Does anyone remember those episodes of The $6m Man with that scary Venus Probe robot? It was also known as the Death Probe. I must have been about 7 years old when those episodes aired - scared the pants off me for some reason. That thing made a really scary sound.
YES!
Those were the best episodes…Steve and the Probe slugging each other with steel pipes from a chain link fence, Steve attempting to “bionic punch” the probe, Jumpng over and seeing the screw hole at the top, etc.
So much better than the Bigfoot episodes.
I remember two: the original Death Probe, a Soviet Venus rover that somehow landed back on Earth; and Death Probe II, an updated version of the original that was unleashed as a terror weapon. I forget how they destroyed the second one- did they spray it with some special goo that weakened it’s armor?
But it had that, um, er, deadly weapon of mass destruction, the electric pizza cutter!
I remember that episode all too well, though I don’t remember the second 2-parter. At the end of the first one, even as a kid, I remember thinking, “Ok, its made of an impenetrable substance, but they’ve got it trapped in that big pit. Just leave it there! Problem solved!”
I also remember Steve-o figuring out how because it got aclimated to the high-pressure Venusian atmosphere it would blow up if they carried it to a higher altitude on Earth. Great, except why the hell didn’t it explode in the vacuum of space coming back from friggin’ Venus!?!
I also remember the incredibly drawn out ending sequence of him flying the helicopter, putting on his para- NANANANANANA-BOING! Oh my God! His bionic arm is malfunctioning! So he’s putting on his parachute. And putting on his parachute. And putting on his parachute. And putting on his parachute some more…
i always hated the ending and steve’s gimmick of raising death probe, which causes it to explode. i hate it so much i think i will troll here.
what other ways which are more believable ,could be used to destroy death probe?
they ruled out nuclear devices.
the way they should of destroyed death probe, was to sink it to the bottom of the marianna trench. the probe was built to survive the atmospheric pressure of venus, which wikipedia says is 92 times the pressure of earth, and is similar to 910 meters below the earths ocean.
now, compare that to the atmospheric pressure of the bottom of the marianna trench which is about 10,911 kilometers deep. wikipedia says that is 1000 times atmospheric pressure.
when hollywood decides to remake six million dollar man’s death probe episode, please fix the ending.
Zombie, I know… For once I recognized that before posting!
But I want to add that 6 million dollar man episode scared the bejeesus out of me, too.
There were 2 things I saw on a television at that time that scared me, the other was the Willy Wonka tunnel-boat-freakout.
I was probably 7ish myself at the time.
By the way, before James Cameron’s plunge in 2012, had any manned submersible ever attempted this?
A shaped charge, one powerful enough that the transmitted shock will be enough to break things inside the probe even through the indestructible armor.
If disabling it is enough, just drop a big tank of something opaque and adhesive onto it and blind the thing.
You can’t, its weapons were its crystal eyes.
Glad someone pointed out this was a zombie. I nearly cut & pasted a quote from my own damn post of 11 years ago saying “I remember that too!”.
Shrapnel…
My favorite is still the Christmas special with Ray Walston as a present day Scrooge.
C’mon, you have to be a little more subtle than that.