“We Can Rebuild Him …”

“Steve Austin, astronaut. A man barely alive.”

Cue Oscar Goldman …

“Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the capability to make the world’s first bionic man. Steve Austin will be that man. Better than he was before. Better . . . stronger . . . faster.” 

After three TV movies intended to be pilot episodes (in 1973), it was on this day in 1974 that The Six Million Dollar Man debuted its first episodic season. It would last five seasons.

It cost $6 million to “rebuild” Steve Austin. Today, the show would be called the $39 million dollar man. According to Google:

“$6 million in 1974 had the buying power of approximately $39.4 million today (early 2026), due to over 50 years of inflation, with prices increasing by over 557%, meaning today’s dollar buys significantly less than it did then.“

Lee Majors played Col. Steve Austin. After being seriously injured in a NASA test flight crash, Austin is rebuilt with bionic implants that give him superhuman strength, speed and vision. He is then employed as a secret agent by a fictional U.S. government office titled OSI. The show would air for five seasons (1974-1978).

I remember watching the show and loving every second of it. Steve had a bionic eye which could zoom in and out, use infrared technology to see in the dark, and it could also detect heat. His bionic legs made him run fast and gave him the ability to jump three stories. He had one bionic arm which was said to have the strength of a bulldozer. He also has bionic hearing.

As I kid, it didn’t matter what we were playing, every kid made the bionic jump sound when they jumped, another bionic sound when we threw something, and imagined ourselves flying by cars when we ran anywhere. Oh, and we usually did all of those things in “slow motion.”

Lindsay Wagner would occasionally pop up on the show as Jaime Sommers, another human who was given bionic body parts. She was such a popular character that she got her own spin off show in 1976 – The Bionic Woman. It aired until 1976. OSI Director Oscar Goldman (played by Richard Anderson) would show up on both shows.

I can still remember having the Six Million Dollar Man Doll. You could look through the back of his head and see things in red with a crosshair just like on the show. They had a lab where you could work on Steve.

I remember there being a Bionic Woman doll and there was also an Oscar Goldman doll. He didn’t have anything bionic on him, so I wonder if anyone ever bought him. I know I didn’t.

In honor of the show’s 52nd anniversary, kick back and enjoy one of TV’s great opening title sequences.