60s-style Thunderbirds is back thanks to Thunderbirds 1965

1 October 2015 Rob Buckley Classic TV, UK TV 1 Comment

Thunderbirds, as most of you will know, was a 1960s Gerry Anderson series that used ‘Supermarionation’ puppets to enact stories in which a family of brothers go to the rescue of people around the world in a series of advanced rocket-ships called Thunderbirds. Just in case this doesn’t ring a bell (you do own a TV, right?), here’s the lovingly restored, HD-quality title sequence to give you a rough idea of what it was like:

The show made a resurgence in the 80s and it was remade this year by ITV but using CGI. I thought it good for what it was, but it lacked a certain charm compared to the puppet version. 

Apparently, other people agree. A recent Kickstarter project has taken three audio-only Thunderbirds adventure recorded in the 1960s by the original cast, and is using Supermarionation to create what are effectively three new episodes of the 1960s series. And here’s the title sequence and a clip from the first one, The Abominable Snowman:

Pretty authentic, huh?

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Author

  • Rob Buckley

    I’m Rob Buckley, a journalist who writes for UK media magazines that most people have never heard of although you might have heard me on the podcast Lockdown Land or Radio 5 Live’s Saturday Edition or Afternoon Edition. I’ve edited Dreamwatch, Sprocket and Cambridge Film Festival Daily; been technical editor for TV producers magazine Televisual; reviewed films for the short-lived newspaper Cambridge Insider; written features for the even shorter-lived newspaper Soho Independent; and was regularly sarcastic about television on the blink-and-you-missed-it “web site for urban hedonists” The Tribe. Since going freelance, I've contributed to the likes of Broadcast, Total Content + Media, Action TV, Off The Telly, Action Network, TV Scoop and The Custard TV.

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