Any fans of Gerry Anderson? (Thunderbirds, UFO, Space 1999)

Mr. Billington looked great in UFO! Sylvia Anderson sure knew how to dress him!

It was weird that Michael Billington and Ed Bishop died so close to each other...

 

Never really got into XL5, was shown a bit late in the 70s/80s as a rerun for me.

Loved Thunderbirds.

Never really liked Joe 90, but it wasn't repeated that much.

Didn't see much of Captain Scarlet as a kid but I watched a few re-runs a few years ago and it was quite good watching as an adult. Quite bleak.

UFO - Oh god where do we start. Great SFX but crappy plots throughout. I watched a lot of the re-runs a couple of years ago as I didn't really catch them as a kid. It seemed pretty much most episodes ran the following plot -

1. Straker sits in his office smoking and bitching about some paranoid office politics.

2. Moonbase gets an alert as three UFOs come in.

3. Three Interceptors with three missiles are sent to intercept. (you can see where this is going)

4. Two UFOs are taken out and one near miss means it crashes on Earth. Why didn't they send up 4 Interceptors? It happened the four previous weeks!

5. Much drama tracking down UFO and occupant but it's sorted.

6. Straker sorts out niggling Office/staff problem and chuckles about it with his No.2 over a ciggie.

7. Rinse and repeat.

Space 1999 - Much publicity about this when it came out, I was about 6 so loved it. The episode Dragon's Domain really scared me as a kid and actually had a marked affect on me. It meant years of sleeping totally under my bed covers till I was in my early teens. True! Really freaked my young mind. The amazing thing is I've mentioned this on a few other forums and several have said they experienced the same with this episode to a lesser or greater degree. Nothing else I've seen since has had such an effect.

So it was with some trepidation I recorded the episode a couple of years ago when it was re-run. It really was an odd sensation sitting down to watch an old 'adversary' that I hadn't watched since I was 5 or 6 years old. I watched it again and could understand why I was quite so affected by it. It was odd closure on something that hung with me for many years of my young life.

Sorry about that if it sounds silly.

 

They sure did. Even when the scores were often limited to heavily recycled themes / cues (Space:1999), their effectiveness was undiminished. Great stuff.

No not at all. Many people have things which move, scare or otherwise stick with them, especially as children. Art and imagination have incredible power.

 

I'm yet to watch Space:1999, but I love it's theme tune (The first one, that is)

 

Hope you enjoy when you do; it's a very uneven and dated show but, speaking of the first season anyway, I felt it has its moments. There are a few other excellent, haunting bits of score they often use.

 

I just came across this nice page full of the Thunderbirds vessels in cut-away:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ts-delve-engines-Tracy-Island-spacecraft.html

 

Awesome link, thanks for that!! I know what I'm asking for Father's Day!

FAB

 

Am getting back into the show's after not watching them for months. I've still gotta get through all of Supercar and Fireball XL5.

I found some amusing Captain Scarlet videos though, they are edited and played around to be funny, and they honesly are funny:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-vdL0amiws

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0GvroKjpcY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHy10323B70

 

An interesting former Gerry Anderson worker's attempt at a series:

 

Somebody explain to me again how the Tracy family can buy huge containers of liquid oxygen rocket fuel and have them delivered to their desert island home in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. And how they can have rockets lift off from underground launch pads without the rockets roasting the crap out of their house.

Even as a kid, I rolled my eyes and laughed at the "artificial palm trees" that would hinge down when the rockets start firing. The whole thing is so silly, but I have to say, it was charming and fun for the 1960s.

This is not too far off from the way the show really looked...

 

The Tracy family had a rocket plane under the swimming pool! How cool is that!

 

Yeah, but their pool-cleaning bills were murder...

 

I loved UFO and Space:1999. Thunderbirds was a big part of my childhood. As Vidiot pointed out, the steal from When Worlds Collide was obviouos--I recognized it early on as I had seen When Worlds Collide (at least I remember seeing it) before Thunderbirds.

 

Despite the steals, I have to confess, the first few Supermarionation shows that made it to the U.S. were classic: Supercar, Fireball XL-5, Stingray, and Thunderbirds. I always felt that Gerry Anderson lost something when he went with human actors in UFO and Space:1999, which I thought were needlessly tragic and depressing.

 

I am.I just watched Journey To The Far Side Of The Sun last Sunday.I have the UFO box set.I love 60's/70's Sci/Fi tv and movies.Nothing better than Matt Helm,Derek Flint,Mario Bava's Planet Of The Vampires.Battle Beyond The Sun.The Gamma 1 trilogy.I love all that campy stuff.

 

I like Thunderbirds. Cool and slightly creepy all rolled into one!

 

I'm very partial to UFO. I used to watch it alone at my grandparents' house across the street when I was about 11. They were both at work on Saturday afternoons, so I'd head over there where I could have the TV all to myself for a couple hours.

I think that's one reason why UFO made an impact on me - being alone while watching it magnified the dark tone of the show even more.

I *LOVED* the vehicle designs, thought the aliens were really creepy, and couldn't get enough of Gay Ellis' hotness! I loved Straker's bite-your-head-off attitude, and wanted his car - though I did NOT want his haircut.

During this era - mid 1970's - there was precious little merchandise available related to UFO on this side of the pond. Luckily, I was able to find a UFO lunchbox, which I happilly used for a couple years. I wish I still had it, as it was my favorite lunchbox ever.

 

I also managed to get my hands on a Dinky Interceptor and S.H.A.D.O. Mobile from Circus World toy store in our local mall.

 

The hairstyles in UFO could be pretty wonky...

 

The live action series never did anything for me either. I lost interest after Captain Scarlet, never really enjoying the final puppet based creations, Joe 90 and The Secret Service.

 

I'd love to see UFO as a movie. It has a terrific little premise that was way ahead of its time (although flying to other planets for body parts--one of the major reveals with the show--seems an awful long way to go when you could just devote that technology to fabricating new ones. Brings new meaning to "organ donor").

Wish the show was on Blu-ray although the DVD is pretty good looking. The visual effects were much improved on in the later show Space:1999.

To Vidiot's point I think that Anderson often confused depressing drama with good drama.

 

Yeah, the fact that everybody dies and everything blows up at the end of Journey to the Far Side of the Sun tells you that for whatever reason, Anderson seemed to be obsessed with the idea of a) killing everybody off, and b) blowing everything up [real good]. UFO and Space:1999 kind of continued in that same direction -- and I think UFO even reused some of the props from the movie.

This Wikipedia entry on Far Side relates some pretty awful situations that Anderson had to deal with during the production of the movie.

 

Bump!
I just came across this wonderful site where you can view masses of Anderson merchandising:
http://lester.demon.nl/superm/supercar/merc-gallery.html

Scroll (slowly) down and links to each series themes are at the bottom of the page. F.A.B.?

 

I still wanna know how the Thunderbirds family got their island fortress built, and how they built and launched the Thunderbird 5 space station in outer space. Where exactly do they buy liquid oxygen fuel from? Costco? And I also wanna know if the guy stuck there ever gets laid at all. For all we know, he's still up there.

 

I used to love that series as a kid, especially the high-tech stuff like the little mini (CRT) TV screens in a hand-held, portable device - wow! And yes, the opening credits musical score was awesomely sci-fi-a-go-go-tastic!

So, not long ago, I decided to rewatch the series out of pure nostalgia. Unfortunately, I couldn't bear to watch much of it, as the plots were truly dreadful! From bad physics, astronomy & stellar distances, to pseudo-science and mysticism & religion and full on woo - ugh! It was too cringeworthy to watch, alas.