Mattel-Captain Power

A line of toys and interactive television games were released by Mattel. Some ships and playsets, when firing at the screen, could interact with various segments of the Saturday morning TV program.

The first interactive toy and game for the series was a toy XT-7 jet with a video cassette. There were three tapes: Future Force Training, Bio-Dread Strike Mission, and Raid On Volcania. The tapes featured live introduction and end segments with the cast of the television show. The actual mission itself was animated and took place in the jet cockpit from the first-person point of view of the pilot/player. Players would hold the toy jet and face the screen. The toy was actually a sort of light gun that responded to signals from the television playing the tape. The toy jet would get points by firing at appropriate targets on the screen and lose points when the sensor on the jet got hit. Upon reaching zero points, the cockpit would eject automatically. Since the game was only a VHS tape, the missions always played out the same way. The toy could also interact with the live action television broadcast in the same manner. Other interactive objects in this series were the Phantom Stryker Bio-Dread ship, the Interlocker Throne for Lord Dread, which consisted of a stationary tank on a tripod and an optional target viewer that could be taken on and off, and the Power On platform, which the user could plug the Captain Power figure into. Whenever the transformation was triggered on screen or the base was fired at by one of the other vehicles, the toy would immediately trigger the Power On sequence causing the chest of the figure to glow.

The toys also had the ability to interact with each other, similar to the Laser Tag toys popular at the time. When played in this way, each toy had a limited number of hit points, but any points earned by playing against the television show increased this total.

In 1988, a second and slightly more scarce series was released.