PHOTON OPPORTUNITIES

The planet Photon, alien brainchild of local entrepreneur George A. Carter III, has been making headlines around the world since the first of the live-action video games opened in Dallas in April 1984. This year (he centers, each costing between $500,000 and $1.5 million, are scheduled to open in Canada, Europe, and the United States at a rate of one a week. Twenty centers are licensed to open in Japan.

The general public gains entrance to the Photon center by buying a passport (one-time cost, $6) and tickets ($3 each) for play. Players don their helmets, take up their phasers, and prepare to “interrupt’” their enemies, entering the artificial fog-wrapped battleground for a six-and-a-half minute bout of high-tech cowboy and Indian-type warfare.

Not surprisingly, successful enterprise begat more successful enterprise. Carter has secured licensing agreements for Photon in more than 200 categories, including Milton Bradley Company for games and puzzles, Putnam Publishing for books, Disneyland Buena Vista Records for storybooks with records or cassettes, and LJN Toys, Ltd. for mechanical, radio, and remote control toys, playsets, helmets, headgear, and body gear.

And if Photon groupies aren’t numerous enough yet to buy all those toy phasers and helmets, Carter is poised with another in-tergalactic marketing tool. This fall, earthlings will see “Photon,” a half-hour syndicated television show chronicling the adventures of Photon master Chris Jarvis, a boy who breaks the all-time Photon record score. He is then beamed up to the mother planet, Photon, where he helps defend the galaxy from evil forces.

Chris makes it home in time for supper by the end of each episode and in the meantime presents kids with subtle lessons in morality: some of the shows will deal with drugs, family problems, and peer pressure. Earth scenes are taped at a Garland home and at the Garland Photon center. Space scenes are shot in Japan. The segments will be sold to independent television stations. Locally the show will air on Channel 27.

The long lines of galactic warriors of all ages who frequent Photon centers helped Carter reach a monthly gross sales figure of $78,000 in June, an all-time high. The local Photon center is also a favorite hangout of Dallas’s wrestling Von Erich brothers, who have rented it several times for private war games.