is a 1987 animated television series. It was produced by Universal Television and animated by Tokyo Movie Shinsha (now TMS Entertainment) and distributed, through first-run syndication, by MCA TV, years before the latter company became NBCUniversal Television Distribution. Renowned Japanese animation director Osamu Dezaki was involved as chief supervising director, and his distinctive style (as seen in Golgo 13 and Cobra) is evident throughout all its episodes. Character designs were by Nobuteru Yūki.
The title characters of the series are a family of machine-enhanced human beings each possessing unique powers after being augmented with bionic technology. Each family member is given specific bionic powers, and thus they form a superhero team called the Bionic Six.
The series was initiated as a direct sequel to The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman and was originally to be about the Austin family. For creative reasons, this was changed early on in preproductions.
Plot
In the near future (some unspecified decades after 1999), Professor Dr. Amadeus Sharp Ph.D., head of the Special Projects Labs (SPL), creates a new form of technology to augment humans through bionics. His first subject was Jack Bennett, a test pilot who secretly acted as Sharp's field agent, Bionic-1. On a family ski vacation in the Himalayas, an alien spacecraft triggers an avalanche that buries the entire family, exposing them to the unusual radiation of a mysterious buried object. Jack frees himself but discovers his family in a comatose state. Theorizing that Jack's bionics protected him from the radiation, Professor Sharp implants bionic technology in the others, awakening them. Afterward, the family operates incognito as a publicly lauded team of adventuring superheroes, the Bionic Six.
The primary villain of the series is mad scientist Doctor Scarab, along with his gang of henchmenGlove, Madam-O, Chopper, Mechanic, and Klunkaccompanied by Scarab's legion of drone robots called Cyphrons. Scarab is the alter ego of Wilmer Sharp, Professor Sharp's brother. Obsessed with obtaining immortality and ruling the world, Scarab believes that the key to both goals lies in the secret bionic technology invented by his brother, ever plotting to possess it.
Characters
Heroes
Professor Dr. Amadeus Sharp Ph.D. is the genius scientist who infused the Bionic Six team with bionics. As was the case with Dr. Rudolph "Rudy" Wells in both The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman, all his research is supported by the government, and Sharp's technology must be periodically reviewed by government agency Q10. He lives alone in his private museum, which houses his secret Special Projects Lab, the hidden base of the Bionic Six. Amadeus is also Scarab's brother. Sharp excels in the fields of aeronautics, animatronics, archaeology, bionics, and neurology. He was voiced by Alan Oppenheimer (Oppenheimer was also the second actor to play Rudy Wells in The Six Million Dollar Man).
The Bennett family includes patriarch Jack, matriarch Helen, and their four children, Eric, Meg, J.D., and Bunji. They live in a secluded oceanfront home in the fictional city of Cypress Cove, in northern California. Each member wears a special ring and a "wristcomp" (a mini-computer hardwired into the wrist), which they use to activate their bionic powers. The Bionic Six can also combine their powers by joining hands, creating a "Bionic Link" to amplify their abilities.
