I wonder what it would have been like if they kept the original book title and working TV movie name: Cyborg. Chances are the show would still have been popular, and probably make “Cyborg” a much more common word back then. The word was first used in 1960 by a scientist, 12 years before the novel was published.

The word does seem more adult, mysterious, and a bit darker than “Six Million Dollar Man” or “Bionic Man”. But I assume, on the school playgrounds, we would have been shouting out, “I am the Cyborg!”. This followed by the standard slow motion movement and our best Bionic sound effect: “na na na na na na na”.