I love wallowing occasionally into my childhood and Thunderbirds are definitely a part of it. However I’m wondering if I’m being duped by the sudden plethora of episodes available on YerTube. Are they legit episodes or is the work of fakery?
Thunderbirds are go! On YouTube.
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I know there was a resurgence in recent years to start making new episodes, but so many available now. I was under the impression that Supermarionation was under lock and key. Can anyone supply confirmation?
Loads of eps from Four Feather Falls, Fireball XL5 and Stingray up there so would imagine the Thunderbirds stuff is, if not 100% legit, then at least kosher
Thanks @Jaygee. It seems such a simple thing but I don’t want my childhood rearranged by copies purporting to be original. Imagine that. Forgery!
Sad to think there’s probably an adult fan fiction site that features a lurid, Lady Chatterly-style re-telling of what Parker and Lady Penelope might have gotten up to if her pink Roller “failed to proceed”
Brings a whole new nuance to the expression, ‘Home, Parker’.
Given the name of the show’s main villain it also fills the innocent term “Under the hood” with a level of innuendo that escaped my then 11-year old brain
“Oh, Parker, well done…”
Start that, Parker, to align with the other common Penelope/Parker trope.
(As in Stop that, Parker: Certainly, milady, which way did it go?)
A popular one in the primary school playground:
“Parker, take of my dress…
Parker, take off my brassiere…
Parker, take off my kickers …
Parker, I don’t want to see you wearing my clothes ANY MORE”
I still find it funny.
Arf! I remember chortling at that, the ludicrousness of a man wearing women’s clothes, as if etc.
What? A fella? In women’s clothes? Like Dick Emery or Danny La Rue? It’ll never take off [chortle].
Lady Penelope wore Kickers?
The idea. I always thought she was nouveau riche
Video unavailable and blocked here as it contains content from ITV plc so I imagine it must be the real thing
When my grandson started watching the new animation version, I decided to educate him and splurged on the 6 disc DVD box set of the original. A truly inspired purchase.
Nyah… Torchy was da bomb.
Sadly, like so many showbiz figures of that era, Torchy’s once once dazzling career was dimmed as a result of what later turned out to be unsubstantiated allegations by detectives from Operation Yew Tree
Torchy the Battery Boy was just an early Duracell bunny.
Last heard of bleeding brown rust in a broken sex toy that had been casually flung in a bedroom drawer and forgotten about
Bleeding brown rust…ewwwww
It seems Thunderbirds Are Gone. Luckily I have the DVD box set (and Captain Scarlet), man child that I am. And the entire UFO series come to think of it …
One of my strongest childhood memories is the episode where the “Sidewinder” a giant machine fell into a pit of fire. I think the episode was called “Pit of Peril”. Before International Rescue arrived on the scene a couple of the Sidewinder’s support team were winched down to try and assist those trapped. The scream of pain as the fire enveloped them and they begged to be winched back out was absolutely terrifying and lives with me still. Astonishing television for children. I had them all on VHS but they are lost now. I might go searching on Ebay…
Pit of Peril:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qd_odK6xqBU&list=PLhFZMf4YCNdvXB15Pd8saqe3yIeQW8wHQ&index=5
People using the site from a UK IP address are blocked from seeing this. Via a VPN I can see them but I have to use a non US IP.
Shame. There’s loads of episodes on YouTube, and the complete 1966 film ‘Thunderbirds Are Go!”
Looks like the movies are visible in the UK but none of the original episodes.
Less than £10 second hand. FAB!
Thanks @Billybob-Dylan and @fortuneight Ordered one earlier from Ebay for 8 quid including postage. FAB
You’re welcome!
To answer your question in the OP, at least sideways, there are videos on YouTube made by lovers of Supermarionation which you might describe as “fake” or extremely well made homage, depending on your humour. (Given that Ver Tube, like London, is a big place Mr Shadrack, it might be construed as a teensy bit misleading that this guy uploads with the “Century 21” moniker).
Loved TBAG, especially when Zero-X appeared. But Captain Scarlet was the apotheosis of cool. Wgo can forget Francis “Paul Temple” Matthews channeling Cary Grant?
Years ago, i did some radio ads with G and S A regular, Ed Bishop; along with – Talking Pictures mainstay, Lionel Mutton- one of the two or three go-to-guys for UK TV shows needing a soupcon of Yank glamour. He was a really nice guy and good fun to work with in despite my Clem Fandango tendency to request retakes
Edit- just looked LM up to check the spelling of his name and learned he was in fact a Canadian who was born in BSingstoke. You learn something new every day!p, etc,etc
I was an extra in a film a long time ago. The only scene I took part in featured Ed Bishop. Absent mindlessly I called him Mr Straker in a convo during a catering break, he ignored the faux pas.
A pal of mine loaned me The Secret Service a few years ago. I thoroughly enjoyed it, it’s a little odd and doesn’t always work but if you enjoy Gerry Anderson it’s well worth a look
Is that the one with Stanley Unwin? IIRC, that was a mix of live action long shots and close up puppetry.
Think they went full-tilt on the live action stuff like Space 1999 after that. While OK, S1999 et al lacked the -sometimes literally – shot-on-a-shoestring charm of the puppet series with which G and S made their name
That’s the one
From memory, Thunderbird 3 hardly ever featured as most of the action was earthbound. I reckon Alan had a falling out with Gerry Anderson at some point and was sidelined…
Alan was always trying to get it on with Tin Tin. He had no problem with the fact that he spent most episodes lounging by the pool..
Imagine being John stuck up on Thunderbird 5. I read somewhere that either Gerry or Sylvia didn’t like John’s looks. A cruel world showbusiness eh?
One of the first times I noticed David Quantick’s name on a byline was an NME article article in the 80s asking, quite reasonably, why John had not gone stark staring mad up there by himself in Thunderbird 5.
Well I recall that Alan would take over duties occasionally.
My biggest concern was who built Tracy Island? It was hardly populous, did they hire labourers and then do away with them?
The people need to know.
Brains manned TB5 originally, but Jeff had to bring him back as all that time alone with unlimited access to the pre-cursor to the internet was ruining his eye sight and making his stammer worse.
Tracy Island was built by the DIY SOS team in an episode that can’t be broadcast due to a gov’t D notice.
Shame they couldn’t have applied that to Nick Knowles’s CDs.
@NigelT
I heard it was something to do with A’s somewhat wooden delivery of
the lines G and S had acripted for him
International Rescue is now run by David Miliband, who was presumably appointed for a) the contacts and expertise he acquired by being the UK’s Foreign Secretary and b) his resemblance to Scott Tracy.
One unsung genius bit of Thunderbirds is the pre-credits “trailer” of clips from the forthcoming episode, set to Barry Gray’s spectacularly exciting music – to this day I’ve never seen it copied by any other show, and I genuinely can’t think why…
… and not enough can be said about the contribution Gray’s music made to Gerry Anderson’s shows, all of it fantastic, as good as any major grown-up movie, let alone a kid’s TV puppet show.
I was born in 1963, so Thunderbirds was my favourite programme as a child – the only photo that exists of me and my grandfather together is of both of us playing with a Scott Tracy puppet I’d gotten as a present…