Christmas is Go
December 24, 2013 1:31 PM   Subscribe

Christmas Control to Thunderbird 3

Thunderbirds 2x06 - Give or Take a Million (Final Episode).

Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

Filmed in VideoColor + Supermarionation
posted by philip-random (11 comments total) 7 users marked this as a favorite
 
My first exposure to Thunderbirds was the anime series Scientific Rescue Team Techno Voyager, or as it was known in its English dub, Thunderbirds 2086.

While the original Japanese series was merely a spiritual successor, and not an official extension of the franchise, Thunderbirds producer ITC Entertainment handled the English dub and went so far as to add music and sound effects from several of their previous shows.
posted by radwolf76 at 1:46 PM on December 24, 2013


That was not a thing that made me happy when it appeared on my radar, oh no. Supermarionation or nuthin'.
posted by Artw at 2:17 PM on December 24, 2013 [1 favorite]


I was 3 or 4 years old. I didn't know any better.
posted by radwolf76 at 2:37 PM on December 24, 2013


I was 10 or so and very serious about it.
posted by Artw at 2:40 PM on December 24, 2013


This is the greatest thing to wake up to on Christmas morning this year.
posted by Mezentian at 2:44 PM on December 24, 2013 [3 favorites]


NICKY: I wish I could see all the Thunderbirds launched.
How exactly did Nicky expect to see Thunderbird 5 launched?

(Thunderbirds was my everything as a child. I loved that there was a rescue vehicle in its numbered pod for every occasion, just waiting to be deployed by Thunderbird 2. And the launch sequences! The launch sequences! 7-year-old me couldn't get enough of rotating panels and pools sliding away and palm trees falling down.)
posted by scottjacksonx at 6:55 PM on December 24, 2013


I confessed I shivered when I heard "Now, you must call me Santa."
posted by GenjiandProust at 7:22 PM on December 24, 2013 [3 favorites]


I thought this was going to be about email, but it is actually much cooler..
posted by 4ster at 9:45 PM on December 24, 2013


As a dopey kid watching this show, I was taken in by the special effects, but if you think about it, "Thunderbirds" is all about an extreme, sickeningly cavalier use of fossil resources that would make the CEO of Standard Oil blush. The energy required to drive the hydraulics so that Virgil et. al. can be transported to their planes without leaving their couches alone is crazily excessive. Then you have the five Thunderbirds. Thunderbird One is for reconnaissance; its job is to transport the team leader to the scene to coordinate. From that point on, he's a traffic cop, he doesn't participate in the actual rescue. Yet this ship is driven by rocket (rather than jet) technology (and fuel) to send its single, smug occupant from point a to point b. Thunderbird Five is a communications satellite; for some reason, they can't rely on an unmanned satellite and must send up an astronaut periodically--using, again, a rocket-fueled spacecraft--to cycle in a new teammate every month or so. The other crafts--with the sole exception, say, of the submarine and hole-digging mole--are extreme fuel-guzzlers.

Trey Parker and Matt Stone parodied the fuck out of this show in "Team America: World Police," and when you think about the excesses, well, it's an easy target.
posted by Gordion Knott at 3:45 AM on December 25, 2013 [2 favorites]


also, the noise
posted by philip-random at 10:52 AM on December 25, 2013 [1 favorite]


I assumed that there Thunderbirds were atomic powered. It was the 60s, and well, the aerodynamics of the Thunderbirds were really weird for anything using conventional fuel.
posted by happyroach at 11:21 AM on December 25, 2013 [1 favorite]


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