“5… 4… 3… 2… 1. Thunderbirds are go!”
John Williams fanfares, opening crawls, and Star Destroyers chasing blockade runners are all very well, but Gerry and Sylvia Anderson’s puppet classic still has the edge when it comes to bombastic opening sequences. The first 30 seconds of every “Thunderbirds” instalment treat us to sightings of all five International Rescue craft, an action-heavy montage of clips from the episode to come, and a blast of (quite possibly) the most exciting soundtrack music ever recorded. And that’s before the actual opening credits — accompanied by Barry Gray’s famous theme tune — have even started in earnest. Dr Tiger Ninestein implored everyone watching “Terrahawks” (Anderson’s 1980s offering) to “Stay on this channel”. If he’d been fronting “Thunderbirds”, he wouldn’t have had to.
Although the show debuted 60 years ago, at the very height of the Space Race, “Thunderbirds” was unconcerned by the ongoing Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. The show (a major hit for UK commercial channel ITV) didn’t even bother with the usual skirmishes between good and evil — Anderson would explore those themes in his next show, “Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons” — as its heroes had rather more altruistic aspirations.
Set in a very swinging version of the 2060s, it’s the story of the ultimate emergency service, as retired astronaut Jeff Tracy invests his tech bro-level fortune (seriously, this guy is rich enough to own his own private island) in a fleet of titular, state-of-the-art rescue vehicles. Their mission? To save the day when the everyday authorities can’t.
He recruits his five similarly selfless sons (Scott, Virgil, Alan, Gordon, and John; all named after Mercury 7 astronauts), who’d all rather be out flying dangerous missions than doing the stuff 20-somethings usually do. Except for John, who’s drawn the short straw with his posting to orbital listening station Thunderbird 5. What did he say to upset his old man?
Although the show is pure ’60s kitsch, fronted by a cast who could literally be described as wooden, and ridiculously formulaic, “Thunderbirds” is built from the same timeless ingredients as “Star Wars”. Because both Anderson and George Lucas understood that, in pop culture, packaging can be just as important as what’s inside the box.
Both commissioned killer theme tunes that burrow into your ear like a Ceti Eel in “The Wrath of Khan“, and pushed the envelope for special effects in their respective medium. But most importantly of all, both “Star Wars” and “Thunderbirds” are the ultimate toy commercials, built on the realization that their star wattage comes from the planes, spaceships, and submarines that kids of all ages are desperate to own. If the sight of Thunderbird 2 or the Millennium Falcon taking off don’t quicken your pulse, you’re deader than a marionette with its strings snipped off.
Even beyond the eponymous International Rescue fleet, “Thunderbirds” is a marketing masterclass. Despite being a British show, its lead characters — aside from the uber-posh, pink Rolls-Royce-owning London agent Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward and her rough ‘n’ ready butler, Parker — are all-American heroes. This was a cunning ruse designed to help the series appeal to the all-important US market, though it ultimately proved futile, as the series never achieved the same success Stateside as it did in the UK.
The show was also filmed in color at a time when British TV was resolutely black-and-white, meaning that fans had to imagine the vibrant green, orange, and yellow color schemes of Thunderbirds 2, 3, and 4, respectively, for themselves. (ITV wouldn’t start color broadcasts until 1969, though “Thunderbirds” was one of the very first shows to air when it did.)
Over on “the other side”, BBC stalwart “Doctor Who” — featuring, coincidentally, a similarly altruistic and pacifistic hero — was arguably at the height of its ’60s popularity, with the eponymous Time Lord (then played by William Hartnell) and, of course, the Daleks, popular enough to spawn a couple of movies. Even so, residents of the usually studio-bound TARDIS could only dream of the money lavished on International Rescue’s international rescues. The globetrotting “Thunderbirds” looked more like a James Bond film and, indeed, visual effects guru Derek Meddings would later go on to work on a succession of 007 outings — as well as several “Superman” movies — in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s.
Visually, “Thunderbirds” was a step up from Anderson’s previous puppet-fronted shows like “Four Feather Falls”, “Supercar”, and “Fireball XL5”. The previous year’s aquatic action adventure “Stingray” had also been made in color, but its action was nowhere near as ambitious as the elaborate stunts Meddings and co created (to scale, of course) on an industrial estate in Slough (coincidentally, the home of fictional paper merchants Wernham Hogg in the UK version of “The Office”). From the bendy palm trees of Thunderbird 2’s iconic launch sequence to epic set-pieces featuring collapsing skyscrapers and doomed hypersonic jets, this kids’ show could go toe-to-toe with the big screen’s best.
This point was best illustrated by a (possibly apocryphal) story about production company boss Lew Grade, who’d later go on to bankroll “The Prisoner” and “The Muppet Show”. It’s said that, on seeing a 25-minute version of “Thunderbirds” pilot episode “Trapped in the Sky”, he exclaimed: “That’s not a television series, that’s a feature film!”, and ordered it be extended to fill an hour of TV. Whether true or not, it’s a measure of the show’s ambition.
Like many visions of the future, plenty of “Thunderbirds” has dated very badly. It exists in a very white, very male world, with — Lady Penelope aside — women in supporting roles, and some very crude racial stereotypes; most notably arch-villain/master-of-disguise the Hood, and his half-brother, the Tracys’ live-in servant Kyrano. There’s also a surprising amount of smoking for a kids’ show, remarkable considering the effort the production team must have put into engineering miniature cigarettes for their stars.
But although it only ran for 32 episodes (and two big-screen outings), few TV shows have left as big a mark on British culture as the Andersons’ magnum opus. In fact, much like “Doctor Who”, it’s become part of the national lexicon in the same way “Star Wars” has across the world. Early ’90s repeats (ironically, on the BBC) prompted an International Rescue resurgence, with the Tracy Island becoming the must-have toy of Christmas 1993. Long-running kids’ show “Blue Peter” even had its own “make”, showing children how to build their own, significantly cheaper version of Thunderbirds HQ with toilet rolls, yogurt pots and papier maché.
British production company Working Title (most famous for rom-coms like “Notting Hill” and “Bridget Jones’s Diary”) attempted a live-action movie in 2004. Unfortunately, despite some recognizable faces in the cast (most notably Ben Kingsley as the Hood) and a theme song from pop-punkers Busted, this kid-fronted adventure couldn’t recapture the magic of the original. Luckily, CG-animated TV update “Thunderbirds are Go!” proved rather more successful when it landed in 2015, and arguably deserved to run longer than three seasons.
Even so, it never stood of capturing the zeitgeist as its famous forebear did, but then again, how many TV shows have? “Thunderbirds” may be flying into its seventh decade, but this slice of ’60s nostalgia is still F.A.B..
“Thunderbirds” is available to stream on Prime Video and Peacock in the US, and on ITVX in the UK.
