Thunderbirds Are Go!!!.... Tomorrow!

How cool was that? As a 4/5 year old kid in the early 90's, Thunderbirds - which preceeded Saved By The Bell cause the tapes we took off the Tv have the opening credits of Saved by The Bell on them - was simply the SHIT! Not that the word "shit" was in my vocabulary at the time or in fact even a buzz-word back then for a positive description of something, but it was most definitely the thought on my mind. I can distinctly remember the Christmas when good 'ol Mr. Claus himself left me Tracy Island under the tree, the perfect addition to my collection of metallic Thunderbird vehicles which were currently residing in my makeshift Tracy Island up in my room consisting of a cup with a piece of card over it (for TB1), an eggbox (for TB2) and one of those ring toy things you give to babies (for TB3).



But Damien (D, Damo, Fuckface or whatever name you happen to call me), why are you telling me this? Well as it so happens, yours truly was so ecstatic to find a "Thunderbirds - The Complete Series" DVD box set on Amazon.co.uk, that not only did he order it but he also got very nostalgic and spent a better portion of two hours yesterday evening watching Captain Scarlet on Veoh.com. Naturally, DVD sets of the Andersons' other works are available too, but none so much as captivated me as much as the Thunderbirds did. Well...I liked Captain Scaret a bit too, but it scared me shitless since it was kindof a grown up version of the Andersons' work, where people got shot, died, were resurrected by the deep-voiced Mysterons and there was blood and... As a 4/5 year old kid that was scary, especially after becoming so familiar with the usually smiley faced Thunderbirds.

Thing is though...that was me when I was small, in the early 90's, and yet...both the Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet had been made in the 60's. So what makes the Thunderbirds so good and so much so that even today in 2008 I can watch them on the TV/online and still enjoy it, and not be put off by the fact that you can see the strings of the puppets or stuff like that (and believe you me that revelation only hit me years after Thunderbirds had ceased being shown regularly on BBC2, when I was smaller I hadn't noticed the strings ONCE in all my time watching them. This fact I attribute to the now and more recently improved picture quality of modern TV's). The thing is though, one shouldn't be bothered by the fact that you can see the strings, in the 1960's - WHEN THIS WAS MADE - this was revolutionary, equivalent to what game developers are doing for the Xbox360 and Playstation 3 today! Supermarionation, colour images, action sequences, explosions...Thunderbirds was bringin special effects people were seeing in the cinema to the home TV screen.



Not only that, one also has to remember that the Andersons' series', all of them in fact, captialised on the un-restrainable lust of the 60's era of creating futuristic visions of our world. The year now is 2008, and even back in the 90's some of the stuff in the show I saw was very revolutionary - eg. Video Phones, but now, we can see such technology being integrated into our society. Video calls are almost a mandatory feature of modern 3G phones. It is fair to say Gerry Anderson was a true visionary. Remember, Thunderbirds is set approx 2060-2080 and Captain Scarlet is somewhere round the same time. Take the SPV in CS for example. It has the passengers facing backwards (for protection in a crash) and uses monitors to allow them to see where they are steering - technology which is being integrated into next generation aeroplanes being designed by Boeing. However, what kept Thunderbirds a grip on reality was its ability to relate to its own era, using iconic locations such as the Empire State Building (one episode involves a project to move the building after an alteration to sub soil conditions...or something like that!), or its often frequent use of "London Internation Airport" or "Heathrow" for you and me, which has and still is one of the busiest airports in the world.



What was also nice about Thunderbirds was that it was always ready to have a story set in any part of the world. Nowhere was too good or too run down that the producers decided "No, we only want to do the BIG cities and countries in the world!". Yes, it did have stories set in the big cities and all that, but other places got a look in; my home of Ireland was in one episode - granted I now don't appreciate the rather (shall we say) stereotypical approach of the characters in it, but perhaps back in the 60's that was accurate. Another thing which likely helped the series and is something which modern series can fall prey too is trying to keep the stories original. Almost everything today is scrutinised for not being "original", everywhere is rife with examples, in books for instance we have Eragon - Lord of the Rings (or in fact ANY fantasy novel ever written) and the video game industry is riddled with copies or stolen ideas etc. But Thunderbirds never had the same thing happen. Yeah sure, it was a "RESCUE" - maybe - but the style and circumstances were always different, meaning the International Rescue team had to employ different gadgets and gizmos to get the job done, but at the same time, they would re-use certain things and you'd be like "Oh yeah, I remember when they used that to...". Arguably the most famous of those things being "The Mole" which was a drilling machine stored in one of the Thunderbird 2 pods, or "Fireflash", a super-sonic aircraft which appeared in a few episodes - though only the centre of attention in two.

There exists an argument that if something manages to stand the test of time, then it is truly a masterpiece. The Beatles have done it, The Wizard of Oz has done it and Thunderbirds has most certainly done it. When something can continue to entertain long after its technological sell-by date, you know you have a winner. Though easily eclipsed by modern puppetry and special effects, the original Thunderbirds still maintains a charm and a class that can never be replaced.



F.A.B. (Not FAB as in brilliant, F.A.B. is something they say in the programme...don't know what it means tho...)

~The Damo

Aside: Back in 2004 a completely new TV series entitled "Thunderbirds IR" - IR being International Rescue - was scheduled into production and set for release in 2005. It used CGI for complex scenes, completely redesigned Thunderbirds vehicles and modern puppet similar to the standard used in Team America: World Police, a parody in its own right of Thunderbirds. It was shot in "Hypermarionation" a tribute to the original "Supermarionation" which can be seen in the credits at the top in the video. The series is on permanent standby after the merger of two companies of which one was running the production of the series. The trailer can be found at Youtube. Personally I'm not impressed, it appears very American-ised and the bits of CGI ruin effects which were masterclassed in the original.