We are mostly all old enough to remember these when they were on TV. Just came across an ITV YouTube channel that has remastered (in HD) episodes of Thunderbirds and Stingray (so far).
Seems to be fairly recent (about a month) and as at time of writing there are the first 11 episodes of Thunderbirds and first 4 of Stingray.
Whilst the link is to a channel rather than a video, I’ll still put in the first comment just in case.
Here’s the link…..
https://www.youtube.com/@itv-Retro/videos
I remember looking forward to Stingray when I was four years-old, but on the first episode I was scared by those scaley creatures and didn’t watch it again.
… and for those purists who were disappointed when Gerry went live action, here’s Lego U.F.O.
All I have to say is Wow!
When my son was much younger Gerry Anderson was doing a talk/appearance at Harrods and the giveaway was an International Rescue hat, I told my son to go up and get one “But I don’t want one dad”
“I do”
Never did get one, he made up for it when he took me to a showing a few years ago of the Gerry Anderson documentary with a Q and A with the director and Gerry’s son.
My son was about 4 and very obsessed with Thomas the Tank Engine. At a central city event, someone was dressed as Sir Topham Hat AKA The Fat Controller and asked the crowd of about 200 kids if they knew the names of all the engines ? A sea of hands….but my son didn’t do that – he figured that yes, he did know the names of all the engines and simply made his way through the crowd and onto the stage. He did it so quickly that he caught me on the hop. Just as other boys and girls with their hands raised, were being chosen, my son just appeared next to him, ready to be quizzed. He was much smaller and younger than the others, so STH AKA TFC just went with it and he won a nice wee prize.
We still have the wooden Thomas train set which I remember costing and arm and a leg at the time – but it is still in good nick and is pulled out when tot visitors need to be kept occupied.
There goes my early evening: anything can happen in the next half-hour.
Clicked on the link to explore the Stingray and Thunderbirds episodes, but delighted to see some of the other shows on there – Camberwick Green, Trumpton and Chigley!
The complete Trumptonshire trio was released on Blu-Ray about 18 months ago. 10 hours of top drama.
They’re also on Prime Video.
Did they ever find the arsonist in Trumpton? There was a fire every fecking week.
He’s just had his collar felt for trying to torch Starmer’s gaff.
HMHBs Trumpton Riots – always had an issue with the lyrics of that one. Most of the characters mentioned are from Camberwick Green
That’s often the way with riots. Outside agitators muscling in.
Given how similar the locals were in appearance, Camberwick Green and Chigley must have been neighbouring towns.
They were indeed, all located in Trumptonshire
A gorgeous homage to this sort of thing:
Ah, I love Pete’s material – particularly his Tiger Moth Tales – and Cocoon is such a great album!
Anyone loving the great progressive sounds of Camel or Caravan should immediately rush off and buy his entire back-catalogue.
A lot of inbreeding. The rumour was Dr Mopp was running an artificial insemination program decades ahead of anyone else.
I don’t recall many fires…their emergencies were usually something pathetic like a cat stuck up a tree or a child’s head in a fence railing.
It looks like the content is geographically based – when I access from Singapore, I only see Thunderbirds and Stingray, but when I go via my UK VPN, I see the rest.
@dai – looks like you will need to use a UK VPN to access Ivor The Engine 🙂
One of my childhood memories is my father taking me to visit the factory where he worked because they were doing some repairs to the Thunderbird 2 model. I don’t know what the repairs were – hammering out dents maybe? I remember it was hanging on chains and seemed quite big for a model, especially compared to the diecast toy I had seen.
It was a one-off thing I think and I don’t think they did anything similar which was a pity because I would have liked to have seen a larger scale Spectrum Pursuit Vehicle.
I also seem to recall there was a Stingray episode set in a fish tank?
I rather assumed all of Stingray was in fish tank.
I’m old enough to remember them all, from Four Feather Falls onwards, but it was the futuristic ones that intrigued me. I was always a sci fi comic fan, so Supercar, Fireball XL5, Stingray and Thunderbirds were catnip. By the time I was a bit older, I didn’t care so much for Captain Scarlet, but I did watch UFO as I recall, although that was a bit meh.
How dare you, sir! I’ll have you know that I have Ayshea Brough’s autograph – and my avatar picture speaks for itself!
No Joe 90 either I imagine. I had a Joe 90 briefcase with the secret camera.
UFO PHWOAR.
Bit worrying that Captain Black is still hiding in plain sight as the Arsenal manager.
He’s surely from the Lego UFO series? (cf David Squires wonderful football cartoons in the Guardian).
Edit: a timely example
https://www.theguardian.com/football/picture/2025/may/06/david-squires-on-arsenal-and-spurs-acclimatising-for-season-defining-trips
Did anyone else go to see the Anderson’s Doppelgänger (Journey to the Far Side of the Sun) a live action film? I recall I rather enjoyed it at the time.
I recall seeing FAB 1 at an exhibition in London, the same time I shook hands with a cyber man.
It’s a decent movie which commits to its nonsense premise (no spoilers), but its main legacy is as the prototype for “UFO”, as many of the actors, models, props and sets turn up in it, as do some of Barry Gray’s music cues, including the fantastically sinister UFO end theme…
… and it’s only relatively recently that I discovered that “Space: 1999” was originally developed as season 2 of “UFO”, but by the time it was ready to go into production, “UFO”’s US ratings had plummeted, and the studio demanded it be retooled as a brand new show and insisted on including American stars…
This may be of interest…..
A few years ago they made some “new” episodes from old audio only recordings to celebrate the 50th anniversary – but staying true to the original way of making.
I was born in 1963, and was obsessed with Gerry Anderson’s shows as a child, especially Thunderbirds, and I think they still stand up today, not least because of the vibrant colour cinematography (for the latter shows), but also because despite the puppets and being “y’know, for kids”, they play everything absolutely straight as action-adventure stories… those 30-second “coming up this episode” montages before the Thunderbirds opening credits are super-exciting!
PS watching them now, Captain Scarlet and Joe 90 are both insanely violent for kids’ shows!
When we lived in Potters Bar in the 90s, Shane Rimmer (aka Scott Tracy) lived over the road. We had a couple of dinner parties together. Interesting guy. He appeared in ‘Dr Strangelove’ and several James Bond films. Plus, he played Ed Murrow in ‘Gandhi’.
Re: Potters Bar
I believe that the photo of a cow on the front cover of Pink Floyd’s “Atom Heart Mother” was taken in a field near Potters Bar.
Sheffield Tuesday!
Might have to have a look. They have such a particular look and feel to them that makes them unmistakeable – particularly how the water always looks a bit weird when it splashes (because of scale, perhaps?)
Loved it in the 60s on our new colour telly when I was a nipper and loved it all over again when Twang Jr was one too, on VHS. I have no doubt I’ll love it again on YouTube, and of course I’ve sent him the link.
I thought Thunderbirds and Stingray were thrilling. Those wonderfully imagined machines. I loved Thunderbird 2. I had the Dinky model. Along with a UFO Interceptor.
All produced cinematically. The depth and detail of the background sets was remarkable.
Though I was always struck by the total lack of people. Any urban scene was always deserted. No people. Just cars parked, or moving along a street with no driver visible (until a close up of the interior). The opening scenes of the Thunderbird movie show a new rocket powered aircraft on an airfield preparing for take off, automatically. Not a soul is seen anywhere near all this activity. The overall effect is quite sinister.
It was because it was very likely impossible to create and shoot large numbers of miniature puppets as background. Still. Sinister.
Trumpton and Camberwick Green. All the cars and vans drove SO slowly. Wheels barely turning as Brian Cant sang a song about what they were doing. Even as a short-wearer I felt like shouting ‘drive the bloody thing! Move!’
Yeah, Dr Mopp’s car crawled along at such a snail-like pace, I’m surprised that any of his patients were still alive by the time that he got to their house.
The butler that answered the phone in Chigley “hurried” to tell his boss something. No he didn’t. He was like a disabled slug.
Last year when going on holiday I took my Thunderbirds box set hoping it might entertain my friends 3 year old boy. To my absolute delight he took to it straight away. Watching with such a little one it was enlightening how he cowered at some scenes and how the danger and jeopardy was experienced through such young eyes.
I have since been able to buy retro figures and models of T1 to T4 as presents. It is one of the joys of my life to see him lost in the world of make believe as he lays on the floor with Thunderbird 1 fighting off one his dinosaurs. A testament to what a remarkable programme (and Stingray) etc were and are.
What never fails to make me snigger is the amount of smoking and drinking. Lady Penelope’s cook dropping fag ash in a stew she is making with Parker sitting by in his braces. Classic (that’s the episode they break into the Bank of England using Lady P’s hair grip. My favourite ep. ). Happy days.
There’s a Youtube channel devoted to videos of the “behind-the-scenes” and “making of” kind for those who like to peer behind the curtain or obsess about minutiae (and you probably wouldn’t be here if you didn’t)
https://www.youtube.com/@century21films28