Thunderbirds

Premise

Set between 2065 and 2067, Thunderbirds follows the exploits of the Tracy family, headed by American industrialist and ex-astronaut Jeff Tracy. Jeff is a widower with five adult sons: Scott, John, Virgil, Gordon and Alan. The Tracys make up International Rescue, a secret organisation founded to save human life. They are aided in this mission by technologically advanced land, sea, air and space vehicles that are called into service when conventional rescue methods prove ineffective. The most important of these vehicles are the five "Thunderbird machines", each assigned to one of the five Tracy brothers:

Thunderbird 1: a hypersonic rocket plane used for fast response and danger zone reconnaissance. Piloted by Scott, rescue co-ordinator.

Thunderbird 2: a supersonic carrier aircraft which ferries supporting vehicles and equipment in detachable capsules called "pods". Piloted by Virgil.

Thunderbird 3: a single-stage-to-orbit spacecraft. Piloted alternately by Alan and John, with Scott as co-pilot.

Thunderbird 4: a utility submersible. Piloted by Gordon and usually launched from Thunderbird 2.

Thunderbird 5: a space station in Earth orbit that relays distress calls from around the world. Manned alternately by "space monitors" John and Alan.

The family live on Tracy Island, International Rescue's secret base of operations in the South Pacific Ocean. They own a luxurious villa that they share with four other people: Grandma Tracy, Jeff's mother; scientist and engineer Brains, who designed the Thunderbird machines; Brains' assistant Tin-Tin, who is also Alan's girlfriend; and Tin-Tin's father Kyrano, the Tracys' retainer. In this remote location, International Rescue is safe from criminals and spies who envy its technology and attempt to acquire the secrets of the Thunderbird machines.

Some of International Rescue's operations are triggered not by innocent misadventure, but rather sabotage or criminal negligence. For missions involving undercover work, the organisation incorporates a network of field agents led by English aristocrat Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward and her butler Aloysius Parker. Based at Creighton-Ward Mansion in Kent, Penelope and Parker travel in FAB 1: a specially modified, pink Rolls-Royce. International Rescue members acknowledge orders with the expression "FAB" (a shortening of the 1960s buzzword "fabulous", spoken as an initialism: "F-A-B").

Production

Development

Thunderbirds was the fifth series to be co-created by Gerry Anderson and filmed by his production company APF, whose studios were located on the Slough Trading Estate. Pitched in 1963, the series was commissioned by Lew Grade of ITC, APF's parent company, following the commercial success of Stingray.

The series' premise was inspired by the West German mining rescue known as the "Wunder von Lengede" (Miracle of Lengede). In October 1963, the collapse of a nearby dam flooded an iron mine in the municipality of Lengede, trapping 50 men underground. Efforts to save them were hampered by the length of time it took to bring rescue equipment to the site. Lacking the means to drill an escape shaft, the authorities were forced to requisition a heavy-duty bore from Bremen, more than 80 miles (130 km) away, and transport it to Lengede by train, in a journey that took eight hours. In the end, 21 miners were saved and the other 29 died. Seeing the advantages of faster emergency response, Anderson came up with the idea of an "international rescue" organisation that uses supersonic aircraft to transport equipment quickly over long distances.

Wanting to set this concept apart from APF's earlier productions, Anderson tried to pitch the stories at a level that would appeal to both adults and children. Whereas earlier series had aired in afternoon children's timeslots, Anderson wanted Thunderbirds to be shown during the evening to attract a wider family audience. Series co-creator Sylvia Anderson recalled that "our market had grown and a 'kidult' show [...] was the next step." The Andersons retired to their holiday villa in Portugal to expand the premise, script the pilot episode and compose a writers' guide. According to Sylvia, the writing process entailed a "division of labour", whereby Gerry devised the action sequences and she handled characterisation. 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. The Tracy brothers were named after Mercury Seven astronauts: Scott Carpenter, John Glenn, Virgil "Gus" Grissom, Gordon Cooper and Alan Shepard.

The series' title was derived from a letter Gerry had received during World War II from his brother Lionel, an RAF flight sergeant based overseas. While stationed in Arizona, Lionel had made reference to Thunderbird Field, a nearby United States Army Air Forces base. Drawn to the "punchiness" of "Thunderbirds", Anderson renamed the series, whose working title had been "International Rescue", as well as the star vehicles, which had initially been designated Rescues 1 to 5. His inspiration for the launch sequences of Thunderbirds 1, 2 and 3 came from contemporary US Air Force launch procedure: Anderson had learnt how the Strategic Air Command kept pilots on permanent standby, seated in the cockpits of their aircraft, ready for take-off at a moment's notice.

Casting and characters

British, Canadian and Australian actors formed most of the voice cast. To ensure transatlantic appeal, it had been decided that most of the main characters would be American; therefore, it was essential that the actors put on convincing accents. The only American actor on the cast was David Holliday, who had been spotted in London's West End and cast as Virgil Tracy. Following the completion of Series One, Holliday returned to the US. For Series Two and the feature films, Virgil was voiced by Jeremy Wilkin.

British actor David Graham was among the first to be cast. He had previously voiced characters in Four Feather Falls, Supercar, Fireball XL5 and Stingray. Outside APF's productions, he had supplied one of the original Dalek voices on Doctor Who. Cast at the same time as Graham was Australian actor Ray Barrett. Like Graham, he had worked for the Andersons before, having voiced Titan and Commander Shore in Stingray. With experience in radio drama, Barrett could perform a wide range of voices and accents in quick succession. Conscious of Cold War political sensitivities and not wanting to "perpetuate the idea that Russia was the enemy with a whole generation of children watching", Gerry Anderson decided that The Hood (voiced by Barrett) should be Asian and placed his temple hideout in Malaysia to defy viewer expectations.

Although Lady Penelope and Parker (the latter voiced by Graham) were among the first characters to be developed, they were not conceived as main characters. Parker's Cockney accent was based on the mannerisms of a waiter at a pub in Cookham that the Andersons sometimes visited. On Gerry's recommendation, Graham started making trips to the pub to pick up the accent. Anderson's first choice for Penelope had been Fenella Fielding, but Sylvia insisted on taking the part herself. Her Penelope voice was intended to emulate Fielding and Joan Greenwood. On Penelope and Parker's secondary role as comic relief, Gerry explained, "We British can laugh at ourselves, so therefore we had Penelope and Parker as this comedy team. And in America they love the British aristocracy too."

As well as Jeff Tracy, English-Canadian actor Peter Dyneley voiced recurring character Commander Norman, chief of air traffic control at London Airport. Many of Dyneley's guest characters were upper-class Englishmen. Shane Rimmer, the voice of Scott, was cast based on his performance as Russell Corrigan in the BBC soap opera Compact. Fellow Canadian Matt Zimmerman, who was acting in the West End, was hired at a late stage in the casting process. He was given the role of Alan on the recommendation of his friend, Holliday: "They were having great difficulty casting the part of Alan as they wanted a certain sound for him, being the youngest brother. David, who [was] a bit older than I am, told them that he had this friend, me, who would be great."

Design and effects

The lead puppet sculptors were Christine Glanville and Mary Turner, who also served as lead puppet operators. Glanville and Turner's team built the 13 members of the main cast in six months at a cost of between £250 and £300 per puppet (about £4,400 and £5,300 in 2025). As pairs of episodes were being filmed simultaneously on separate stages, the characters were sculpted in duplicate. The puppets had replaceable heads with different facial expressions: in addition to a blank-looking "normal" head, each main character was given a "smiler", a "frowner" and a "blinker". The finished puppets were about 22 inches (56 cm) tall, or 1⁄3 adult human height.

Each puppet had more than 30 individual components, the most important being the solenoid – located inside the puppet's head – that synchronised the movements of the flexible lower lip with the syllables in the character's pre-recorded dialogue. The head had to be large enough to accommodate the solenoid, causing the torso and limbs to look disproportionately small. The puppets' likenesses and mechanics are fondly remembered by crew member Wanda Brown, who preferred the Thunderbirds puppets to the accurately proportioned ones that made their debut in Captain Scarlet: "The [Thunderbirds] puppets were easier to operate and more enjoyable because they had more character to them [...] Even some of the more normal-looking faces, such as Scott and Jeff, for me had more character than the puppets in the series that came afterwards." Rimmer speaks positively of the puppets' still being "very much caricatures", since it made them "more lovable and appealing [...] There was a naive quality about them and nothing too complex."

The faces of the main characters were based on those of real-life actors and entertainers, often selected from the Spotlight casting directory. According to Glanville, APF wanted to give the Thunderbirds characters "more natural" looks to distinguish them from the deliberate caricatures of its earlier series. Jeff Tracy was modelled on Lorne Greene, Scott on Sean Connery, Alan on Robert Reed, John on Adam Faith and Charlton Heston, Brains on Anthony Perkins and Parker on Ben Warriss. After several test heads were rejected, Turner modelled Lady Penelope on Sylvia Anderson, the character's voice actress. Anderson was initially unaware of this.

The heads of the main characters were first sculpted in either Plasticine or clay. Once the features had been finalised, this served as the template for a silicone rubber mould. This was coated with Bondaglass (fibreglass mixed with resin) and enhanced with Bondapaste, a putty-like substance, to accentuate its contours. The Bondaglass shell was then fitted with the solenoid, plastic eyes and leather mouth parts, as well as incisor teeth – a first for a Supermarionation production. Supporting characters were played by puppets known as "revamps", which had plastic heads. These marionettes started their working lives with only a mouth and eyes; their faces were remoulded from one episode to the next. The most striking moulds were retained and, as their numbers increased, photographed to compile an internal casting directory.

Writing and filming

Thunderbirds was filmed at APF's Slough studios between 1964 and 1966. In preparation for the new production, the company increased the number of full-time crew to 100. Shooting on Series One began in September 1964 after five months of pre-production. Due to the series' technical complexity, this was a period longer than for any of the earlier productions. To speed up the filming, episodes were shot in pairs on separate stages and by separate crews, designated "A" and "B". By 1964, APF was the UK's largest commercial user of colour film, consuming more than three million feet (570 mi; 910 km) of stock per year.

Like their previous three series, the Andersons devised Thunderbirds as a 25-minute show. In late 1964, Alan Pattillo, a long-time writer and director for APF, became the company's first official script editor. This reduced the burden on Gerry Anderson, who had grown weary of revising the scripts himself. Direction of episodes was assigned in pairs: veterans Pattillo and David Elliott alternated with the less-experienced Desmond Saunders and newcomer David Lane for each month's filming. Due to the complexities of setting up takes, progress was slow: even on a productive day, the crew could rarely complete more than two minutes of puppet footage. In an interview, Hill pointed out that Thunderbirds contained several times as many shots as a typical live-action series. He explained that fast cutting was needed as the puppets' lack of facial expressions made it difficult to keep the audience's interest for more than a few seconds at a time.

On viewing the finished pilot, "Trapped in the Sky", Grade was so impressed with the series that he told Anderson to extend each episode from 25 to 50 minutes – long enough to fill a one-hour commercial timeslot. He also increased each episode's budget from £25,000 to £38,000. As a result, Thunderbirds became not only APF's longest and highest-budgeted production, but also one of the most expensive TV series ever made up to that time. The total budget for the 26-episode Series One was about £1 million (roughly £17 million in 2025).

The production, which had been shooting two 25-minute episodes every two weeks, faced significant challenges in the transition 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. 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." APF spent more than seven months extending the existing episodes. It then filmed the new 50-minute format at a rate of two episodes every four weeks.

Music

The score was composed by Barry Gray, who was the musical director on all the Andersons' productions from Four Feather Falls to the first series of Space: 1999. Instructed by Gerry to give the opening theme a "military feel", Gray produced a brass-heavy instrumental called "The Thunderbirds March", recorded in December 1964 at London's Olympic Studios. The closing credits were initially set to be accompanied by a song: "Flying High", performed by Gary Miller with backing vocals by Ken Barrie. Ultimately, a variation of the march was used instead. The incidental music for the episodes was recorded over nine months, between March and December 1965. As most of the music budget was spent on the earlier episodes, later instalments were more reliant on stock tracks from APF's music library.

Peel describes "The Thunderbirds March" as "one of the best TV themes ever written – perfect for the show and catchy when heard alone". Morag Reavley of BBC Online argues that the piece is "up there [...] in the quintessential soundtrack of the Sixties" along with the James Bond films and the songs of Frank Sinatra, Elvis and The Beatles. More generally, he praises the series' "catchy, pulse-quickening tunes", as well as Gray's aptitude for "musical nuance" and genre-mixing. Heather Phares of AllMusic considers "Thunderbirds Are Go!" – the track accompanying the launch sequences of Thunderbirds 1, 2 and 3 – to be a reflection of the mod aspect of 1960s British spy fiction. She also highlights Gray's homage to – and divergence from – musical norms, commenting that his work "sends up the spy and action/adventure conventions of the '60s very stylishly and subtly". In 2021, Classic FM listeners and Radio Times readers voted "The Thunderbirds March" as the 19th-greatest TV theme of all time.

David Huckvale identifies Wagnerian homage in both the theme music and the series' premise. Writing that the effect of the opening string ostinato is similar to that of the motif in Ride of the Valkyries, he also likens the Thunderbird machines to Valkyries themselves: "Their function is more benevolent than those warrior maidens, but they do hover over danger, death and destruction." Kevin J. Donnelly of the University of Southampton acknowledges the series' "big-sounding orchestral score", which he compares to that of a live-action film. He also suggests that part of the music's function is to distract from the physical imperfections of the puppets.

Cancellation

Production of Thunderbirds ended in August 1966 with the completion of the sixth episode of Series Two. In February that year, it had been reported that Grade had failed to sell the series in the US after disagreements with American broadcasters over proposed timeslots. In July, he cancelled Thunderbirds following another failed attempt to secure a US buyer. The "big three" American networks – NBC, CBS and ABC – had all made bids for the series, with Grade repeatedly upping the price. When NBC withdrew its bid, so did the others.

By the time of its cancellation, Thunderbirds had become highly popular in the UK and was being distributed widely overseas. However, Grade believed that without the financial boost of an American network sale, a full second series of episodes would fail to recoup its production costs. He therefore instructed Gerry Anderson to devise a new concept, which he hoped would stand a better chance of winning over the profitable US market. This became Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons.

Broadcast history

The first episode of Thunderbirds premiered on 30 September 1965 on the ATV Midlands, Westward and Channel franchises of the ITV network. Other franchises, including ATV London and Granada, began transmitting the series the following month. To help ensure family appeal, many areas showed the programme during prime time, typically in a 7.00 p.m. slot. The final episode – the Christmas-themed "Give or Take a Million" – was first broadcast on 25 December 1966. Like other UK series filmed in colour during the mid-1960s, Thunderbirds was first broadcast in its home market in black and white.

Despite Grade's decision to double the running time, Thunderbirds was also sold in a two-part, 25-minute episode format. Each "concluding" part began with a narration by Shane Rimmer summarising the first part's action. Granada first transmitted the series in this format, airing both parts the same night (one before and one after the ITN Evening News). It switched to the original format when it began repeats in 1966. In 1968, it briefly transmitted episodes in three parts due to timeslot restrictions. In the Midlands, ATV broadcast Series One in the original format, then Series Two and Series One repeats as two-parters (with parts airing on consecutive evenings).

Repeats scheduling varied by region. ATV Midlands hosted regular repeats into the early 1970s. Thunderbirds was last transmitted on the ITV network in 1981.

From 1965 to 1967, APF released 19 Thunderbirds audio plays on EP record. Three of these were original stories; the rest were condensed TV episode re-tellings narrated by the regular characters. In 1990, eight of the plays were turned into radio dramas and transmitted on BBC Radio 5. The radio series was a success and led the BBC to secure the rights to the TV episodes, which it broadcast nationwide on BBC2 from September 1991. After this first run, which averaged more than six million viewers per episode, the BBC repeated the series six times: from 1992 to 1993 (Series One only), 1994 to 1995 (nine episodes only), 2000 to 2001 (in remastered form), and in 2003, 2005 and 2006. In Scotland, the BBC aired a Gaelic dub, Tairnearan Tar As ("Thunderbirds Are Go") in 1993 and 1994. Other channels which have shown the series include UK Gold (from 1994 to 1995), Bravo (1996–1997), Cartoon Network (2001–2002), Boomerang (2001–2003), Syfy (2009) and Talking Pictures TV (2023).

Reception

Thunderbirds is widely cited as the Andersons' most popular series and their greatest critical and commercial success. In 1966, the Royal Television Society awarded the series a Silver Medal for Outstanding Artistic Achievement. In 2000, the British Film Institute ranked it the seventh-best children's British TV programme. In 2007, it came 19th in a Radio Times poll for best science fiction programme of all time, and in 2013, it was ranked fourth in the Channel 5 list show 50 Greatest Kids' TV Shows. In 2015, it was ranked as viewers’ second-favourite ITV series in a Radio Times poll celebrating 60 years of ITV, narrowly losing to the comedy drama series Auf Wiedersehen, Pet. Acknowledging the series' "enduring appeal for both young and old", Robert Sellers remarks that "the cult of Thunderbirds has grown to near-mythic proportions." Kim Newman calls the series a "television perennial".

For John Peel, Thunderbirds is "without a doubt the peak of the Supermarionation achievement". Believing it to be pitched at a "more adult" level than its predecessors, he writes that its sense of adventure, humour and "gripping and convincing" episodes made sure that "everyone in the audience found something to love about it." Simon Heffer, a fan of Thunderbirds in childhood, has written positively of the series: "All the elements we children discerned in whatever grown-up television we had been allowed to watch were present in Thunderbirds: dramatic theme and incidental music; well-developed plots; goodies and baddies; swaggering Americans, at a time when the whole of Britain was in a cultural cringe to them; and, of course, glamorous locations [...] Then, of course, there was the nail-biting tension of the rescues themselves [...]"

In his foreword to John Marriott's book, Thunderbirds Are Go!, Gerry Anderson put forward several explanations for the series' lasting success: it "contains elements that appeal to most children – danger, jeopardy and destruction. But because International Rescue's mission is to save life, there is no gratuitous violence." According to Anderson, Thunderbirds incorporates a "strong family atmosphere, where Dad reigns supreme". Daniel O'Brien and script editor Alan Pattillo have commended the series' positive "family values". Heffer and others identify intergenerational appeal. In 1965, Stuart Hood praised Thunderbirds as a "modern fairy tale"; adding that it "can sometimes be frightening", he recommended that children and their parents watch it together. Writing for Dreamwatch magazine in 1994, Andrew Thomas described Thunderbirds as only "nominally" a children's programme: "Its themes are universal and speak as much to the adult in the child as the child in the adult." Shortly before the series' BBC revival in 2000, Brian Viner commented that Thunderbirds was on the point of "captivating yet another generation of viewers".

Themes

Noting the technical detail of the launch sequences, Jonathan Bignell argues that the large amount of screen time given to the Thunderbird machines was partly motivated by the need to compensate for the puppets' limited mobility. The focus on futuristic craft has also been explored by Nicholas J. Cull, who writes that of all the Anderson series, Thunderbirds is the most evocative of a recurring theme: the "necessity of the human component of the machine", whereby the failures of new technology are overcome by "brave human beings and technology working together". This makes the series' vision of the 2060s "wonderfully humanistic and reassuring". O'Brien also praises the series' optimism, likening the Tracy family to guardian Übermensch. In 2009, Warren Ellis argued that Thunderbirds' technological predictions could inspire "a generation of mad and frightening engineers", adding that the series "trades in vast, demented concepts [...] immense and very beautiful ideas as solutions to problems."

Various commentators – including Bignell, Cull and O'Brien – have discussed Thunderbirds in relation to the Cold War. According to Bignell, The Hood's Eastern appearance and mysterious powers echoed James Bond villains and fears of China working as "a 'third force' antagonistic to the West". Cull states that despite the series' focus on the dangers of nuclear technology, the Thunderbird machines themselves contradict that theme: here, "an image of technology associated with the threat of Cold War mass destruction – the rocket emerging from the hidden silo – was appropriated and deployed to save life rather than to take it." He believes that the series adhered more closely to cultural norms when subscribing to the "Cold War cult of the secret agent whose skills defend the home from enemies unknown". He cites Lady Penelope's spy role and the episodes "30 Minutes After Noon" and "The Man from MI.5", which were heavily influenced by the James Bond novels and film adaptations.

Depiction of society

According to Andrew Thomas, the world of Thunderbirds resembles the 1960s in that contemporary capitalism and class structures appear to have endured. He observes, however, that wealth and high social status are often presented as character flaws rather than strengths. For Thomas, one of the reasons for the series' continuing popularity is the realism of International Rescue's machines. Newman, for his part, argues that "the point isn't realism. The 21st century of Thunderbirds is detailed [...] but also de-populated, a high-tech toyland". He is more critical in his comparisons of contemporary and future values, noting the "square, almost 50s" attitudes to race, sex and class. On stereotyping, Hood comments that he "would be happier if [villains] didn't seem to be recognisable by their pigmentation". In contrast, Cull regards Thunderbirds as progressive on the subject of race, arguing that it rejects negative stereotypes in its use of "positive non-white characters" like Tin-Tin and Kyrano. However, he considers many of the one-off villains to be clichéd, writing that they are typically presented as "corrupt businessmen, spivs and gangsters familiar from crime films".

In 2002, Thunderbirds' depiction of smoking was the subject of a study published by medical journal Tobacco Control. Despite identifying examples in 26 out of 32 episodes, Kate Hunt of the University of Glasgow concluded that Thunderbirds does not actively promote smoking – a view opposed by the Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation when the series was re-launched on BBC2 in the 2000s. Rejecting the Foundation's suggestion to digitally erase all cigars and cigarettes, the BBC stated that Thunderbirds "does not glorify or encourage smoking" and described the activity as "incidental to the plot".

Merchandise

A comic strip featuring Lady Penelope and Parker debuted in the early issues of the children's weekly TV Century 21 in 1965. The following year, a full-length Thunderbirds strip was introduced and the Lady Penelope adventures were given their own comic. The Thunderbirds strip in TV Century 21 (later TV21) ran from January 1966 to June 1970; it was originally written by Alan Fennell and drawn by Frank Bellamy, with subsequent contributors including Scott Goodall and John Cooper. It was reprinted in Countdown from 1971 to 1972.

More than 3,000 Thunderbirds products have been marketed since the series' TV debut. To accommodate the high demand for tie-ins, APF established three dedicated subsidiaries: APF Merchandising, APF Music and APF Toys. Due to the series' popularity, some UK commentators dubbed the 1966 end-of-year shopping season "Thunderbirds Christmas". In the early 1990s, Matchbox launched a new range of toys to coincide with the BBC2 repeats. Sales figures for Christmas 1992 surpassed those achieved by Star Wars merchandise in the 1970s and 1980s. Demand for Matchbox's Tracy Island Playset overwhelmed supply, resulting in a substantial black market for the toy.

The late 1960s saw the release of eight original Thunderbirds novels as well as Thunderbirds, Lady Penelope, and Captain Scarlet and Thunderbirds annuals. In 2008, FTL Publications of Minnesota launched a new series of novels.

The first Thunderbirds video game, developed by Firebird Software for the Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum computers, was released in 1985. Since then, titles have been released for the Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance and PlayStation 2. In the late 1980s, Thunderbirds was released on home video for the first time by PolyGram and its subsidiary Channel 5. Following its acquisition by Carlton in 1999, the series was digitally remastered for the release of the first DVD versions in 2000. Blu-ray editions followed in 2008.

An official Thunderbirds board game was published in 2015. It was designed by Matt Leacock, designer of Pandemic. In 2016, three expansion packs were released: Above & Beyond, The Hood, and Tracy Island.

Later productions

The series has been followed by two film sequels, a live-action film adaptation, two TV remakes and several re-edited presentations for TV and home video. The second of the remakes, Thunderbirds Are Go, premiered on ITV in 2015, the 50th anniversary year of the original.

Film

The feature films Thunderbirds Are Go and Thunderbird 6 were released in 1966 and 1968. Lew Grade approved the production of the first film before the TV series began airing. Written and produced by the Andersons and directed by David Lane, the films were distributed by United Artists. Both were critical and commercial failures, and plans for further sequels were abandoned.

In the 1980s, ITC New York created compilation films from Thunderbirds and other APF series by re-editing selected episodes and combining them into feature-length presentations. Branded "Super Space Theater", this format was mainly intended for family viewing on US syndicated and cable TV. Three Thunderbirds features were produced: Thunderbirds to the Rescue, Thunderbirds in Outer Space and Countdown to Disaster.

Plans for a live-action film adaptation were first announced in 1993. These culminated in 2004's Thunderbirds, directed by Jonathan Frakes. The film was a critical and commercial failure and poorly received by fans of the TV series.

TV

In the 1970s, the Andersons sold their intellectual and profit participation rights to Thunderbirds and other productions. As a result, they had no creative control over later adaptations of their works. Thunderbirds was first remade for TV in the early 1980s as Thunderbirds 2086. In this anime re-imagining, set 20 years after the original, the vastly expanded International Rescue is based in an arcology and there are 17 Thunderbird machines. It was inspired by Thunderhawks, an updated story concept by Gerry Anderson and Reg Hill that later served as the basis for Anderson's Terrahawks.

Two re-edited series, based on condensed versions of 13 of the original episodes, aired in the US in 1994. The first, Thunderbirds USA, was broadcast as part of the Fox Kids programming block; the second, Turbocharged Thunderbirds, was syndicated by UPN. Devised as a comedy, Turbocharged Thunderbirds moved the action to the planet "Thunder-World" and combined the original puppet footage with live-action scenes featuring a pair of human teenagers.

Besides Thunderhawks, Anderson developed other ideas for a remake. A 1976 concept, Inter-Galactic Rescue 4, was to have featured a variable-configuration craft capable of performing rescues on land and sea, in air and in space; Anderson pitched the idea to NBC, who rejected it. In 1984 this was followed by T-Force, which Anderson was initially unable to pursue due to lack of funding. Development resumed in 1993, when it was decided to produce the series, now titled GFI, using cel animation. However, Anderson was disappointed with the results and cancelled the production.

In 2005, Anderson re-affirmed his wish to remake Thunderbirds but said that he had been unable to obtain the rights from Granada Ventures. Negotiations with Granada and its successor, ITV plc, continued for the next few years. In 2008, Anderson expressed his commitment to creating an "updated" version, ideally using CGI. Three years later, he announced that work on the new series had commenced. After Anderson's death in December 2012, the following year it was confirmed that ITV Studios and Pukeko Pictures had struck a deal to remake Thunderbirds using a combination of CGI and live-action model sets. The new series, Thunderbirds Are Go, premiered in 2015.

Later that year, to mark the series' 50th anniversary, ITV commissioned Pod 4 Films to produce a mini-series of new Thunderbirds episodes based on three of the 1960s audio plays. The mini-series was funded by a Kickstarter campaign and had its premiere screening at the BFI Southbank in 2016. Titled The Anniversary Episodes, it was released on BritBox in 2020 together with the original Thunderbirds.

Audio

In 2021, Big Finish Productions announced the launch of an audiobook series based on the APF productions. The first of these, Thunderbirds: Terror from the Stars – an adaptation of the tie-in novel Thunderbirds by John Theydon – was released in 2021. Produced by Anderson Entertainment, the audiobooks feature Jon Culshaw as the voices of Jeff Tracy and Parker, with Genevieve Gaunt as Lady Penelope.

Influence

Thunderbirds has influenced TV, cinema and other media. The BBC sketch comedy Not Only... But Also included a segment called "Superthunderstingcar" – a parody of Thunderbirds, Supercar and Stingray. The puppet comedy of Team America: World Police lampoons the idiosyncrasies of the Thunderbirds marionettes. The series inspired the dialogue animations in the 1997 video game Star Fox 64 and the elaborate Jaeger mecha launch sequences in the 2013 film Pacific Rim. Allusion and homage are also evident in the Wallace & Gromit film A Close Shave, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me and Spaced, as well as in the character design of Kiss the Girls and Make them Die (1966) and Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

International Rescue inspired the International Rescue Corps, a volunteer search-and-rescue organisation started by a group of British firemen who contributed to the relief effort following the 1980 Irpinia earthquake. Virgin Group has used the series in the branding of its services: Virgin Atlantic flew a Boeing 747-400 called Lady Penelope, while Virgin Trains operated a fleet of Class 57 rescue locomotives named after the main characters and vehicles.

Cover versions of "The Thunderbirds March" have been released by musicians and bands including Billy Cotton, Joe Loss, Frank Sidebottom, The Rezillos and The Shadows. Songs inspired by the series include Busted's "Thunderbirds / 3AM" (which forms part of the soundtrack of the 2004 film), "International Rescue" by Fuzzbox, "Thunderbirds Are Coming Out" by TISM, and "Thunderbirds – Your Voice" by V6. The music video for the Dire Straits single "Calling Elvis", directed by Gerry Anderson, featured a collection of Thunderbirds-style puppets.

A mime theatre show, Thunderbirds: F.A.B., has toured internationally and popularised a staccato style of movement known as the "Thunderbirds walk". It has periodically been revived as Thunderbirds: F.A.B. – The Next Generation.

During the 1960s, APF produced Thunderbirds-themed TV adverts for Kellogg's breakfast cereal and Lyons Maid ice lollies. The Fab lolly, introduced in 1967, was launched to capitalise on the series' success and originally used FAB 1, Lady Penelope and Parker in its branding. In later decades, Thunderbirds has been used in advertising for Kit Kat, Swinton Insurance, Specsavers, Halifax and the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency.