I hear you re: your "Thunderbirds" comments - while I admittedly enjoy the shows, one DOES wonder why Jeff Tracy didn't invest Brain's expertise in building technology that prevented stupid accidents from happening in the first place...

For example, shouldn't someone have pointed out that having an atomic airliner ("Fireflash") that will lethally irradiate its passengers after several hours is A Really Bad Idea? Likewise with hauling a fully-fuelled rocket across a bridge that nobody bothered to check was strong enough? But the crowning moment of Thunderbirds idiocy (from my perspective as an IT business analyst) goes to the entire plot of the film "Thunderbird Six" where Jeff Tracy wants Brains to build a new rescue vehicle despite having no idea what the actual requirement was! Brains should have t-t-t-told M-m-m-m-Mister T-t-t-Tracy t-t-t-to f-f-f-f... forget about him building anything until he knew exactly what he wanted!

On the other hand, I've always had a certain fondness for that versatile cargo carrier Thunderbird 2. And Lady Penelope and Parker

Those were pretty much the best part. In the execrable Thunderbirds movie they couldn't get permission from Rolls Royce to use one in the film, so they approached Ford to build a custom T-Bird for Lady P. I guess that's why RR doesn't belong to the British anymore... they were bought by Volkswagen or somebody German. Evidently the volks, I mean folks at RR were too posh to seek publicity. TB 2 was always pretty believable, unlike the other Thunderbirds craft -- except for that boxy structure between the two rear stabiliers. What was that doing there, hanging in the airstream for?

I remember one odd episode (stitched together for a "movie") in which the spaceship or spaceplane had to be assembled. Not months ahead of time, as a Saturn V was. But right before launch! It looked good on the screen, but made no sense at all.

I remember one odd episode (stitched together for a "movie") in which the spaceship or spaceplane had to be assembled. Not months ahead of time, as a Saturn V was. But right before launch! It looked good on the screen, but made no sense at all.

Are you thinking of the Zero-X assembly sequence at the start of "Thunderbirds Are Go"? I agree, when you think about it that approach is a bit silly. Loved the accompanying music though.

Yeah, the Zero-X was for the first theatrical THUNDERBIRDS movie (it wasn't "stitched-together" but shot in glorious, wide-screen 35mm).

The Anderson crew were the masters of inventing feats of impossible engineering like the Zero-X. My favorite is still Marineville from the STINGRAY TV series. Here you had a small city where all the buildings were on giant hydraulic lifts. The buildings would disappear underground whenever danger threatened. However, I'd hate to be a janitor sweeping up underneath one of those structures when a "Yellow Alert" was called...

As for the T-Birds live-action film, that was one of those "What were they thinking" moments. Or, as a friend put it, "What, comma, WERE THEY THINKING?" I did like the SFX, though. Still, I could have forgiven the producers -- if only they hadn't let Jonathan Frakes decided to turn it into another "spy kids" movie.

Regarding FIREBALL XL-5, somewhat: I recently came across a TV series produced in England around the same time by one of Anderson's effects crew who defected in order to create her own show. It was called SPACE PATROL (PLANET PATROL, here in the States). Stylistically very similar to XL-5, but the stories were a little more "serious" and the alien creatures very unique, if not downright creepy!

I have two videotapes of collected Space Patrol episodes. The attempt to shoot more serious plots is a bit laughable as the writers understanding of astronomy was rooted in the earl part of the century, when people thought of Venus as a jungle or water planet, mars as having canals, jupiter has having heavy, serious people, mercury being inhabited by quick tempered types, and so on. By the 1950s, when the show was filmed, nobody thought that anymore except script writers, apparently. And I don't mean just in the UK. Hollywood writers had just as much trouble keeping within 50 years of current thinking...

Actually, the British SPACE PATROL puppet series was produced in 1963, and was contemporary with Gerry Anderson's FIREBALL XL-5. But by that point enough was known about our solar system to have easily debunked quaint notions about jungle planets and a Jupiter that was even remotely habitable. But I believe the writers just used the planets as a hook for attaching broad personality types to their alien characters (note how similar the "warlike" Martians and the "intellectual" Venusians are to the Klingons and Vulcans of the STAR TREK universe -- which this show predated by only a couple of years).

SPACE PATROL wasn't a truly "serious" Sci-Fi TeeVee show. But for a low-budget British kids' show from the early 60's, it doesn't seem too awful (based on my admittedly limited exposure to the series). There must be some reason why J. Michael Straczynski cites the show as a major influence on his later writings.

It was a typo. Yeah, it was shown in the UK at the same time as XL-5. Clearly it was a kid's show and not serious SF, though I had the impression the writers thought it was more like genre SF than XL-5 for some reason. It was more like pulp SF of the '30s, maybe. I rather enjoyed watching them -- mostly because they were so daft.

I can't explain Straczynski... but I've no great admiration for the guy anyway, so don't feel burdened by any necessity to explain him.

T-birds movie: Don't talk to me about that waste of film. Closest I ever came to marching out of the theater and demanding my money back.

I mean, Ben freaking KINGSLEY doing a bad performance? Jeebus wept.

Now that they've done live action Thunderbirds, I'm waiting for Citizen Kane in super marionation.

"Charles Foster Kane is now in the power of the Mysterons!"

Can we work Ann Frank into the plot as well?

We can call it Toys in the Attic.

It would seem that I chose wisely NOT going to see the live-action Thunderbirds film, despite the updated and CGI'ed Thunderbirds craft. "...I feel a strange disturbance in the force - as though millions of happy childhood memories were suddenly wiped out in an instant..."

Brains having offspring?!? And FAB1 NOT being a Rolls-Royce? Yeah, I understand the product tie-in aspects, but that's like remaking "Back To The Future" with a Porsche 911 instead of a DeLorean...

Oh, yeah. As I said at the time, nary a bumper hitch was left chromed within a mile radius of the theater... XP

Oh, and you might like this Australian piss-take of Thunderbirds - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOLDU8TnrXo

I watched part 1 - amusing. But its time for me to hit the sack.

The Brits, specifically Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, did this fantastic take on the Thunderbirds back in the 60s,
"Superthunderstingcar":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmvrFg-EhmI

I just hurt something laughing.

I know! I discovered this clip about 10 years ago (I was lucky enough to find it on a rental VHS of "The Best of Cook and Moore"). And no matter how many times I see it, it still cracks me up! Especially Cook as "Master Braun" with those HUGE eyebrows!

A friend of mine ran the video room for this year's Minicon. I helped him put together the programming and this clip was among the most popular screened.

Hee! I'll bet.

I recall seeing a spoof where someone dressed as one of the Tracy's walked in a sitting position with rods glued to his arms to look like wires! Don't know who did it, but Cook & Moore is a good possibillity.

Considering that this was may favorite Saturday show (next to Supercar) while in the fifth grade, I'll take it.

Gerry Anderson himself on the live-action Thunderbirds movie: "The biggest load of crap I have ever seen in my life."

You'll note he distanced himself from the film; I think he managed to get his name removed from the credits for the most part.

I didn't know this. I'm going to have to read the link above right after this.

I have to say, though,that I thought that the biggest mistake was to push the old cast out of the movie at the soonest moment, and then turn the rest into a predicatable "outh showing iat has the right stuff" plot. If you've paid $10 to see Thunderbirds in action, why would you want to watch a lot of teenage kids running around in a superchromatic jungle?

Indeed. If one WANTS to go see "Spy Kids", one should go SEE "Spy Kids".

Aww... it wasn't a link. I didn't even know Anderson was alive when they made that piece of garbage.

It's one of the very few DVD's I ever sold after watching. Fortunately, it ws already a previously-viewed copy.

(The Spirit, is another I sold.)

Really? I rather liked The Spirit. That's about as close as you're gonna get to capturing Eisner's art style on film.

It was about as close to getting his grapic style, I'll admit. But the characters were all off by a mile. There was also the ridicoulous "Joker" like quality of The Octopus. Whatsisname chewed up the carpet, but the Octopus is supposed to be a shadowy figure whose face we never see. The ridiculous "immortality" theme was wrong, the hostillity between Dolan and the Spirit was wrong, the "Kill Bill" rip-offs were wrong.

Anyone who cared about what really mattered with Eisner would have written a more down-to-earth story. In fact, I would have had Spirit on-screen solving a vairety of interwoven but independent crimes, while some bigger story was happening in the background that he knew almost nothing about. At the end he'd suddenly get a suspicion he was in the dark, look around at the chaos and say "alright, what really happened here?" That would be a more typical late-Eisner plot. Maybe we'd finally get to see the Octopus's face, but he'd be a baby-faced guy, slight figured, balding, little mustache... in fact, almost exactly like someone I know who's commented on this thread.

True enow.

Aww... it wasn't a link. I didn't even know Anderson was alive when they made that piece of garbage.

It's one of the very few DVD's I ever sold after watching. Fortunately, it ws already a previously-viewed copy.

(The Spirit, is another I sold.)

Space Patrol was quite a well-made show, but the dialogue tended to be pretty juvenile. I guess it was intended for a slightly younger age-group. Curiously, they couldn't afford real musicians, so it uses a kind of musique concrete made from electronic sounds and percussion. Unfortunately most episodes now only exist as incredibly wobbly 16mm dupes.

Network DVD in the UK recently released a colorized XL5 episode on Blu-Ray. I guess if sales are good they may do the same for the whole series. Meanwhile, ITV DVD have just reissued Thunderbirds on Blu-Ray in *cropped widescreen*. No way I'm buying that. Seems to be the general consensus too. Network have done a great job with The Prisoner (1967) in original 4:3 transfers, so ITV ought to take a leaf out of their book.

I remember the odd electronic music -- boo, ba-doo boooo, boo ba-doo booo, boo ba-doo boo... I think it was supposed to sound like the radio signals that early satillites broadcast from orbit. (They carried no data, just told their position.)

I remember being amused by the Venusian who was sort of a blond Spock.

The two volumes I have come with "intermissions" -- one is an interveiw with lead singer of XTC, Andy Partridge, who was apparently a big fan of the show, and talks a bit about that music.

One thing I noticed is that the puppetry is a lot less skilled than in Fireball XL5 (that's going some, too). They were so bad at making the puppets walk that they avoided it whenever possible. They had chairs that swivelled and moved and releived the puppets of unnecessary need to move themselves.

Generally the stories were more like old pulp SF. Clearly XL5 derived from British boys adventure comics, and Steve Zodiac was only a thinnly disguies RAF pilot. The way space was patrolled, it might have been the English Channel, and the XL5 a Bristol Beaufigher looking for German E and U-boats to sink. Space was so small that the flash of an explosion on another planet could be seen on Earth in one episode.