The innovative puppetry became known as Supermarionation. SuperM was a huge improvement over existing television puppetry. Initially designed in 1958 by Read and Hill for the APFilms' western themed kiddie show "Four Feather Falls" (the third APFilms series after the unremarkable "Adventures of Twizzle" and "Torchy the Battery Boy") SuperM would continually evolve through such classic programs as Supercar, Fireball XLS, Stingray, Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet, Joe 90 and The Secret Service.SuperM allowed the puppets to move, speak and react in far more realistic ways then ever before possible. APFilms, under the auspices of Gerry Anderson, his then wife Sylvia and Arthur Provis, also went to the unusual lengths of molding the puppets heads to resemble the features of each characters' voice actor. This, combined with Meddings effects and the meticulously detailed sets and miniatures helped to create alternate universes where suspension of disbelief was almost magically achieved.
The Anderson Supermarionation series were uniformly technologically innovative and quirkily enjoyable with such unforgettable characters as Supercars' Mike Mercury, Col. Steve Zodiac of the World Space Patrol in Fireball XLS and Thunderbirds' Tracy brothers and the lovely Lady Penelope. My personal favorites include Joe 90's nine year old super spy and Secret Service's Father Unwin, portrayed by the marvelous Stanley Unwin.
One short article can hardly do justice to Supermarionation, luckily the Web is well stocked with useful sources of SuperM info...
Your first stop on the SuperM Information Highway should be Lester Novros' amazingly comprehensive Supermarionation Page.Lester has compiled information on every aspect of SuperM and you'll likely find yourself visiting again and again. Other general sites of interest include the Gerry Anderson FAQ List , Adam Broom's Gerry Anderson Productions' site and Earth Station 1 which offers a wide array of sound files from many of the SuperM series.
If your interested in specific programs you might want to check out these sites:
Thunderbirds
Thunderbirds
(in French)
Thunderbirds
[Nagano Takaaki]
Stingray
Joe 90
