensitive today, remember it was considered corn to see an ankle back in the day, which cost 5 cents for 2 minutes for a black and white Pictogram.
@RoninX33
April 12, 2024 at 3:27 pm
I loved Capt Power!
@poleythepolarbear9706
April 12, 2024 at 3:40 pm
The beginning of your video is damaging to headphone users bro!
@travis9144
April 12, 2024 at 3:54 pm
This was really good, you should do a deep dive into another amazing toy line from Mattel that lacked much success despite being unique and with an obviously talented team behind it. It was called “Mad Scientist” and were great gross-out science toy sets. I’d love to see an expose on that one. Good content on your channel, I’ve subscribed!
@usergiodmsilva1983PT
April 12, 2024 at 4:02 pm
Where are now America’s moms when there’s a school shooting… Isn’t it ironic that when the “violent” tv shows where put off the air, was when the school shootings began?
@usergiodmsilva1983PT
April 12, 2024 at 4:06 pm
Btw, in France, Saber Rider had a toy that used the same system.
@theonetruemorty4078
April 12, 2024 at 4:32 pm
I was 10 in 1987 and I don’t remember any of this. Great video.
@MADSLAYER47
April 12, 2024 at 5:36 pm
Karens ruin everything!
@ytrefugee113
April 12, 2024 at 8:56 pm
Wish theyd bring this back! I remember it from when i was a kid, i had cool parents and had some of the toys and tapes.
@illyph9963
April 12, 2024 at 9:18 pm
Lol my little brother had the white captain power one and I got the black dread one lol this was blast from past, we had all the vhs too and wud wait every week to shoot the show lol
@reporeport
April 12, 2024 at 9:27 pm
i had this!
@brandonott7044
April 13, 2024 at 10:12 am
I had this toy
@adamwellman7865
April 13, 2024 at 10:13 am
Karens the scourge of a good time.
@HocusFocusProductions
April 13, 2024 at 10:15 am
I was a Teenager and I was so jealous of “kids” who were the right age to experience this.
@jeffwarshaw6838
April 13, 2024 at 10:18 am
I remember hearing about the show, and I remember the tv ads for the Powerjet and other toys, but I never saw a single episode. Seems the Karens killed the show before anyone really got to enjoy it.
@stephenkywong
April 13, 2024 at 10:34 am
I swear I had one… it wasn’t perfect in response shooting… I never saw many episodes… and was a bit young
@jamesstraus7767
April 13, 2024 at 11:10 am
Wow this is some bonkers level insanity. As someone whose first memories are playing NES games as a 2 year old, I think I somehow completely missed this growing up and this such a fascinating subject to suddenly discover! Thank you for making amazing videos like this!!!!
@geinikan1kan
April 13, 2024 at 11:11 am
This story is mad interesting.
@LittleJoeTheMoonlightCat
April 13, 2024 at 11:35 am
Yeah I hated Captain Power (1987) too, They needed to Switch The Time Slot with The Comic Strip (1987) I missed to many episodes of Tigersharks thanks to The Captain Power Hour and Church on Sundays. How did Mako get out of that Cave in anyway? I will never know.
@paulfoss5385
April 13, 2024 at 12:00 pm
Now to find out about the futuristic toy moms and why they hated the authority of captains.
@AnglophobiaIsevil7
April 13, 2024 at 12:34 pm
Bro this popular science channel is fire, wow
@joewhite3559
April 13, 2024 at 1:33 pm
ah yes….over protective or slash christian 80’s mom
@michaelscotthawthorn7871
April 13, 2024 at 1:48 pm
I had this! I had this ! I had this!
@adaeptzulander2928
April 13, 2024 at 2:50 pm
I was an adult, but I loved this show. The last season was awesome and posed some very adult themes. I wish it were rebooted and the new series would continue from the last season. Also. J M Straczynski (producer) would later go on to produce Babylon 5.
@bertranddosne10
April 13, 2024 at 2:54 pm
Thank you for making a video about this superbly written TV series. Captain Power is a really great show that deserves more reconnaissance and to be better known !
@mephisto1176
April 13, 2024 at 2:59 pm
I thought this was always a fever dream of mine lol
@SovereignKnight74
April 13, 2024 at 3:05 pm
Meh… Liberals tend to destroy everything. They sap the life out of fun and entertaining things. They canceled shows like The Dukes of Hazzard, for example, saying it was racist, when in fact it never was. Personally, I think the libs get their jollies off of destroying things like this. Anyhow, I was born in that era of Captain Power, and I do recall this product and TV show. It was quite revolutionary at the time.
@kingbugs3558
April 13, 2024 at 3:59 pm
Meanwhile, the satanic panic rages to this day and you sit there saying libs are the pearl clutchers. Lol.
@robertonawhim
April 13, 2024 at 3:48 pm
you were kidding when you said it was weird that the system took two types of batteries right? lol
@robertonawhim
April 13, 2024 at 3:51 pm
one Christmas I was a really spoiled kid and got two bio bug fighting robot bugs. each one took 4 AA batteries to work, plus 2 AAA batteries for each controller. i was excited and my parents realized that we didn’t even have enough batteries in the house to power the bugs on. so we had to go get batteries on Christmas day.
@kitfo18
April 13, 2024 at 4:03 pm
OMG I had one of these and it was so0 much fun. The only people that complained about this was the parents of my friends that actually did nothing to parent and where the drop the kid in front of the TV and expect it to be a babysitter because them as a parent where total lazy trash. Thats it.
@lorenzolavey
April 13, 2024 at 4:44 pm
I used to have one of these!!!
@mikemckinlay7270
April 13, 2024 at 4:45 pm
i had that toy. i played with on the tv for like two weeks then my mom said no more.i was allowed to play with the toy by not the game.
@apexqc04
April 13, 2024 at 5:08 pm
Instantly thought of the “Power Armour” the MCRN marines use in The Expanse.
@shadown5757
April 13, 2024 at 5:19 pm
The captain power interactive toys were revolutionary at their time 😎👍
@bryedtan
April 13, 2024 at 7:24 pm
It was a pretty good show. Also the Evil Lord Dredd was portrayed by David Hemblen was the voice of Magneto in the X-Men 90s Animated Series.
@CarletonTorpin
April 13, 2024 at 8:28 pm
This was a great discovery! Both the video and the channel. 🙂
@ChristopherSloane
April 13, 2024 at 9:19 pm
I watched this show as a kid and was mad that I never got the toy to play the game but it never did anything anyway.
@rylkalthewolf4825
April 14, 2024 at 4:38 pm
I remembered my older brothers had the toys and all 3 VHS tapes. I played them and it was fun for it’s time during the 90s and still had the box TVs. If Captain Power were to reboot as a video game for today, have it be either a FPS or Third Person Shooter. Mixed with Ace Combat and/or Star Fox jet fighter air and/or space combat. Re-enacting the scenes from both the show and the VHS tapes for the toys into a video game.
@driftitlikeyouownit
April 14, 2024 at 4:42 pm
I remeber this 😂😂😂😂 omg loved those days
@Paradigmfusion
April 14, 2024 at 4:56 pm
Oh wow, I havent seen Captain Power stuff in YEARS!!!!!
@thearianmandalorian
April 14, 2024 at 5:04 pm
Ahhh man the good times. i had captain power and his plane, and maaan i was devistated when a younger kid broke it will i wasint home. he also broke some of my gi joes fingers off and all kind of stuff. i was so bummed out, cause that action figure was doooope
@blacksheepmiracle1433
April 14, 2024 at 5:17 pm
I wanted this as a 9 yr old, for Christmas in 87. Instead, my parents wisely bought me a NES. Glad they didn’t listen to me.
@grindhousesports
April 14, 2024 at 5:21 pm
I remember this and i remember my brother had something close to this it was a system similar had its own videos and came with a gun similar to Nintendo and the videos were different themed one was a hanted house and another was a jet fighter bother were live acrion
@ibapreppie
April 14, 2024 at 6:35 pm
I played this as a kid was awesome
@Wafflepants-dl8fk
April 14, 2024 at 6:35 pm
I had the toy
@davehood2667
April 14, 2024 at 6:51 pm
I remember this one, I remember it took me a while after the first time I saw Armageddon to connect why that blond astronaut looked so familiar.
@richard8808
April 14, 2024 at 6:58 pm
Holy crap, I had forgotten about this toy. I loved this as a kid. I was always surprised that home video games didn’t continue the shoot-the-screen genre.
@mikehorrocks2909
April 14, 2024 at 7:05 pm
I remember those commercials. We couldn’t afford them (well either that or mom and dad were saying that to get us to stop bugging them about it). Yes, super cool. And now that I think about it, it was an early generation Wii.🤪
Edit: yes, the two different batteries were standard at the time. Remote got the 9v and the receiver got the AA batteries. It was the same for most toys.🤪
@ascensionindustries9631
April 14, 2024 at 7:09 pm
My mom was cooking dinner so didn’t care.
I also have the Captan Power villian with tank tread feet with a GI Joe BAT rifle attached to it.
Supet kool! 🤘
@illegalclown
April 14, 2024 at 7:17 pm
I had the toys as a kid. They were awesome. It was cool using the planes to shoot at each other and making the pilots eject. The toy labels mentioned the TV show but I never saw it back then. I don’t know if it ever aired in my market. It wasn’t until it got a DVD release that I saw it, and it was awesome. I’m sad it wasn’t successful.
@jamesmccool503
April 14, 2024 at 7:38 pm
This was a great show. I loved it as a kid.
@Branfon
April 14, 2024 at 7:45 pm
I have this tooooy! I honestly never knew what it was from.
@shealaughy2475
April 14, 2024 at 7:47 pm
If you lived in Canada, Captain Power was all over tv. All my friends knew of the show. The toys and everything else are a different story. They never mentioned them during the show.
@quintrapnell3605
April 14, 2024 at 7:47 pm
Love history
@SDVHILzseriolih
April 14, 2024 at 7:53 pm
not sure where it was but I’ve held that weird ass spaceship gun thing back in the day, musta been a friends toy cuz i dont think i owned it
@nemesisundead83
April 14, 2024 at 8:12 pm
I had three different ships and 5 tapes I miss this so much lol
@zaskarclf
April 14, 2024 at 8:17 pm
Even my own kids agree that my wife and I had the best childhoods. They too wish they could’ve grown up in the 80s and 90s. Entertainement is so bad these days that I feel sorry for my youngest daughter who grew up with no real memorable IPs. Gotta thank all of the talent that created so many memories for me.
@godaistudios
April 14, 2024 at 8:38 pm
I remember this toy and loved it. I only had the VHS that came with it. I agree with other commentators though that it had no way to compete with Nintendo. If it had come out a couple of years earlier, it might have had a better chance.
@davehandelman2832
April 14, 2024 at 8:49 pm
Mom’s are the worst. Overbearing, over protective and over eaters…
@ghostmantagshome-er6pb
April 14, 2024 at 9:10 pm
Crazy great concept! remember none of it.
@galacticwarlock2271
April 14, 2024 at 9:18 pm
Loved this toy and the shows were cool.
@PemaGawang
April 14, 2024 at 9:20 pm
Your parents sucked that’s why, both my parents, divorced, bought me tons of Captain Power. It was my favorite, I was so mad when it went away
@hadleymanmusic
April 14, 2024 at 10:23 pm
i remember this it looks like a cool ship but was a pistol. I was a die hard startrek model builder so 😅
@hiro2protagonist
April 14, 2024 at 10:25 pm
Captain Power was cool af.
@user-gj5nv3rn7y
April 14, 2024 at 10:28 pm
I remember the toys…i had the gold figurine…i had the jet gun but i think parents returned it to store…i was only 4-5 when it came out
@steveandthebrats3413
April 14, 2024 at 10:41 pm
So once again, women are destroying good stuff .
@wileyjoshua6811
April 14, 2024 at 10:41 pm
Bro. That show never existed. Its a mandella (CERN particle collider side effect) of two time lines converging. A show/ tech/ toyline of such unbelievable high quality isn’t something that gets lost to obscurity like that. Im dead serious. We truly live in strange times, expect a lot more weird things like this to pop up out of nowhere in the coming days as well as some things going missing you remembered so clearly. CERN has changed the nature of time itself by making it now “fluid” Sometimes when they mess with time, I can feel it happening and its SOO scary and upsetting.
@jmh1189
April 14, 2024 at 10:48 pm
This isnt vsauce….
@drumboy02
April 14, 2024 at 10:54 pm
there was a live action tv show for the photon lasertag toys. I think that came out before this
@derekeboyd
April 14, 2024 at 10:58 pm
I actually had the Power On Energizer. Def the lamest toy from the whole collection. I also didn’t have any of the VHS tapes, so it was extra lame.
@eduardoaguilar7361
April 14, 2024 at 11:27 pm
I grew up in Mexico and Texas. We had these. I had the black ship, my cousin had the white one. Can’t recall which of us owned the power station.
Oh, and for the tapes. The reason they look like that is because it’s anime, my dude. Go look at what studio made them.
Also, see how many shows have used the sound effect from those training tape fireballs ; )
@fer04i81
April 14, 2024 at 11:30 pm
Funny, the dads playing with their kinds during the show, and the moms protesting trying to get the show cancelled. lol
@CygnusOrb
April 14, 2024 at 11:36 pm
Me and my brothers had them. I could never remember the name though.
@myersbriand
April 14, 2024 at 11:37 pm
Thanks for explaining the one odd figure i have that i was struggling to figure out what it was from
@redwingblackbird8306
April 14, 2024 at 11:40 pm
I remember the ads for the toys, I never knew there was a show on TV.
@fxcannon
April 14, 2024 at 11:45 pm
I had the 3 training tapes, the white jet and a few of the action figures 😂 my mom even had the book “turmoil in the toy box” 😂😂😂
@joshmarshall7610
April 15, 2024 at 12:34 am
I loved my Captain Power jet, with many hours spent watching the show and “shooting” at the TV.
@FugueNation
April 15, 2024 at 12:48 am
I remember this show, had the action figures, but we never got the gun/ship.
Really thought it was cool at the time!
@jakedawg253
April 15, 2024 at 12:50 am
I had one it was fun
@ThatSlowTypingGuy
April 15, 2024 at 1:51 am
We didn’t get the show here until the early 90’s so the toy thing must have blown over by then.
@MarkxTube
April 15, 2024 at 3:09 am
Ha, thanks for the flashback! I had this as a kid and it was so much fun. Never knew there was a show, just had one of the vhs tapes.
@SmartFool24
April 15, 2024 at 4:19 am
As a kid I had never heard of Captain power until my mom bought me and my brother most of the entire set for Christmas with at least 2-3 videos if I remember correctly. My brother got that interlocket and an xt7 and I got the power station and an xt7. The flying guy was the coolest to me. The videos were cool but playing along with the combat was pretty limited. Anyways, my mom was the best.
@seancooney8799
April 15, 2024 at 4:47 am
Actually watched the show , has the toys and even had the comic book … I loved this show as a kid.
@archingelus
April 15, 2024 at 10:05 am
16:59 rip for great actress of my childhood
@randomuser3555
April 15, 2024 at 11:26 am
OK, I had one of those in 1986. We had just moved to Texas from Colorado and I was pretty bummed about losing my friends as well as the Rockies. Not to mention how damned hot Texas felt. My uncle (A retired US Marine) got it for me. It is quite literally one of the few joyful childhood memories I Possess!! Yes foe me it really did work as advertised. I was, however in a dark room.
Edit- me spell no good?
@matchc0635
April 15, 2024 at 11:58 am
>one million per 30 min action show
Modern television show could never
@Cedrickr
April 15, 2024 at 1:50 pm
I still have my powerJet on my desk, I cleaned the internals to ressucitate it and it still works too! I LOVED Captain Power as a kid!
@Graytail
April 16, 2024 at 8:52 am
I still have a powerjet. Not my original one sadly, but even though the plastic has gone brittle the tech still works. I’m so glad I kept a few CRT TVs
@wolfuniversalbreaker8516
April 16, 2024 at 9:13 am
Makes me want to shoot my tv.
@RedSiegfried
April 16, 2024 at 9:14 am
Yeah, the show was too expensive to make and Mattel didn’t want to or couldn’t afford to foot the bill anymore to sell those toys. But the technology was great and a lot of people don’t know you didn’t need the TV show or video tapes to play with the toys – they could also shoot flashing beams of light at each other to score hits so no video needed! There are still a lot of us Gen-Xers playing with Captain Power toys today, sometimes after a few repairs. Oh yeah, and that audio jack in the bottom of the ships? That wasn’t for headphones or for a power adapter. That was for a planned expansion pod you could add to the toys that never got released. The idea was that after you scored enough hits to “win” you would power up and the expansion pod would start working and make your ship more powerful in combat. (At least that’s what I’ve read about them.)
@groomerkiller3947
April 16, 2024 at 9:19 am
Soccer moms, they hate everything we like.
@AJ-rm7ie
April 16, 2024 at 9:21 am
8:03 Dude’s hair is wild! I dig it though 😂👍. I’m still going through the video but dang… I missed out on another cool 80’s thing (show/toys). I just got to the part about the haters… ****’em, seriously **** them. Even though Siskel and Ebert dissed Three Amigos my man liked this show… maybe he was joking on Larry Carson when he said it 🤔 anyway this was cool info. Its a shame the writers and Mattel couldn’t see eye to eye on some things, in my opinion they had something really cool here. Ok, those similarities to the Borg and Zordon threw me for a loop (add in the “All your base are belong to us” meme). Yeah, two shows could have been better to separate the kids/adult themes but I think overtime one would have cannabilized the other money wise that is. This IP needs a loving caretaker if its brought back also none of that “made for modern audiences” bull**** that is going around. Great video, peace!
@CallakSkytower
April 16, 2024 at 9:46 am
I totally remember when these were advertised.
@MotiviqueStudio
April 16, 2024 at 9:52 am
I love the Babylon 5 reference.
@710samurai
April 16, 2024 at 10:05 am
this sjow was awesome
@710samurai
April 16, 2024 at 10:09 am
have toys myself and a vid or 2 one of my favorite show as a kid just short lived….. would make a crazy tv show or game today with tell tail games
@RedSiegfried
April 16, 2024 at 10:18 am
Another thing about the Phantom Striker and Powerjet XT-7 toys … they could have used some re-engineering to make them a little more durable. Drop either one of them and you were virtually guaranteed to snap off a wing or an outrigger. The PowerJet XT-7 was particularly bad. It’s very common for them to have snapped-off outrigger posts or pylons. They should have tried to redesign it so the outriggers were molded as part of the wing and not attached in a way that’s easily breakable. And they didn’t exactly make it easy to replace the lightbulbs in the ships either, but I suppose they figured the toys wouldn’t last long enough for the bulbs to die.
@MrSchism
April 16, 2024 at 10:20 am
I had a couple Captain Power toys and loved them.
@user-hd8nv7uu9b
April 16, 2024 at 10:23 am
It was to early 😕😔 sorry
@wcdeich4
April 16, 2024 at 10:25 am
All very similar to Captain Future
@l1qu1dm3t4lIV
April 16, 2024 at 10:39 am
Man, in the 80’s, it seemed like angry moms where the only problem in the world..
Of course, I was aged 0 – 7 then.
Cypher was right, Ignorance is bliss
@Brambrew
April 16, 2024 at 11:25 am
Wait, this isn’t a Vsauce2 video? What’s Kevin doing here?
@GregoryD-if5xg
April 16, 2024 at 11:33 am
I remember this trash
@GregoryD-if5xg
April 16, 2024 at 11:34 am
I feel like, as a kid, I knew this was a gimmick
@Deiscimo
April 16, 2024 at 11:44 am
I’m 45 years old. I had it. I was still a child, so anybody younger than 39-40 most likely didn’t have it. But I could be wrong resale is a motherfucker lol
@phillbosque2183
April 16, 2024 at 12:11 pm
Awesome video! Thank you! I have fond memories of watching my cousins play this in the late 80s and thinking this is the coolest thing imaginable.
@mertalrooth01
April 16, 2024 at 1:34 pm
Gizmock trash?? @-@
@jandrem
April 16, 2024 at 2:11 pm
We had these toys back then. It was completely wild! The action figures were just about the size of GI Joes, so that was convenient.
@wes773105333
April 16, 2024 at 3:14 pm
Sounds like being involved with Mattell was a bad idea.
@user-McGiver
April 16, 2024 at 3:18 pm
”ANGRY MOMS” = KARENS…
@Datan0de
April 16, 2024 at 4:19 pm
I was a teenager when Captain Power came out, and LOVED the show! I had no interest in the toys, but would get up early on Sunday morning just to watch it. I’m a hardcore Terminator fan, so it was right up my alley, but the characters themselves were as compelling as the world. (Not giving any spoilers, but the last episode may be the first time a TV show made me tear up.) The fact that the main hero and main villain had a complex history, with Dread still deeply respecting Jonathan’s dad and still clearly retaining some of his humanity was an amazing thing that you wouldn’t expect to see in a “kid’s show”.
As an adult, after eBay became a thing and I started having some disposable income, I picked up an XT-7, a Phantom Striker, a few action figures, and the standalone VHS tapes. Nifty, but nothing special nowadays. But I still love the show. I have bootleg rips of the entire series and have rewatched the series a few times. Clunky costumes aside, it holds up very well. I also have a promo photo from the series, with the team in the Power Base, among the art and posters on the wall of the room I’m in right now.
It was a massively underrated, owing to trying to exist in two incompatible worlds at once: kid’s TV/extended toy commercial and deep sci-fi drama with some sophisticated themes. But I can’t imagine that having been done better. If you’ve seen the treatments for the proposed second and third seasons, it was going to get a lot darker and more complex.
By the way, the entire series is here on YouTube and easy to find. If you’ve never seen it, it’s worth checking out. It starts out pretty superficial, but gets more involved as it progresses. And the last episode hits hard.
@SicMetalMaggot4life
April 16, 2024 at 6:07 pm
Thank Ashens for me knowing about this beforehand, but I didn’t know the specifics.
@supme7558
April 17, 2024 at 7:50 am
No mom hated this sorry click bait
@PennWolfsSailingAdventures
April 17, 2024 at 9:52 am
There’s always a group of bored losers trying to ruin life for everyone else. Now they can get together even more thanks to the internet.
@leandrobenitez292
April 17, 2024 at 12:31 pm
my family owned a rental store and i had a VHS with a couple of episodes on it and i feel in love with the cool factor
later in life i found a few episodes uploaded at youtube and fell in love with the cheese factor
still love the campiness of the show, damn soccer moms, they ruin everything
@wolfeprocter
April 17, 2024 at 12:52 pm
I think I had one of the VHS tapes my parents bought from some thrift store. I didn’t have the toys, so I could only watch it and fantasize about fighting against tose bad guys is a starfighter.
@jean-francoisjoanisse1445
April 17, 2024 at 1:26 pm
Probably the greatest throwback video on the series. I LOVE Captain Power. One of the best shows I ever warched. Thanks for that. It was a great homage to it.
@Axpo25
April 17, 2024 at 1:27 pm
When I’m going to have kids, I’ll prefer to buy toys for them. Reason, some say that the TV, PC, and mobile gadget allegedly have ability to mind control. Well, rather than mind control, they negatively influence the kids with violent and gore videos which shown up on recommended timeline or they switched to crime news channel by accident when browsing for cartoons and animes.
But nowadays, the toys have become expensive. Their entire sets cost more than smartphone and notebook price, in which the parents can only afford 1 or 2 of them, depend of the number within set, like a set of toy consist of 4 or 5 toys but only able to buy either 1 or 2 of those.
@pitpunk7649
April 17, 2024 at 1:32 pm
This show was broadcasted in México city. It was one of my favorites, unfortunately I’ve never have the chance to buy the toys
@ahhcmon9604
April 17, 2024 at 1:34 pm
The tv show was on sunday morning which is a terrible time for a kids show they shouldve payed more for a Saturday morning show
@robertlane6431
April 17, 2024 at 1:41 pm
Capt Power was not the only toy like this. I remember this stuff from when I was a kid, but I didnt find them to be much fun. The other one was based on a western set in a wasland after some great cataclysm or some thing like that. I rememer that one of the characters was a half horse, half man thing that carried a 30-30 lever action rifle.
@sarge9376
April 17, 2024 at 2:00 pm
I remember the commercials
@cartertoshner1105
April 17, 2024 at 2:02 pm
i used to watch that show, my cousin had the toy, but i thought the show was just cool at the time.
@kenmarsiglia1254
April 17, 2024 at 2:06 pm
This brings back some memories! My brother and I both got this for Christmas when they came out
@seanbrazell7095
April 17, 2024 at 2:34 pm
There was a mid 90s toy/tv show thing like that, but I don’t know if it was related.
@saber4793
April 17, 2024 at 2:51 pm
I remember this show, I had a few toys and VHS, thank you for awakening this memories
@vikinglife6316
April 17, 2024 at 3:33 pm
My parents bought these for myself and step brother. Was a lot of fun.
@TheRussquatch
April 17, 2024 at 3:55 pm
I loved the show, and wanted more of the toys, I was a 10/11 year old kid in 1987
@TheRussquatch
April 17, 2024 at 4:01 pm
this is an awesome video … well done, and easy to listen to, and full of great info. vs. so many bland ones
@MartianBuddy
April 17, 2024 at 4:07 pm
That’s actually really cool and subtle enough to be a thing…interactive tv.
@trentpeterson3495
April 17, 2024 at 4:41 pm
Wait… I have that jet! How much are they worth now?
@123457chevy
April 17, 2024 at 5:20 pm
My cousin had this. I remember playing but until this video I could not remember what it was called.
@pryordvm
April 17, 2024 at 6:46 pm
I vividly remember seeing commercials for Captain Power when I was a kid, but I think they aired it in some graveyard timeslot because I never actually caught an episode. I never knew it had such an impressive pedigree!
@GusMix79
April 17, 2024 at 6:52 pm
I had these Jets and played with my cousin and friends. These were so much fun. I was living in Germany so I never heard of any negativity what was spread around. But I have never seen the Tv show.
Seeing now that creepy lady and the freaking Clinton’s in the background I understand where this came from.
That’s exactly the guys you imagine sucking fun out of every child’s life
@davidhudgens499
April 17, 2024 at 7:20 pm
I remember having the gray ship, it was fun. My parents didn’t care. It felt like a space version of duck hunt.
@Greenglowchef
April 17, 2024 at 8:05 pm
absolutely phenomenal article, thank you for such great writing.
@trilliangemini6435
April 17, 2024 at 8:18 pm
I had both jets and the interlocker they were wild and the figures would launch across the room
@MEMETV1
April 18, 2024 at 12:53 pm
This guy is a FANTASTIC story teller. This is the second video I’ve seen from him and they are fantastic!
@craigkirsch9699
April 18, 2024 at 12:59 pm
I loved the show. The toys never looked like something worth both time or money to get. Which was why I passed on them. It wasn’t like transformers or others that you could get and play with.
@hank2188
April 18, 2024 at 5:31 pm
So is Peggy’s group the reason kids cartoons suck now and days?
@PauloSilva-ep9ox
April 18, 2024 at 7:23 pm
19:55 – 21:54 – Captain Power was the Dune of your era!!
@usagifang
April 18, 2024 at 10:59 pm
Always the boomers crying over nothing about games, making their children cry about games of today. Its an endless cycle that must be forced to end.
@Ghost_Of_SAS
April 19, 2024 at 5:03 am
This show an toy line made me the lover of dark sci-fi that I am today.
@kingcodebra
April 19, 2024 at 6:15 am
Ah, it was the called the Interlocker, eh? I used to have one with the figure. It didnt have the base part so I had to flip the ‘trigger’ that was on the underside. The ejector only worked if you made it work yourself, lol. But it was still fun at the time. I think I had the 3rd tape and once made a friend like 8 years later who still had the first or second one. I never did see all 3 though, haha. I didn’t even know there were other tapes until then.
@andrewkeller2842
April 19, 2024 at 10:22 am
For me… this show came on right before (or right after) Star Trek Next Generation on Sunday mornings. I think it was right before… like 9:30am to 10am EST. I didn’t have any of the toys but thought the concept was interesting so I watched the show. Was not great but was kind of cool for a kid like me.
Why I remember such specifics aspects of something not that major in my life? I have no good answer for you. I can’t remember what I watched this past Sunday morning!!!
@KorokHaze93
April 19, 2024 at 3:44 pm
I csnt be mad they borrowed some gimmicks from other popular shows I mean it was a kids show they still do that to this day.
@yamatokira54
April 19, 2024 at 10:23 pm
I did watch the show in the 80’s and did in fact get the toy when i saw it in a store. But the toy you could shoot off to the side of the tv and gain unlimited points
@deaddegenerategeneration7441
April 20, 2024 at 3:31 am
Im so glad i found this need more kevin
@brettk9316
April 20, 2024 at 7:53 am
Holy cow I remember playing this now!
@tailgunner2
April 20, 2024 at 10:44 am
8:50
And yet, at the same time, we had games like Duck Hunt and more to the point, Operation Wolf on both arcade platforms and the NES that uses the light gun.
Also G.I.JOE was still going strong. I distinctly remember a couple of episodes that were DARK.
@thundercleess
April 20, 2024 at 10:46 am
As someone who grew up not only with both the XT7 and the I think it was called the Phantom ship? I really wanted Jonathan Powers to be related to me haha
@Jhakson
April 20, 2024 at 12:02 pm
I was really into these toys growing up. They weren’t the cheapest thing so I could only get one and a couple figures during a holiday but I gave those VHS tapes a workout. Remember kids, make a copy of the tapes right away and use the copies while storing the originals in a cool and dark place without humidity 😂.
@dbackscott
April 20, 2024 at 9:30 pm
I had three of the captain power toys back in the day. I tried watching the TV show, but got bored with it.
My mom didn’t care about the violence on TV angle.
Also, we had a ceiling fan with a recessed can light right above it. Apparently the fan on medium speed was created a flashing light pattern close enough that it triggered the “hit by enemy fire” routine.
@RyanBrown-hp3sc
April 21, 2024 at 5:21 am
Democrats. That was the problem.
@Lolindir_Fox
April 21, 2024 at 8:43 am
omg I think it was either my friend or I that had one of those power jets and I think I remembered the phantom striker too! I have faint memories of this and I believe there was a switch to where you could play VS against each other? and it was a standalone mode, I remember the ejecting cockpit.
@haileyshannon7548
April 21, 2024 at 11:20 am
The CGI looks really impressive for the 80s. Notice the Siskel and Ebert video showed a clip from Winky Dink and You which was an “interactive” kids show from the 1950s, based around the gimmick that you draw on the screen, but you needed to buy a “magic kit”, which included a plastic sheet, you stick on the screen, “magic” crayons and an eraser. A lot of kids got spankings because they didn’t have the kit and used an ink pen to scribble on the screen
@siralexander3359
April 21, 2024 at 11:33 am
☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕
@DashCourageous
April 21, 2024 at 10:11 pm
I had both planes for that show.
@DashCourageous
April 21, 2024 at 10:21 pm
i guess moms back then didn’t go after Photon.
@SpectrumAssociates
April 21, 2024 at 10:26 pm
So you’re saying YouTube was responsible for this?
It was all executives.
@jeremyrichard2722
April 21, 2024 at 10:47 pm
Well, I don’t doubt the accuracy of this as far as it goes, but I do think perhaps a couple pieces of the story are missing. I’m nearly 50 and I wanted to point a couple of things that need to be considered.
1. “Captain Power” was actually conceived during the “Laser Tag” boom and was designed as a competitive product. I actually had this when it came out, and the entire way it was being pushed was that it was laser tag someone could play themselves. What’s more it was priced more reasonably than other products, aimed at poor kids, despite the limited functionality. The basic gist of it being companies realizing that every kid in a neighbor hood couldn’t afford “Laser Tag” or “Photon” for what they wanted it to be, so with no one to play to, the kids with parents who could afford it, found that stuff sitting on shelves, and this was an answer to that and the income issue.
At around the same time they were also doing an even more premium spin off product (can’t remember which company) which were laser equipped action figures tied to “Marshal Bravestarr” and those were so expensive I don’t know anyone who actually had them, but they were a sort of cool idea for the time.
2. Perhaps the actual death of Captain Power was actually the simple fact that most homes only had one TV at the time. Everyone I knew who tried this had the basic issue that when you were home from school, your parents wanted to use the TV, so that meant you couldn’t typically use a game device like an early game deck or Captain Power, and of course remember that in addition to this being when the “laser fad” was dying the time you could use for something like this was being vied for by a video game system.
I know of more fights with Mom and Dad over TV use than the content of what was going to be done. It was an ill conceived product for this reason, and in some respects I think game consoles only survived by TVs getting cheap enough eventually where one could be put in a kid’s room just for this stuff, but in the 80s when Captain Power was a thing, not enough people could afford to do that for it to be viable.
3. While the anti-violence stuff was always out there, and being preached by boomers who consumed even more violent media, I think this was about the time when people were not listening to it so much, right before the coming “Extreme Content” boom of the 90s.
That said you had a sort of cultural disconnect between the boomers and greatest generation and Gen X (as this was my generation I know a fair bit about this) was that the boomers and greatest generation had very similar tastes in pop culture, where in Gen-X it was all fantasy stuff. Before Gen-X it was all “totally kiddy kiddy fantasy” or “you must abandon all that and embrace that only which is well grounded in reality”. Anything in between that was seen as the domain of weirdos. So the idea of any kind of serious science fiction on a high budget aimed at kids, or the ideas of teenagers still being interested in this and keeping an interest until adulthood was alien to them. A lot of the “manchild” stuff is cracks from their generation and misunderstood today.
At any rate things like westerns were the king of media, and so projects like “Marshal Bravestar” were an attempt to reconcile what the previous generations understood, with the tastes of the coming generation, and i think they never got over the fact that Gen X both won this, and tech kept advancing.
This kind of thing is a big part of why you’d see the criticisms of something like “Captain Power”, someone like Roger Ebert being fair was unusual as older people just hoped it was a weird bubble and would just go away and take all the computers and stuff with it. Most Boomers have done everything they could to pretend the world sort of froze in 1979. If you visit boomer retirement communities in places like Florida, such as “The Villages” you can really see that. Captain Power was sort of around the point a lot of them decided “I want no part of this” and brain froze themselves a few years earlier.
4. Having tried to watch the show when it was on, I seem to remember it got moved up from it’s time block on Saturday, and thus was on too late for “Kid’s Entertainment” and being shown about the time the adults would want the TV back. The whole idea of “Saturday Morning Cartoons” was that was when adults wouldn’t be watching stuff.
I believe they tried something similar to the “after school” block that later had successes like “Disney Afternoon”, “The Bionic Six”,and “COPS”, but it was before that caught on and sort of died there. I think that’s why the show was “lost media” as much as it could be, simply put it was a product that simply couldn’t be delivered to it’s core audience.
Also to be honest, much like political critics today, the anti-violence weirdos wound up losing because they didn’t even watch what they were talking about, which is why they always said things anyone who did watch the stuff knew weren’t true, or were intentionally devoid of context. Remember, among other things the shows they were criticizing were during an era where weapon blows were never landed, and every enemy pilot always ejected safely and so on. Other than a robot or something you pretty much won’t ever even see He-man hit anyone with his sword. Now the 90s later gleefully subverted this to an “extreme” especially in comics, but realize, when this stuff was vocal, the actual situation was one where they were say portraying “GI Joe” as this weird thing with people getting blown away constantly. I watched the show a lot, and I don’t think anyone actually ever got shot, ever. Both sides were blazing away, there were explosions, but in reality they were all making those Imperial Storm Troopers actually look good, I mean at least one of them tagged Leia in the arm on ROJ, I think that’s more than the “elite forces” on both sides of GI Joe ever achieved… at least in the cartoons. Almost feel sorry for the tax payers covering all that ammo given the level of accuracy.
Congrats to those who made it this far.
@allenharper2928
April 22, 2024 at 2:31 am
Man i had ’em all. Power Jet XT-7, the Phantom Striker BioDread fighter, the Interlocker Throne… Wore those tapes out i played it so much, especially the third one lol
@LanceSilvian-zp2hz
April 23, 2024 at 12:35 am
I had that toy when I was 10,,, man it sucked ,,
@maverick8u2
April 23, 2024 at 1:58 am
I thought the action figures were great.
@Graytail
April 23, 2024 at 9:42 am
I was just closing old videos and when i saw the preview this time something felt very off.. then I realised, the jet’s wingtip weapons are on **upside down**
@forbiddenera
April 23, 2024 at 9:55 am
I had one of the tapes as a kid but nothing else and was so confused about how a VHS was supposed to be interactive.
@forbiddenera
April 23, 2024 at 10:17 am
And now over 30 years later I finally understand WTF that tape was on about. Too bad I never had the toys 😢
@josephmarkese8563
April 23, 2024 at 10:59 am
The Nazi Christian groomers where looking for the next ” Satanic Panic.”
@josephmarkese8563
April 23, 2024 at 11:05 am
” Wrong Vaules.” Gee.. Where have I heared that before? why dose that sound familiar?
@josephmarkese8563
April 23, 2024 at 11:08 am
JMS was a writer on the show.. Of course it was Good.
J. Michael Straczynski’s Wrote the 89s childhood. All the shows.. with all the remberable episodes odd are there his
@josephmarkese8563
April 23, 2024 at 11:14 am
Yeaaap.. They where writings Sci Fiction.. nit a kids show.
Then again.. it was on at 7am on Sunday in Chicago.
@josephmarkese8563
April 23, 2024 at 11:17 am
Lord Dread was a Proto Borg. TNG has said he was inspiration.
@josephmarkese8563
April 23, 2024 at 11:18 am
Woot!!!
@johnv9818
April 23, 2024 at 8:35 pm
I remember the tv show
@cosmicwartoad2587
April 24, 2024 at 11:22 am
There was no more violence in a Captain Power episode than there was in of family action shows at the time.
@MrMew
April 24, 2024 at 3:52 pm
It’s cute that you had Christmas and presents and stuff. When i was a child, what i got for Christmas was abandonment for 5 days and being hungry. Then when the blues and yellows came, they realized the truth. I’d been left for good. No future for me! have a great day.
@Maj-zx4xd
April 25, 2024 at 12:17 pm
I remember getting this as a kid for my bday. I was so confused because the video never changed
@justme6591
April 25, 2024 at 2:02 pm
A wolverine tshirt!!! Awsome!!!! My 6 year old has been growing up with Deadpool , Wolverine etc as his favorites! No nt from x rated stuff, from lego games n models twice his age! Been doing Lego Dimensions for 6 months, now knows every film, cartoon from the 8o/90s!
@systemofadownsyndrome7715
April 25, 2024 at 9:12 pm
I had Captain Power. We got all the discount toys mostly
@user-vf4ib6yf2r
April 26, 2024 at 5:39 am
I remember trying it at some point at home but i dont remember having it wtf? 😂😂😂
@Reb101gaming
April 26, 2024 at 10:22 am
I had this toy. Loved it so much.
@J2982able
April 26, 2024 at 11:00 am
01:48 heeey I had that shirt!!
@SteelWolf13
April 26, 2024 at 12:43 pm
I had a power jet and watch the shows at it aired. Fun stuff.
@Exaltation-heliacal
April 26, 2024 at 10:59 pm
I had one. It ruled
@deathsee
April 27, 2024 at 3:13 am
first, you are completely wrong, it was blacklisted, I had it and a lot of games were indeed played by young adults, nintendo and genisis and a lot of games were sold in large numbers to young adults, I know for fact that the over all majority of the biggest games in the early 2000s and beyond, had tons of young adults playing
@deathsee
April 27, 2024 at 3:15 am
and again, it just was not out there, those groups you are talking about, got stations to not show it let alone not care what time slot they gave them, do real research, it was blacklisted and a whole lot of stores did not even carry it
@waninoko87
April 27, 2024 at 10:01 am
Sounds like Kyle’s mom rallying up all the other moms.
@MrDEMarq
April 27, 2024 at 1:22 pm
Yeah, my dad and I watched this show together, but I wasn’t allowed to get any of the toys due to my mom..
..and the fucking 700 Club.
@louyork8379
April 27, 2024 at 5:17 pm
I was born in 1980 and had He-Man and Super Friends but I’ve never heard of this. Like how?!
@TabithaStar
April 28, 2024 at 5:18 am
Holy fuck I had a Captain Power, thanks for this reminder
@TolarianUniversity
April 28, 2024 at 10:11 am
Omg I haven’t thought about this thing in 30 years. I had one and I remember it being amazing as a kid
@Duhjokersinhell
April 28, 2024 at 10:44 am
i had this set as a kid and it really wasnt fun at all
@DVSSupreme
April 28, 2024 at 5:13 pm
I absolutely had these when I was a kid, I had completely forgotten about them till I came across the video!
@randomjunks1198
April 28, 2024 at 7:42 pm
I remember that
@MADmidway
April 28, 2024 at 8:27 pm
Gee thanks maw
@AttractionSpot
April 29, 2024 at 12:01 am
Great video but next time wear a different shirt like a solid color or at least a shirt with a lot wider stripes. When your camera caprturs your shirt patterns on your shirt are danciningnand flickering everywhere and it was very distraction lol.
But I love the video otherwise!
@nicholasyoung2867
April 29, 2024 at 6:51 am
I remember Captain Power. I had the 2 jets. I still remember the opening bit of the live action VHS that came with them. I don’t remember this show particularly being the target of the parent groups, but that definitely was a big thing back in the 80s.
@clseairsppt
April 29, 2024 at 11:54 am
Lol I had all of that. Wow
@clseairsppt
April 29, 2024 at 11:57 am
They had ones that you could shoot light or infrared or something at the other kids toy and it would blow up or eject the character. I think they even had reflective targets that if it hit the target the toy would make an explosive sound.
@clseairsppt
April 29, 2024 at 11:58 am
I forgot how cool this was in an era when multi player shooters didn’t exist.
@9TalesGames
April 29, 2024 at 3:01 pm
Should have been an anime
@TenshiR
April 29, 2024 at 7:13 pm
OMG!!!! I had those toys and loved that show! I had the PowerJet XT-7 and the Power On Energizer. My cousin had the Phantom Striker.🤯
@ronaldgood3545
April 29, 2024 at 7:30 pm
🙇🏼♂️ “I’m pretty damn sure that “THIS!!” was the (Official) date, When women in America started losing their “#@$?#!” MINDS!!”
@hilcho
April 29, 2024 at 8:34 pm
My cousin had it lol
@tyttuut
April 29, 2024 at 10:00 pm
14:29 remember that TVs can’t display infrared
@dstyd
April 29, 2024 at 10:16 pm
Both my brothers got a jet fighter unit while I got the ground unit.
@ManuFortis
April 30, 2024 at 1:11 am
When I was still just a kid, those same (pretty sure) angry mothers were also protesting up a storm over tv shows like Power Rangers, Batman, Ninja Turtles, etc. So to answer your question who’s fault it all was… Sorry mothers, but you’re to blame. Why?
Because even if Mattel and the people working on Captain Power kind of goofed it on their first attempt, the fact their first attempt never got a chance to properly get any positive reception made it so that any subsequent attempts were doomed from the get go. What could have become more favourable for those mothers, instead got pushed out entirely, to be replaced by other shows that you rightfully point out basically borrowed/ripped off concepts entirely from Captain Planet.
And those mothers never succeeded on those following shows. They continued to air, while everyone mocked them. Even my own mother thought it was silly years later when we talked about it all, once upon a time ago. Ironically, she was on the mothers side at first; thinking power rangers was too violent because I was trying to imitate the moves they would do, etc. Looking back on it, she found it to be silly; because of course kids are going to imitate the tv show. Doesn’t matter which one, they’ll imitate them all. For better or worse. Something proven adequately by South Park later on.
@nvfury13
April 30, 2024 at 5:44 am
Still have all those toys somewhere.
@curtisnewton895
April 30, 2024 at 7:29 am
stop giving credits to these movie critics, these cunts destroyed Carpenter’s career , dismissing The Thing
@DUMBODEATHDEALER
April 30, 2024 at 8:04 am
Is captain power the original formula for the power rangers?
@ruckus8378
April 30, 2024 at 11:31 am
I actually had a hand-me-down of the power jet when I was a kid. It was beat to hell and missing all the extras by the time it got to me.
@CaptainGuy42
April 30, 2024 at 12:11 pm
This is the Jodorowsky’s Dune of TV sci-fi amazing 😮
@IGi83
April 30, 2024 at 3:43 pm
I am from Bulgaria and in the early 90s, when I was 10 years old, together with my grandfather we watched this series on television. It aired in the evening and I can say that we both enjoyed it equally, the 90’s kid with Gemboy, Atari and Sega and his elderly communist grandfather!
@no-brakes
April 30, 2024 at 6:49 pm
I remember I had the white one n my bro had the black one, I think we used to shoot eachothers jets. Got them from toy’s r us in Kuwait. N the show was playing on KTV2 channel in late 80s.
@christopherlacher3544
April 30, 2024 at 11:22 pm
Just because physical Media of this property may be hard to aquire, I’m sure if your a digital media PIRATE you can find it!!! LOL
@korg13
May 1, 2024 at 12:38 am
I got both ships for my sons to play with , it was fun and entertaining.
@shaunhilts9113
May 1, 2024 at 6:34 am
It was an awesome toy and tv show. I had 3 vhs tapes and the jet
@PerfectSoundRS
May 1, 2024 at 1:45 pm
3D animated back in 87?????????? WTF????????????????????????????????????????
@travisbeem9906
May 1, 2024 at 2:14 pm
I remember being a Captain Power fanatic. Then it all just went away. I have always been an action figure guy. Vehicles were something I could care less about and made for great storage for action figures. Captain Power broke that. Even MASK couldn’t break that. Captain Power needs to be dusted off and brought back to life. I’m looking at you Ryan Reynolds.
@Marinealver
May 1, 2024 at 2:22 pm
My parents could never afford the toys.
@tikkorome5752
May 1, 2024 at 3:00 pm
THAT’S NOT HOW IT WORKS:
30Hz is a low bassy SOUND-wave and 15Hz is a subsonic soundwave. Photocells detect visible light, so that information is clearly wrong.
30MHz would be relatively near the radiowave frequency broadcasting the channel to an analog television in the 1980s, also not something a photocell would detect.
I’m guessing you likely read about this somewhere online in something written by someone who didn’t know what they were talking about. You broke down the simple math for ½ cycle per second, so it wasn’t a typo or whatever; just faulty information.
I’m not an expert on Captain Power, but I am an expert on waves, as the physics of sound and light are at the core of my education in college and my profession ever since.
@GermsOilCotten
May 2, 2024 at 7:19 am
I loved that game. And my mom seemed happy I wasn’t bothering her.
@rupey8625
May 2, 2024 at 9:20 am
I still have one of the action figures, but I never knew what franchise it came from until now.
@Jasonarmijo
May 2, 2024 at 10:22 am
Damn… I totally forgot about Cap power… I was watching reruns in the early 90s… Crazy how selective our memories can be.
@disciplebill
May 2, 2024 at 2:31 pm
Loved it. A couple neighborhood friends and I had toys. I had the phantom striker. Reminded me of the SR-71 Blackbird, so I loved it even more.
@osirisonophoris7086
May 2, 2024 at 11:21 pm
Watch now you did this Mattel will try to reboot it
@osirisonophoris7086
May 2, 2024 at 11:21 pm
Well maybe even Disney
@kennethbrunstein6407
May 3, 2024 at 9:00 am
i watched this and had the ship to shoot the tv
@TheRealNameless1
May 3, 2024 at 11:49 am
Wow, we both were into the same things. Like you, I never heard of Captain Power. What I find funny is the backlash about “getting into gun fights with your tv” in the exact same year Operation Wolf came out on the NES. So a few “battles” between a few episodes is bad, but mowing down troops, apcs and helicopters with a zapper is given a pass. Makes sense.
@techformsmaster930
May 4, 2024 at 1:53 pm
It looks like the technology didn’t actually require the ugliness of the targets. It just needed them to flash. The reason for them being so intrusively colored was probably just to make it easier to distinguish what to shoot for the player, when ultimately, it didn’t really need that to function. That’s a real shame that they did what they did to it.
@scotshabalam2432
May 5, 2024 at 3:42 pm
Back in the day I saved the VHS from my childhood and it became a college LSD tape in my circle.
@user-xw2hz9fp9q
May 5, 2024 at 5:59 pm
80s Karens killed a great idea
@GorVala
May 5, 2024 at 7:35 pm
Captain America related to Captain Power?
@eroseland
May 6, 2024 at 12:25 am
Man, I think I watched every episode of that show.
@redskeleton6020
May 6, 2024 at 10:04 pm
I had that.
@chris-jonsimmons3098
May 7, 2024 at 12:02 am
This really takes me back. I still have much of my Captain Power toys, even to this day! so few people I talk to knew about it. SO great to see you bringing it all up here! 🙂
@unapologeticart45
May 7, 2024 at 3:54 am
I had both jets when I was a kid.
@Banner18MindTrip
May 7, 2024 at 9:10 am
If they kept selling the base, the toy would have an outline on a piece of paper that says, move the base here and it is saved! Now you can playwith it instead of it being blown up on the show!
@Bacon420
May 7, 2024 at 7:17 pm
I was 13 in 88… I told my mom I needed it after seeing all the damn commercials and she bought it. Nobody I know had one. I only had the one gunship and the one VHS tape haha.. our walmart never had others.
@CodyRushDriving
May 8, 2024 at 12:04 am
I got a Captain Power lunchbox back in the 80s and I still have it on my shelf. I never got the interactive toys (mom wouldn’t let me lol…) but I’m glad I have a piece of the show from back then.
@ruperttheking666
May 8, 2024 at 12:47 am
Oh man, this was awesome and brought me back! 1981 italian “kid” here and I loved that show when it was aired in Italy in the late 80’s!! I even convinced my mom to get me the toy to interact with the show!
@cypresscustoms
May 8, 2024 at 9:19 pm
I had one of these back in the day. It was fun for a short time but grew old very quick. I found myself going back to my Atari 2600 in short time.
@YeisenAchitel
May 9, 2024 at 2:31 am
first you let women control morailty, now the children are confused which bathroom to use…
@catnium
May 9, 2024 at 12:29 pm
i loved this show as a kid, the glowing stuff was what made it cool, i did not even have the toys
@johndagenais2565
May 10, 2024 at 8:27 pm
Yep i remember watching capt power!😂
@CAMELFLAM
May 10, 2024 at 9:46 pm
I had this, but could never find the show, and gave up quickly. The ship was really nice, though, like you said G. I. Joe had better quality, and articulation. All I had was the VHS it came with.
@herzogsbuick
May 10, 2024 at 9:54 pm
that was unexpectedly awesome. not unlike Captain Power, apparently.
@jbsmith86
May 10, 2024 at 10:03 pm
I had one of these toys as a kid and absolutely loved it
@19Vineyard
May 11, 2024 at 2:43 pm
Power on.
@chincemagnet
May 11, 2024 at 5:44 pm
When I was a kid I thought Captain Power was one of the coolest toys ever. Unfortunately it didn’t last long, although I recorded a lot of the episodes on VHS to replay later. This must have been 35 years ago, obviously I don’t have those anymore.
@terrypratt9722
May 11, 2024 at 10:37 pm
💯 Promo>SM
@stefankramer5088
May 12, 2024 at 5:43 pm
Buy the german DVD. It’s avalable by Pidax.
@TheKeithterry
June 13, 2024 at 2:45 pm
I have only ever seen “Raid on Volcania”, I got the VHS at the same time as the toys.
@guitfidle
June 13, 2024 at 5:15 pm
Wow, I was in middle school when this came out, and I have NEVER heard of it before. I was big time in to sci-fi, but maybe slghtly older than the age rating for the toys, but the show sounds like it would be right up my alley.
@BlackRavenRiot
June 14, 2024 at 1:56 pm
I looooooved this when I was a kid. Sometimes I would just watch the VHS tapes.
@ogungou9
June 14, 2024 at 1:59 pm
This show arrived in France in 1988 on the fifth channel. I watched some episodes of this show but I found it pretty boring and ugly.
@DominicRyanOsborne
June 15, 2024 at 3:07 pm
Actually had one of the action figures and never knew what it was until YouTube started talking about it. Pre-Internet TV was like this bottomless pit of crappy but special shows barely anyone ever heard of.
@DominicRyanOsborne
June 15, 2024 at 3:33 pm
Interesting there’s no mention of Master Chief
And the story is so much like catastrophic failures from game publishers
@fleshanthos
June 16, 2024 at 9:28 pm
Moms were always overprotective restrictive killjoy dingbats. Boys aren’t girls; we don’t need to be treated the same.
@Michael.RedKnight
June 16, 2024 at 9:39 pm
Remember: D&D was evil, Pokémon is evil – if kids like it, it’s evil
@adcaptandumvulgus4252
June 19, 2024 at 12:18 pm
Damn I forgot this was a thing
@PrometheusFreedom
June 19, 2024 at 7:36 pm
I had this… it was AWESOME. I think we got the ship and the videos from a garage sale
@Ferizu
June 19, 2024 at 9:50 pm
Sweet Jesus! I couldn’t believe my eyes. So this was the show that awesome futuristic black plane was. I didn’t knew it, since that show wasn’t aired were I live.
Thanks for the video Popular Science, it made me recall some great memories of my infancy.
Also, thank you mom, for gifting me that awesome Captain Power Phantom Striker, can’ believe it has been 35 years since that Christmas , really we got some awesome toys back in the 80’s.
@JP-eb3oz
June 20, 2024 at 3:28 pm
I remember watching this with my mom, we never missed an episode. Unfortunately, we never did find the toys to go along with it.
@tstahler5420
June 20, 2024 at 8:09 pm
“Shoot your TV, like Elvis on a bender” 😂
@Shinpan16
June 21, 2024 at 1:11 am
Has no one thought this is Halo?
@leerubin4303
June 22, 2024 at 9:23 am
I was 11 at the time. Never heard of it either.
@OddEyeGuy
June 22, 2024 at 10:27 am
Its just bizarre to me that moms were outraged over basically duck hunter lol
@scottgarner1724
June 22, 2024 at 3:33 pm
Mattel did actually experiment with IR technologies via Masters of the universe in the form of the Beam blaster and Artilleray toys.
This concept was going to utalised with a line of He man toys that involved power crystals.
When this fell through the tec was used for the Captain power concept instead.
@Chilling4Shillings
June 22, 2024 at 5:00 pm
The kid across the street had it. Thats why i clicked on your video. I was 8 years old and obviously i never heard of any drama about it. I was a child i didn’t watch the news
@corwinberry5925
June 22, 2024 at 5:26 pm
Cocaine. Mattel and Goddard probably were like “Hey what can we do with all these thousands of power crystals we were making. We still have ALL the chips and IR recievers”
“Captain power”.
I remember the hype we kids had over those power stones coming out. Then they never did but this thing did. This was basically consolidation prize mode but the show was cool because it was a better version of battlestar tbh.
@ltldevl
June 22, 2024 at 7:36 pm
How did I never hear of this?
@KurtSeager
June 22, 2024 at 9:51 pm
I used to have that when I was like 8 or 9 years old. But it never worked if I didn’t care. I just like watching the video over and over
@007REAPER007
June 23, 2024 at 4:32 am
Moms of the 80’s would literally die if they saw kids playing COD loll.
@MrMybiglongbananna
June 23, 2024 at 5:28 am
great job on this video, vsauce 3 i miss … keep up theys great video my friend….
@FoxyPercival714
June 23, 2024 at 11:55 am
Reminds me of something they did in Japan with Kamen Rider Black.
Basically, certain scenes where the hero would shout “Rider PUNCH!” or “Rider KICK” would cause the screen to flash.
The flashes of the attack would be picked up by the toy to cause the device to flash by those sensors like you described.
@msk0036
June 23, 2024 at 2:19 pm
Thank you for this video, it is very informative and fun to watch! I was doing a toy design school project and I whish I have seen this video earlier, it inspired me a lot!
@malindner
June 23, 2024 at 2:33 pm
This was fantastic. Thank you!
@briank.2650
June 24, 2024 at 12:28 pm
I had to barrow the captain planet toy from a friend. 😂
@CAD_GEEK
June 24, 2024 at 1:31 pm
in 1987 I won the toy jet through a Pepsi promotion. I remember being shot numerous times by the weather report on the news.
@AtaeHone
June 24, 2024 at 2:15 pm
I’ve not only heard of this show, but actually saw (and loved it!) as a kid. Back in the 90s, Russian TV was flooded with semi-randomly picked up syndication of American animated and live action shows, and Captain Power was among them. It had a stable later afternoon timeslot which made it easy to catch after school, it had badass suit designs and while I don’t recall much of the actual plot, I do remember enjoying my time spent with it.
(And as for shows that died so others would succeed, look no further than Farscape which was smothered to make way for Firefly in the TV schedules, and what happened to Furefly itself – and then try to fit all the shows and movies and games influenced by these two on an sheet of A4 paper at microfiche scale)
@Germs4982
June 24, 2024 at 4:25 pm
Dude I totally had one of these as a child.
@tilasole3252
June 24, 2024 at 4:39 pm
I’ve been looking for those unstoppable metal monstrosities. I thought it was from Photon, but apparently not. Would give Skynet a run for it’s money.
@tilasole3252
June 24, 2024 at 4:42 pm
1:38 damn near gave that boy a close shave 😅
@tilasole3252
June 24, 2024 at 6:25 pm
23:50 😱😱😱¡¡¡¡¡SPOILER ALERT!!!!! 😱😱😱
geeze…
This video was pretty good not to give too much away until then.
@tilasole3252
June 24, 2024 at 8:15 pm
4:14 the pilot ejects on it’s own or gets flicked out of the cockpit by the user? 😅
@tilasole3252
June 24, 2024 at 8:23 pm
9:38 you doing a starvation fast to protest? Ok 🍞🥐🥖🥯🧇🥞🍳🥚🧀🥓🥩🍗🍖🍔🌭🥪🥨🍟🍕🌮🌯🥙🧆🥘🍝🥫🥣🥗🍲🍛🍜🦪🦞🍣🍤🥡🍚🍱🥟🍢🍙🍘🍥🍡🥠🥮🍧🍨🍦🥧🍰🍮🎂🧁🍭🍬🍫🍩🍪🍯🍿🧃🍵☕🧉🍺🍻🥂🍾🍷🥃🍸🍹🍶🍽️ 🤓
@tilasole3252
June 24, 2024 at 8:33 pm
16:44 First impressions, hence the name, mean something. Captain Planet and Power Rangers were both full on kids shows. Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future was not. So it was a bad title. Imagine Terminator franchise being called that. 😅
@tilasole3252
June 24, 2024 at 8:41 pm
18:28 Power Rangers was based on Kyōryū Sentai Jūrenjā, which was based on Super Santai. And Super Santai was from the 70’s
@Pesticide00
June 25, 2024 at 5:57 am
DANG IT, I had this, never really played with it, and have no clue where it went.
@Ramdileo_sys
June 25, 2024 at 9:11 am
Considering what Disney is doing with our children.. and what they are shoving in our kids minds…… how desperately we need Peggy Charren organization back 😐….
@tankart150
June 25, 2024 at 11:00 am
I think if Mattel got the rights to Ghostbusters and used their toy remote technology for a proton pack it could’ve done well.
@alphaomega1089
June 25, 2024 at 2:50 pm
You can’t have your cake and eat it. They saw Star Wars and got greedy! Adult or children? I wouldn’t let a pre-teen play with this toy when linked to a gritty sci-fi show. That knife scene was horrific even as an adult looking for light entertainment. They should have dropped the toys! Nowadays children are exposed to 18-rated stuff and suffer for it mentally. They are insane!
@ChristopheJOUAN-qd3xu
June 25, 2024 at 5:37 pm
I live in France and we were able to discover “Captain Power” through the “La 5 (The 5th)” TV channel which was the first private TV company in France.
I wasn’t really interested by the Captain Power’s line of toys but by the dark story of the series itself with its war against the machines.
I was quite surprised by the very unusual mix between live-action, special effects, futuristic design, CGIs, and interactivity.
The series was short lived in France, but still let its trace in the popular culture of this era because of its very unusual structure and design.
Thank you very much for your video who tells AT LAST the story behind this very mysterious SF series! 🤩💯👍
@docwhogr
June 25, 2024 at 5:39 pm
that explains a song’s lyrics “my cock is like liono your cock is like captain power”
@Tam.I.am.
June 25, 2024 at 10:46 pm
LMBO. I loved this crazy show as a kid.
@juggawest
June 26, 2024 at 3:29 am
I loved that show don’t aim jet at charge base… Make a new version working with old toys all anime if it cost less
@churchking2527
June 26, 2024 at 9:13 am
I actually remember this show, they must have played repeats at some point in the 90’s…
@samuelmeasa9283
June 26, 2024 at 1:03 pm
Captain Power aired where I lived in Kentucky on an independent channel out of Louisville at 5:00PM. Same time my parents had us sitting down for dinner.
@lukylex
June 26, 2024 at 7:10 pm
Peggy Cherry is the Beta Karen
@snowman454007
June 27, 2024 at 10:36 am
Amazingly Done! Loved this show!
@pachinko32
June 27, 2024 at 2:41 pm
Back in the he day, Capitan Power was pretty huge here in Italy!
@absolutmauser
June 27, 2024 at 3:26 pm
Hell yeah i was 8 in 1987. Lets get em boys!
@krozareq
June 28, 2024 at 1:50 am
“It’s the year 2147. The machines have already won.” It’s going to take that long?
@sunnymon1436
June 28, 2024 at 6:26 am
You see the Power Jet early in the first episode being flown by Pilot – it picks them all up after a mission.
@ITJon
June 28, 2024 at 4:43 pm
Thank you for rebooting a memory that was nearly wiped off this organic drive!
@d.l.9517
June 28, 2024 at 7:56 pm
Jessica Stern “corporal Pilot Chase” was also the hot shuttle pilot in the movie Armageddon. I’d like to think it was a prequal to Captain Power lol
@evwaldron
June 30, 2024 at 2:50 pm
The two ships also functioned as a laser-tag set.
@danielcipollaii9461
June 30, 2024 at 5:06 pm
I friggin loved this show as a kid! It came on super early, at 530am! I couldn’t wait to see Soaron digitize people! Lol
@thelaughingmanofficial
June 30, 2024 at 7:34 pm
To make a long story short: 80’s moms ruined everything.
Also it looks like you forgot to mention the Power Jet and Phantom Striker could be used VS each other in a sort-of laser-tag like way with each ship being the players gun, and just like with the TV show once you lost all 5 points your pilot gets ejected.
@loftlegacy
July 2, 2024 at 1:14 am
In the UK they showed the show, mainly in the middle of the night, but no toys.
@KrGsMrNKusinagi0
July 2, 2024 at 11:35 am
I had the captain power xj7 or whatever and the VHS tape lol..I Found it fun and to be honest no different than later games like Dragons lair, time gal, etc, etc
@SacKingJOSER916
July 3, 2024 at 5:43 am
Sacramento California Sundays at 5 am
@screenapple1660
July 3, 2024 at 10:32 am
I remember saturadya morning captain power and start shoot the screen and woke up my dad. lol…… my dad tried to get some sleep. yes, I heard lot of parents complained about captain power. video game and golden age toys. it was fun time back than when there was no internet.
@PeeNCee
July 3, 2024 at 12:05 pm
I won an XT-7 from local Channel 45 where u had to sent a post card to enter. Sadly, it arrived the same day as a less than desirable visit at a parent teacher conference and I didn’t get to play with it right away 😂
@watermenjohn4574
July 4, 2024 at 5:47 am
I had the Cpt Power toys. They “disappeared” like so many of my toys. My mom hated toys and happiness 😅
@StephenPhillips-te8yv
July 5, 2024 at 6:44 am
Loved these toys. The Captain Power shoe was so ahead of its time. It was too good for Saturday mornings.
@dashfatbastard
July 5, 2024 at 10:59 am
The Captain Power SFX team went on to do Babylon 5.
@paranormalsoup
July 5, 2024 at 11:08 am
I was a 8 yr old boy in 1987 and had this toy 😂
@paranormalsoup
July 5, 2024 at 11:13 am
I think I was the only kid who had this toy in 1987. Don’t remember but I think it was a birthday gift. I remember the box it came and all. I had the figurines and the ship. I remember years later going through all the mass of toys I had and wondering where this toy came from. I remembered playing only a couple times with the tv and it sucked. Never remember the tv show but just trying to get my ship to work with the tv.
@cgats777
July 5, 2024 at 12:52 pm
I had this!!!! didnt work well but always loved the concept.
@RichiePajooh-r8i
July 6, 2024 at 7:49 pm
omfg i remember this shit ha ha. i would get up close and cheat lol
@boomcat3722
July 6, 2024 at 10:34 pm
Karen’s of all decades and generations ruined everything. I remember this being my favorite Christmas toy and I’d watch it over and over. Only had the first training video and I turned out pretty non violent. As a Star Wars fan, this was easy to love.
@ComsicRanger-xg7cz
July 7, 2024 at 12:46 am
Yes, the Captain Power Show was Awesome and the Powerjet was great to play with.
@LRon-ef7ni
July 7, 2024 at 6:55 pm
Captain Power was some of my favorite toys and show.
@user-of5fd2ks8d
July 7, 2024 at 10:34 pm
TAKE IT DOWN A NOTCH you over dramatic stage starved attention shouting over-acting wanna-be youtube nobody. LOL
@osuuma6935
July 8, 2024 at 9:30 pm
I was fascinated by the potential of this technology, and bought an Interlocker just to play with it. Instead of tones, it had a digital counter to track your score.
As I recall, there were three opportunities for interactivity in each episode. During the first 5 minutes there was a battle to set the plot of the episode. Later around the midpoint there was another battle, to build suspense. And finally the closing credits had a Star Wars trench run-esque sequence that was surprisingly fun. Watching an episode, that was very much adult-oriented with dark themes, you could clearly see J Michael Strazinski’s style that would be very evident in Babylon 5.
@jamarmiller
July 9, 2024 at 2:27 am
this was awesome, I love it, I cant believe it wasnt more successful. I think I had the entire collection other than the big base.
@jessewalters5361
July 9, 2024 at 6:28 am
I remember this game/show. It was really hard to hit the enemies and easy to take damage.
@I_leave_mean_comments
July 9, 2024 at 6:49 am
You speak so weirdly slow and choppy that I NEED to watch this at 2x speed just to not get douchechills.
@thrrax
July 9, 2024 at 7:03 am
One of the best shows ever.
Funny thing saying that a show glorified violence to kids, and at the same time the most sold boy toys in the ’80s were mock weapons, army men and military action figures… But I guess CP wasn’t directing the kids towards “serving” their country in the military.
@shawngancasz5967
July 9, 2024 at 9:38 am
Both my brother and I had these. Totally forgot about this toy
@khaosterminator
July 9, 2024 at 12:57 pm
hahaha i loved this tv show
@seande1855
July 9, 2024 at 1:08 pm
Think the conservative religious right of the 80’s were crazy ? Let Christian Nationalists take over America and Sci-Fi Fantasy will be illegal .
@nomadchad8243
July 9, 2024 at 7:07 pm
I remember that show , Im from canada so maybe it ran longer here but it was very confusing for an 8 year old. the show was neat but I didnt have the laser gun and I would wonder if I had the laser would the show change story line if I could shoot the bad guys.
@Felinius
July 9, 2024 at 8:06 pm
I had a friend back in elementary school that had these, and I thought them soooo damn cool.
@AnonymousFreakYT
July 10, 2024 at 1:53 am
19:40 – Kids needed to know when it aired – but that kid in Sacramento wouldn’t care one bit when it was airing in St. Louis. Syndicated TV was a complete patchwork. Because TV was a patchwork. It didn’t matter if a show aired at one time in Seattle and at another in Syracuse. It was irrelevant that it was on Saturday in Secaucus, and Sunday in San Antonio.
Kids almost universally never had any regular communication with other kids outside their own town. The internet wasn’t something people had in their homes, and “long distance charges” were a thing on home land lines. I would have gotten slapped for calling someone who lived just 20 miles away too often. (A cousin whose house was *JUST* outside our telephone company’s service area. So it was long distance.)
When a friend moved away to another state in second grade? Yeah, I never talked to them again. They might as well have moved to the moon. (Well, until Facebook came around a couple decades later, when I reconnected, and we realized we didn’t know each other at all, and stopped interacting with each other within a couple months.)
Back to the point – “stability of schedule” only mattered *within each city*. And I do remember Captain Power airing at the same time every week. (I don’t remember precisely when it was, but I know it was after school on a weekday.)
@richardthornton77
July 10, 2024 at 2:03 am
great documentary thanks
@AllenSpencer-o1f
July 10, 2024 at 10:01 am
I actually remember the tv show it aired on channel 5 in l.a. area on sat mornings
@NickelCityPixels
July 10, 2024 at 1:01 pm
I love the reasoning lol. Captain Planet did OK and Power Rangers was popular so that means Captain Power is a fine title! Dumb. So dumb. My favorite show? Guy Simpsons Family Southpark. Favorite food? Hamburger ice cream.
@meierb75
July 10, 2024 at 1:14 pm
I remember the show. My son still plays with my toys. The fighter still works.
@Rumnhammer
July 10, 2024 at 6:00 pm
Jesus! Their heads would have exploded if there had of been Call of Duty back then…….
@Jinzouningen36
July 10, 2024 at 6:03 pm
Yep i vaguely remember this show. I was probably 10 or 11 when it came out. never had the toy though
@hugh_jasso
July 10, 2024 at 6:23 pm
They should have kept the series on VHS and dropped a new one every few months.
@ninedragons1
July 10, 2024 at 11:28 pm
I had a Powerjet and my cousins also got Powerjets and Phantom Strikers. We played in a dark room together lighting it up with laser fire. It was so much.
@djwak59
July 11, 2024 at 6:54 am
I never had any of the toys but I did watch the show. I’ll admit, I was NOT a little kid at the time, I was twenty something. I had to record it on VHS because it was on TV when I was at work !
Here’s a fun fact, the actor who played Tank, I can’t remember his name, had some kind of friendship with Arnold Schwarzenegger and I believe had a role in Conan the Barbarian and I think some smaller walk on parts parts in some of Arnold’s other movies.
@MrJohndoakes
July 11, 2024 at 9:07 am
14:00 You would see this same disconnection with another ’80s show/toy line, the “Wheeled Warriors” where the cartoon that was made for the toys by Dic of Canada (“Jayce and Wheeled Warriors”) had little to do with the modular/interchangeable toy vehicles Mattel produced. And the wild thing was that all storybooks and comics based on the property used the TV show for ideas, because the actual toys had none of these characters as figures (at least for the heroes, the villains were all monster plant trucks)…..and I’ve never heard an explanation why it was like this.
@michaelcowley5726
July 11, 2024 at 10:57 am
I loved the show and I had the toy in question. I vividly remember the captain playing chess on his computer while having a conversation and he plays 1.e4 and the person says aggressive move! can he responds its the only way to win.
@hiddenbeings8687
July 11, 2024 at 12:08 pm
I remember having the XT-7, Interlocker, and the Power Station. I loved the show, but i remember the targets in the tv show always being at odd times of episodes. Weren’t the toys also able to fire at each other so you could play without the show?
@DjG7979
July 11, 2024 at 1:10 pm
I used to pay with these toys as a kid. A friend had them. I had no odea they were connected to a TV show. My mother also didn’t allow us TV on Saturday mornings.
@sasamichan
July 11, 2024 at 2:43 pm
I had the toys and the tv show as a kid, hard to sell too no one knew what they were. No one wanted VHS tapes.
Any how, they were at fao schwarz
@potatoradio
July 11, 2024 at 4:35 pm
The fact that by the end of He-Man, and later seasons of G.I. Joe, and Transformers there was the serious headhunting of any toy based comic show. It basically killed off the Genre, Teen Age Mutant Ninja Turtles, being about the only one to have enough umph to blow past the restrictions. And that probably came from it being cool from starting as a teen – young adult black and white comic originally kids older siblings owned and talked about that kept it alive early on vs pure marketing shows.
@d5kenn
July 11, 2024 at 5:54 pm
This was a great story. I saw the thumbnail and IMMEDIATELY had to check it out. I remember the show! I always wanted the jet toy with one engine that was some kind of NES Zapper-like photoreceptor. Remember that? We were already shooting toy guns at the TV!
I never got the toy, and just have vague memories of the show (I remember the chrome CG enemies with the glowing chest plates), it really was gone in a heartbeat. But damn. Like Laser Tag and a few other things, it was really a part of my childhood even though it was fleeting.
@kmartcarol48
July 11, 2024 at 7:25 pm
Had it, remember having to record like a 2-3 hour block of tv on Sat/Sun mornings hoping to play what ended up being like 3-5 minutes of interactive “video game” for the life of me I dont recall the storylines or anything else. It was also fun to fire at a mirror and take the 5 hits to launch Captain Power out of the powerjet. My idea of why this failed…. Timmy Grandma and Grandpa bought you a Captain Power but I never see you play with it….Mom you never bought me any tapes and you wont let me watch TV at 6am how can I?
@ShawnWilsonPrime
July 11, 2024 at 8:50 pm
i didnt know this was on dvd
@mcklown
July 12, 2024 at 1:35 am
Hey uh, your Power Jet’s feet are on upside-down. 😅
@JimConner
July 12, 2024 at 3:32 am
Memory unlocked. The 3d robot bird people. The actual Mattel toys at the end looked familiar.
@K.EdwardKlatt
July 12, 2024 at 7:51 am
I totally remember Captain Power, it was my favorite show for a week in my childhood.
@AirWolf2600
July 12, 2024 at 8:40 am
ITS ON DVD???????
@marine429
July 12, 2024 at 10:23 am
For years I’ve been trying to remember what this toy was that my mom and dad bought for me from Service Merchandise. Thank you finally revealing to me what it was, I had the black one
@trstmeimadctr
July 12, 2024 at 12:33 pm
If you complain away the coomercialization then what you’re left with is slots that need filled and little money to do it with, so you just get a bunch of complete garbage
@nunyabusiness9013
July 12, 2024 at 1:15 pm
I actually had one of these growing up. The tech behind this was spotty at best. Think NES zapper, but worse.
@LALATheClown
July 13, 2024 at 4:29 am
Wow, I actually had that ship and little dude. Never new about a show or anything. That would have been cool.
@86abaile
July 13, 2024 at 6:43 am
As usual, boomers ruin everything.
@Cortu01
July 13, 2024 at 7:12 am
Checkout a newer (and I think equally dead) attempt at state of the art spaceship with figures TV shooting: Starlink! (On Xbox, PlayStation, Switch).
@Scribblerjohnny
July 13, 2024 at 8:00 am
As we all know, getting rid of pretend violence ends real violence.
@CanalTremocos
July 13, 2024 at 8:00 am
Oh man, I loved this show so much. I didn’t understand a word because I couldn’t read the subtitles, but oh boy, I loved the show.
@bahum00
July 13, 2024 at 8:16 am
yo fi un fiel fanatico de esta serie y espero que la retomen como lo han hecho con cada personaje de los 80 que reviven ahora como karate kid
@benkempf
July 13, 2024 at 8:37 am
moms hated everything in the 80s… metal, toy guns, too much tv… still ruining everything fun today…
@strumptavianroboclick5596
July 13, 2024 at 9:45 am
I loved Captain power TV show..
@keithwheeler1885
July 13, 2024 at 10:33 am
i actually had this as a kid
@The_Wandering_Nerd
July 13, 2024 at 1:35 pm
Captain Power crashed and burned so Babylon 5 and Beast Wars could run
@MadScientist267
July 13, 2024 at 3:01 pm
Take a drink every time this guy leads on with a forever go-nowhere “and that was a problem”.
See you after the cirrhosis.
@shadowminor
July 13, 2024 at 9:29 pm
I had the Phantom Striker. My mom bought it for me. never seemed angry about it.
@busterthe2
July 14, 2024 at 1:53 am
I remember the commercials for the toy but no kids i knew ever had this. Nor did we want it
@JosephKeenanisme
July 14, 2024 at 12:06 pm
WTF man? I was 18 and a stoner techno-nerd and never herd of this!
Oh, I heard about the show but not about the toy aspect of it.
@electricgecko8997
July 14, 2024 at 1:58 pm
I was nine or so when this show hit. I had a few of the figures. But I thought the show was f@%$ing awesome. Violent and grim and scary. I was a weird kid.
@smbarbour
July 14, 2024 at 2:51 pm
My brother had the Power Jet and I had the Interlocker. As for the comment about the name and how Captain Planet and Power Rangers were fine… the lament about the bad name was that it was really geared towards adults. It would be like if they made a TV show for adults based on Jaws and named it “Mr. Chompy versus The Boats”
@Bushman53207
July 14, 2024 at 3:25 pm
A friend of mine had one of those, I was so jealous. lol
@jlawsl
July 14, 2024 at 6:26 pm
They just should have marketed it toward the military. I bet they did. A lot of old indoor combat simulators seemed to use a similar type of technology.
@marvnuts
July 14, 2024 at 10:11 pm
They thought through the interactive lights wrong. By having the lights show even if you didn’t have the toy, it made you want to get the toy.
@JohnDlugosz
July 14, 2024 at 11:56 pm
First interactive TV show…
You showed a title from _Winky DInk and You_ as the line after S&E talked about it. Maybe you just ignored the content there, but I think S&E were likening it to an _earlier_ interactive show, that I happen to have heard about from my Dad.
“The central gimmick of the show, praised by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates as *”the first interactive TV show”* , was the use of a “magic drawing screen”—a piece of vinyl plastic that stuck to the television screen via static electricity. A kit containing the screen and various Winky Dink crayons could be purchased for 50 cents. At a climactic scene in every Winky Dink short film, Winky would arrive on a scene that contained a connect-the-dots picture that could be navigated only with the help of viewers. Winky Dink then would prompt the children at home to complete the picture, and the finished result would help him continue the story. Examples included drawing a bridge to cross a river, using an axe to chop down a tree, or creating a cage to trap a dangerous lion.
That was a full 30 years earlier.
@RvnKnight
July 15, 2024 at 5:00 am
I enjoyed the show and I remember seeing stuff for it from places like Burger King too. Never really had the interactive toys though.
@mishmashmedley
July 15, 2024 at 7:57 am
i was 12, it was a cool show. i couldn’t afford the shooting jet tho.
@samsellers6928
July 15, 2024 at 8:58 am
I had this toy as a kid and remember never being able to catch it on tv to play
@momosgarage
July 15, 2024 at 4:42 pm
I’ve been saying that the cartoon “Centurions Power Extreme” is the prequel to “Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future”.
Basically the cartoon is the world before Captain Power, focused on a different team that uses similar power-suits trying to fight Doc Terror, who looks like Lord Dread and also uses Artificial Intelligence as a weapon (BTW, both shows had the same writers, Marc Scott Zicree, Michael Reaves and Larry DiTillio). If the two shows were recombined today, they’d actually have a fairly large existing universe to expand on.
@AncientRylanor69
July 15, 2024 at 8:34 pm
f