The Worlds of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson

No Strings Attached

The Worlds of Gerry 
and Sylvia Anderson
The Story Behind international Rescue 
by Ian Fryer
Foreword by Shane Rimmer
Fonthill Media
ISBN 9681781555040

Ian Fryer’s book, The Worlds Of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, subtitled The Story Behind International Rescue, is perhaps a little off the mark in terms of its title... as the book not only contains the origins of their most popular franchise Thunderbirds (and all but one of the puppets on the cover of the book reflect that show) but gives equal amounts of space for all the other Gerry Anderson created series’ of that era. So it charts his career starting in 1945 when he joined the Colonial Film Unit making British propaganda, then went to Gainsborough to be an editor, then became a freelance sound editor and so on until he was running his own studio for what was, obviously, the brith of supermarionation and, later, his live action productions. 

So this book covers, with a chapter apiece, The Adventures Of Twizzle, Torchy The Battery Boy, Four Feather Falls, Supercar, Fireball XL5, Stingray, Thunderbirds, Thunderbirds Are Go & Thunderbird 6, Captain Scarlet And The Mysterons, Joe 90, Doppelganger, The Secret Service, UFO, The Protectors, the unaired supermarionation pilot show The Investigator and up to both years of Space 1999, which is when the partnership between the Anderson’s ended in divorce. Throughout the book there are also chapters pushed in between some of these to give a taste of the scene in the UK at the time, or to provide a little more information on important players… such as Lew Grade, Derek Meddings, the state of British Sci-Fi in the 1960s and the collapse of the UK film industry. 

This in addition to providing mini biographies within the main text about important cast and crew including, of course, composer extraordinaire Barry Gray. Due to the scope of the title, the book doesn’t really stray beyond Space 1999 when it gets there but it does have another mini chapter at the end of the book at least acknowledging and providing minor details of his later shows such as Terrahawks, Dick Spanner and Space Precinct. 

Now, although there is a fair bit of information given to some things… I perhaps found it a little less detailed than I would like but, being a novice to the Anderson universe… although I watched most of these as a kid and had some of the toys such as the Dinky Thunderbird 2 and the Joe 90 car (wish I still had that one)... I did pick up on a lot of things I didn’t know. Such as Stanley Kubrick offering Gerry’s studio the chance to do all the effects for his 2001 - A Space Odyssey. Gerry was too busy to be able to take on the job but Kubrick then poached two off his key personnel who did the job for him. Which I thought was an interesting story. 

It also explained to me why Four Feather Falls came about because, obviously (and I remember this from when I was a kid), the American western TV shows dominated all the networks at that time. I found out another fact that Stingray was not only the first Supermarionation show to be shot in colour, it was indeed the first British TV show ever shot in colour, which surprised me somewhat. 

As far as Thunderbirds and the crew at International Rescue goes… The rescue idea was born from real life events of the trapped miners in Lengede-Broustedt mine in Lower Saxony in West Germany in 1963, while the Tracy family itself was ripped straight from the family structure of the Ponderosa on the popular TV western show Bonanza. Indeed, the Jeff Tracy puppet was itself based on Lorne Greene, it turns out. 

In addition to all this, each chapter brings an insight into why each show was created and also why each show was cancelled... most of them after just one season, despite their huge ratings hits and popularity with kids and family alike (I guess Dinky toys were happy enough to keep bringing out new die cast models every year, they were making huge profits from them and, rightly so).

My one complaint on this, other than suspecting there’s not quite enough info for someone who is more familiar with the properties than I (I will be watching and reviewing a few of these shows over the next couple of years… at least that’s the plan)… the book is a little sloppily written. For example, here’s part of a sentence… “Probably too large and unwieldy at first for audiences to strongly identify strongly with any particular character…” And that kind of word repetition is not an isolated case, there are a fair few examples going throughout the book. However, it is a well researched tome and I did come away both entertained by Mr. Fryers writing and also quite informed, to an extent… at least enough for me to try and seek out chunkier volumes on the individual TV shows in question (which is a hard task at the moment, it turns out). So ultimately, I’d have to say that I really enjoyed The Worlds of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and got a lot out of it. So maybe, if you’re not too familiar with the subject matter, you might want to take a look at some point. Spectrum Is Green!