May 23, 2009

GIVE-AWAY: THUNDERBIRDS SET

GIVE-AWAY: THUNDERBIRDS SET
It's Spy Vibers appreciation and birthday week, and there are prizes to be won! Back on April 6th I posted a piece called LICENSE TO KILL- PUPPETS, about a great James Bond tribute episode of Thunderbirds. The show featured Agent Bondson and lots of cool Spy Vibe action. Today's prize is one 2-disc DVD set, THUNDERBIRDS Vol #4 (with "The Man From M.I.5"). Here's a description of the set from Amazon:


At its best, Thunderbirds is an inspired mix of Japanese monster movie mayhem and British stiff-upper-lip attitude. The International Rescue team members are bland and interchangeable, a marionette family of clean-living Hardy Boys, but the high-tech toys are like big-kid fantasies come alive, and the awestruck seriousness of the direction is quaint and cool in these days of hyperactive cartoons. The highlight of Set 4 is "Attack of the Alligators!" where real-life baby alligators star as giant mutants thrashing about the dollhouse-sized sets and actually "act" with the wooden puppets; one of them actually chases a puppet hero through the jungle. Fan favorite Lady Penelope (the team's cool, high-class London agent) and her ex-con chauffeur Parker make memorable appearances in "The Imposters," where they track down a team of crooks passing themselves off as International Rescue, and "The Man From MI5," a James Bond parody where Lady Penelope is (uncharacteristically) a damsel in distress. Other episodes include "Cry Wolf" (two boys live the dream of every Thunderbirds fan and get a guided tour of the top-secret base), "Danger at Ocean Deep" (a fog of radioactive algae destroys ships and wreaks havoc with Thunderbird communications), and "The Duchess Assignment" (a rescue mission in a burning mansion). -Sean Axmaker

TO WIN:

A random drawing will be made on June 6th. To enter, simply post a comment on this announcement at the Spy Vibe blog, telling us what your favorite Gerry & Sylvia Anderson show is and why. That's it. Good Luck! Stay tuned for more prizes.

9 comments:

  1. My favorite show is the Thunderbirds because I grew up during it's original run in the sixties as a boy of 6 years old! I have very fond memories of it and the strange thing is being a boy of that age that you do not see the characters as puppets but as some kind of human version although you saw the strings and the funny movements and jumps when they walked! I was really into that show! A classic!

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  2. My favorite is The Thunderbirds! I'm also familiar with UFO and Space 1999, which I watched way back when. And while both have some really neat elements, neither captured the stylist fun, variety, and general elan of The Thunderbirds.

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  3. My favorite is UFO, but it's the only one I've seen. I can be very certain that my 4 boys would love Thunderbirds though, so I'm entering this contest on their behalf.
    Retro Hound

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  4. My favourite show?!! Egad. You are cruel. I know I didn't care much for the New Captain Scarlett CGI edition, and I never got into Joe-90 or Space 1999, but ALL the others, I had the posters, I had the toys, I role-played the characters, I was THERE :)

    For a favourite, I have to pick the original: Supercar. Here it is nearly half a century later and I still remember the cast and, especially after having modelled thousands of lairs in plasticine, every detail of the Car, the radios all their fab toys. I didn't even know where Britain was back then (I was very soon to find out first hand that there WAS a land where you could buy a Stingray or a sling-shot launched Fireball XL-5, a corgi SPECTRUM car or, yes, a Joe-90 'car' ;)

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  5. Ah, Thunderbirds. I bought the DVDs a few months back. Shortly after i found this blog. Next on my shopping list is also the UFO Series.

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  6. Do you have fave Thunderbirds episodes? I think you'll really enjoy UFO. It competes with Captain Scarlet as my fave Anderson :)

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  7. Captain Scarlet or Joe 90 had the best theme songs, but the Thunderbirds are, essentially, unbeatable for quality Gerry Anderson material.

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  8. Can I still slip in? My favorite is The Protectors. I know, it doesn't have any puppets, but it's more up my ally spywise, and certainly manages the half hour format better than The Adventurer did. TO be honest, though, I don't have nearly enough experience with supermarianimation, or whatever it's called! I need to watch some more of it... Especially based on those Bondian screencaps you ran!

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  9. Thanks everyone! So great to hear about your experiences with Gerry Anderson shows. Warren, Joe 90 did have a cool theme song! And Tanner brings up a great live-action show, The Protectors. Especially nice to see interesting middle-aged action heroes in that show. As a US viewer we have an unfortunate obsession with "perfect" looking young characters. Check out all the supermarionation shows mentioned- they are ingenious, adventurous, and fun :) Looking for behind-the-scenes context? Sylvia Anderson's books, various documentaries (some on Youtube), and The Art of Mike Trim are all excellent.

    The winner is... Robert Lindsey! Send your address to me at jason@spyvibe.com. Congrats and thank you to everyone who entered. The next contest deadlines are coming up for a Golgo 13 novel and an original Man From U.N.C.L.E. novel from 1965. I look forward to hearing your comments about assassin stories and fave UNCLE moments :) -Jace

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