ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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Click on the ink below and you'll find the Shout Factory episode which Alltare mentions above (at the top of the list), but I was hoping to find other complete episodes as well.

________Thunderbirds: Trapped In The Sky


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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Pow]

"Thunderbirds" was a Gerry & Sylvia Anderson science~fiction puppet television production which premiered on Thursday, October 07, 1965.

The show ran for two seasons (or two series as they refer to TV shows in England) for a total of 32 episodes.

Twenty-six episode were produced for Series One and six episodes were produced for Series Two.

Two Thunderbirds feature films were also produced.

"Thunderbirds Are Go" debuted on December 12, 1966.

"Thunderbird 6" premiered on July 29, 1968.

Show's Premise : It is the year 2065; retired astronaut & multi-millionaire, Jeff Tracy, has created a covert organization that can perform rescue operations with the finest & most advanced equipment.

International Rescue is based on Jeff's private island---Tracy Island---located near the island of Moyla in the South Pacific Ocean.

The Thunderbird Vehicles. Thunderbird #1 is the spearhead for I.R. Function : It rapidly gets to the disaster area and can travel at 15,000 m.p.h.

T#1 pilot is Scott Tracy, son of I.R. founder Jeff Tracy.

At the disaster scene it is Scott who assess precisely what type of rescue equipment will be required for the operation.

Scott also directs the operation.

Thunderbird # 2 is an enormous cargo aircraft that transports any rescue equipment to the disaster zone.

It has six interchangeable pods with each carrying different equipment.

T#2 can travel at 5,000 m.p.h. and is operated by Jeff's son Virgil Tracy.

Thunderbird #3 is a massive spacecraft that is used for rescues in outer space. It is also utilized to transport personnel & equipment to Thunderbird# 5 which is the I.R. space station.

The pilot for T#3 is Alan Tracy.

Thunderbird #4 is a compact yellow submarine that is utilized for surface and undersea rescues. Gordon tracy is the pilot.

Thunderbird #5 is the massive outer space station of I.R.

It is in a geostationary orbit of the Earth. Its function is to use its highly sophisticated scanning system to monitor any and all broadcasts concerning disasters taking place.

T#5 also serves as a base of operations for T#3 which can dock with T#5 which stores rescue equipment for T#3.

T#5 is manned by John Tracy who rotates shifts with Alan Tracy. Generally though, John is very content to be the primary operator of T#5 as he enjoys the space duty very much.

Wealthy Lady Penelope Creighton~Ward and her valet, Parker, serve I.R. as agents.

They operate the pink Rolls-Royce designated as Fab 1.

The automobile carries an array of equipment and is a rolling arsenal for their dangerous missions.

[Pow]

From the book: Fab Facts by Simon Archer.

The Tracy family was inspired by the leading characters in the hit television western Bonanza (1959~1973) and father Jeff Tracy was modeled on actor Lorne Greene.

On average, four and a half minutes of each fifty-five minute episodes of Thunderbirds were shot per day.

Thunderbird 4's pilot Gordon Tracy was named after the sixth American astronaut in space, Gordon Cooper.

Each Thunderbirds puppet had, on average, seven wires.

Altogether, more than 250 people worked on the making of Thunderbirds.

Thunderbird 5 space monitor John Tracy's face was thought to have been modeled on actor Charlton Heston, although some say there is a resemblance to Anthony Perkins.

Thunderbird 3 astronaut Alan Tracy's face was modeled on American actor Robert Reed, who was at the time appearing on the courtroom TV drama series The Defenders.

The 'Thunderbirds March' theme music was adopted by the Band of the Royal Marines and has been played at events all over the world as part of their official repertoire.

At least one major scene containing an explosion was filmed each working day during the making of Thunderbirds.

Legendary Special Effects director Derek Meddings succeeded in staging his own personal vertical takeoff out of the studio water tank when he realized that a live alligator, appearing in the Thunderbirds episode 'Attack of the Alligators,' was on the loose!

[Bud Brewster]

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After months of drought here in North Carolina, it's rainin' to beat the band today, and it's supposed to rain right through noon tomorrow!

What a perfect day to binge watch the Thunderbirds!

I can alternate between the 1966 Supermarionation series and the excellent British CCG series from 2015 to 2020!

Below are the episodes of the original I found on YouTube. Amazon Prime has the new version.

_____ 5 . . . 4 . . . 3. . . 2 . . . 1! Bud Brewster is Go!

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_____ Thunderbirds Are Go 1966 1080p BluRay


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_ Voyage to Mars (Thunderbirds Are Go - Fan Edit)


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_________ 01 Thunderbirds Trapped in the sky


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____________ 06 Thunderbirds Day Of Disaster


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________ 09 Thunderbirds Operation Crash Dive


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________________ 10 Thunderbirds Sun Probe


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___________ 15 Thunderbirds The Mighty Atom


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___________ 19 Thunderbirds Danger At Ocean


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____________ 27 Thunderbirds Atlantic Inferno


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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[scotpens]

[Pow]

Over 200 versions of the Thunderbird crafts were constructed, from entire models down to specific sections for close-up filming.

The sound of boiling porridge, slowed down, was used to simulate that of molten lava.

Strange things used to happen to the Thunderbirds puppets on some occasions when the studios were closed at night. Lady Penelope was often found next morning in a compromising position with one of her colleagues..
.
~ Ah, so Lady P was a player!

~ Each craft was lined with asbestos in an attempt to prevent them from catching fire when the 'engines' were ignited. Thunderbird 2 is Gerry Anderson's favorite aircraft from the fifteen TV series he has produced.

~ I believe Thunderbird 2 is one of the most popular among fans of the series.

Tin Tin's name comes from the Malaysian word for 'sweet.'

Two different waistlines were introduced for the Thunderbirds puppet bodies. Scott & John Tracy appeared thinner than their brothers, giving the illusion that they were taller with broader shoulders. In fact, they were all the same height.

Operating puppets with 'strings' created a challenge when it came to passing through doorways on the sets. A film trick was used to overcome this. The character would be filmed approaching the door which was shown complete with the frame. At the same time, the camera would zoom in on the puppet, excluding the top of the door. With the camera still rolling, the top section of the door was then removed. The puppet, still in close-up, would then appear to walk smoothly under this apparent section.

For the shooting of the Thunderbirds TV series, there were two puppet units, each with three puppeteers.

The model craft that appeared in Thunderbirds weighed anything from 4 oz to 20 lb.

[Bud Brewster]

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As I remember, they avoided some of the walking by having the guys us motorized chairs within the ships' cockpits and other places. Clever . . .
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bud Brewster]

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Below is a YouTube site I discovered today which offers the complete series, in order — all 32 of the episodes!

I watched episode 1 and it looks great! My only complaint is that the audio volume fluctuates drastically between the scenes with dramatic music and the scenes with dialog.

Fortunately for me, I always wear these comfortable Sony headphones when I watch TV —

— despite the elaborate sound system in my living room, which bothers the elderly ladies who live on each side of my townhome when my volume is too loud.





But the headphone cable which is plugged into my antique Marantz quadraphonic amplifier (shown above) includes a small volume control knob which sits on the left arm of my sofa. So, I'm able to turn the volume up and down whenever necessary.

However, if you guys are watching these episodes on your computer, you'll be able to control the volume quit easily.

Anyway, here's the link to the site which has all 32 of the episodes from this wonderful series!

TV SHOW - 1965-1966 Thunderbirds (COMPLETE SERIES)


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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[scotpens]

[Bud Brewster]

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Ah-ha! As a matter of fact I watched Trapped in Air (episode 1 of the series) yesterday at the YouTube link I posted above, and I noticed that the brief and infrequent "walking" scenes were shown only from the hips up.

I can appreciate the fact that the puppeteers had to avoid any scenes of that showed the characters hanging from the near-invisible strings while their feet bob up and down, barely touching the floor!

I also noticed that a large part of each character's "acting" was composed mostly of the small movements of one arm waving up and down, while the head bobbed gently and the lips moved. This was augmented by occasional eye movements.

And yet it works wonderfully, and the stories are terrific!

I hope some of All Sci-Fi's members who are fans of the series will take advantage of the YouTube channel which includes all the episodes!
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Krel]

I was introduced to the Thunderbirds through "Thunderbirds are Go!" at the theater back in 1969. When we got cable in the mid/late 70s, I used to record the episodes which were being shown on WGN in Chicago. They split the episodes into 30 minute sections. This cut down on the run time, and gave them double the number of episodes.

David.

[Pow]

Thunderbirds (originally titled International Rescue) was inspired when Gerry Anderson heard the news reports about a difficult rescue operation at the Lengede iron mine in Lower Saxony, West Germany in late October of 1963.

As with the previous Anderson series Stingray, two sets of the main puppet characters were created to enable different episodes to be shot simultaneously on separate puppet stages and maintain a schedule of filming two episodes every two weeks.

The episode "Pit of Peril" Thursday, October 7th, 1965 (UK) introduced the popular Mole machine of International Rescue.

"City of Fire" Thursday, January 6th, 1966 (UK) introduces the Tracy brothers' hoverbikes.

"Sun Probe" Thursday, 1965 (UK) introduces Brain's robot Braman, and the Transmitter Truck.

"The Mighty Atom" Thursday, December 30th, 1965 is the only episode to feature the entire regular cast and all five Thunderbird craft.

"Attack of the Alligators!" Thursday, March 10, 1966 (UK)was inspired by the H.G. Wells novel The Food of the Gods and the 1927 classic silent film The Cat and the Canary (remade with Bob Hope in 1939).

The Complete Gerry Anderson by Chris Bentley.

[Pow]

Little known fact: Mateo Island was located fifty-miles from Tracy Isle. It served as an emergency backup base for International Rescue. It was never shown on the television series but is seen in the Thunderbirds comic strip and comic books.

[Bud Brewster]

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What a brilliant idea! An emergency backup headquarters.

When I read your post, Mike, I thought perhaps Mateo was disguised from aerial reconnaissance so it looked like an uninhabited island to anyone who flew over it.

That seemed likely, based the way so many aspects of Tracy Island were hidden.

But apparently it wasn't, because this is what fandom.com says about it.
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Mateo Island is an island near Tracy Island. It has been converted by the Tracy family for International Rescue's use in the event of emergencies and to provide additional service facilities. A monorail link to the main island allows access and transportation of supplies without drawing attention to the organization's activities.
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The article seems to indicate that Mateo actually did appear in episodes, because is states this.
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In Attack of the Alligators!, communications are lost with Thunderbird 5. Some of the junction plates on the leads from dish number seven had become corroded. Alan was lowered onto the top of the mast by Virgil in Thunderbird 2 to carry out repairs.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Pow]

Gerry Anderson's inspiration for Thunderbirds came from a real life tragedy.

October 24, 1963: A sedimentation pond near Salzgitter, Germany dumped half a million cubic meters of murky water into the Lengede Broistedt iron mine. Seventy-nine of the 129 miners were able to escape from the mine over time. Over the next 2 weeks, rescuers tried contact and rescue the survivors with little success.

A torpedo-shaped retrieval capsule called a Dahlbusch bomb was sable to pull up 11 miners.

Gerry thought that there should be some kind of international rescue organization in existence that had all the proper kinds of rescue equipment, and could rapidly respond to wherever a disaster was located.