Off-Model: The Thunderbird craft in the Comic-Book Adaptation only vaguely resemble the models seen on screen. One wonders if the artist had seen an episode of Thunderbirds once and was trying to do it from memory. In the interest of transatlantic appeal, it was decided that the main characters would be mostly American and therefore actors capable of producing an appropriate accent were used. [28] [38] British, Canadian and Australian actors formed most of the voice cast; the only American involved was stage actor David Holliday, who was noticed in London's West End and given the part of Virgil Tracy. [83] [86] [87] Following the completion of the first series, Holliday returned to the US. The character was voiced by English actor Jeremy Wilkin for Thunderbirds Are Go, Series Two and Thunderbird 6. [88]

Cast Herd: The Characters section shows pretty well that this trope is in effect. Especially noticeable with Lady Penelope and Parker, who usually have their own adventure that only intersects that of the Tracys towards the end of the episode. Peter Dyneley, Shane Rimmer, Sylvia Anderson, David Holliday, Matt Zimmerman, David Graham, Ray Barrett, Christine Finn, John Tate Thunderbirds Merchandise Parental Bonus: As a true "all ages" program, episode plots and characters were very well written, particularly after the episodes were lengthened to an hour. The Alleged Computer: To the modern viewer, most computers in the series are built after the manner of this trope, complete with mechanical winding and grinding sounds as the computers take minutes to perform the most simple tasks. With all their vision of how technology would advance in the 100 years after the show was filmed, the production team seem to have assumed that computing technology was as good in the 60s as it would ever be. Glowing Eyes of Doom: When the main villain, the Hood, uses his mesmeric powers on any other character, his eyes glow yellow.IRO Headquarters " Arcology" opens its doors to a group of eager school children. While Kallan gives a guided tour, two of the students, Jimmy and Beaver, steal Thunderbird 1. They subsequently crash the craft into a nearby skyscraper, resulting in a fire which threatens to destroy the entire Arcology. Night arrives at Lake Anasta, and everyone settles down for a good night's sleep. Everyone but Brains, who's excited and can't wait for tomorrow to dawn, so he can collect more samples... Cast Full of Rich People: Jeff is a billionaire, and he and his family are the focal characters, living in the lap of luxury on a private South Pacific island. The main secondary character is Lady Penelope, who downplays her wealth, yet still lives in an English stately manor with an awful lot of works of art and jewellery. Set in the 2060s, Thunderbirds is a follow-up to the earlier Supermarionation productions Four Feather Falls, Supercar, Fireball XL5 and Stingray. It follows the exploits of International Rescue, a life-saving organisation equipped with technologically advanced land, sea, air and space rescue craft; these are headed by a fleet of five vehicles named the Thunderbirds and launched from the organisation's secret base of operations in the Pacific Ocean. The main characters are ex-astronaut Jeff Tracy, leader of International Rescue, and his five adult sons, who pilot the Thunderbird machines. Adventure-Friendly World: Despite the tendency of large-scale science and technology projects in the Thunderbirds 'verse to catastrophically and explosively fail, nobody ever stops building the damn things.

Artistic License – Geography: A few locations and directions are a bit off. See the Recap section for specific examples. The Partner in Crime: Lady Penelope takes the second-in-command role, being an expert in espionage. As such, she also acts as The Conman, The Roper, and just about any other front-line role needed. Casual Danger Dialogue: But of course. Charging into danger is part of the day job of International Rescue. You can't expect them to go all to pieces every time their lives are at risk. In 1982, ITC took Scientific Rescue Team Techno Voyager (note: onscreen it is transliterated in Engrish as Techno Boyger, thus the vehichles retain the TB designation making the Thunder-Birds connection slightly more obvious), a 24-episode anime on Fuji TV inspired by the series, and dubbed it as Thunderbirds 2086. This series is not considered part of the Thunderbirds canon by most fans, but interestingly was originally planned as such until a dropoff in popularity of the franchise in Japan led to difficulties in finding a sponsor. Nevertheless, it tanked and was canceled early in both Japan and the UK, though the US and Canada did get all 24 episodes in syndication. note Episodes 19-24 remained unbroadcast in Japan until 2008. A pre- Macross Artland worked on episode 10, which notably features a Misa Hayase prototype as a minor character. A humongous comet is on a direct collision course with Earth, and will wipe out the entire planet in less than twelve hours. The Thunderbirds must head into action and do everything they can to save their home one last time...The production, which had been shooting two 25-minute episodes every two weeks, [20] faced great challenges transitioning to the new format: nine episodes had already been fully or partly filmed, scripts for ten more had been written, and major rewrites would be needed to satisfy the longer running time. [55] [56] [57] [58] [59] Anderson lamented: "Our time-scale was far too drawn out. ITC's New York office insisted that they should have one show a fortnight... Everything had to move at twice the speed." [60] APF spent over seven months extending the existing episodes and filmed the new 50-minute format at a rate of two episodes every four weeks. [20] [61]

Special mention to Thunderbird 3 which flew from Earth to so-close-to-the-Sun-that-it-was-on-the-verge-of-melting in the time it took Thunderbird 2 to fly from the South Pacific to the Himalayas. In "The Uninvited", Scott radios from the pyramid saying he is trapped inside. Jeff says that if he does not hear from Scott within ten minutes, he will send Thunderbird 2 out; and he follows through on this. Scott informs the others of what Jeff wants them to do, although he also tells them that he's found out that someone's been taking pictures of TB1. Brains says he gets it now - one of their enemies has set a trap, and has But then, the Hood moves in - declaring he'll destroy International Rescue, and then get the treasure - and fires a salvo of torpedoes at TB4...

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Parasol Parachute: In "The Cham-Cham", Parker climbs on the roof of a cable car careering down a wire at a high speed. Lady Penelope offers him her umbrella, to help him attach hooks to it lowered by Thunderbird 2. When Parker falls off the roof, he uses the umbrella as a parachute.

Thunderbird 5: a grey and gold space station that relays distress calls from around the world. Manned alternately by "space monitors" John and Alan. [16] [17] [18] As the sun rises, Tin-Tin wakes up Scott and the others. She told Brains not to go, but he still did anyway. Elsewhere, the Hood decides to get the treasure, and make things more difficult for International Rescue - by detonating explosives which destroy the sunken temple...with Brains still somewhere inside! A race of highly evolved beings have been watching countless civilizations across millions of years. Humanity have become their latest test subjects, and they must decide whether the species pose a threat to the universe. It's up to the Thunderbirds to convince the beings that Earth has evolved beyond its savage past. Seeking to distinguish his proposal from APF's earlier productions, Anderson attempted to pitch the stories at a level that would appeal to both adults and children. Whereas previous series had been broadcast in late-afternoon children's timeslots, Anderson wanted Thunderbirds to be shown during the evening to attract a broader family audience. [28] Sylvia remembers that "our market had grown and a 'kidult' show... was the next step." [29] The Andersons retired to their holiday villa in Portugal to expand the premise, script the pilot episode and compose a writers' guide. [28] [30] According to Sylvia, the writing process depended on a "division of labour", whereby Gerry created the action sequences while she managed characterisation. [30] The decision to make a father and his sons the main characters was influenced by the premise of Bonanza, as well as Sylvia's belief that the use of more than one heroic character would broaden the series' appeal. [31] [32] The Tracy brothers were named after Mercury Seven astronauts: Scott Carpenter, John Glenn, Virgil "Gus" Grissom, Gordon Cooper and Alan Shepard. [33]

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Abandon Ship: Used surprisingly rarely for a series that's all about rescuing people, who are often trapped inside the latest technological-wonder-gone-wrong. But then again, just getting the people out wouldn't allow the team to show off their awesome vehicle designed just for this exact type of emergency! Billions of Buttons: Surprisingly averted. Although the fancy equipment is capable of many things, when control panels are seen, they have relatively few buttons and dials, and often only those relevant to the plot are seen. Sometimes the equipment is operated by speaking into it. However, large panels of unlabelled lights (which are always filament lamps, rather than the LEDs they would be nowadays) are regularly seen, which flash all the time. Shout-Out: In "Brink of Disaster", the gadgets that Lady Penelope deploys from the Rolls Royce are reminiscent of the Aston Martin in Goldfinger. No OSHA Compliance: Pretty much the raison d'être of many episodes. It's almost as if Gerry Anderson decided the most dangerous thing about the 2060's was that they were populated by idiots. Thunderbirds 2086 is a Science Fiction anime series inspired by (and thus loosely based around) concepts and elements of the original 1965 Thunderbirds. Originating from Japan, the series was titled Scientific Rescue Team TechnoBoyager, and ran on Fuji TV from 17th April to 11th September 1982.