
Thunderbirds: The Anniversary Episodes is a series of three newly-shot Thunderbirds episodes adapted from original Century 21 Records audio stories. Produced in order to co-incide with the 50th anniversary of Thunderbirds, the production faithfully recreated puppets, set and models in order to create authentic episodes that could have been made in the 1960s. Endorsed by rights-holders ITV, the series was funded through Kickstarter and greatly exceeded its original budget, becoming the highest funded British film and media project on the platform at the time[1], and allowed the creation of three episodes instead of just one as had been originally proposed.
It was produced by Pod 4 films[2] and saw Stephen La Rivière and Justin T. Lee, who had previously worked on the Filmed in Supermarionation documentary, direct episodes, alongside returning classic Thunderbirds director David Elliott. Elliott was not the only original crew member to return - Mary Turner would return as a puppeteer and Judith Shutt would be credited as a sculptor. For added authenticity, it was filmed at one of the original AP Films studios on the Slough Trading Estate.
Despite being completed in 2016, a general release of the series by ITV, who held the distribution rights, remained elusive: only a small run of DVDs and Blu-rays were made available to Kickstarter backers at part of the initial funding campaign. The episodes would eventually make their way onto Britbox UK on August 20th, 2020; and a home-media release would happen in Japan in early 2022.
The series had a sequel of sorts for 2019's Thunderbirds Day, in which the linking narration from audio stories Thunderbird 1 (adapting Trapped in the Sky), The End of the Road and The Vault of Death was filmed with Scott Tracy, Brains and Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward. This material also suffers similar availability problems, and has occasionally resurfaced during subsequent Thunderbirds Day celebrations.
To celebrate the 55th anniversary of classic Thunderbirds' first broadcast in Japan, the anniversary episodes were repacked into a single film entitled Thunderbirds 55. Released in January 2022, this anniversary was chosen as 5 in Japanese is spoken as go, making the spoken title Thunderbirds GoGo.
Cast[]
- Most of the original series' main cast appears across the three episodes - with Jeff Tracy, Lady Penelope, Parker, Scott, Gordon, Virgil and Brains appearing in all three.
- Note that Virgil appears only in stock footage; while Brains is only heard in one episode (Introducing Thunderbirds), and only seen in the other two.
- John also appears in stock footage, with new dialogue, in one episode (The Abominable Snowman).
- The main characters that don't appear are Tin-Tin, Grandma Tracy and Kyrano.
Episodes[]

- Introducing Thunderbirds (dir. Justin T. Lee)
- The Abominable Snowman (dir. Stephen La Rivière)
- The Stately Homes Robberies (dir. David Elliott)
Crew[]
- Stephen La Rivière (director)
- Justin T. Lee
- David Elliott
- Andrew T. Smith (associate producer)
- David Graham (voice actor)
- Sylvia Anderson
- Dave Hicks (cinematography)
- Elliot Pavelin (editor)
- Hilton Fitzsimmons (art dep.)
- Richard Gregory (art dep.)
- David Tremont (art dep.)
- Toby Chamberlain (art dep.)
- Carl Stirling-Stewart (art dep.)
- Malcolm Smith (SFX)
- James Fielding (photography)
- David Graham Hicks (cinematography)
- Paul Dingwall (camera assistant)
- Lindsay Lee (puppetry supervision, as Lindsay Holung)
- Géraldine Donaldson (puppet operator)
- Mary Turner (puppet operator)
- Liz Comstock-Smith (wardrobe)
- Stephen Mansfield (sculptor)
- Chris King (sculptor)
- Judith Shutt (sculptor)
- Keith Fraser (model maker)
- Mamas Pitsillis (model maker)
- Andrew Grimshaw (model maker)
- Boyd Skinner (cinematography)
Puppets[]
References[]
- ↑ Kickstarter's list of most-funded projects. In 2020 it was exceeded by documentary Search of Tomorrow, but it still remains the 2nd most funded.
- ↑ The company was succeeded by Century 21 Films, which now claims co-production credit alongside Justin and Lindsay Lee's Gazelle Automations.
External Links[]
- Page on the official Century 21 Films website
- Page on the official Gazelle Automations website
- Original Kickstarter campaign