A third entertainment death to report this week, this one with a face few will be able to remember. But if you’re a TV-raised kid of a certain age, you’ll remember the creations of Gerry Anderson, who died today at 83.
He was the man behind the 1960s series “Thunderbirds,” that rare action-marionettes series that spawned both a terrible Hollywood live action version in 2004 and a satiric tribute, “Team America: World Police” from the makers of “South park.” Other memorable Saturday morning TV series in his famous “Supermarionation” style included “Supercar,” “StingRay” and “Fireball XL-5.”
In both, the strings of the characters were among the things made more vivid by the DVD release of the works eight years ago, when I had an occasion to talk to him.
“When the show starts they see the wires,” he said over the phone from England, where he made his home. “But once they become interested in the stories, they forget about them.”
“Thunderbirds” was praised for its depiction of the future world of 2065, with rockets that blasted skyward from inclined rails. But in general, Anderson said, when it came to the future, “I got it totally wrong. My show saw the future where everyone was well-dressed in modern buildings, where everyone was kept in clean surroundings, and everyone loved each other. I was looking at the world through rose-colored glasses.”
Still, original fans swear by the kitchy approach of the series.
“Kids who watched the show when it first came out when they were 8 years old are now 48 or 50 with kids of their own,” Anderson told me in 2004. But young kids pick up on it, too. “The surprising thing is that children who are used to seeing the wizardry of modern filmmaking love them.”
To be sure, the puppets were limited. “The main thing with the marionettes is that their heads and faces were made out of fiberglass, and obviously had no expression,” Anderson said. “The reality was: They couldn’t walk, they couldn’t pick things up, they couldn’t run — which made them highly unsuitable for an action show.”
Certainly, the shows played a role in furthering film technology.
“There was no question we did lead the world in special effects,” Anderson says. “We were even asked to do ‘2001.’ That may have been the proudest moment of my life, turning it down.
“Looking back at it,” he said of the offer from Stanley Kubrick, “I had quite a lot of cheek to say that to him.”
And his shows had the coolest theme music around: