Thunderbirds (TV series)

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Template:Infobox ITC Thunderbirds is a mid-1960s Sylvia and Gerry Anderson television show which used a form of puppetry called "Supermarionation".

Contents

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Cast, crew, and production notes

Thunderbirds was the fourth children's action-adventure series made by AP Films (APF) (at the time of production renamed Century 21 Productions) for the British production company ITC Entertainment, and first broadcast on ATV, and it remains by far their most successful and enduringly popular production. Two seasons were produced, comprising thirty-two episodes in total. Production commenced in 1964 and the series premiered on British television in September 1965 in the ATV Midlands region. Other ITV regions followed, including London on 25 December 1965.

The show's title derived from a letter written to his family by Anderson's older brother, while he was serving in the United States during World War II. In the letter, he referred to an American airbase called "Thunderbird Field"; years later, Anderson decided to use the name because of its romantic sound.

Many of the crew came directly from APF's previous production Stingray, but for Thunderbirds the crew was expanded, and it was shot in a new and much larger studio facility in Slough. It was also APF's first one-hour series. Thunderbirds had been in production for several months when ITC Entertainment boss Lew Grade was shown the completed pilot episode, "Trapped In The Sky" and he was reportedly so excited with the result that he immediately instructed Anderson and his team to expand all the episodes from 25 minutes to 50 minutes. Many fans believe this was a wise decision that enhanced the series with more complex plots and characters that drew considerable viewer interest. Grade not only owned ITC, but also part of APF/Century 21 and ATV, through which he broadcast his productions.

Image:BrainsThunderbirds.jpg The voice cast were all experienced character actors and several were already (or became) regular Anderson performers. Interestingly, David Holliday (the original voice of Virgil in Series I) was the only real American cast in any voice role in the series; all the others were British, Australian or Canadian.

Versatile Australian actor Ray Barrett provided the voices of John Tracy and The Hood, as well as many other one-off character parts. He was regularly used by Anderson and voiced both Commander Shore and King Titan in Stingray. Thanks to his extensive experience in live radio back in Australia, he was adept at rapid changes from one voice to another and he could also perform both English and American accents convincingly. By the time that "Thunderbirds" began, Barrett was a major star on British TV and since his return to Australia in the Seventies he has become one of the nation's senior film and TV actors.

Veteran Canadian actor Shane Rimmer (Scott) went on to appear in — and occasionally write scripts for — many subsequent Anderson productions. Rimmer has an extensive list of prominent TV and movie credits, but he is probably best known for his appearances in several James Bond films and for his role as Capt. G.A. 'Ace' Owens in Stanley Kubrick's Dr Strangelove. Rimmer has appeared in many action, thriller and science fiction films, including Star Wars, and has often been cast in military or political roles.

David Graham, one of Anderson's longest serving voice actors, had previously worked on Supercar, Fireball XL5 and Stingray and was also one of the original voices of the Daleks in Doctor Who in 1963.

Voice cast

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Story background

Image:Thunderbirds-marionettes.jpg

Set in the 21st century (stated to be 2026 in the series, retconned to 2065 in the movie Thunderbirds Are Go), Thunderbirds depicts the adventures of the Tracy family, which consists of millionaire former astronaut Jeff Tracy and his five sons, Scott (pilot in charge of Thunderbird 1), Virgil (pilot in charge of Thunderbird 2), Alan (astronaut in charge of Thunderbird 3), Gordon (aquanaut in charge of Thunderbird 4) and John (astronaut in charge of the space station Thunderbird 5). Scott, Virgil, Alan, Gordon and John were all named after Mercury astronauts — Scott Carpenter, Virgil Grissom, Alan Shepard, Gordon Cooper and John Glenn. Together with Jeff's elderly mother, the scientific genius and engineer "Brains", the family's servant Kyrano and his daughter TinTin, the Tracy family live on a remote, uncharted Pacific island. They are, in secret, the members of International Rescue, a private and highly-advanced emergency response organization, which covers the globe and even reaches into space, rescuing people with their futuristic vehicles, the Thunderbirds.

Tracy forms the idea of International Rescue after the tragic death of his wife, Lucille. Buying a small island in the Pacific and secretly converting it into the secret rescue base for IR, he convinces engineering genius Brains (who also uses codename Hiram K. Hackenbacker; real name Homer Newton III) to help him bring IR into operational reality, designing and constructing a series of fantastic machines and equipment. Key to this are the five Thunderbird craft and the many Pod Vehicles transported by TB2.

Some of the disasters attended by International Rescue are the result of accident or misadventure, but many are caused by deliberate sabotage. A recurring villain, "The Hood" (actually never named in the series, but given this name in the comics), frequently causes major accidents in order to lure International Rescue's vehicles to the scene and spy on or steal them. Another complication is that The Hood's half brother, Kyrano, is the Tracy's servant, and because The Hood has some degree of psychic power over Kyrano, The Hood is able on one occasion to compel him to sabotage Thunderbird 1's security systems. Kyrano's daughter TinTin is romantically linked with Alan Tracy, as well as participating in many IR missions.

International Rescue's London agent, international socialite Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward, and her cockney butler/chauffeur Aloysius "Nosey" Parker, are often seen chasing The Hood and other villains in the pink, amphibious Rolls-Royce FAB 1, which is equipped with James Bond-style gadgets. (Rolls-Royce actually provided an authentic radiator grille to the production company for closeups of FAB 1 (such as when the retractable machine gun was fired).) Lady Penelope's yacht was called FAB 2.

The characters use the radio sign-off "F. A. B." rather than "Roger" or "Over and out". Anderson was often asked what F. A. B. stood for, but in fact it simply stood for "fab" (short for "fabulous"), which was a 1960s catchphrase. Later this was unofficially decided to mean Fully Advised and Briefed, following on from P-W-O-R (Proceeding With Orders Received), a similar radio confirmation code in the series Stingray. In Anderson's next series, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, S.I.G. (Spectrum is Green) would continue the tradition of initialled call signs.

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Story Development

Gerry Anderson developed the Thunderbids plot outline quickly - while driving to see Lew Grade to review the next Supermarionation series. Anderson has often noted that he was thinking of a contemporary German mine disaster, where the heavy equipment needed to rescue the miners was located far away - transport time was a major issue in the survival of the miners. The 'race against time' element is one of the recurring themes in Thunderbirds. The stories are very matter of fact, with a tone lacking in self-referential humor, much like the contemporary Dragnet series.

Seen with modern eyes, these stories are not particularly child centric - indeed they feature no children as main characters and were meant to be prime time entertainment for the whole family. While not as gory as Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, puppet characters do die and there is massive destruction on a grand scale. In one episode, the Empire State Building collapses; in another, a terrorist detonates a nuclear device. A convenient plot device is that in the era in which IR operates, most major pieces of equipment and large vehicles are atomically powered - disaster lurks at every turn. Oil refineries appear to explode in every other episode.

The fictional characaters are as follows: Jeff Tracy (the leader), Scott Tracy, Virgil Tracy, Alan Tracy, Gordon Tracy, John Tracy, Tin-Tin (Kyrano's daughter), Kyrano (Loyal servant to Jeff Tracy and The Hood's half-brother), The Hood ( The bad guy, who plots to steal the secrets of the Thunderbirds are always thwarted), Lady Penolpe Crighton-Ward (Posh, rich English secret agent), Parker ( Lady Penolpe's servant), Grandma (Jeff Tracy's mother and family cook), and Brains (The genius who dreamed up the Thunderbirds).

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Thunderbird vehicles

Primarily designed by special effects director Derek Meddings, the five main Thunderbird craft are:

Image:Thunderbird1.jpg
Image:Thunderbird2.jpg
Image:Thunderbird3.jpg
Image:Thunderbird4.jpg
Image:Thunderbird5.jpg
  • Thunderbird 1: a sleek, variable geometry (or "swing wing") hypersonic rocket plane used for fast response, rescue zone reconnaissance and as a mobile control base
  • Thunderbird 2: a heavy supersonic carrier lifting body aircraft used for the transport of major rescue equipment and vehicles
  • Thunderbird 3: a reuseable spaceship used for space rescue and maintenance of TB5
  • Thunderbird 4: a submarine for underwater rescue, carried aboard Thunderbird 2
  • Thunderbird 5: an Earth-orbiting space station which monitors world broadcasts for calls for help and manages communications with the organization.
  • In addition, Thunderbird 6, a biplane, made its first and only appearance in the theatrical film, Thunderbird 6.

Thunderbird 2 is a supersonic heavy transporter, powered by a combination of rocket and ramjet engines. Like Thunderbird 1, it is armed with cannon and missiles. It is designed to carry specialised rescue vehicles and equipment to disaster sites, carried in one of six interchangeable pods. Pod 4, which contains the submarine vehicle Thunderbird 4 and other undersea rescue equipment, is designed to be dropped from the hovering Thunderbird 2 directly onto the surface of the water. Through the series, we only see one example of the pod being retireved in 'Day of Disaster'.

The pod vehicles which would emerge from one of TB2's pods each week were often the stars of the show. They include:

  • The Mole: a high-speed manned tunnelling machine
  • Firefly: a fire-proofed vehicle fitted with a large blade and armed with a nitroglycerine cannon to extinguish fires
  • Recovery Vehicles: One manned and one remote vehicle equipped with magnetic grappling lines
  • High-Speed Elevator Cars: one manned and three remote vehicles used to assist aircraft in landings, these can be manoeuvered into place beneath an aircraft to act as replacement landing gear
  • Domo: a restraint vehicle with three lifting arms to restrain or lift unstable structures
  • Thunderiser: a small tracked vehicle with a powerful front-mounted laser.
  • Booster Mortar: a small cannon used to fire rescue packages into high structures. According to some sources, this and the Thunderiser are the same vehicle. The same model is certainly used for both.
  • Transmitter Truck: a converted commercial truck used for long-range communications with spacecraft
  • Excadigger: a large red digging machine

The Pod Vehicles were variously stored within the pods as necessary or in TB2s cavernous hangar.

Some episodes also feature the Fireflash, a supersonic airliner built in 2065. It has six atomic motors that enable it to stay in the air for a maximum of six months, however they must be given frequent examinations, or the passengers can only spend 3 hours maximum in the aircraft before succumbing to radiation sickness. Fireflash's maximum speed is Mach 6 (approximately 4,500 mph or 7,200 km/h), and can fly at heights above 250,000 feet (76 km). A novel feature is that the flight deck is built into the tail section. Fireflash was built especially for Air Terranean (AKA: Terranean Airways) for long flights lasting over a day by jetplane.

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Special effects

The programme was notable for the high quality of its miniature special effects, and most sequences still stand up remarkably well forty years after the series premiered. The effects supervisor on all of Anderson's shows from Supercar to UFO was Derek Meddings, who went on to produce special effects for the James Bond and Superman movies (Meddings won a Oscar for the first Superman film). Many of the effects developed especially for Thunderbirds became standard practice in the film industry.

One of Meddings' most famous and ingenious creations was the so-called "rolling road" and "rolling sky" system. The Thunderbirds storylines called for a large number of scenes showing the Thunderbirds and other aircraft flying through the air, landing or taking off along runways, or motor vehicles travelling along roads. Meddings' team quickly discovered that the old method — pulling or pushing models across a static base or against a static background — produced very unconvincing results. Meddings came up with a novel solution to the problem, which he first used in the premiere episode, "Trapped In The Sky". For the famous crash-landing sequence (which so impressed Lew Grade), the Thunderbirds' remotely operated "elevator cars" had to be shown being manoeuvered into position on the runway beneath the stricken Fireflash aircraft as it came in to land, so that the aircraft could touch down without extending its landing gear, which would have triggered a bomb hidden there by IR's nemesis, The Hood.

Meddings' solution was to construct an endless belt of canvas, stretched over rollers and driven by an electric motor. The miniature elevator cars were then fixed in position by fine wires on this "rolling road". The Fireflash model was suspended from wires above the elevator cars and it could be lowered onto the runway, creating a smooth and remarkably convincing descent effect. A similar roller system, painted with a sky background was built at right angles to the runway and both roller motors were synchronised to provide a matching speed for both elements.

When the lights and cameras were set up in the right position and the rollers were activated, the rolling road system created a very convincing illusion of movement. It also proved extremely helpful for the lighting and camera crews, since the miniature models did not move and were therefore much easier to light and shoot. The 'rolling sky' system proved equally effective for shots of flying aircraft, and the illusion was enhanced by blowing smoke across the miniatures with a fan to simulate passing through cloud. Unlike modern special effects, the model was still actually in front of the backdrop — at the time, this produced a more convincing (and far cheaper) effect than bluescreen technology. The 'rolling road' system was later used on several James Bond movies.

The team also quickly mastered the art of creating extremely convincing miniature explosions using materials including petroleum and fuller's earth. These were filmed at high speed, and when slowed down to normal speed they produced spectacular results. The team also became expert at creating a convincing illusion for rocket take-offs and landings. After an exhaustive search, they found a British firm that could make special thrustless solid-fuelled rocket canisters in different sizes, which burned for about ten seconds and which could be fitted inside the various miniatures to provide convincing rocket exhaust effects.

The show was justly praised for the exceptional quality of its miniature vehicles and sets. Some of the main Thunderbird vehicles were built by a professional model-making firm, but many others were custom-made by Meddings and his team from commercial radio-controlled motorised vehicle kits. Meddings also pioneered the technique of 'customising' models and miniature vehicles by applying pieces taken from commercial model kits, to add convincing surface detail. The Thunderbirds miniatures were also 'aged' with paint and dust to create the convincing illusion that they were real, well-used vehicles. These techniques became standard practice in the special effects trade and were used to great effect in the building of the miniature spaceships and other vehicles for the first three Star Wars films.

Many of the effects team including Meddings and Brian Johnson became respected specialists in the film industry. Impressed by their work on the TV series, director Stanley Kubrick poached several of the Anderson effects team to work on his science fiction masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey.

The giant air conditioning silos either side of Thunderbird 1 in the launch bay beneath the swimming pool were actually a 1960's periscope toy manufactured by Merit.

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Music

A crucial element of the show's success was its thrilling music score, composed and conducted by Barry Gray, who provided all the music for the Anderson series up to and including Space: 1999 season one. His instantly recognisable "Thunderbirds March" is one of the best-known of all TV themes and has become a perennial favourite with brass and military bands around the world. Gray's original master recordings for the Anderson series were recently rediscovered in a storage facility in London and a remastering and CD re-release project is currently underway.

Gray composed a theme song with lyrics for the series that was never used, though a recording of it has circulated on the Internet. The melody was reused for the song "Flyin' High" which is heard in the "Ricochet" episode. For the Japanese broadcast of the series, the Thunderbirds March was replaced by a version of Gray's "Century 21 March" with Japanese-language lyrics.

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Production and broadcast history

A total of 32 episodes of Thunderbirds were made between 1965 and 1966 (although production began in 1964, as indicated by the show's copyright date). Its popularity led to the production of two full length feature films, Thunderbirds Are GO (1966) and Thunderbird Six (1968).

Thunderbirds ceased production very suddenly in the fall of 1966, 6 episodes into the second season. This was a decision made by Lew Grade after an unsuccessful trip to the U.S. to sell the program. According to published reports of the incident, the three major television netwoks CBS,NBC,and ABC were all bidding on the series, and Grade felt he could play them against each other to gain a higher price. Unfortunately, when one dropped out, the others immediately followed. Although a genuine hit by that time, Grade still felt that the program was too expensive to continue without the US market. The program was instead shown in the US in television syndication with reasonable success.

Today the series is a British institution. A re-run on the BBC in 1992 led to a shortage of Tracy Island models, and so the children's programme Blue Peter helpfully demonstrated how to build a home-made version.

The TV series was financed by Lew Grade's companies ATV and ITC Entertainment. It was originally intended to consist of half-hour episodes, but on seeing the preview Grade decided that it would be much more exciting as an hour-long show. Ironically, when screened in the US, episodes are sometimes split into paired half-hours.

Thunderbirds is also quite popular in Japan, where it was first broadcast in 1966 by NHK.

Some versions screened on the Fox Network and in US syndication in the 1990s used re-recorded voices and music, much to the annoyance of long-time fans. Even more widely disliked was Turbocharged Thunderbirds, a revamped version of the show which briefly aired in syndication c.1995, which replaced the original dialogue with "ironic post-modern" jokes, and live action introductions suggesting the events of the series take place on some strange alien "Thunder world" (with the two teenaged "hosts" controlling the action from a studio set resembling the interior of Thunderbird 5 and referring to Jeff Tracy as "Mr. T"!). Gerry Anderson was reportedly furious and the new version of the series quickly disappeared.

In 1991, Gerry Anderson directed a video set to the song "Calling Elvis" by the British band Dire Straits. Clips of the Thunderbirds vehicles were used in the video, and several Thunderbirds puppets - most notably the Jeff Tracy puppet - were taken out of storage and reused.

In Australia, the Channel 9 Network screened the series many times over in the 1970s and 1980s during the Saturday morning timeslot, and on weekdays during school holiday periods. The original (uncut) series was also re-broadcast several times on the Australasian Foxtel cable network in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Channel 9 still broadcasts Thunderbirds at 6:00am (30 minute episodes over a 2 weekends) on a Saturday, 40 years after the show premiered.

The series was remastered with Dolby Surround sound in 2000. Gerry Anderson, who had not received any royalties on the show since signing away the rights in the late 1960s, was employed as a "remastering consultant". A North American DVD release occurred in 2002.

For approximately three years (2000–2003) the satellite channel Boomerang UK broadcast uncut episodes daily, meaning that the complete run of 32 episodes was screened about 34 times.

Thunderbirds was also syndicated on the now defunct US cable television network TechTV from August 5, 2002 through June 20, 2004.

The series is frequently repeated on BBC Two in the UK and RTÉ Two in Ireland.

In September 2005, a curiosity appeared on several P2P networks, an 11MB QuickTime video file titled Thunderbirds IR (new Gerry Anderson TV series trailer 2005). It opens with music by Barry Gray and a few clips of the classic Thunderbirds 1 through 4 launching. It then goes on to show several scenes from what purports to be a new Thunderbirds series from Carlton Television, with new music composed. It features a mixture of computer-generated imagery — such as internal sets, external settings, and a sleekly-redesigned Thunderbird 1 — and character puppets that lack strings and were a mix of animatronics as well as stick puppetry. Scott Tracy, The Hood, and a lighthousekeeper puppet are seen. Scott Tracy is seen to walk, as well as to do a martial-arts backflip! The trailer says that a new Thunderbirds series is coming in 2005 from Carlton Television and displays a phone number. The series was developed by Carlton with David Freedman as Exec Producer and David Mercer who was heading up the Children's department at Carlton at the time. Greg Johnson and Bob Forward were lead writers and Asylum did all the set builds and puppet work. Tim Field was line producer. Gerry Anderson met with the Carlton team in the early days of development and gave his full blessing. When Granada and Carlton merged, the series was shelved until further notice. As of this writing, no further series is forthcoming.

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Parodies and imitations

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Parodies

The AP Films marionette series have often been the target of satire, but the best-known Thunderbirds send-up was the sketch entitled "Superthunderstingcar", performed by British comedians Peter Cook and Dudley Moore in the mid-1960s for their BBC TV series Not Only... But Also. This sketch was closely imitated by the Australian satirical series The D-Generation in the mid-1980s.

In A Close Shave, an animated film by Nick Park starring Wallace and Gromit, Wallace's mounting of his motorbike is a brilliant parody of how Virgil Tracy gets into Thunderbird 2 and takes off. In Curse of the Were-Rabbit, the eyes in the portraits on the wall flash like the Tracy brothers.

In 1998 in the United States, the cable TV network MTV aired a six-episode puppet series called Super Adventure Team. It featured marionettes as well as hand puppets with rods. Many of the satiric elements seen in this TV series ultimately surfaced in the movie Team America: World Police (2004), such as a puppet vomiting, sexual innuendo, and the use of live kittens, even though Matt Stone and Trey Parker claim to have never seen it. Incidentally, both movies feature the voice talent of Daran Norris in a lead role.

The series was co-created and produced by Dana Gould, who is now co-executive producer on The Simpsons, and co-creator Rob Cohen. Disputes over the budget of the series caused its cancellation by MTV after only six episodes. It has never been released on DVD nor repeated on MTV. Rumors suggest that Carlton Television, which owns the rights to the Gerry Anderson classic Supermarionation TV series, purchased all rights to the series from MTV in order to supress it. From time to time, all six episodes of this series are available for download via P2P networks and Usenet groups which may be the only way for the curious to sample it as video, although a Flickr set of MPEG screen grabs of the first episode has been made available.

More recently, South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker produced a full length feature film Team America: World Police (2004) which lampooned the original series. Team America's marionette humour drew heavily for its inspiration on the quirks and foibles of Gerry Anderson's Supermarionation techniques, whilst managing the not insignificant task of paying respect to the original. Produced for $30 million, the film took a reasonable $50 million at the global box office.

In Sonic X, X-Tornado's launch sequence resembles that of Thunderbirds. In addition, E-90 is based on Thunderbird 2. Blue Typhoon's deck has two rows of trees similar to those lining Thunderbird 2's runway. In episode 59, the spaceship driven by Chaotix resembles Thunderbird 3.

The catchphrase from D.I.C.E., GTR, has the same effect as F. A. B. in Thunderbirds.

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Imitations

Interster (Afrikaans, "Inter-star") was a weekly science-fiction supermarionation television show made for children and shown by the SABC in South Africa from the late 1970s.

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Episode list

  • Trapped in the Sky
  • Pit of Peril
  • City of Fire
  • Sun Probe
  • The Uninvited
  • The Mighty Atom
  • Vault of Death
  • Operation Crash-Dive
  • Move and You're Dead
  • Martian Invasion
  • Brink of Disaster
  • The Perils of Penelope
  • Terror in New York City (featuring the collapse of the Empire State Building)
  • End of the Road
  • Day of disaster
  • Edge of Impact
  • Desperate Intruder
  • 30 Minutes After Noon
  • The Impostors
  • The Man From MI.5
  • Cry Wolf
  • Danger at Ocean Deep
  • The Duchess Assignment
  • Attack of the Alligators! (real alligators, which appear gigantic)
  • The Cham-Cham
  • Security Hazard
  • Atlantic Inferno
  • Path of Destruction
  • Alias Mr. Hackenbacker
  • Lord Parker's 'Oliday
  • Ricochet
  • Give or Take a Million
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Thunderbirds films

As mentioned previously, two "Thunderbirds" marionette films were made in conjunction with the television series. They were titled:

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2004 feature films based on Thunderbirds

The cinema saw two big budget Hollywood studio motion pictures in 2004, based on the now 40 year old series.

A live action feature film version directed by Jonathan Frakes premièred on July 24, 2004. All of the Thunderbird craft seen in the live action film are based upon the original designs, but with refinements. The characters and settings were carefully recreated from series.

The film garnered generally poor reviews, with some critics finding it suitable entertaiment only for children in the age 0 to 5 category, and others noting that it was a rather transparent copy of Spy Kids.

The plot sidelined the main series characters in favour of children characters who have to rescue the adults, alienating longtime fans of the show, many of whom are adults. It dispensed with the massive destuction of the series. The plot of the 1966 film Thunderbirds Are Go also focused on Alan, the youngest Tracy brother, but he was not actually a child in that film.

The film performed poorly at the box office, with the film opening in 11th place in North America. A North American DVD release occurred in late 2004.

The original series also inspired South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker to create their own marionette-based movie, the comedy Team America: World Police using many of the same marionette techniques as developed by Gerry Anderson.

Team America: World Police depicted the destruction of the Eiffel Tower, The Pyramids, and the Panama Canal, recalling the wanton spirit of destruction from the series. It departed a bit from the 1960's television series in terms of the graphic sex and constant profanity - Team America was initially rated NC-17. Making a marionette film that children were forbidden to see may not be a stroke of marketing genius, but Team America arrived in theaters only weeks after the new Thunderbirds film, yet only Team America appears to have earned back its investment. It also earned glowing reviews from many critics, as well as favorable comments from Anderson himself.

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Merchandising

Several companies including Matchbox and Dinky were licensed to produced die-cast metal and plastic toys based on the Thunderbird vehicles. They proved hugely popular and were one of the best selling merchandising lines of the decade. Original Thunderbirds toys are now expensive and highly sought after collectors' items.

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Original novels

A number of novels were published based upon the television series, most during 1966:

  • Thunderbirds, John Theydon (pseudonym for John W. Jennison), 1966
  • Calling Thunderbirds, Theydon, 1966
  • Ring of Fire, Theydon, 1966
  • Thunderbirds Are Go, Angus P. Allen, 1966 (film novelization)
  • Operation Asteroids, John W. Jennison, 1966
  • Lost World, Jennison, 1966

In 1992 Corgi Books published four episode novelizations for children based upon the teleplays "The Uninvited", "Brink of Disaster", "Sun Probe", and "Atlantic Inferno".

The character of Lady Penelope was also featured in her own series of novels:

  • A Gallery of Thieves, Kevin McGarry, 1966
  • Cool for Danger, McGarry, 1966
  • The Albanian Affair, John Theydon, 1967
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Credits

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Opening

  • Originated by: Gerry Anderson, Sylvia Anderson
  • Music by: Barry Gray
  • Produced by: Gerry Anderson
  • Executive Producer: Reg Hill
  • Written by: Gerry Anderson, Sylvia Anderson, Alan Fennell, Dennis Spooner, Tony Barwick, Donald Robertson, Martin Clump, Alan Pattillo
  • Directed by: Alan Pattillo, David Lane, Desmond Saunders, David Elliott, Brian Burgess
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Closing

  • Line Producer: Alan Perry
  • Assistant Director: Peter Anderson
  • Designers: Colin Mullen, Adrian Crawley
  • Model Makers: Ted Sanderson, Mark Gautiar, Ross Edwards
  • Production Controller: Desmond Saunders
  • Art Director: Bob Bell
  • Special Effects: Derek Meddings
  • Script Editor: Alan Pattillo
  • Script Supervisors: Gerry Anderson, Sylvia Anderson
  • Chief Puppeteer: Christine Glanville
  • Editing: Harry Ledger
  • Executive in Charge of Production: J. Nigel Pickard
  • Puppet Operators: Judith Shutt, Ernest Shutt
  • Director of Photography: John Read
  • Camera: Jimmy Elliott, Geoff Meldrum
  • Wardrobe: Elizabeth Coleman
  • Sound: John Taylor, Maurice Askew
  • Puppetry Supervisor: Mary Turner
  • Lighting Cameramen: Julian Lugrin, Paddy Seale, John Read
  • Dialogue Editor: Roy Lafbery
  • Sound Editor: Tony Lenny
  • Supervising Editor: Len Walter
  • Second Unit Camera: Garry Coxall
  • Sculptors: John Brown, John Blundall
  • Puppet Properties: Eddie Hunter
  • Supervising Puppet Operators: Yvonne Hunter, Wanda Webb
  • Prop Master: Arthur Crips
  • Assistant Art Director: Grenville Nott
  • Production Buyer: Keith Wilson
  • Videotape Editors: Ramon Gregston, Russell Nichols, Martha Riley
  • Photograph Editors: Peter Constable, Dave Morris, Johnny Smith, Brian Jerdoh
  • Supervising Editor: John Peverill
  • Sound Editor: Brian Hickin
  • Sound System: Westrex
  • Second Unit Special Effects Directors: Brian Johncock, Harry Oakes, Ian Scoones
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See also

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External links

fr:Les Sentinelles de l'air nl:Thunderbirds ja:サンダーバード (テレビ番組) fi:Myrskylinnut

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