Thunderbirds were go! (Thunderbirds)

Member Name: pmcds

Product:	Thunderbirds
Date:	08/11/08 (47 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Greta puppetry from Gerry Anderson

Disadvantages: Limited and not suitable for the very young

The Thunderbirds were perhaps the most famous of genius puppeteer Gerry Anderson's marionette creations. The show was immensely popular when it first aired nearly half a century ago, and is considered as the forerunner to a lot of kids TV shows nowadays.

The show featured a number of puppets controlled by strings, with spaceships and other vehicles also controlled in a similar way. Ther characters and storylines were created by Gerry Anderson, and featured the Tracy family, headed by dad Jeff and run by his sons and London link Lady Penelope, as they travelled around the world, saving lives and thwarting bad guys and averting disasters with their multiple special vehicles and never ending supply of technology and money.

Jeff Tracy, multi-millionaire ex-Astronaut, was in charge, with his sons Alan, Gordon, Virgil, Scott and John piloting each of the five vehicles, ranging from a space satellite to an underwater bug. These were cleverly named Thunderbird 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 (simple yet effective!) They all livede on Tracy Island, a secret island somewhere in the ocean, and had constant contact with their associate Lady Penelope and her manservant Parker, who often helped them in their missions.

Their sworn enemy was known as The Hood, and was constantly searching for ways to steal their technology to use it for evil purposes to control the world, and was naturally thwarted each time by the Thunderbirds.

I remember watching reruns of Thunderbirds when I was younger, and although it wasn't particularly realistic, with the strings clearly visible at times and the puppets clearly being puppets, the plots and the clever creative work made the show immensely popular. A few years ago, a feature film was made of the Thunderbirds. It enjoyed relative success but nothing spectacular, but you can't beat the original puppetry series.

I recommend this series, but probably not for the very young, as moments of peril and some scary bits with The Hood may scare them. Otherwise, it's a great show to watch. If the reruns come back on again soon, I'll be sure to catch some of them.

Summary: Great show at its prime