Das Lisenstein came over yesterday to be Warioed and Starfoxed and watch a bunch of Captain Power episodes that she left in Rodes 2. Captain Power made a pretty strong impression on me at age 6, largely because I was fascinated by the fact that you could use the (expensive) toys to shoot at the screen, and the screen would shoot back.

I never had the toys, of course, and in fact didn’t watch many of the episodes; I’m not sure I would have liked it that much, since some of what we watched would probably have been a little over my 6-year-old head. The episodes dealt with themes of brainwashing, dead children and torture, among other things, and apparently this is part of the reason it was only on for one year.

Also, I got a sneaking suspicion after one character (“Tank”) mentioned offhand that he was a product of genetic engineering from Babylon 5 (and yet was also, somehow, “from the streets”). And as it turns out, J. Michael Straczynski wrote several episodes. Checking his IMDB entry reveals that he also wrote a bunch for the He-Man, She-Ra, Wheeled Warriors and Ghostbusters cartoons.

It’s like the entire trend in toy-driven 80s cartoons can be traced back to one guy! Not to mention half of what probably makes up my subconscious value system. For instance, the deep belief that Brian Hynek sucked, because he had the Captain Power toys, and I didn’t.