It's hard to believe, but there was once a time when laser tag was a bold and futuristic idea. In the eighties, there were two competing systems - Photon and Laser Tag. The fact that the game of shooting your friends with lasers is now known universally as Laser Tag shows who won. Both of them made TV shows, and just like the games, one was better than the other.
Photon was about a modern-day (well, eighties, anyway) teenager Bhodi Lee who was secretly a member of an intergalactic police force. When he was summoned, he would go off on adventures to faraway planets to do battle with an elite team of aliens. They filmed some segments in blue-screen with alien planets projected onto the backgrounds. This idea was horrible. It gave the show a look that screamed "fake."
Fun Facts:
* The show was Japanese dubbed into English. Amazingly enough, I never noticed this when I was a kid. Shows how long ago it was.
* Every episode, the good and evil teams would race to charge a crystal with good energy or evil energy.
* The aliens were truly freaky. No bumpy foreheads on this show. One of Bhodi's partners wore a miner's helmet.
Links
X-Entertainment Episode Review
Vikki's Photon Page
Internet Movie Database
Chilandra's Photon Links
3 comments:
I totally forgot about that show. Mainly cause it was so lame. Good references though. It's amazing how much work goes into making a dumb show.
Even more amazing is that people still play Photon.
We were just talking about a cartoon about laser tag that aired on Saturday mornings in the 80s. When pressed for details my friend said, "well they were all in this dome, playing laser tag...yeah it was cancelled after 1 season" lol
Dude, you're so right about being dubbed from Japanese. I never noticed it either! It's funny the things you ignore when you're a kid.
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