Zap,Zap! You're Dead, Lord Dread!

By Stephen Koepp

What if, instead of just sitting passively in front of the TV set, children could actually join their video superheroes in fierce battles for control of the galaxy? Alarming as that possibility may sound, parents had better get ready for just such a commotion. The toy industry is racing to deliver a new generation of playthings that can communicate electronically with specially created TV programs, enabling youngsters with hand-held weapons to zap onscreen villains and even coordinate living-room battles with the action on the tube. "It's exciting, it's magic. It looks and smells like the next trend in the toy industry," says Thomas Kalinske, president of toymaker Mattel. The interactive playthings are expected to be the hottest draw next week at the annual Toy Fair in Manhattan, where retail-store owners place huge orders for the coming year.

The most popular toys of the new breed are likely to be Mattel's interactive Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future. The line of 20 toys, which will go on sale starting this summer at prices mainly in the $30-to-$40 range, could generate as much as $200 million in sales for Mattel by mid-1988. The toy line will be linked with a half-hour Captain Power program to be broadcast on Saturday or Sunday nights beginning next fall. A mixture of live action and computer animation, Captain Power -- much like preteen action cartoons -- takes place in a futuristic outer-space setting where a crew of good guys (and a token gal) engage in endless scrapes with the forces of evil.

But there the similarity ends. Five minutes of every Captain Power show will be devoted to battle scenes in which viewers can take part in the campaign against the villainous Lord Dread. Wielding a toy spaceship called the PowerJet XT-7, a child at home can electronically duel with onscreen enemies (see box).

The Captain Power toys will face at least two rivals. Nolan Bushnell, the founder of Atari and now head of a toy company called Axlon, has developed Tech Force and the Moto-Monsters, a group of mobile robots that are scheduled to go on sale this month. The Tech Force robots will move in response to a cartoon show that will debut in the fall, as well as to commands from a keyboard. The starting price is high: about $250 for a set of two hero robots, two villainous ones and two keyboards. Another competitor will be World Events Productions of St. Louis, which is developing interactive toys to accompany Saber Rider and the Star Sheriffs. The show features a crew of outer-space cowpokes whose posse youngsters can join by aiming a six-gun "vaporizer."

The toys have provoked controversy even before hitting the shelves. Critics of children's TV, who believe that too many programs have become vehicles for selling toys, think the new electronic link will increase the manufacturers' influence on youngsters and encourage unhealthy levels of TV watching. Says Dr. William Dietz, chairman of the subcommittee on children and television for the American Academy of Pediatrics: "The TV will now play with the toy for the child. There is absolutely nothing left for the child's imagination." In their defense, toymakers contend that the new devices prompt children to dream up creative strategies. One thing is for sure: the new toys should provide more than enough stimulation for parents as they listen to the vivid sound effects of junior blasting away at Lord Dread.

With reporting by Cristina Garcia/San Francisco and Andrea Sachs/New York