By Martin Hutchinson

CLASSIC TV series ‘Thunderbirds’ is celebrating it’s 50th anniversary this year and to celebrate super-fan Martin Hutchinson presents 50 little known facts about this much loved children's programme.

1. The show had it’s UK premiere in the ATV (Midlands) region at 7pm on September 30th 1965.

2. In our region – Granada, we had to wait until October 20th, when it was shown at 5.25pm.

3. Uniquely among the UK showings, Granada showed the show in two halves, at either side of the early evening news. The second part started at 6.05pm.

4. The first episode was actually shown for the first time in Holland, when it was screened on September 5th – but the episodes were shown monthly.

5. The Tracy brothers were named after the American Mercury astronauts: Scott Carpenter, Virgil Grissom, Alan Shepard, Gordon Cooper and John Glenn.

6. Bob Monkhouse supplied the voice of Space Navigator Brad Newman in the feature film ‘Thunderbirds Are Go’.

7. Cliff Richard and The Shadows also appeared in the film – in puppet form – as Cliff Richard Jr and The Shadows.

8. They recorded four songs: ‘Shooting Star’, which was sung by Cliff; and three instrumentals by The Shadows: ‘Lady Penelope’, ‘Zero X Theme’ and ‘Thunderbirds’ Theme’.

9. The four songs were available on an EP entitled ‘Thunderbirds Are Go’ which was released on Columbia Records SEG 8510.

10. The miniature drum kit used in the film was given to Shadows’ drummer Brian Bennett as a souvenir.

11. The movie was the first time ‘Thunderbirds’ was seen in colour on screen as we still had black and white TV then.

12. ‘Thunderbirds’ was the first ‘children’s’ TV show to be an hour long, but had originally been planned as a half-hour show, like Gerry Anderson’s previous shows like ‘Stingray’ and ‘Fireball XL5’.

13. Financier and TV mogul Lew Grade saw the rushes of the half-hour version and reportedly said “That’s great – make it an hour.”

14. Ray Barrett, David Graham and Sylvia Anderson had all supplied voices for Anderson’s previous show, ‘Stingray’.

15. Barry Gray’s iconic theme tune was recently voted second in a poll of the most memorable ITV themes over the 60-year history of commercial television.

16. There were originally 26 episodes made of the show, then a further six were made following the first film.

17. The voice of Virgil Tracy changed between the two batches. Originally voiced by David Holliday, he was unavailable for the second batch and so Jeremy Wilkin took over the role.

18. Alan Tracy only has one line of dialogue in the opening episode – ‘Trapped in the Sky’, voiced by Ray Barratt. Matt Zimmerman was hired to voice Alan after the episode was completed.

19. A calendar seen on-screen during the episode ‘Give or Take a Million’ shows the year as 2026; whereas the episode ’30 Minutes After Noon’ features a newspaper dated 2007.

20. Confusion about the dates continued in TV21 comic, which set every Anderson show 100 years in the future (2065).

21. The new ‘Thunderbirds Are Go’ series, is set in 2060.

22. Lady Penelope had her own comic strip in TV21 before ‘Thunderbirds’ was broadcast. It was used to drop hints about the forthcoming series.

23. Lady P, headed her own organisation, called the Federal Agents Bureau (FAB), before leaving to join International Rescue. (According to later fiction, her place was taken in FAB by Dianne Simms, who later became Rhapsody Angel in ‘Captain Scarlet’.

24. Such was the influence of ‘Thunderbirds’ and their selfless actions in saving people, that an officially sanctioned organisation called ‘International Resuce’ has been formed by volunteers who travel worldwide to help out when disasters strike.

25. John and Alan Tracy supposedly shared duties in Thunderbird 5, being on the space station a month at a time.

26. Despite this, we only see John in one earthbound story – ‘Danger at Ocean Deep’. The reason for this is allegedly because Gerry Anderson hated the puppet.

27. Gerry Anderson’s favourite craft was Thunderbird 2.

28. Parker’s first name is Aloysius.

29. A sub-plot for the second feature film was Jeff instructing Brains to invent a sixth Thunderbird (even though he had run out as sons for pilots) – Thunderbird Six eventually turned out to be a Tiger Moth biplane.

30. Special Effects Supervisor Derek Meddings went on to do special effects in major films including ‘Superman’ and the Bond films. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his work on the Bond film ‘Moonraker’.

31. The inspiration for the episode ‘Terror in New York City’ where the Empire State Building is being moved comes from a newspaper story that Gerry Anderson read about a department store in Japan being moved. However, the store remained open while it was being moved!

32. Coincidentally, the leader of the ‘goodies’ and main ‘baddie’ in Thunderbirds (Jeff Tracy and The Hood’ were both voiced by the same actor – Peter Dyneley.

33. This appears to be usual within Anderson’s series as it happened in ‘Stingray (Commander Shore / Titan – Ray Barratt) and ‘Captain Scarlet’ (Colonel White / The Mysterons and Captain Black – Donald Gray).

34. Dinky Toys began a long association with Gerry Anderson;s shows by releasing die-cast models of Thunderbird 2 and FAB 1 (Lady Penelope’s pink Rolls Royce).

35. They later issued models from ‘Captain Scarlet’, ‘Joe 90’, ‘The Secret Service’, ‘UFO’ and ‘Space 1999’.

36. The scale of merchandised generated by ‘Thunderbirds’ was so great, that it wasn’t surpassed until ‘Star Wars’.

37. In the 60’s you could get almost anything with a link to the show: novels, comics, puzzle books, annuals, periscopes, water pistols, breakfast cereal, nougat, trading cards, ice lollies…. Etc etc.

38. Because of the so-called ‘romance’ between Alan Tracy and Tin Tin; at the end of the days’ filming, the respective puppets were hung on separate hooks to avoid any ‘hanky panky’.

39. The actor David Graham who had supplied voices to four previous Anderson shows (‘Four Feather Falls’, ‘Supercar’, ‘Fireball XL5’ and ‘Stingray’) as well as the Daleks!, supplied the voices for four main characters in ‘Thunderbirds’: Gordon Tracy, Brains, Parker and Kyrano.

40. One of the floral tributes at Gerry Anderson’s funeral in 2013 was in the shape of Thunderbird 2.

41. To protect the models from the heat of the pyrotechnics used for the rockets, metal tubes were inserted into them. These tubes were actually metal cigar tubes that the production team took from Gerry Anderson;s office after he had left for the evening.

42. The Scott Tracy puppet was modelled on Sean Connery, whilst John’s was based on Adam Faith and Charlton Heston.

43. David Graham is the only actor to voice the same character (Parker) in the new 2015 reboot, although Sylvia Anderson and Matt Zimmerman both voice other characters.

44. The ‘5.4.3.2.1’ countdown in the 2015 version is the same as the 60’s version – as voiced by the late Peter Dyneley.

45. The six pods that were ferried to the rescue site by Thunderbird 2 contained International Rescue’s other machines. Thunderbird 4 was always housed in Pod 4.

46. The most used, and well-known machines – apart from the Thunderbirds themselves – were The Mole and The Firefly.

47. During the making of ‘Thunderbirds’, Gerry Anderson’s company changed its’ name from ‘AP Films’ to ‘Century 21’.

48. The episode ‘Attack of the Alligators’ used real baby alligators, which resulted in a visit to the studios by an RSPCA Inspector.

49. Century 21 Records was formed to produce audio versions of some of the adventures. They were all 21 minutes in length and featured dialogue from the show in question linked by narrative from one of the voice artists.

50. J Rosenthal’s friction drive version of Thunderbird 2 (with detachable pod), was originally priced at 14s 11d (79.5p). Today, these models sell for hundreds of pounds.