Automan escapes the grid on December 15, 1983


ZAP! POW! BAM! There it was, on that crisp Thursday evening in the winter of '83, flickering into America's living rooms like a bolt from the digital blue yonder: Automan, premiering on ABC at eight o'clock sharp, December 15th, to be precise. And what a spectacle it was! 

Picture this: the nation still buzzing from the neon trance of Tron the year before—that Disney dazzler where Jeff Bridges got sucked into the grid and came out glowing like a circuit board on fire—and here comes Glen A. Larson, that prolific wizard of television schlock and sparkle (the man behind Knight Rider, no less, with its talking Trans Am prowling the highways), unleashing his latest confection: a holographic superhero, birthed not from some mythic lab accident or radioactive spider, but from the humming bowels of a police department computer.

Walter Nebicher—played by Desi Arnaz Jr., that scion of the Ricardo dynasty, looking every bit the awkward genius in his rumpled shirts and earnest glare—sits there in the basement of the LAPD, tinkering away on his forbidden program. Walter, you see, is the classic '80s nerd: brilliant with code, hopeless with cops-and-robbers reality. His bosses, the gruff Captain Boyd (Gerald S. O'Loughlin, barking orders like a bulldog) and the skeptical Lieutenant Curtis (Robert Lansing, all steely authority), keep him chained to a desk. But Walter dreams bigger. He codes bigger. And poof!—out materializes Automan, portrayed by the strapping Chuck Wagner, a towering figure in a suit that scintillates with electric blue lines, pulsing and shimmering as if he'd stepped straight off the lightcycle grid of Tron.

Automan! Automatic Man! He announces himself with that booming confidence, invulnerable, super-strong, and utterly naive about the flesh-and-blood world. "On a scale of one to ten," he quips in that pilot episode, "think of me as an eleven." And Walter certainly does, admiring Wagner's Aryan perfection a little bit too earnestly. Subtext? The show had plenty to spare.

It also had Cursor, a flying electronic sprite whom Tron fans immediately recognized as a rip-off of that movie's Bit character. Cursor's most impressive talent was drawing futuristic vehicles out of thin air: the Autocar, a Lamborghini Countach outlined in glowing azure, capable of ninety-degree turns that defy physics and slam poor Walter against the window; the Autochopper; even an Autoplane. Wait - doesn't the Autocar turn the same way as the light cycles in Tron? Yep.

In the premiere, titled simply "Automan," our holographic hero dives headfirst into intrigue: a ring kidnapping scientists, spiriting them off to the Swiss Alps for some nefarious scheme. Walter merges with his creation—literally fusing into one glowing entity—to battle the baddies, including a suave villain played by none other than Patrick Macnee. It's pure popcorn: chases through Los Angeles nights, holograms clashing with reality, and that delicious irony of a computer program outshining his human creator in every way—strength, charm, even disco dancing after Walter feeds him a tape of John Travolta.

This was 1983, mind you—the dawn of the personal computer revolution, when IBM PCs were invading homes and offices, arcade games like Pac-Man ruled the culture, and television was awash in high-tech fantasies. Knight Rider had David Hasselhoff crooning to KITT; Airwolf would soon thunder onto screens with its supersonic helicopter. But Automan? It was the apotheosis of the moment: Tron meets cop show, neon futurism crashing into prime-time formula. Expensive, too—those glowing effects burned through budgets like power surges—and it showed. 

The nation watched, mesmerized or bemused...well, a small fraction of the nation, to be more precise. You see, this electric dream flickered for just thirteen episodes (twelve aired) before the plug was pulled.

Yet, zzzzzippp!!!—therein lies the magic. In an era of Reaganomics gloss and synthetic beats, Automan captured the sheer, unapologetic exuberance of believing man could now birth gods, using that newfangled electronic box and keyboard on his desk. Walter and his glowing alter ego, roaring through the night in that impossible car, that banger of a theme song, one of the top 10 of the 80s. Automan was the Reagan years incarnate: flashy, optimistic, a little ridiculous, and utterly unforgettable. WHOOSH! BZZT! KAPOW!

Location: Los Angeles, CA, USA

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