Classic Thunderbirds

Modern branding

Classic Thunderbirds (also known as, and originally simply called Thunderbirds) is the original Thunderbirds franchise/continuity. It is centred around, but not entirely consisted of, Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's Thunderbirds television series, which ran during 1965 and 1966. However, stories set in the continuity also include films, comic stories, written prose and audio stories.

At the heart of the franchise is International Rescue, the secret rescue organisation helmed by Jeff Tracy and his five sons from a remote tropical island located somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, and their technologically advanced Thunderbirds rescue vehicles.

History

Origins (1964)

AP Films had found success utilising their "Supermarionation" technique - sophisticated marionette puppets, with electronically operated mouth mechanisms, paired with detailed and realistic minature sets - since their 1960 television production Supercar. The company enjoyed a working relationship with ITC Entertainment thanks to Associated Television's (ATV) Lew Grade, with the television mogul financing the studio's production output year on year. At the end of 1962, ATV bought AP Films, and the studio embarked on their first colour production in Stingray.

When production on Stingray began to wind up, focus turned on the studio's next production. Inspiration struck from the Wunder von Lengede, a German mining disaster which occurred in late 1963. A portion of the Lengede mine collapsed and flooded, trapping numerous miners underground. The disaster attracted significant international press attention after it was realised that an air bubble was keeping many of the miners alive, and it would be a race against the clock while they waited for the necessary drilling equipment to arrive in order to attempt a rescue. The show's creators, husband-and-wife team Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, expanded on this by creating International Rescue, a 26 episode half-hour Supermarionation series which told the story of the Tracy family and their global rescue organisation, which was capable of delivering life-saving rescue equipment anywhere on the planet within hours of a disaster unfolding.

Production on the series began in the earlier half of 1964 when the script for the 'pilot' episode, Trapped in the Sky, was completed and made available to the studio. A while later, the title of the series was changed from International Rescue to Thunderbirds, based off letters sent to Gerry Anderson from his older brother Lionel, who had been killed in action during the Second World War as a 22 year old many years earlier.

In about December 1964, after Trapped in the Sky had been completed, the order came in from ATV that the series was best suited to have a runtime of 50 minutes, rather than the current half-hour, and that the episodes should be doubled in length. The precise events leading up to the expansion are debated, but it would appear that positive response to the original episode prompted the change of format. With several episodes already finished, several more in front of the cameras, and a good deal of the rest of series having been scripted, the decision was made to keep the cameras rolling on the original half-hour versions while the scripts were being updated and expanded in length - with the extra additions to be filmed later when time permitted. For this reason, there is no clear-cut production order for the show, as many of the earlier episodes were filmed in at least two distinct portions, across both the puppet and special effects units.

Debut (1965 - 1966)

While Thunderbirds was still in production, marketing for the series began in earnest. A comic strip series chronicling the adventures of Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward was part of the original line-up in TV Century 21, the first comic magazine from Century 21 Publishing (a subsidiary of AP Films), alongside the earlier AP Films production Supercar, Fireball XL5, and Stingray. The strip functioned as a lead in for Thunderbirds, playing up intrigue with its readers and refusing to answer questions of exactly who Lady Penelope was. The mystery eventually fell in issue 30, dated August 14th, with the magazine's editor confirming she will play a part in the upcoming Thunderbirds series.

1965 saw the continued production of the new hour-long format. The series ended up premiering on Thursday September 30th (a date which has now come to be called "Thunderbirds Day", and is celebrated in some form annually), at 7pm on the ATV Midlands franchise. To accompany the premiere, the newly formed Century 21 Records (another subsidiary) released Introducing Thunderbirds, a 21 minute long audio record which acts as a prequel to the premiere episode. The immediate success of the television series ensured the following year would not be short of further adventures for International Rescue outside of television...

Ongoing Adventures (1966-1971)

With Thunderbirds now having made its television debut, it was not long before adventures in other media began to follow. Starting with issue 52,Thunderbirds would join the pages of TV Century 21 alongside its television predecessors Stingray and Fireball XL5, alongside a larger shakeup of the magazine. Frank Bellamy, then known for his work in the Eagle, would serve as the strip's principal illustrator. Although the Thunderbirds strip would replace Lady Penelope, it was not the end of the road for the secret agent. Quite the opposite, as a new dedicated Lady Penelope magazine would also be launched that same week.

The Lady Penelope magazine would not just publish the continued adventures of Lady Penelope and Parker, but house a whole range of other Thunderbirds related content. Perils of Parker was a funny one-page comic story exploring what Parker and Lil got up to during their downtime, echoing their scene in Vault of Death. Lady Penelope's Secret Files was a serialised prose feature that detailed more minor investigative cases Lady Penelope had been involved in. Another prose series explored Lady Penelope's ancestors throughout the centuries prior.

1966 continued to be a prosperous year for Thunderbirds. Following on from their release of Introducing Thunderbirds, Century 21 Records began producing further Thunderbirds adventures. April saw the release of F.A.B., a second original-to-audio adventure, and a condensed retelling of Trapped in the Sky. Further batches of releases occurred in June and November, including one more original story in The Stately Homes Robberies, as well as continuing into 1967. Spaced throughout the same year were five original Thunderbirds novels penned by John Theydon, as well as two Lady Penelope novels by Kevin McGarry. The Thunderbirds novels built on International Rescue's ongoing conflict with the Hood, whereas the novels starring Lady Penelope concerned her continuing battles with arch-enemy Mr. Steelman.

The first season of Thunderbirds finished filming in early 1966, and the finale episode, Security Hazard, would go out on March 31st, 1966. However, unlike earlier AP Films series, Thunderbirds was not over just yet. In early September 1965, before Thunderbirds had even premiered, it was reported that a Thunderbirds feature film was to go into production for release the following year. This would evolve further into a three-film deal with United Artists. The first film, Thunderbirds Are Go, was produced alongside a second season of Thunderbirds. Unusually, season two only had six episodes - there remains debate on whether the season was always going to be six episodes to accompany production of the movie, or if it had been cut down in length following difficulties in securing international sales to the USA.

Season 2 of Thunderbirds premiered on October 2nd 1966, this time on ATV London at the earlier time of 5.05pm. Tying into its first episode Atlantic Inferno was the Lady Penelope comic story Down Under!, which depicted the lead-up to the episode's events. This run of episodes concluded with Ricochet on the 6th of November, with the final, festive episode Give or Take a Million held back until Christmas Day.

The film Thunderbirds Are Go premiered on December 12th, 1966, and concerned the Zero X spacecraft and mankind's first journey to planet Mars. Accompanying the movie were several adaptations - a comic published in the Daily Mail newspaper, a photo-story in TV Century 21, a shortened prose story in Lady Penelope, and a novelisation written by Angus Allan. Although expected to be a success - as indicated by the three-picture deal and its commissioning before the first television episode had even aired - Thunderbirds Are Go was deemed to have under performed, and plans for the remaining two movies were placed on hold. A third season of Thunderbirds similarly never materialised, and the studios began work on a new television program (Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons).

While the film itself might have been a failure, it was not the end of the road for the Zero X crew. Following on from TV Century 21's adaptation of the movie was a fully fledged Zero X comic series starting in January 1967. The series proved to be popular with readers and lasted until the comic's penultimate issue in August 1969. After a brief return to Mars, Paul Travers and his team would go on to explore the rest of the solar system, before the ship was fitted with upgraded boosters which allowed the craft to travel into deeper space.

1967 also saw the start of a new Thunderbirds comic series inside Century 21 Publishing's third magazine Candy, aimed at a preschool-aged audience. Inside was a single-page Thunderbirds-inspired comic story, usually only four panels in length, and would feature the Thunderbird craft helping out in ways they normally wouldn't, like rescuing stuck animals and involving themselves in non-life-threatening situations. The series proved to be short-lived, only running for six months or so.

Despite Thunderbirds Are Go lacklustre performance, there was deemed to be enough popularity in Thunderbirds left to give a second film a chance. Entering production in the middle of 1967 was Thunderbird 6, and involved the intertwining plot-lines of Jeff Tracy's desire for a sixth Thunderbird craft, and the maiden voyage of Brains' Skyship One airship. The film would premiere in June 1968, almost 18 months since the last major outing, and would be subject to a similar fate as Thunderbirds Are Go. No third movie was made, and it would be the last on-screen Thunderbirds project until 2015.

Thunderbird 6's underwhelming performance could have been attributed to fading interest in Thunderbirds. Towards the end of 1967, the Lady Penelope magazine had made the decision to move the Lady Penelope comic strip off the main centre-spread and replace it with a comic series about pop group sensation the Monkees. In February 1968, Penelope's comic would fall down from two colour pages to one colour and one in black and white, before becoming entirely black and white in April. In June the Lady Penelope comic was exited from the magazine altogether and replaced with a prequel series documenting Penelope's youth. The Thunderbirds strip in TV21, on the other hand, remained popular with readers and continued to occupy the magazine's center-spread - apart from a few months at the end of 1967 where it was displaced in favour of Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons.

The Century 21 film studios shut down in January 1969. The publishing arm limped on for a few months more before it was taken over by Martspress. The new owners merged TV21 and another Century 21 title, Joe 90 Top Secret, to produce the combined TV21 & Joe 90 magazine. The numbering was reset, and the new publication bore little links back to what it had once been. Thunderbirds was the only series from TV21 to have survived the merger. Frank Bellamy was still onboard as artist, but the strip quickly became black and white, and Bellamy left after just the one story. John Cooper took over for the remaining stories, before Thunderbirds left the magazine in June 1970. The prequel Penny series would continue in Penelope (as it was now titled), before the magazine lost its Century 21 license sometime during the latter half of 1969. The Penny strip would continue, but became a generic girls strip starring a teenager called Penny, with no links back to Thunderbirds. For the first time since TV Century 21 had debuted in January 1965, there was no longer regular Thunderbirds content being published.

Decline (70s and 80s)

At the turn of the decade, Thunderbirds was on borrowed time: with public interest in the series rapidly dwindling, and with the downfall of the Century 21 organisation in 1969, it would only be a matter of time before publishers would move on to newer properties.

Thunderbirds was given a form of second chance when the new Countdown comic magazine included the franchise when it launched in February 1971. The new series of comics ran mostly uninterrupted until July, before returning in December and running until April 1972, when Thunderbirds left the magazine for good. Overall, eight new stories were produced, all illustrated by Don Harley.

The yearly annuals, which had been released since the end of 1966, also became harder to justify producing. City Magazines, who had acted as distributors for Century 21 Publishing, experimented with the format from 1969 onward, first by including Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons along the inside content, and then other unrelated television programmes the following year. The publishers of Countdown, Polystyle, then took over for 1971, but would only produce the one - which, as evident by the poor quality of surviving issues, was printed very cheaply.

1981 saw the last repeat of Thunderbirds on the ITV network, a series now over 15 years old.

By the 1980s, ITC Entertainment (the former subsidiary of ATV which held the rights to Thunderbirds) began producing cheap made-for-television films using material from its extensive back-catalogue. Thunderbirds was no exception, with To The Rescue, In Outer Space and Countdown to Disaster being released yearly from 1980, all three being compilation movies simply made from joining two loosely related episodes together back-to-back. The following year, ITC released Thunderbirds 2086, a sort of reboot of Thunderbirds. Adapted from the Japanese anime Scientific Rescue Team TechoBoyager, which itself was inspired by Thunderbirds, ITC translated and dubbed the series into English, and rescored episodes using tracks from the Barry Gray archive. The only other major modification was the inclusion of the Shadow Axis, a mysterious organisation which came up against the International Rescue Organisation on several occasions. Plagued by a lack of home media releases, the series has fallen into relative obscurity.

Polystyle picked up the Thunderbirds brand once more beginning in 1982 with a series of yearly holiday special releases, reprinting comic stories (albeit mostly in black and white) from TV Century 21, Countdown, and Polystyle's 1971 annual. Three releases were made until 1984 when Thunderbirds publications ceased once more.

1987 saw the reunion of voice actors David Graham, Shane Rimmer and Matt Zimmerman for the year's Children in Need celebrations, with a specially produced Thunderbirds audio story that was broadcast on BBC Radio 2. The special, which is now known by the title "Parker in Need", concerned Parker getting himself trapped inside the BBC's record library after he broke in to leave a donation on behalf of Lady Penelope, and needed the assistance of International Rescue to free himself.

1988 saw a brief uptick in fan activity. Engale Marketing, the publishing company of noted fan David Nightingale, began producing Action 21, a magazine reprinting TV Century 21 comics with new in-universe editorial content. Debuting in July, it lasted 10 issues before winding up in October 1989.

Resurgence (1990s, 2000s)

In 1990, the BBC aired slightly edited versions of several of the original Century 21 Records episode adaptations on Radio 5, with new additions by Shane Rimmer and Gerry Anderson, in order to coincide with the series' 25th anniversary. These airings proved to be unexpectedly popular and led to the BBC acquiring broadcast rights to the Thunderbirds television series.

On September 20, 1991, Thunderbirds had its networked debut with Trapped in the Sky on BBC2. This was the first time it had been shown in all parts of the United Kingdom simultaneously - previously, the series had been aired in one specific ITV region at a time. The showing, just like the radio repeats the previous year, proved to be far more popular than anticipated, with the first episode pulling in an audience of over 7 million.

The unexpected return of Thunderbirds and its rise in popularity sparked a new wave of merchandise and comic stories. The next month, Fleetway launched Thunderbirds The Comic, a new fortnightly magazine that originally reprinted comic stories from TV Century 21. The same week saw newspaper The Sunday Times launch a new series of weekly Thunderbirds comics in their pullout section The Funday Times. Returning to helm both endeavours was Alan Fennell, who worked as a scriptwriter on the television series as well as editing TV21 and overseeing Century 21 Publishing. November saw The Comic begin to produce new comic material in episode adaptations, and January 1993 saw it publish brand new original comic stories.

February 1993 saw The Comic launch perhaps its most ambitious project: The Complete Thunderbirds Story, a multi-medium prequel to the television series. Initially focusing on Jeff Tracy's space career and the birth of his sons, it then told the story of the personal tragedy which befell Jeff and prompted him to begin International Rescue, leading right up to Trapped in the Sky. The saga unfolded over 45 consecutive issues, spanning simple text stories to full comic strip, eventually drawing to a close in October 1994.

Complementing The Comic was a new series of Thunderbirds annuals published at the end of 1992 and 1993, largely consisting of reprinted material, as well as the poster magazines, which alternated between newly shot photographic posters and specially created comic stories.

The BBC once more repeated Thunderbirds from September 3rd, 2000, this time using Carlton's newly remastered version, which prompted a similar rise in popularity as had occurred 10 years earlier. To capitalise on this, Redan launched a monthly Thunderbirds-themed magazine, with the first issue going out in November 2000. Regular features of the magazine included new comic stories, an episode summarised using either photos or text, and a pull-out activites page with a special Thunderbirds-inspired mission. It would last until December 2007, eventually ending due to poor sales. The resurgence in interest would also prompt a series of four new yearly annuals from Carlton Books.

The resurgence in popularity for Thunderbirds during the 1990s sparked an effort to reboot the series for a new movie. The first attempt came from Polygram Pictures, who had bought ITC Entertainment, and hence the rights to Thunderbirds, in 1995. Writer Karey Kirkpatrick and director Peter Hewitt became attached to the project, however the film languished at Polygram for many years in development hell. A second version led by Steven E. de Souza emerged in early 1998, but this version was halted after its parent company, Philips-Siemens, decided to sell Polygram to Seagram, which at that point owned Universal Studios.

In 1999, Carlton Communications bought the ITC Entertainment library from the Seagram Company, abruptly disrupting film efforts once more.

The Thunderbirds movie would eventually emerge in 2004 and become a commercial disappointment, halting planned sequels - an echo of what had happened in 1966.

Likewise, there were also several efforts on the small screen to revive a new version of Thunderbirds for television at the turn of the century. The first known version was Thunderbirds: IR, which was to have been produced by Asylum Models and Effects. A trailer for the reboot emerged in 2005 for the franchise's 40th anniversary, however not long after the reboot would be shelved do to the ongoing merger and restructure of both Carlton and Granda into ITV plc.

Despite the shelving of Thunderbirds: IR, multiple other projects were also in development around the same time. In 2011, original co-creator Gerry Anderson announced that he was involved with a reboot, which was "very different" and was to have seen two Tracy sisters. In 2023, details emerged about a version of Thunderbirds titled Thunderbirds: International Rescue via a production bible, which dated back to around the same time. Elsewhere, writer Paul Cornell had also pitched a live-action prime-time version, but was knocked back.

In 2013, ITV confirmed a reboot of Thunderbirds titled Thunderbirds Are Go!, to be co-produced by New Zealand companies Pukeko Pictures and WETA Workshop, due for airing in 2015...

Meanwhile, ITV had granted independent publisher FTL Publications a license to produce Thunderbirds novels, with the restriction that they could only be commercially sold in North America. Largely penned by Joan Marie Verba, and with each of the seven novels revolving around one of the core characters, the series debuted in 2008 with the prequel Countdown To Action! and came to an end in 2012 with the Brains-centric Arctic Adventure!.

50th Anniversary and New Beginnings (2015 -)

To accompany their new Thunderbirds Are Go! series, ITV were also interested in commemorating the original series' 50th anniversary in 2015. Following on from their success with Filmed in Supermarionation two years earlier, Pod 4 Films were approached with ideas on how to commemorate the upcoming milestone. In response, they pitched what would become The Anniversary Episodes: adaptions of the three original Thunderbirds Century 21 Records audio stories for television, with newly recreated puppets and sets. ITV agreed to the project, waiving the usual licensing fee but refusing to fund it. The production team instead turned to crowdfunding through online platform Kickstarter, initially aiming to raise £70,000 in order to adapt Introducing Thunderbirds, with the remaining episodes available as "stretch goals" should the project meet and exceed its target. In the end, the campaign raised over £218,000 from over 3,300 backers, allowing all three episodes to go before the cameras.

In 2020, Thunderbirds Are Go! aired its final episode, bringing its 5 year run to a close after 78 episodes. With it, ITV began showing renewed interest in the classic Thunderbirds brand, something which had stagnated while the "new" Thunderbirds was airing. This culminated with Anderson Entertainment entering an agreement at the end of 2020 with ITV which allowed them to begin publishing material concerning Thunderbirds and other properties. Anderson Entertainment had previously been active in creating online media with Century 21 Tech Talk and A21, as well as the adapted 'motion comics' Thunderbirds Legends and Planet of Bones.

This deal would come into fruition in April 2021 with Terror from the Stars, a performed version of the first Thunderbirds novel featuring a full cast and specially composed music.

In 2022, the audio book series pivoted to adapting comic stories from TV Century 21, dropping the narration and becoming full audio dramas. More liberty would be taken with this batch of stories, significantly modifying the original plot to add characters and revise endings.

Beginning in September 2023, Thunderbirds returned to British free-to-air television for the first time since 2006, which was the last airing on the BBC, when archival station Talking Pictures began airing the series on Saturday afternoons.

In October 2023, it was announced that Anderson Entertainment had finally secured the rights to produce new stories, potentially paving the way for brand new wholly original stories for the first time since 2012.

Outings

The following is a list of media, in (roughly) order of publication, that is set in the Classic Thunderbirds continuity.

• Lady Penelope comic series, published in TV Century 21, Lady Penelope, and Countdown (1965-1968, 1971)
• Thunderbirds season 1 (1965-1966)
• Century 21 Records audio stories (1965-1966)
• Thunderbirds original comic series published in TV Century 21 (1966 - 1969)
• Perils of Parker comic series (1966-1968)
• Lady Penelope's Secret Files, short prose stories loosely set around Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward's solo adventures (1966)
• Thunderbirds original prose series, published by Armada and World Distributors (1, Calling Thunderbirds, Operation Asteroids, et. al..., 1966)
• "The Creighton-Ward Gallery", stories concerning Lady Penelope's ancestors (1966-1967)
• Thunderbirds season 2 (1966)
• Thunderbirds Are Go film (1966)
• Creighton Ward, a Lady Penelope spin-off set in a children's hospital (1967)
• Candy comic series (1967)
• Zero X comic series (1967 - 1969, 1971)
• Thunderbird 6 film (1968)
• Penny (1968-1969)
• 'Revival' Thunderbirds comic stories, published in Countdown (1971 - 1972)
• The Funday Times, new Thunderbirds comic stories (1991-1994)
• Thunderbirds: The Comic new comic stories, including The Complete Thunderbirds Story (1992 - 1995)
• Redan magazine, new stories and comics (2000-2007)
• FTL Publication's Thunderbirds novels (Countdown To Action!, Action Alert!, Deadly Danger!, et. al..., 2008-2012)
• The Anniversary Episodes (2016)
• Century 21 Tech Talk season 1 (2019)
• A21 stories (2019-)
• Thunderbirds Legends (2020)
• Zero-X: Planet of Bones adaptation (2020)
• Thunderbirds audio adaptations (2021-)
• Century 21 Tech Talk season 3 (2021)
• Interplanetary Rescue, new Fireball XL5 crossover material (2022)

Perhaps more controversially, one can also place Thunderbirds: USA (the FOX kids version, 1994) in this continuity as they are more-or-less adaptations of TV stories (in the same vein as The Anniversary Episodes and the various Anderson Entertainment offerings). However, due to its archive status (partially missing) and relative obscurity, the Wiki does not cover it as a "valid" entry.