Damon Killian (Richard Dawson) was the narcissistic and vain game show host of the most highly rated television show in American history: The Running Man . By 2017 the world had experienced a massive economic downturn worse than The Great Depression, causing the United States to fracture into separate political and economic units while the world battles over scarce reserves of natural resources. Killian working for ICS, produced a television show to help keep people in front of their televisions and away from their true problems; their lack of basic human necessities including the restrictions on their freedom within a totalitarian state. Killian had much success with his program and saw an irresistible opportunity after viewing footage from the Berkshire Detention Center prison break showing former military officer Benjamin A. Richards (Arnold Schwarzenegger) leading an escape, demolishing the prison guards in the process. Being that Richards was at large he was temporarily not a military prisoner as was his sentence after being wrongfully imprisoned for the mass murder of approximately 1,500 civilians during a food riot in Bakersfield, CA leading Richards with the infamous nickname The Butcher of Bakersfield. Richards was subsequently captured attempting to flee to Hawaii. Killian convinced him that his other two escapee friends, William Laughlin (Yaphet Kotto) and Harold Weiss would go on in his stead if he did not comply and agree to be the featured runner on the next airing of his gladiatorial program. Killian exhibited little regard for human life and little to no interest in ethics, as the runners are electronically tracked making them easy prey for the stalkers , while making for great prime time viewing for the Cadre public. He cares for the stalkers he employs only in so much as the deaths they cause or are fated for generate ratings numbers. The contestants are brought to the derelict ruins of Los Angeles after The Big Quake of 97 , a perfect production site as a modern Coliseum for the gladiatorial spectacle ICS produces, and have three hours to make it through a gauntlet of highly armed stalkers within the allotted three hour timeframe. Contestants can win the ultimate prize of full pardon for their convicted crimes. It is comprised of four hundred square blocks, rigged with special monitors and cameras for home viewing pleasure. When Killian's program experienced it's first stalker deaths in Subzero and Buzzsaw he quickly moves to offer Ben Richards a standard contract to be one of the program's featured stalkers and use his considerable brawn and complimentary brains to dispatch other unfortunate and possibly innocent runners in future installments of the The Running Man . When Richards refused, Killian had him match-up with Captain Freedom (Jesse Ventura) who then refused to fight with weapons and gimmicks as he felt the games were tainted by weapons and unfair tricks as opposed to man-to-man single combat as was the code of the gladiator . To get his way Killian fired Captain Freedom and had his technicians led by Tony (Kurt Fuller) create a digital Captain Freedom from stored data fight a digital Ben Richards in what was billed the final conflict . After Richards' death had been faked to the Cadre public by Killian and his staff, Richards managed a counter strike with the help of Mick Fleetwood (playing himself) who was biding his time patiently in the ruins with the Underground Resistance. In many ways Mick Fleetwood represents the polar opposite of Killian in this film. Killian showed his knowledge and experience in television at many moments throughout the film, including an argument in which he became irritated that the Justice Department representative on the other end of the telephone is ignorant of Gilligan's Island. Killian was further exposed for having manipulated the public by distorting raw footage with edited propaganda, because in Cadre Remember, seeing is believing . Killian is dispatched at the end, meeting his demise after riding the vacuum sled into the first quadrant of the ruins he so frequently sent runners at the beginning of each program. Killian does a sort of mea culpa in which he thought he was giving the public what they want after all television had told them for five decades what to eat, what to drink, what to wear and he used the popularity and the viewing audiences love of game shows, wrestling, sports, and violence as reason enough to create a show of such an extreme nature for the public's bloodlust as he saw it. The ratings only helped to justify his thesis and sate the public. Richard Dawson did a masterful job of portraying the sinister game show host even though during his tenure as host of Family Feud he was genuinely amicable and genial unlike the Machiavellian Damon Killian. Show less «