I had forgotten how awesome Thunderbirds was!

[Candlelight]

I haven't seen any of the show in well over a decade, and managed to barely sit through the 2004 shamefest, but yesterday I randomly saw the catch-the-fireflash sequence on YouTube - and I was riveted! I had forgotten how high the production values were for the time. So suspenseful!

Gonna have to try and watch more. Want to see one of my favourites, the one with the oil rig catching fire (which I guess has since become synonymous with Thunderbirds in general).

 

[Pemmer Harge]

In Britain they repeated Thunderbirds in the early '90s and it was briefly a nationwide phenomenon. There was a shortage of Tracy Island toys so kids resorted to making their own!

Those Anderson shows were really entertaining - just a really clever idea. It doesn't get mentioned as much as Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet, but I really liked Stingray. It did space opera under the sea decades before Seaquest DSV.

 

[Saga]

Stingray was good. i loved Captain Scarlet best of all though.

 

[trekkiebaggio]

In Britain they repeated Thunderbirds in the early '90s and it was briefly a nationwide phenomenon. There was a shortage of Tracy Island toys so kids resorted to making their own!

I did that!

Thunderbirds is brilliant, although sometimes I prefer the shorter runtimes of Stingray and Captain Scarlet. So far I've managed to avoid the recent film.

 

[Candlelight]

I prefer the shorter runtimes of Stingray and Captain Scarlet.

Apparently Thunderbirds initially had a 25 minute run time but when the producer first saw the pilot he was so impressed he demanded they stretch out to 50 minutes.

This explains why some of the early episodes (the pilot and eight others) have padding, as they had already been nearly finished when the order came through.

The Meddings attempt to disarm the bomb aboard the Fireflash in the pilot is part of the padding. Pretty damn good padding!

 

[Holdfast]

In Britain they repeated Thunderbirds in the early '90s and it was briefly a nationwide phenomenon. There was a shortage of Tracy Island toys so kids resorted to making their own!

I did that!

I seem to recall Blue Peter showed you how to make one.

It was some years too late for me personally to get into them, but I do recall the resurgence about then.

 

[Capt_Pickirk]

In Britain they repeated Thunderbirds in the early '90s and it was briefly a nationwide phenomenon. There was a shortage of Tracy Island toys so kids resorted to making their own!

I did that!

Me too! Although I never did finish it. I think it's still in the attic somewhere. Hmmm..


I think my favourite series was Captain Scarlet though (or maybe it was Stingray...) as the gadgets that Spectrum had seemed to be cooler than the thunderbirds. (Not that I didn't love those too)

 

[ToddPence]

I'm a Fireball XL-5 fan, myself . . .

 

[Technomage]

yesterday I randomly saw the catch-the-fireflash sequence on YouTube - and I was riveted!

If you want a new Fireflash story, check out the one I 'wrote' when dealing with a 419 email scammer!

http://gww.110mb.com/scam5.htm

There's a few more Thunderbird 'episodes' on the home page of my site, too!

 

[Orac Zen]

Thunderbirds has been repeated more or less perpetually here for years (the network concerned apparently received extraordinary amounts of protest mail when they briefly took it off several years ago). I catch an episode every now and then. It's hilarious.

If any of Gerry Anderson's other creations have ever screened here, though, I haven't seen them.

 

[Seven of Five]

I still love Thunderbirds today, and own the series on DVD. I was a kid when it was having its 90s revival, and found I was hooked very quickly. I loved all of the disasters, and especially enjoyed when the smallest of vehicles would fall off a cliff and crash, causing an impressive explosion.

I think it's also the only kids' show I grew up with that had inordinate amounts of smoking in it.

After Thunderbirds finished its run, Stingray, Captain Scarlett and Joe 90 followed, which I also enjoyed. I look back and wonder why a father would allow his young son to run off into dangerous situations like that, it was surely some horrific form of child abuse. I like to think instead that just being born in the Supermarianation universe is cause for a dangerous life.

 

[Forbin]

Hi, my name is Forbin, I'm 53 years old, and I have complete sets of Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet, Fireball XL-5 and UFO on DVD.

 

[originalbob]

After Thunderbirds finished its run, Stingray, Captain Scarlett and Joe 90 followed

Stingray preceded Thunderbirds.Captain Scarlet followed, then Joe 90, a very short lived project (something like the Secret Service?),then UFO,and Space 1999.

 

[Technomage]

I forgot to mention that my website address is correct the way it is, that is, no 'www'. It's hosted on 110mb.com, but the URL on individual sites doesn't use the 'www' prefix.

 

[Candlelight]

I especially enjoyed when the smallest of vehicles would fall off a cliff and crash, causing an impressive explosion.

I have never seen the first Thunderbirds movie but caught bits of it on YouTube. Man that Zero-X can explode!

When I was a kid all we had were the two compilation movies (the pilot and other fireflash episode, and then the empire state building episode combined with the oil rig episode) plus the second movie, Thunderbird 6. The second movie was so vivid, the shot of the airship perched precariously on the tower and then it falls onto a missile base - you just know there's gonna be 'splosions!!

In the 90s we had a rerun of all 32 episodes so I got to see them all for the first time.

 

[Capt_Pickirk]

Anyone else still excited about the news about Gerry Anderson making a new Thunderbirds show?? I am! Maybe he'll do a Stingray one next.

 

[Technomage]

In the 90s we had a rerun of all 32 episodes so I got to see them all for the first time.

Thunderbirds has been repeated a few times in NZ since then, the last time being sometime during the last 5 years - if I remember correctly. It definitely wasn't very long ago, and was on Saturday or Sunday mornings.

 

[Technomage]

Anyone else still excited about the news about Gerry Anderson making a new Thunderbirds show??

I'll watch it, for sure, but I don't think it will have the same appeal as something I grew up with! I saw all the post-1960 Anderson productions when they were new, which is why they appeal so much - nostalgia, and all that!