Joe 90

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Template:Infobox television Joe 90 is a 1968 Sylvia and Gerry Anderson television show concerning the adventures of a nine-year-old boy, Joe McClaine. A single season of thirty 25 minute episodes was completed, and it was the last show to be made exclusively using a form of puppetry called "Supermarionation". It was created by Gerry Anderson's Century 21 Productions for Lew Grade's ITC Entertainment company (Grade also owned part of Century 21), and was first broadcast on Grade's ATV.

Joe's adoptive father and computer expert, Professor Ian "Mac" McClaine, invented a large computer called BIGRAT (an acronym for Brain Impulse Galvanoscope Record And Transfer) that allowed skills to be copied from the minds of top experts in their fields to another person. Mac's friend, Sam Loover, a secret agent for the World Intelligence Network (WIN), persuaded Mac to let Joe use the machine to work for WIN. After the requisite skill was transferred, and provided Joe was wearing special spectacles containing hidden electrodes, he was able to fly jet airplanes, perform surgery, and so on.

Like Anderson's previous series, the show regularly features rescue operations, secret worldwide organizations, complicated gadgetry, terrorism, and threats to the entire world. Notably, it was the only one of his series to assume that the Cold War would continue into the 21st century. The show featured a distinctive theme tune composed by Barry Gray, who also composed music for other Anderson productions.

It was not uncommon in schools in the 1960s for a brainy (and possibly unliked) child to be referred to as "Joe 90".

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