Almost 40 years ago, when he was considering the starring role in a television movie about a “bionic man,” Lee Majors had one major worry: “The big hits at the time were, like, Batman, you know how campy that was,”  Majors recalled. “I said, ‘If you’re thinking about making this a camp character, I don’t want to do it.’”

“The Six Million Dollar Man” wasn’t camp at all, and that choice proved to be right on the money for the landmark sci-fi adventure series. But now, in a wry twist of fate, Majors is working withSyFy on a comedy spoof  in which he is the bionic mentor to a younger hero. “Hey, what goes around comes around,” joked the easy-going Majors, who starred in eight television series – three of them big hits — and always looked so serene as he ran in slow motion through 1970s pop culture.

Andre the Giant and Lee Majors (ABC)

The signature success of his career is now getting its due with the elaborate 40-disc boxed set “The Six Million Dollar Man: The Complete Collection” ($239.95; TimeLife, available only at TimeLife’s website for a limited time and then later going on sale everywhere). Inside are all five seasons (1974 to 1978) packaged in individual boxes, along with the six original made-for-TV movies (three of them reunion projects in 1987, 1988 and 1994), all the crossover episodes with spin-off series “The Bionic Woman” and hours of interviews and commentary tracks.

It’s a bit staggering as a massive television time capsule,  but Majors said he won’t be seeing a big check in the mail after the holiday shopping season. “If I see any money from it, it’ll be very little,” the 71-year-old said affably, adding that he enjoyed his peak fame long before anyone knew to ask for a cut of syndication and boxed-set sales. “But it’s a good excuse to get out and talk to people.”

Majors is absolutely in public-engagement mode these days. For the first time in his life, Majors has begun to attend conventions, where he gets to see old friends like Richard Anderson and even Lindsay Wagner, not to mention fans clutching all sorts of toys. “It was amazing what people would bring in for me to sign,” says Majors, who also starred in “The Big Valley” and “The Fall Guy.” “There’s so much memorabilia I’ve never seen before. Board games, albums, comic books and all kinds of limbs from my body.”

The real Majors had open-heart surgery in 2003, but the work has been steady in recent years, such as playing God on “According To Jim” and fun turns on the subversive Showtimehit ”Weeds,” the NBC sitcom “Community” and the Fox action series “Human Target,” which is a contemporary counterpart in spirit to the bionic hit of the 1970s. The new work is what keeps Majors running, but he knows the boxed set will spark even more interest in his days as the machine man of the ABC network.

The show, based on the 1972 novel “Cyborg“ by the late Martin Caidin, had plenty of touchstones, and the boxed collection runs with them.  The set’s front features a 3D lenticularimage of Majors in the role of Steve Austin, the astronaut who suffered massive injuries in a terrible crash but was implanted with cutting-edge technology that gave him superhuman speed, superhuman strength (in one arm) and superhuman telescopic vision (in one eye). Tilt the box back and forth and Austin starts running. You have to provide your own metallic-echo sound effect the way kids have done in schoolyard exploits for decades, but open the lid and you hear Anderson’s voice-over intro to the series (“Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology…”).

Majors has listened to fans recite that opening for decades. They also routinely mention two elements of the show: the Bionic Woman (for which Wagner won an Emmy) and Bigfoot, the hirsute giant that gave Austin his most sizable challenge and, through the performance by 7-foot-4 wrestler Andre the Giant, an unforgettable image for fans of the show.