It turns out that the future holds far more dangers than the film The Terminator would have you believe. Forget sinister Cyborgs, there is an overlooked technology so sinister that it must be destroyed at all costs. And that technology is…Lazer Tag. Well, at least according to the premise of the animated series, Lazer Tag Academy.

Debuting on NBC in 1987, the cartoon took the popular shooting game, borrowed heavily from the plot of the above-mentioned science fiction film, and created a story of time-travel and futuristic peril. Young Jamie Jaren travels from the year 3010 all the way back to 1980 to save her ancestors, two teens named Tom and Beth and their younger sibling, Nicky. For unbeknownst to them, a futuristic villain named Drazon Drear is bent on traveling back and destroying them. Drear commands an army of genetically engineered werewolf-like creatures called the Skuggs. After their spaceship crashed into the Atlantic at some unspecified point in the past, they hibernated in suspended animation in the 80s, thanks to Professor Olanga.

Their mission now is to kill Beth because she just happens to be the person that will invent the Starlyte gun and Starsensor, just like the one that time-traveler Jamie is sporting on her person. With these weapons, she is able to stun adversaries move items at will - a very useful ability Drear and the Skuggs wouldn’t mind eliminating. Meanwhile, Beth and Tom’s parents, Andrew and Genna Jaren, have no clue that any of this futuristic warfare is occurring right under their nose and just assume that Jamie is a foreign exchange student. Less oblivious is the ever-snooping neighbor Charlie, who is convinced that the foreign exchange student isn’t from any country on this planet.

 Lazer Tag Academy lasted for a single season before the batteries eventually ran out. It did appear later in syndication with a new title, Laser Patrol, and found its way to the Sci-Fi Channel for a short time. And its early demise didn’t manage to diminish the popularity of the popular game one bit as Lazer Tag facilities continued to dot the landscape in increasing numbers for years to come –which can only mean one thing (gasp) – the Skuggs must have emerged victorious.