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Had rather a nice day today...

Went down to London to interview Mary Turner, the lady who not only operated but also sculpted the original puppets of Lady Penelope and Captain Scarlet. Now I realize that this may mean absolutely nothing to most of you! The purpose of the interviews, by the way, was for some forthcoming documentaries on the various series. Now, two things that I particularly enjoyed today; two moments that meant a lot to me were;

1) Getting to see the ORIGINAL Captain Scarlet puppet up close (I'll post a photo or two later) and

2) Discovering that Mary also sculpted the John Rostill puppet from the Thunderbirds are Go feature film. She spoke very highly of John - and the other Shadows - and remembered them coming to the studio to shoot some live action footage for the puppeteers to work from. So nice to meet someone who was actually there!!!

And so nice to actually meet Captain Scarlet. A five year old boy's dreams have just come true... albeit 46 years later!!!

Thanks Mary.


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Test footage, apparently...



Bill

How nice
Good to see the footage again too

Hi,
I wasn't around when these classic shows were originally aired, but i loved the episodes i did catch as re-runs during the '80's/90's.
A few years back, i got talking to a chap i used to play guitar with, who informed me that there was an episode of Thunderbirds starring puppets of Cliff and the Shads. This sparked my curiosity, as i wasn't aware of it, so went in search of it. I eventually found myself the complete dvd boxset of the series, and the dvd with both films, (Thunderbirds are go and Thunderbird 6) and finally got to see these Cliff and the Shads puppets in action. Thought it was great and consequently lead to me purchasing complete series of Captain Scarlett and Joe 90 on dvd boxsets. I also have the complete Terrahawks (this 1 i did used to watch as a kid ), Supercar, Stingray and Fireball XL5, sadly these are bootleg copies and were given to me by another fan of these series.
I love the marionette action of all these series' and the fact that Cliff and the Shads were in it aswell, puts the cherry on the top for me. The sculpture of the puppets was fantastic, it took me into another world.
It's a shame you don't see anything like this any more, action, spies, space, espionage, it's just as good as watching the James Bond films

Watch out for the new series of Thunderbirds being made at the moment in Wellington, New Zealand by
the team responsible for 'Lord of the Rings' and 'The Hobbit'.
Cheers,
JB

The tweaked redesigns of the new Thunderbirds craft DO look good, I'll admit. But I can't see it being the success that the original series was. By the way, the new series is to be called 'Thunderbirds are Go' - just to differentiate it from the original or to cause a bit of confusion with the film!!

John Rostill was one of the few real people to be used as the basis of a Supermarionation puppet. Obviously Cliff and the other Shadows were amongst the others, as was Sean Connery, James Garner, Stanley Unwin and, if you believe him, Derren Nesbitt. Ursula Andress was the inspiration for the puppet of Destiny Angel and, most famously, Sylvia Anderson herself was the inspiration for Lady Penelope! There is no truth, however, that Gordon Tracy was modelled on Tommy Steele (even though he looks like him to me!!!)

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