Bionic Woman

The Bionic Woman was a spin-off of another bionic-themed prime time hit, The Six Million Dollar Man.

In the dramatic opening credits of the show, Jaime Sommers paraded her newly acquired bionics while sporting a track top, jeans, and white sneakers. It figures, then, that Kenner’s original 1976 Bionic Woman doll was outfitted in the same kit.

Turn her head from side to side and you could hear little clicks that were meant to sound the way her aural bionics did on the show. There was even a hole in her right ear so that you could hook in the cord from the included test kit and keep tabs on her bionics’ progress.

Her right arm had roll-back rubber skin and removable bionic components (just like the Six Million Dollar Man action figure) and her legs had panels that you could lift open to see the circuitry inside. And her jeans, niftily enough, had easy-access openings (oo-er!) located right where the panels were, so you could check out Jaime’s robotics without having to totally disrobe her.

Later Jaime models had feet that could turn, along with more beguiling attire.

But best of all was the ‘Mission Purse’ (an interesting complement to Oscar Goldman’s Exploding Briefcase) that these dolls came with – a vinyl bag with a bounty of little plastic goodies inside: a wallet, money, ID, credit cards, her mission assignment, her morse code decoder, pictures of Steve and Oscar, maps and make-up.

In 1977, because every superwoman needs an almost super nemesis, Jaime’s enemy the Fembot was issued (pictured). This femme fatale had a creepy circuitry face with a Jaime facemask, a Mystery Lady facemask, and the awful Paralyzer Gun, which frequently incapacitated Jaime on TV.

The head-scratcher in Kenner’s product line was the Bionic Beauty Salon. Sure, every girl needs a little beauty time, but the Salon didn’t seem to fit into the world of secret missions and fembots and assorted plastic weaponry.