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Thunderbirds is a mid-1960s Sylvia and Gerry Anderson television show which used a form of puppetry called "Supermarionation".
Virtually the entire crew of the series had come direct from previous Anderson productions, although the crew was expanded for this series, which was shot at a new and larger studio. The voice cast were all experienced character actors and several were already (or became) regular Anderson performers. Interestingly, David Holliday (the original voice of Virgil in Series I) was the only real American cast in any voice role in the series; all the others were British or Australian.
Versatile Australian actor Ray Barrett provided the voices of John Tracy and The Hood, as well as many other character parts. He was regularly used by Anderson and had voiced both Cmdr Shore and Titan in Stingray; thanks to his extensive experience in live radio, he was adept at rapid changes from one voice to another and he could also mimic both English and American accents. He became a major star on British TV in the Sixties and since his return to Australia in the Seventies he has become one of the nation's senior film and TV actors.
Veteran American actor Shane Rimmer (Scott) went on to appear in many subsequent Anderson productions, and has a huge list of TV and movie credits. He is probably best known for his appearances in James Bond films and for his role as Capt. G.A. 'Ace' Owens in Kubrick's Dr Strangelove. He has appeared in many action, thriller and sci-fi flims including Star Wars, and has often been cast in military or political parts.
David Graham, one of Anderson's longest serving voice actors, had worked on Supercar, Fireball XL5 and Stingray and was one of the original voices of the Daleks in Dr Who in 1963.
Voice cast
Set in 2064, Thunderbirds depicts the adventures of the Tracy family, which consists of ex-astronaut billionaire Jeff Tracy and his five sons, Scott, Virgil, Alan, Gordon and John (all named after Mercury astronauts). Together with Tracy's mother, engineer "Brains", their servant Kyrano and his daughter Tin Tin, the Tracys live on a remote, uncharted Pacific island. They are secretly the members of International Rescue, a private and highly-advanced emergency response organization, which covers the globe and even reaches into space, rescuing people with their futuristic vehicles, the Thunderbirds.
Tracy forms the idea of International Rescue after the tragic death of his wife, Lucille. Buying a small island in the Pacific and secretly converting it into the secret rescue base for IR, he convinces engineering genius Brains (aka Hiram J. Hackenbacker) to help him bring IR into operational reality, designing and constructing a series of fantastic machines and equipment. Key to this are the five Thunderbird craft and the many Pod Vehicles transported by TB2.
Some of the disasters attended by International Rescue are the result of accident or misadventure, but many are caused by deliberate sabotage. A recurring villain, "The Hood" (who has no other name in the series) frequently causes major accidents in order to lure International Rescue's vehicles to the scene and spy on or steal them. Another complication is that The Hood's half brother, Kyrano, is the Tracy's servant, and because The Hood has some degree of psychic power over Kyrano, The Hood is able on one occasion to compell him to sabotage Thunderbird 1's security systems. Kyrano's daughter TinTin is romantically linked with Alan Tracy, as well as participating in many IR missions.
International Rescue's London agent, international socialite Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward, and her cockney butler/chauffeur Aloysius "Nosey" Parker, are often seen chasing The Hood and other villains in the pink, amphibious Rolls-Royce FAB 1, which is equipped with James Bond-style gadgets. (Rolls-Royce actually provided an authentic radiator grille to the production company for closeups of FAB 1 (such as when the retractable machine gun was fired).)
The characters use the radio sign-off "F. A. B." rather than "Roger" or "Over and out". Anderson was often asked what F. A. B. stood for, but in fact it simply stood for "fab" (short for "fabulous"), which was a 1960s catchphrase.
The Thunderbird machines are:
The function of Thunderbird 2 is the transportation of specialised rescue vehicles and equipment to disaster sites. They are carried in one of six interchangable pods. Pod 4 contains Thunderbird 4 and other undersea rescue equipment. The pod vehicles which would emerge from one of TB2s pods each week were often the stars of the show. These include:
One of Meddings' most famous inventions was the so-called "rolling road" and "rolling sky" systems. The series often called for scenes that showed the Thunderbirds and other craft flying through the air, aircraft landing or taking off along runways, and motor vehicles travelling along roads. The effects team quickly discovered that the old method of moving the models across a static base or against a static background produced very unconvincing results. Meddings came up with a novel solution to the problem, first used in the premiere episode, "Trapped In The Sky", which called for the Thunderbirds' elevator cars to be manoeuvered into position on the runway beneath the stricken Skythrust aircraft as it comes in to land.
He created an endless belt of canvas, stretched over rollers and driven by an electric motor. The outer surface of the canvas was sealed and painted with a continous runway pattern, and the miniatures were then fixed to fine wires on and above this "rolling road". A similar roller system, painted with a sky background, was built at right angles to the runway and the motors were linked to provide a consistent speed for both elements.
When the lights and cameras were set up in the right position and the rollers were activated, it created a very convincing illusion of movement. It also proved extremely helpful for the lighting and camera crews, since the miniatures did not move and were therefore easy to light and shoot. The 'rolling sky' system proved equally effective for shots of flying aircraft, and the illusion could be further enhanced by blowing smoke across the miniatures with a fan to simulate passing through cloud. The 'rolling road' system was later used on several James Bond movies.
The team also quickly mastered the art of creating extremely convincing miniature explosions using materials including petroleum and Fuller's Earth. These were filmed at high speed, and when slowed down to normal speed they produced spectacular results. The team also became expert at creating a convincing illusion for rocket take-offs and landings. After exhaustive tests, they found a British firm that could make special thrustless solid-fuelled rocket canisters in different sizes, which burned for about ten seconds and which could be fitted inside the various miniatures to provide convincing rocket exhaust effects.
The show was (and still is) justly praised for the exceptional quality of its miniature vehicles and sets. Some of the main Thunderbird vehicles were built by a professional model-making firm, but many others were complex radio-controlled kits built by Meddings and his team, who pioneered the technique of adapting commercially available models and miniature vehicles, 'customising' them by applying pieces from commercial model kits to add convincing surface detail. The miniatures were also often 'aged' with paint and dust to create the convincing appearance that they were real, well-used vehicles. These techniques became standard practice in the special effects trade and were used to great effect in the building of the miniature spaceships and other vehicles for the first three Star Wars films.
Many of the effects team including Meddings and Brian Johnstone became respected specialists in the flim industry. Impressed by their work on the TV series, director Stanley Kubrick poached several of the Anderson effects team to work on his sci-fi masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey.
A crucial element of the show's success was its thrilling music score, composed and conducted by Barry Gray, who provided all the music for the Anderson series up to and including Space: 1999. His instantly recognisable Thunderbirds March is one of the best-known of all TV themes and has become a perennial favourite with brass and military bands around the world. Gray's original recordings for the Anderson series were recently rediscovered in a storage facility in London and a remastering and CD re-release project is currently underway.
A total of 32 episodes of Thunderbirds were made between 1965 and 1966 (although production began in 1964, as indicated by the show's copyright date). Its popularity led to the production of two full length feature films, Thunderbirds Are Go! (1966) and Thunderbird Six (1968).
Today the series is a British institution. A re-run on the BBC in 1992 led to a shortage of Tracy Island models, and so the children's programme Blue Peter helpfully demonstrated how to build a home-made version.
The TV series was financed by Lew Grade's companies ATV and ITC Entertainment. It was originally intended to consist of half-hour episodes, but on seeing the preview Grade decided that it would be much more exciting as an hour-long show. Ironically, when screened in the US, episodes are sometimes split into paired half-hours.
Around a dozen novels were published when the series first came out, most by the author John Theydon, some hardcover, most paperback. Two were spinoffs based solely on the adventures of Lady Penelope and Parker. The plots were original, rather than recapitulations of TV episodes. These books are now collectors' items.
Several companies including Matchbox and Dinky were licenced to produced die-cast metal and plastic toys based on the Thunderbird vehicles. They proved hugely popular and were one of the best selling merchandising lines of the decade. Original Thunderbirds toys are now expensive and highly sought after collectors' items.
Some versions screened in US syndication in the 1990s used re-recorded voices and music, much to the disgust of long-time fans. Even worse was "Turbo-charged Thunderbirds", which replaced the original dialogue with "ironic post-modern" jokes. Gerry Anderson was reportedly furious.
The series was remastered with Dolby Surround sound in 2000. Gerry Anderson, who had not received any royalties on the show since signing away the rights in the late 1960s, was employed as a "remastering consultant".
For approximately three years (2000–2003) the satellite channel Boomerang UK broadcast uncut episodes daily, meaning that the complete run of 32 episodes was screened about 34 times.
The Thunderbirds are also screened on G4techTV.
A live action feature film version directed by Jonathan Frakes, and premièred on July 24, 2004. All of the Thunderbird craft seen in the live action film are based upon the original designs, but with refinements. The film garnered poor reviews with critics complaining that the plot was essentially a copy of Spy Kids that sidelined the main series characters in favour of children characters who have to rescue the adults, alienating longtime fans of the show, many of whom are adults. (In fairness, it should be pointed out that the plot of the film Thunderbirds Are Go also focused on the youngest Tracy brother, but not to the same extent). In addition, the film has done poorly in the box office with its opening weekend having the film finished out of the top ten grossing films of that period, a sure sign of an unsuccessful run for a film of this budget and cinema count.
A number of novels were published based upon the television series, most during 1966:
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