I can’t remember if this was supposed to be a series or a one off special.
Anyway, the hero was a program that took humanoid form, He could travel along phone lines. Also, he had a car, that would always make abrupt 90 degree turns. (And quite comically, even when he was changing from one lane to the next.)
That was Automan, and it was a TV series from 1983 about a computer programmer who creates a Tron-like program that can appear in the real world and fight crime.
That’s awesome. Thanks.
Yep. Desi Arnaz, Jr. was the programmer. It was a really obvious attempt to cash in on Tron. The only scene I can actually vividly recall was the first time Arnaz rode along in Automan’s digital car and got his face smooshed into the window when it made a (literal) 90degree turn.
Ha, the same! The rest is a blank but I recall him getting thrown around in the car.
Yeah, that’s also pretty much all I remember about that show.
I remember when the car turned into a helicopter. It was a really clever effect because it was done while driving along the road.
BTW, ths same producer also created “Manimal.” What the two series had in common was the main character in both was some blondish British sort who could shape-shift.
Was this the same one where a little glowing ball floating in the air “drew” the car into existence, first drawing a wireframe outline which then got filled in?
Yes. Its name was “Cursor”.
“Curse you, Cursor!”
Well, considering that the producer was Glen Larson, we’re probably lucky neither Automan nor Manimal had very thinly veiled Mormon theology in them.
Man, that’s classic! That image just came rushing back into my head the second I read that. Now I can’t stop laughing.
Ah. That explains why I was about to post that the show was called “Cursorman”.
I knew I wanted to stick the word “cursor” in there for some reason.
I remember the right angle turn scene too.
I also remember thinking that while Automan and the car might be exempt from physics, Arnez just experienced a 60+mph faceplant into the side of the car.