Meet Automan, TV’s 1980s ‘Tron’ Ripoff In A Reflective-Taped Countach

Turning a motion picture into a television show is a crapshoot. TV M*A*S*H ended up with a cast arguably more likeable than the movie and lasted forever, while the show Ferris Bueller’s Day Off was, well, I have no idea what it was. You’re probably better off just getting suggestions from a film instead of trying to continue it on broadcast television; Miami Vice was drug-smuggling Florida done a lot less grim than Scarface and succeeded, but the shows inspired by big-screen sci-fi have been more miss than hit in terms of ratings.

Television mega-producer Glen Larson learned that in the late seventies and early eighties. His space- and tech-related shows were often one-season wonders that went on to Star Trek-like cult acclaim. However, one silly show of his seems to have been lost in the shuffle, and it’s well worth revisiting. Let’s look at the Tron-like visual assault of the short-lived Automan.

Don’t Change That Channel

It has to suck being a success in the entertainment industry. If you get a major hit record or show, you have to outdo yourself to get another one or risk being branded a failure. That’s a position that Larson likely found himself in on a constant basis. With involvement in popular programs like The Six-Million-Dollar Man, Magnum P.I., Simon and Simon and The Fall Guy to name a few, he was the in-demand go-to guy to get a network on the big boards. Interestingly enough, Glenn appeared to have a special interest in science-fiction programming. His 1978 Battlestar Galactica was seen by some as a Star Wars ripoff starring the actor from Alpo dog food commercials and a guy flying a TV take on an X-Wing fighter who would later play Faceman on The A-Team.

As bad as that description sounds, the end result was a whole lot better than you’d think, especially for us pre-teens wanting something, anything like a George Lucas creation on our screens. The same can’t really be said for Larson’s hokey Buck Rodgers in the 25th Century, with the voice of Bugs Bunny coming from a cheesy faux-3PO. Yuck.

Good or bad, neither of these sci-fi series stuck, lasting barely two seasons despite some “retooling.” Glenn didn’t give up, though. His idea for a 1982 show about a futuristic, superpowered Pontiac in a current-year world fighting crimes that the cops couldn’t or wouldn’t solve was beloved by more than just those who lusted for another Star Trek.

Knight Rider seemed to be proof-of-concept that you could make otherworldly technology palatable to the masses if you followed certain rules. Larson employed this technique on a new show for the next year, hoping to reap the benefits of his discovery. He would not be rewarded for his work.

Wasn’t K.I.T.T. Really An Auto-Man?

In pre-Blockbuster days, us poor kids needed to wait years between installments of Jedis versus the Dark Side, so any new sci-fi fare at the multiplex was welcome. For summer of 1982, we were taken inside the world of a mainframe computer with a hacker who physically gets into the system and interacts with anthropomorphic programs. The film was called Tron, and it featured some of the earliest examples of stunning CG combined with effective old-school techniques to create dramatic effects in the dark environment, exemplified by the glowing “light cycles” that could do ninety-degree turns at speed.

A commercial disappointment with mixed reviews, it nonetheless had a huge impact on sci-fi fans like Glenn Larson. The rather complex-for-kids plot of the film was a non-starter for a television show, but with some tweaks and clichés, he knew he’d be onto something for a show he’d call Automan (as in “Automatic Man”).

Larson basically took Knight Rider as a starting point to trace over. Two buddies fighting above-the-law criminals with skunkworks technology? Got it. Female third-wheel that’s the only one besides the creator who knows the true identity of his partner and helps out the unlikely duo? Sure. However, instead of taking place inside the computer as in Tron, the holographic “Automan” that geeky police officer and computer programmer named Walter develops joins up on the outside of the machine in the real world, with the digital creation disguised as FBI agent “Otto J. Mann”. Get it?

The glowing hologram Automan is a suave and strong character compared to his shy real-life creator (played by Lucy and Ricki’s son Desi Arnaz Jr.), but Chuck Wagner plays Automan for laughs with a big ego (“On a scale of one to ten, I’m an eleven”) in a show that doesn’t take itself seriously. Desi’s character could even meld into Automan to become one with the hologram, giving Walter powers that he’s sadly lacking as a low-level cop looked down upon by superiors.

Visually, the program was rather striking with the use of a retroreflective material from 3M that can reflect up to nearly 100 percent of the light projected on it. Highly polished plates attached to the costume added to the holographic appearance, enhanced in post-production through layered chromakey effects. Sure, it’s hokey by today’s standards, but it works surprisingly well when you consider what they had at hand.

Automan mainly left the computer at night, the excuse being that his intense need for energy would preclude daytime appearances. Obviously, the true reason was the visual effects only really working well in the dark.

Just because Automan wasn’t a car didn’t mean that he didn’t have one. Automan’s non-human sidekick was called Cursor, at a time when that wasn’t a word in the common vernacular. Even in the intro alone, Cursor also displayed some qualities of a dirty old man.

Cursor was a floating, shifting polyhedron that would appear to “draw” things that would then be generated as glowing physical objects. Here’s cursor at work after breaking into multiple points of light:

… and this is the result of the tracing:

Naturally, a car was one of the things Cursor drew, and as a futuristic show, the “Autocar” had to be based on an out-of-this-world car: a 1974 Lamborghini Countach LP400. This was an older model without the wing and fender flares; it’s cleaner and more futuristic than the rather fussy-looking later ones and, more importantly, it was reportedly Glenn Larson’s own personal car. Yeah, all those hit TV shows gave him a bunch of fun money.

Retroreflective trim was used to outline it, and while much of the imagery was animation, it was important to have a physical car for times when characters needed to interact with it.

Like the Tron Light Cycles, the Autocar could take right-angle turns at full speed or shift left to right like a car in a video game, a fact that was played up by human passengers getting comically thrown about inside.

There was also an Auto Chopper based on a Bell JetRanger:

Need a bigger plane? Cursor could do it:

A motorcycle reportedly based on a Yamaha XJ650 Maxim (but clearly a dirt bike below) had the requisite shiny stuff added for effects.

To save a little development time, the writers and special effects people had Cursor also make a flying machine that used most of the body of the Countach as well:

Of course, it’s silly bleep-bop-boop cassette-era futurism, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t entertaining. My kid, who just turned into a teenager, never looks at what I’m working on but was drawn to my screen by the show clips I was watching. Imagine what kids his age thought of this witchcraft forty years ago.

All of this hocus pocus didn’t come cheap. Reportedly, each episode of Automan cost upwards of a million 1983 dollars to make ($3.35 million in today’s cash). Compounding matters was the show’s poor ratings compared to shows in the same time slot like Scarecrow and Mrs. King or, worse yet, TV’s Bloopers and Practical Jokes. That latter turd was dirt cheap to make and paved the way for inexpensive reality TV shows that have cursed us for decades on. Faced with such competition, Automan went back into the mainframe for good in 1984 after only 12 of the 13 episodes made were aired.

Hit The Highway(man)

Critics point out a lot of reasons for Automan’s failure. Some felt the chemistry between Automan and his creator simply wasn’t there, or at the very least they didn’t gel the way that The Hoff did with his talking black Firebird. The rather two-dimensional characters were further marred by derivative scripts, as if Larson was just photocopying stuff from Knight Rider. In truth, Automan was probably too far ahead of its time; it was early in the video game age and needed Hollywood movie level money to produce with the technology of 1983. A single Autocar chase could cost more to make than a full episode of a more traditional show.

Another sad fact of the short run of Automan was the lack of show-related toys. There was an action figure available at some point:

Today, with 3D printers, there are plenty of now much older fans that have created additional Automan trinkets to enjoy:

It wasn’t until 2012 that the series was available on DVD (in the UK of all places) and 2015 when you got it in America, nearly thirty years after it debuted. Like early Star Trek and Larson’s Battlestar Galactica, it lives on with a cult following of fans who appreciated Glenn’s diligence against the almost insurmountable odds of getting cool-looking sci-fi onto the small screen.

Maybe if Autocar had a speaking role and Automan more chest hair, we’d have had a hit?

Top graphic image: ABC TV