“Gentlemen, we can rebuild him…”

Whilst knocking out a post for Head Full of Snow the other day, I had cause to invoke the name of Steve Austin, or The Six Million Dollar Man to give him his more familiar moniker.

six million dollar man vs bigfoot Justin Lee Collins persuades Lee Majors to appear on ‘Bring Back… The Bionic Man’

I remember watching the TV series as a nipper and I’m sure we always referred to it simply as ‘The Bionic Man’ – in fact I’d have wagered that this was the UK title (in much the same way that Top Cat was renamed Boss Cat) but I appear to be wrong on that count. Couldn’t find any evidence to back it up, anyway.

Nonetheless I read up a bit more on The Six Dollar Man, as is my inquisitive nature when it comes to such trivial matters, and found that the character originally appeared in a series of books by American author Martin Caidin. The first of these was titled Cyborg and portrayed Steve Austin in a slightly different light; a cold-blooded killer as opposed to the mother-approved Lee Majors version. He also had a poison dart gun in his bionic arm! Imagine that.

I also discovered that a big-screen remake has been touted for the last twenty-odd years, at one point even linking – horror of horrors – Jim Carrey to the lead role. Which begs the question, if a remake ever did get the green light, would it still be called The Six Million Dollar Man?

In the 1970s, six million dollars was an unattainable figure that could rebuild a man (and woman, in the case of Jamie Sommers) as a reinforced steel super-being, nowadays it wouldn’t buy Steve Austin a new toe. Yet the figure remains just as unattainable.

The Bionic Man, a title that seems only to exist in my half-imagined childhood, would probably be better. At the very least it would remain a little more inflation-proof.

Anyway, I hunted down the original title sequence for no other reason than it keeps me off the streets. The theme tune alone, which kicks in towards the end of the intro, is as memorable today as it was back then.

Edit Ahem… It would appear some miserable bastard at either YouTube or Universal Studios has blocked The Six Million Dollar Man intro from being embeddable on third party websites. That means if, like my good self, you’re champing at the bit to hear the theme tune whilst watching Majors being bolted back together, you’ll have to click through on the po-faced link that appears when you hit play below. Such is life.

Thanks to @stonemonkey45 for the heads up. I should really check these things first myself.