Captain Cosmic was a TV

Television

Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

 show aired in the San Francisco Bay Area from 1977 to 1980. The show, hosted by Bob Wilkins in the guise of Captain Cosmic would air serial

Serial (film)

Serials, more specifically known as Movie serials, Film serials or Chapter plays, were short subjects originally shown in theaters in conjunction with a feature film. They were related to pulp magazine serialized fiction...

s, primarily featuring Japanese superheroes. The list of shows includes Star Blazers

Star Blazers

Star Blazers is an American animated television series adaptation of the Japanese anime series, . Star Blazers was first broadcast in the United States in 1979. Significantly, it was the first popular English-translated anime that had an over-arching plot and storyline that required the episodes to...

, Spectreman

Spectreman

is the name and title superhero of a tokusatsu sci-fi TV series. Produced by P Productions and created by producer Souji Ushio, this series aired on Fuji TV from January 2, 1971 to March 25, 1972 with a total of 63 episodes , not counting the pre-series pilot episode...

, Ultraman

Ultraman

is Japanese television series that first aired in 1966. Ultraman, the first and best-known of the "Ultra-Crusaders," made his debut in the tokusatsu SF/kaiju/superhero TV series, , a follow-up to the television series Ultra Q...

, Godzilla

Godzilla

is a daikaijū, a Japanese movie monster, first appearing in Ishirō Honda's 1954 film Godzilla. Since then, Godzilla has gone on to become a worldwide pop culture icon starring in 28 films produced by Toho Co., Ltd. The monster has appeared in numerous other media incarnations including video games,...

, Johnny Sokko and his Flying Robot

Giant Robo (tokusatsu)

, is a manga and tokusatsu series created by Mitsuteru Yokoyama. It is similar to his famous Tetsujin 28-go , though Giant Robo has more fantastic elements....

, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons

Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons

Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, often referred to as Captain Scarlet, is a 1960s British science-fiction television series produced by the Century 21 Productions company of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, John Read and Reg Hill...

, and The Space Giants

Ambassador Magma

is the title and protagonist of a manga and tokusatsu TV series created by Osamu Tezuka. The TV series, produced by P Productions, aired on Fuji TV from July 4, 1966 to September 25, 1967, with a total of 52 episodes. It is the first color tokusatsu TV series in Japan, beating Ultraman to the...

. These serials were shown dubbed in English rather than in Japanese with English subtitles in order to appeal to a wider audience. The show was created in the wake of Star Wars

Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope

Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, originally released as Star Wars, is a 1977 American epic space opera film, written and directed by George Lucas. It is the first of six films released in the Star Wars saga: two subsequent films complete the original trilogy, while a prequel trilogy completes the...

, capitalizing on the popularity of science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

.

The character of Captain Cosmic flew around the galaxy

Galaxy

A galaxy is a massive, gravitationally bound system that consists of stars and stellar remnants, an interstellar medium of gas and dust, and an important but poorly understood component tentatively dubbed dark matter. The word galaxy is derived from the Greek galaxias , literally "milky", a...

 in his spaceship with his sidekick 2T2, and was "faster than a speeding BART train

Bay Area Rapid Transit

Bay Area Rapid Transit is a rapid transit system serving the San Francisco Bay Area. The heavy-rail public transit and subway system connects San Francisco with cities in the East Bay and suburbs in northern San Mateo County. BART operates five lines on of track with 44 stations in four counties...

" according to the opening sequence. Captain Cosmic would occasionally have guests on the show such as Anthony Daniels

Anthony Daniels

Anthony Daniels is an English actor. He is best known for his role as the droid C-3PO in the Star Wars series of films made between 1977 and 2005.-Early life:...

.

During the show's run, the game "Video Pow" was introduced to viewers, which aired as the lead-in to "Captain Cosmic".

The show had a fan club

Fan club

A fan club is a group that is dedicated to a well-known person, group, idea or sometimes even an inanimate object . Most fan clubs are run by fans who devote considerable time and resources to supporting them. There are also "official" fan clubs that are run by someone associated with the person...

with decoder cards. A weekly message would be shown that only members with decoder cards would be able to read. The code consisted of a 3-shift alpha replacement.