Captain Power was an attempt to cash in on the interactive television game market by Mattel. Some ships and playsets, when firing at the screen, would interact during various segments of the Saturday morning TV program. Video releases were available as well.
In 1988, a second and slightly more scarce series was released. The Dread Trooper and Dread Commander are still unconfirmed if they were ever released. Pictures of these figures were shown in the Mattel dealer catalog.
The first interactive toy and game for the series was a toy XT-7 jet with a video cassette. There were three tapes in all. "Future Force Training", "Bio Dread Strike Mission", and "Raid on Volcania". The tapes had openings and closings in live action with the cast of the television show. The actual mission itself was anime and took place in the jet cockpit from the pilot/players point of view. Players would hold the toy jet and face the screen. The toy was actually a sort of light gun that responded to signals from the television playing the tape. The more you fired at appropriate targets on the screen, the more points the toy jet would rack up. The more times the sensor on the toy jet got "hit", the more points the jet would lose. Upon reaching zero points, the cockpit would eject automatically. The XT-7 also could interact with the live action television broadcast in the same manner. Since the "game" was only a VHS tape, the missions played out the same way all the time. Other interactive objects in this series were the "Phantom Stryker" Bio Dread ship, the "Interlocker Throne" for Lord Dred which consisted of a stationary tank on a tripod and an optional target viewer that could be taken on and off, and the "Power On" platform which one could plug the Captain Power figure into and whenever the transformation was triggered on screen or the base was fired at by one of the other vehicles, the toy would immediately trigger the "Power On" sequence causing the chest of the figure to glow.
