Captain Scarlet was my favourite Gerry Anderson series… it had an edgy darkness that really drew you in to the drama being created. The modelling, puppetry & action sequences reached a zenith in that series… they were amazing. It always tickled me that the voice actor Francis Matthews party piece was an imitation of Cary Grant’s voice, which Anderson once heard him do on a radio show… and that’s the voice he hired Matthews to give Captain Scarlet!
Definitely my favourite Gerry Anderson puppet show. Something about its poe-faced seriousness and violence just seemed edgy and cool to me as a kid. The theme tune was catchy as hell too.
This is not a terrible kids show. I was seven when this was first shown on British TV. I loved it, along with all the other bloodthirsty kids I knew. The target audience. When it was repeated in the 1990's I could, as an adult, appreciate how dark the themes were. Got the box set .
Yes, in one episode the Mysterons kill a guy by crushing him to death in his car against the ceiling of the garage. I saw this as an adult and thought to myself how gruesome that was for a kids' show.
Kids and adults think completely differently. This applies across the board. What's horrific to most adults is great fun to most kids. Always best not to impose our adult mentality onto kids' understanding of things.@@marraduse2519
Just bought the whole series on Bluray, in glorious HD! You can really appreciate and admire all the fine details and effort that went in to making this. The show is a magnificent time capsule of 60s retro-futurism, with an incredibly gritty and ominous atmosphere. It’s also uncanny how accurate certain elements of the show were in projecting the future - technologically, politically, etc. A true work of art.
I've never been bothered by the uncanniness of the marionettes in Anderson productions because the voice acting was always so good. It lends a sense of humanity to the somewhat robotic physical presentation of the puppets.
Growing up in Nigeria, the Gerry Anderson shows I watched (and enjoyed) were Captain Scarlet and Terrahawks. As an adult, watching one of their episodes is like opening a time capsule with intriguing fantasy and technical elements.
That was so unfair 😂😂😂😂😂😂 Seriously tho, yeah.. Captain Scarlet was the best for me.. I think it really demonstrated well the idea of the bravery of the military .. self sacrifice.. I like the bits where Blue has to be reminded by Scarlet on occasions that there’s no point in Blue risking his life if he can take the risk instead... a nice touch ..
We couldn't believe we were able to watch this on kids TV when it came out, it was thrilling. One of the do gooders at the time tried to get it taken off the air, thankfully they failed
I watched Captain Scarlet in the 60s in the UK as a kid and actually loved its dark and serious tone. I had an SPV at the time which got lost or given away and bought some mint condition ones as an adult for the nostalgia. 😅 Great review sir 👏
Captain Scarlet was my favorite of the supermarionation shows. I watched it every weekday at 330pm on Channel 36 in the SF Bay Area back in the early 1970s after arriving home from school. To this day I can sing the closing theme song. For me as a little boy it was fun to watch with action, explosions, and tons of puppet violence.
There's a moment in Space: 1999 when Martin Landau rides at a desk that can trundle along on a conveyor, and I remember wondering if the Andersons had forgotten that human actors can walk.
I watched it as a kid in the late 60s and thought it was a great -- much better than Thunderbirds. The "don't try this at home" warning was probablty aimed at me!
I remember the warning, too. This was because two boys were playing Captain Scarlet and jumped off a garage roof onto solid concrete. Both killed, I think.
Captain Scarlet is my favourite Anderson production. When I was 4 I had a Captain Scarlet wallet with a Spectrum ID card inside. 20+ years later, I diligently video taped every episode when the BBC screened the series in the 90's. Imagine my horror on finally realising that the titular character was in fact a Mysteron replicant from half-way through the opening episode!
I always thought that a few other attempted duplications should've failed in the same way as it did with Scarlet. I get that he has exceptional willpower or whatever, but he surely can't be the _only_ one!
Being 58 years old ( and Canadian ), Captain Scarlet was my first childhood TV obsession, and it remains so. I have friends who are seriously into what they call " the trilogy " ( Scarlet - 90 - Service ), but apart from the happily bloodthirsty agents of WIN in Joe90 and the occasional cameo from Scarlet puppets in Secret Service, I still stick by Scarlet as my favorite Anderson show. Even UFO and Space 1999 never really worked for me. When I finally got to see the CGI NEW CAPTAIN SCARLET on bootleg DVDs, I was overjoyed, since it kept the violence, expanded the working of Spectrum AND let the characters have realistic hand to hand fights and a real personality each. Hell, it even let Black, Scarlet, and Destiny have a three way romantic situation that was kind of screwed up by having Black killed ( and this time, he actually got an on screen graveyard burial, something the original didn't manage, which made his return even creepier ), but return with an undiluted hard on for Destiny. Poor Destiny had to deal with Scarlet, a reconstruction of a dead man, and Black, a terrorist who happily killed anyone his alien masters told him to...and they both wanted her.
I only saw one or two episodes of the CGI version on TV. Occasionally I've wanted to seek it out. Same with the CGI Thunderbirds one. I should definitely try to do that!
Thanks for a great video with that brilliant Australian humour. I'm 64 now so I guess having grown up in the 60s makes me somewhat blood thirsty as I liked Captain Scarlet more than Thunderbirds just for it's darkness. Also I thought the Angle Interceptors were fantastic, the only Gerry Anderson series to top Captain Scarlet was UFO.
Back then, I was too young to appreciate just how Cary Grant-ish Captain Scarlet's voice was. Hilarious "Oh pu-lease, don't tell me how I'm going to die, sur-prise me!" I always think that John Altman based his Nick Cotton character on Captain Black. At least I really hope he did.
I much preferred Captain Scarlet to Thunderbirds, mainly because it was more serious than Thunderbirds (and had better puppetry too). I always thought Thunderbirds was too "goofy", both in the way the characters behaved and how the puppets looked. Captain Scarlet, UFO and Space 1999 season 1 were my favourite Gerry Anderson shows, mainly because of their dark overtones and they would "lose" as often as they "won" in the episodes.
Captain Scarlet was always my favourite show and is still very watchable today. I have a feeling that the theme song/outro were on a 7 inch picture sleeve single from back in the day. I had a bunch of them covering all the Anderson/Century 21 series or at least as far as my Swiss cheese (full of holes) memory serves! 😁
We had a teacher called Cloudbase. We called him that because he was 7 feet tall. He drove a Mini. This is true. 50 years ago now. Gerry Anderson was a true icon for people my age. Thank God our memories of him are intact, unlike those of Jimmy Savile and Rolf.
TVCentury21 gave me my happiest memories of childhood by many miles. My parents divorced in 1967, I'll not dwell on that. Moving from London to South Wales meant catching different schedules on ITV stations. I began trying to say "hi and thank you so much" to GA and SA, but my letters kept being undelivered or, in one case was delivered only a while after they'd moved. As a last resort, I asked The Sun to please forward a message to him, and they did. A month later I had a wonderful letter back from Mr Anderson, at a time when he was experienceing a crisis of confidence, and having just come out of a (naturally) messy divorce. His letter drew reference to the divorce I had been involved in, and this aspect of his letter 'pleased' me. GA found his fans to be of huge benefit to him at this stage in his life. Years later I attended his one-man show appearance in Worthing, but declined the chance to approach him and shake his hand. His death upsset me more than any other well-known celebrity. Long live Century 21, still there, high above, in the ether. Still in my heart as my own passing becomes ever more a reality. GA + TV21 made so great an impact upon the lives of so very many young people, and adults!
When I was 8 or 9, I was visiting my grandparents and brought one of my Captain Scarlet VHS tapes with me. In the middle of a violent part of an episode (Renegade Rocket), my late grandfather, back then in his mid-80s (he passed away in 2003 or 2004) turned to me in a serious tone - "You enjoy this violence do you? Hmm? You like this killing, this warfare? War is awful!" Bare in mind he had fought in WWII and probably saw on-screen conflict rather negatively. Captain Scarlet was my favourite out of the Gerry Anderson productions, followed by Thunderbirds and then Stingray.
Aware that, as we are now wearing well into the 2020s, the era of 'Thunderbirds'/'Captain Scarlet and The Mysterons' (2020s - 2060s) is upon us as I write I've been dabbling in Anderson World on and off over this past year or so, so thanks for this review, contrasting those two series.
According to Ed Bishop, the voice of a Captain Blue, although the actors knew Captain Scarlet would come back every episode, none of the other actors were told if their characters were going to live or not, so when new scripts came in, the actors would scan them before reading to see if they'd be back next week.
14:06 Trivia: The term "uncanny valley" comes from a 1978 translation of the Japanese term "bukimi no tani gensho" which referred specifically to the way a robot that looks very human-like would cross the line into appearing eerie and unsettling. It was coined by roboticist Masahiro Mori, who's perhaps best known for originating and promoting the idea of holding robot-building competitions starting in 1988. Fans of BattleBots and the like might recognize him as the grandfather of the entire sport. So you're right, the term didn't exist in 1967-68 - but it wasn't far off. :)
A couple of (hopefully) interesting facts: Colonel White was also the voice of the Mysterons. The SPV cars that Spectrum uses were originally designed to be driven by occupants that sat facing backwards as this was thought to be safer in the event of a crash, the driver using cameras to see forwards. This was intended to work as a bit of futuristic forward thinking by the show creator but in practice it seriously screwed up how scenes looked when editing together the shots of the characters in the cars and the external shots of the cars being driven. A shot of the interior of an SPV would show the driver sat facing backwards e.g. facing towards the left of the viewer's TV screen while an exterior shot of the same SPV driving along the road would have it moving from left to right. While this was correct in line with the rear-facing driving seats, it looked very odd to the viewer. This situation was very much worsened when an SPV was in pursuit of another vehicle the occupants of which are facing the usual direction i.e. the same direction that their car is travelling and the shots of those occupants are being intercut shots of the occupants of the SPV. It quickly became very confusing as to who was chasing whom! This led to the screenwriters having to insert lines of dialogue into the show at every suitable opportunity to remind the audience of the rear-facing driving position e.g. an SPV would pull into a petrol station for fuel and an attendant would remark in surprise at the fact that the Spectrum guys are facing backwards.
I got hooked on this show,because,of the theme of the show,and,because of the character’s in the show.I missed this as a child in the 1960”s,so,this was a treat for me to watch with the family at Christmas of 2009!And,those special effect’s by Derek Medding’s!As usuale,wonderful!
I own the Captain Scarlet box set on DVD - picked it up for a song, some ten years ago. I was always more intrigued by the vehicles than the principal character - & as a child born in the early Sixties, noticed Mattews' take on Cary Grant. I kinda liked the notion of an indestructible agent, tho' never liked Capt. Blue - thought he was as the proverbial spare at a wedding, but hey, each to their own. I did prefer this series over Thunderbirds, but both clearly had merit for excitement & adventure. The Anderson's served we kids well in our childhood - the crap that is produced today will not have the same long-lasting reminiscences that we were afforded. Great, unconventional take on a classic run...
As a little boy you sometimes feel like you are indestructible but know you aren't. Captain Scarlet really was indestructible! Who didn't want to be Captain Scarlet?
Great video, thanks. I grew up with the Anderson’s productions starting with Fireball XL5 and ending with Space 1999. While the latter was far and away my favourite, I’ve always had a special place in my heart for Captain Scarlet and Thunderbirds. I don’t find the good captain has aged as well as Thunderbirds though.
I grew up in the sixties in Australia and was 8 when Thunderbirds came out. I had a subscription of TV-21 comic each week that was dated a hundred years in the future and Captain Scarlet came to after school TV in color and was in TV-21 comics also, with great original stories beautifully done. I was eldest of six kids, and we had all the Dinky toys of Captain Scarlet vehicles, and I built three Airfix angels and a cardboard cloud base. We had a large garden in the backyard with a pond, and spent many many fun hours play acting it all amongst us all with the toys in the garden and pond.
Kill count numbered Thousands over the entire series including Hotels levelled in various assassination attempts ,Air Liners Vehicle crashes where they always blow up never been a children's programme like it.There is a you tube vid with the number of death's (estimated) as a child growing up it never really thought about that much it was sci- fi and exciting.
I watched this show in the 1960s??? Must have, the short sting version of the theme was a very early earworm! Seeing it here in the USA as a child, "Captain Scarlet (Captain Scarlet) Ba-ba-ba-bum ba-da-da-da-dum" stayed with me all these decades. Huh. Well, on to the mystery of how I'd somehow heard of Clutch Cargo...
I remember this show from the 'Captain Cosmic' afternoon show on SF Station Channel 2. It showed Star Blazers, Ultraman, Infaman, and Captain Scarlett!
@@colormedubious4747 It's funny that just yesterday my brother was around my place and amongst the many topics of conversation two were specifically the Angels of 'Captain Scarlet' and 'It Girls' of the Sixties. I run the Blog on the strange world of female Pop of the satellite nations of the former Soviet Bloc, 'Girls Of The Golden East' and one of the great 'Girls Of The Golden East' was the tragic Eva Kostolányiová, who passed away at just 32 way back in October 1975 and who was known as 'The Twiggy of Slovakia', as something of a fashion icon, but maybe having been born just five days before Jean Shrimpton she should have been known as 'The Jean Shrimpton of Slovakia'. Before I discovered that world I was - and still am in a way - heavily into my home city of Derby's Modernist architecture and, sadly, both the angular 'Twiggy Building', the Main Centre and the sumptuously double-curving 'Jean Shrimpton Building', the former Ranby's/Debenhams department store are now, like Eva Kostolányiová, no more. You'll perhaps have gathered that 'Evička' was a cracker herself!
2:15 - in my head, that Mysteron voice ALWAYS says "This is the voice of the Mysterons. We KNOW you can hear us, Earthmen. Oh BUGGER - what's the point of it all, Earthmen? I'm SO depressed". GREAT!
In the U.S. only ‘Thunderbirds’ were shown and even then not everywhere. In the early ‘90s the Sci Fi Channel (as it was initially spelled) played a lot of old science fiction, horror and fantasy shows and films. They showed only maybe two of the Supermarionation shows that I can recall… ‘Thunderbirds’ and ‘Stingray’. It wasn’t until Amazon Prime video launched that one could see all of the shows though. I found them all fascinating in their own special way. Honestly I just liked the esthetics of the shows.
As you state here, in the 70s and 80s THUNDERBIRDS was the only puppet series channel 9 (Australia) were willing to replay - and it drove me around the bend! If 9 were so willing to replay THUNDERBIRDS every year and every month - why not give us some variety and add Scarlet or Stingray into the mix???? Finally, like you, I found them on VHS in the 90s but by then I was aged in my 20s or 30s and a little old for them. Bloody channel 9!
This is utterly fascinating! Where the heck was this on Saturday mornings in the 70's? I feel my childhood was diminished by stupid American TV producers that wouldn't pick up the show. Egad.
OMG......kkkkkkk.....so many jokes and puns in so little time. I loved this series, but unfortunatly only a few episodes were shown here in Brasil on the 70's. Thank's God we now have internet and youtube. Greetings from Brasil
I really enjoyed going down memory lane with this as a kid my dad was stationed in London 1965 first time I saw the the and and then we came back stateside and I kind of forgot all about until in the late sixties early seventies they started broadcasting the Thunderbirds by this time I was in my teens and like I told my friends and my cousin's about the and then we would like ditch school go home and watch the Thunderbirds or Captain Scarlet whichever one was on and to help us alone we will smoke a little pot LOL I had a really good time watching but I've always enjoyed the Thunderbirds Captain Scarlett there was another show that was pretty good but I can't remember the name
I think it was a great kids show. Loved it when I was a kid even more than Thunderbirds. Captain Black was as sinister as Hell. Anyone got a favourite creepy Captain Black scene?
I liked the reboot. Same vibes as the original complete with horribly gratuitous death scenes for a kids show, but Lt. Green is a lot more likable and the explanation of how Scarlet turned good while keeping his abilities was nice seeing how they didn't even attempt it in the original.
I really love your video reviews. I've been binging them all week. This one is especially funny and well done. If Captain Scarlet is blown to bits, which part comes back to life? Do the pieces need to coalesce?
5:20 - Well that’s hardly surprising that he ‘suspiciously sounds like Cary Grant’; Scarlet’s voice was brought to life by Francis Mathews apparently doing an impression of Cary Grant
I remember one episode where--gasp!--Captain Scarlet REALLY died and Spectrum was being destroyed. Ha but not really, the whole thing turned out to be one of the angel's dreams.
0:17 Captain Scarlet From Gerry Anderson's Captain Scarlet And The Mysterons The Original Series In 1967 Thinks He's Looks Like James Bond 007 From Ian Fleming's Dr No And The Spy Who Loved Me In 1962 And 1977. Spectrum Is Green. My Name Is Bond. James Bond. Thanks Mate. X
It's a shame what they did to the CGI version when it first aired. It got chopped up and dished out in sections that were a few minutes long, over the course of a 2-3 hour Saturday morning tv show. Anderson was reportedly (and understandably) livid. And while the original version was my favourite of the two, the CGI version had promise and deserved better.
1860s Batman? Huh. Presumably he starts out helping the Abolitionists with the Underground Railroad pre-ACW and then when the war broke out he fought saboteurs and traitors and crooked businessmen in whichever Northern city corresponds to Gotham. Maybe make his arch-nemesis a Joker-cognate who embraces the anarchy of the Civil War and wears a hood (perhaps red, perhaps white) to conceal his disfigurement - or his race? That...actually sounds like it could be an interesting read as an Elseworlds concept story. Do we play with the origin story and have Bruce's parents killed for pro-Abolition leanings - or perhaps he's a beneficiary of the Railroad himself and his parents were killed getting him to freedom? Of course you probably mistyped and meant 1960s and Adam West there, but I still think you might have unintentionally stumbled on a neat idea. It's hard to come up with new things to do with the Batman archetype at this point.
I'm torn about Gerry Anderson's awesome shows. Puppets like these were so rare when I was a kid, that these would've creeped me out at 1st. But I also know, if I could've gotten past that (and purged that ventriloquist episode of Twilight Zone, brrr), I know me and my buddies would've loved these. Especially any Western themed ones. Wait, his color scheme and healing factor-was this the inspiration for Deadpool?
The artwork at the end of the show could have been used in a new version of the board game Cluedo. "I believe it was Captain Blue in the Refuse Compactor with the Spikey Wall Crush-o-tron. (tm). Wrong! it was Rhapsody Angel in the Pilot's Ready Room with the Cyanide Lipstick!
Health and safety? You say "On paper their record looks OK, only one death". What about Captain Brown and Captain Indigo? There were probably hundreds of Spectrum workers in that building in episode 1. I can't be bothered to watch all the episodes to tot up the the actual number of employees of Spectrum who paid the ultimate price, but I will watch it in it's entirety at some point again because it's really good.
There's an "urban myth" that the voice of Captain Scarlet was provided by...Cary Grant! Actually it was really Francis Matthews, who got the job after Gerry Anderson heard him playing Cary Grant on the radio.
Yes , as a child I fancied him and have recently found out that " he" was modelled on Roger Moore but with black hair. Really the likeness is obvious and it was pointed out by the very dashing and amusing Roger in an Dick Caverner interview.
This is the voice of the Mysterons. We know you can hear us Earth man. You will do more Gerry Anderson reviews. Or you will be destroyed......👽
totally possible.
The Voice of the Mysterons reminds you: Captain Scarlet is indestructible, you are not.
Captain Scarlet was my favourite Gerry Anderson series… it had an edgy darkness that really drew you in to the drama being created. The modelling, puppetry & action sequences reached a zenith in that series… they were amazing. It always tickled me that the voice actor Francis Matthews party piece was an imitation of Cary Grant’s voice, which Anderson once heard him do on a radio show… and that’s the voice he hired Matthews to give Captain Scarlet!
Definitely my favourite Gerry Anderson puppet show. Something about its poe-faced seriousness and violence just seemed edgy and cool to me as a kid. The theme tune was catchy as hell too.
This is not a terrible kids show. I was seven when this was first shown on British TV. I loved it, along with all the other bloodthirsty kids I knew.
The target audience.
When it was repeated in the 1990's I could, as an adult, appreciate how dark the themes were. Got the box set .
Yes, in one episode the Mysterons kill a guy by crushing him to death in his car against the ceiling of the garage. I saw this as an adult and thought to myself how gruesome that was for a kids' show.
Kids and adults think completely differently.
This applies across the board. What's horrific to most adults is great fun to most kids.
Always best not to impose our adult mentality onto kids' understanding of things.@@marraduse2519
Just bought the whole series on Bluray, in glorious HD! You can really appreciate and admire all the fine details and effort that went in to making this.
The show is a magnificent time capsule of 60s retro-futurism, with an incredibly gritty and ominous atmosphere. It’s also uncanny how accurate certain elements of the show were in projecting the future - technologically, politically, etc.
A true work of art.
I've never been bothered by the uncanniness of the marionettes in Anderson productions because the voice acting was always so good. It lends a sense of humanity to the somewhat robotic physical presentation of the puppets.
This was edgy before edgy was a thing, as it still had that puppet charm that made it so compelling.
Growing up in Nigeria, the Gerry Anderson shows I watched (and enjoyed) were Captain Scarlet and Terrahawks. As an adult, watching one of their episodes is like opening a time capsule with intriguing fantasy and technical elements.
That was so unfair 😂😂😂😂😂😂
Seriously tho, yeah.. Captain Scarlet was the best for me.. I think it really demonstrated well the idea of the bravery of the military .. self sacrifice.. I like the bits where Blue has to be reminded by Scarlet on occasions that there’s no point in Blue risking his life if he can take the risk instead... a nice touch ..
It was definitely on TV in Australia for a short time in the early 70's. I watched it as a very young child and had a Dinky Toys SPV
We couldn't believe we were able to watch this on kids TV when it came out, it was thrilling. One of the do gooders at the time tried to get it taken off the air, thankfully they failed
I loved this show as a kid. When I was 7 I had a Captain Scarlet dress up outfit, and I wore it as often as I could!
I watched Captain Scarlet in the 60s in the UK as a kid and actually loved its dark and serious tone. I had an SPV at the time which got lost or given away and bought some mint condition ones as an adult for the nostalgia. 😅
Great review sir 👏
Captain Scarlet was my favorite of the supermarionation shows. I watched it every weekday at 330pm on Channel 36 in the SF Bay Area back in the early 1970s after arriving home from school. To this day I can sing the closing theme song. For me as a little boy it was fun to watch with action, explosions, and tons of puppet violence.
"Captain Blue knew enough to let Captain Scarlet volunteer for certain death." Priceless!
There's a moment in Space: 1999 when Martin Landau rides at a desk that can trundle along on a conveyor, and I remember wondering if the Andersons had forgotten that human actors can walk.
Brilliant critique. Very well played. Thank you.
I watched it as a kid in the late 60s and thought it was a great -- much better than Thunderbirds. The "don't try this at home" warning was probablty aimed at me!
I remember the warning, too. This was because two boys were playing Captain Scarlet and jumped off a garage roof onto solid concrete. Both killed, I think.
Captain Scarlet is my favourite Anderson production. When I was 4 I had a Captain Scarlet wallet with a Spectrum ID card inside. 20+ years later, I diligently video taped every episode when the BBC screened the series in the 90's.
Imagine my horror on finally realising that the titular character was in fact a Mysteron replicant from half-way through the opening episode!
so we're working from a Backup Captain Scarlet!
@@StamFine that’s the genius of the show. Captain Scarlet is alien technology
I always thought that a few other attempted duplications should've failed in the same way as it did with Scarlet. I get that he has exceptional willpower or whatever, but he surely can't be the _only_ one!
The SPV is for Captain Scarlet to get to his certain death even quicker!
Brilliant! 😂
Being 58 years old ( and Canadian ), Captain Scarlet was my first childhood TV obsession, and it remains so. I have friends who are seriously into what they call " the trilogy " ( Scarlet - 90 - Service ), but apart from the happily bloodthirsty agents of WIN in Joe90 and the occasional cameo from Scarlet puppets in Secret Service, I still stick by Scarlet as my favorite Anderson show. Even UFO and Space 1999 never really worked for me. When I finally got to see the CGI NEW CAPTAIN SCARLET on bootleg DVDs, I was overjoyed, since it kept the violence, expanded the working of Spectrum AND let the characters have realistic hand to hand fights and a real personality each. Hell, it even let Black, Scarlet, and Destiny have a three way romantic situation that was kind of screwed up by having Black killed ( and this time, he actually got an on screen graveyard burial, something the original didn't manage, which made his return even creepier ), but return with an undiluted hard on for Destiny. Poor Destiny had to deal with Scarlet, a reconstruction of a dead man, and Black, a terrorist who happily killed anyone his alien masters told him to...and they both wanted her.
Canadian too here. It was constantly rerun in French fron 1969 until the early 90s.
I only saw one or two episodes of the CGI version on TV. Occasionally I've wanted to seek it out. Same with the CGI Thunderbirds one. I should definitely try to do that!
Thanks for a great video with that brilliant Australian humour. I'm 64 now so I guess having grown up in the 60s makes me somewhat blood thirsty as I liked Captain Scarlet more than Thunderbirds just for it's darkness. Also I thought the Angle Interceptors were fantastic, the only Gerry Anderson series to top Captain Scarlet was UFO.
Brilliant! Loved it! Watched it with My Dad, He loved it to! Happy Times! RIP Dad x
Back then, I was too young to appreciate just how Cary Grant-ish Captain Scarlet's voice was. Hilarious "Oh pu-lease, don't tell me how I'm going to die, sur-prise me!"
I always think that John Altman based his Nick Cotton character on Captain Black. At least I really hope he did.
Captain Scarlets voice was Francis Matthews!
I much preferred Captain Scarlet to Thunderbirds, mainly because it was more serious than Thunderbirds (and had better puppetry too). I always thought Thunderbirds was too "goofy", both in the way the characters behaved and how the puppets looked.
Captain Scarlet, UFO and Space 1999 season 1 were my favourite Gerry Anderson shows, mainly because of their dark overtones and they would "lose" as often as they "won" in the episodes.
I swear a modern, serious reboot of this show that leans into the adult concepts could work.
You don't approve of 'New Captain Scarlet'?
@@Bloodlyshiva Too to fair: a lot of people are probably aware of NCS's existence, which isn't surprising considering how it was originally released.
Captain Scarlet was always my favourite show and is still very watchable today.
I have a feeling that the theme song/outro were on a 7 inch picture sleeve single from back in the day.
I had a bunch of them covering all the Anderson/Century 21 series or at least as far as my Swiss cheese (full of holes) memory serves! 😁
I used to shine our torch on my bedroom wall when I was a kid, and pretend I was a Mysteron.
As you do.
We had a teacher called Cloudbase. We called him that because he was 7 feet tall. He drove a Mini. This is true. 50 years ago now. Gerry Anderson was a true icon for people my age. Thank God our memories of him are intact, unlike those of Jimmy Savile and Rolf.
TVCentury21 gave me my happiest memories of childhood by many miles. My parents divorced in 1967, I'll not dwell on that. Moving from London to South Wales meant catching different schedules on ITV stations. I began trying to say "hi and thank you so much" to GA and SA, but my letters kept being undelivered or, in one case was delivered only a while after they'd moved. As a last resort, I asked The Sun to please forward a message to him, and they did. A month later I had a wonderful letter back from Mr Anderson, at a time when he was experienceing a crisis of confidence, and having just come out of a (naturally) messy divorce. His letter drew reference to the divorce I had been involved in, and this aspect of his letter 'pleased' me. GA found his fans to be of huge benefit to him at this stage in his life. Years later I attended his one-man show appearance in Worthing, but declined the chance to approach him and shake his hand. His death upsset me more than any other well-known celebrity. Long live Century 21, still there, high above, in the ether. Still in my heart as my own passing becomes ever more a reality. GA + TV21 made so great an impact upon the lives of so very many young people, and adults!
When I was 8 or 9, I was visiting my grandparents and brought one of my Captain Scarlet VHS tapes with me. In the middle of a violent part of an episode (Renegade Rocket), my late grandfather, back then in his mid-80s (he passed away in 2003 or 2004) turned to me in a serious tone - "You enjoy this violence do you? Hmm? You like this killing, this warfare? War is awful!" Bare in mind he had fought in WWII and probably saw on-screen conflict rather negatively.
Captain Scarlet was my favourite out of the Gerry Anderson productions, followed by Thunderbirds and then Stingray.
Captain Scarlet: Well hung and enjoys hiding rainbows on his person.
Aware that, as we are now wearing well into the 2020s, the era of 'Thunderbirds'/'Captain Scarlet and The Mysterons' (2020s - 2060s) is upon us as I write I've been dabbling in Anderson World on and off over this past year or so, so thanks for this review, contrasting those two series.
I always loved all thing Gerry Anderson, with Captain Scarlet my all time favourite, 😎👍👍
“Oh my god, they’ve killed Captain Scarlet!” 😂
According to Ed Bishop, the voice of a Captain Blue, although the actors knew Captain Scarlet would come back every episode, none of the other actors were told if their characters were going to live or not, so when new scripts came in, the actors would scan them before reading to see if they'd be back next week.
The threads gave it its charm.
14:06 Trivia: The term "uncanny valley" comes from a 1978 translation of the Japanese term "bukimi no tani gensho" which referred specifically to the way a robot that looks very human-like would cross the line into appearing eerie and unsettling. It was coined by roboticist Masahiro Mori, who's perhaps best known for originating and promoting the idea of holding robot-building competitions starting in 1988. Fans of BattleBots and the like might recognize him as the grandfather of the entire sport.
So you're right, the term didn't exist in 1967-68 - but it wasn't far off. :)
Hey! Thanks, really interesting!
1:19 Great Scott. It's Gerry Anderson's Thunderbirds The Original Series. Thunderbirds Are GO. F.A.B Virgil. Thanks A Lot Mate. X
Aah the 60s! What jolly futurism!
A couple of (hopefully) interesting facts: Colonel White was also the voice of the Mysterons. The SPV cars that Spectrum uses were originally designed to be driven by occupants that sat facing backwards as this was thought to be safer in the event of a crash, the driver using cameras to see forwards. This was intended to work as a bit of futuristic forward thinking by the show creator but in practice it seriously screwed up how scenes looked when editing together the shots of the characters in the cars and the external shots of the cars being driven. A shot of the interior of an SPV would show the driver sat facing backwards e.g. facing towards the left of the viewer's TV screen while an exterior shot of the same SPV driving along the road would have it moving from left to right. While this was correct in line with the rear-facing driving seats, it looked very odd to the viewer. This situation was very much worsened when an SPV was in pursuit of another vehicle the occupants of which are facing the usual direction i.e. the same direction that their car is travelling and the shots of those occupants are being intercut shots of the occupants of the SPV. It quickly became very confusing as to who was chasing whom! This led to the screenwriters having to insert lines of dialogue into the show at every suitable opportunity to remind the audience of the rear-facing driving position e.g. an SPV would pull into a petrol station for fuel and an attendant would remark in surprise at the fact that the Spectrum guys are facing backwards.
I got hooked on this show,because,of the theme of the show,and,because of the character’s in the show.I missed this as a child in the 1960”s,so,this was a treat for me to watch with the family at Christmas of 2009!And,those special effect’s by Derek Medding’s!As usuale,wonderful!
I own the Captain Scarlet box set on DVD - picked it up for a song, some ten years ago. I was always more intrigued by the vehicles than the principal character - & as a child born in the early Sixties, noticed Mattews' take on Cary Grant. I kinda liked the notion of an indestructible agent, tho' never liked Capt. Blue - thought he was as the proverbial spare at a wedding, but hey, each to their own. I did prefer this series over Thunderbirds, but both clearly had merit for excitement & adventure. The Anderson's served we kids well in our childhood - the crap that is produced today will not have the same long-lasting reminiscences that we were afforded. Great, unconventional take on a classic run...
As a little boy you sometimes feel like you are indestructible but know you aren't.
Captain Scarlet really was indestructible!
Who didn't want to be Captain Scarlet?
Great video, thanks. I grew up with the Anderson’s productions starting with Fireball XL5 and ending with Space 1999. While the latter was far and away my favourite, I’ve always had a special place in my heart for Captain Scarlet and Thunderbirds. I don’t find the good captain has aged as well as Thunderbirds though.
I grew up in the sixties in Australia and was 8 when Thunderbirds came out. I had a subscription of TV-21 comic each week that was dated a hundred years in the future and Captain Scarlet came to after school TV in color and was in TV-21 comics also, with great original stories beautifully done. I was eldest of six kids, and we had all the Dinky toys of Captain Scarlet vehicles, and I built three Airfix angels and a cardboard cloud base. We had a large garden in the backyard with a pond, and spent many many fun hours play acting it all amongst us all with the toys in the garden and pond.
Scarlet kept really quiet about the '8 times yearly salary payment on death in service' clause in his terms and conditions.
Kill count numbered Thousands over the entire series including Hotels levelled in various assassination attempts ,Air Liners Vehicle crashes where they always blow up never been a children's programme like it.There is a you tube vid with the number of death's (estimated) as a child growing up it never really thought about that much it was sci- fi and exciting.
I watched this show in the 1960s??? Must have, the short sting version of the theme was a very early earworm! Seeing it here in the USA as a child, "Captain Scarlet (Captain Scarlet) Ba-ba-ba-bum ba-da-da-da-dum" stayed with me all these decades. Huh.
Well, on to the mystery of how I'd somehow heard of Clutch Cargo...
I remember this show from the 'Captain Cosmic' afternoon show on SF Station Channel 2. It showed Star Blazers, Ultraman, Infaman, and Captain Scarlett!
All these years later and that ginger Angel is STILL a smoke-show!
Assuming that you are referring to Rhapsody Angel she was apparently based on no less a beauty than Jean Shrimpton, so yes!
@@christopherbentley7289 A lovely lass, indeed!
@@colormedubious4747 It's funny that just yesterday my brother was around my place and amongst the many topics of conversation two were specifically the Angels of 'Captain Scarlet' and 'It Girls' of the Sixties.
I run the Blog on the strange world of female Pop of the satellite nations of the former Soviet Bloc, 'Girls Of The Golden East' and one of the great 'Girls Of The Golden East' was the tragic Eva Kostolányiová, who passed away at just 32 way back in October 1975 and who was known as 'The Twiggy of Slovakia', as something of a fashion icon, but maybe having been born just five days before Jean Shrimpton she should have been known as 'The Jean Shrimpton of Slovakia'.
Before I discovered that world I was - and still am in a way - heavily into my home city of Derby's Modernist architecture and, sadly, both the angular 'Twiggy Building', the Main Centre and the sumptuously double-curving 'Jean Shrimpton Building', the former Ranby's/Debenhams department store are now, like Eva Kostolányiová, no more.
You'll perhaps have gathered that 'Evička' was a cracker herself!
And that accent.
2:15 - in my head, that Mysteron voice ALWAYS says "This is the voice of the Mysterons. We KNOW you can hear us, Earthmen. Oh BUGGER - what's the point of it all, Earthmen? I'm SO depressed". GREAT!
Wow! Forgot all about this show. Loved it as a kid in the U.S. on channel 17 WPHL, Philadelphia at 4:30 each afternoon.
In the U.S. only ‘Thunderbirds’ were shown and even then not everywhere. In the early ‘90s the Sci Fi Channel (as it was initially spelled) played a lot of old science fiction, horror and fantasy shows and films. They showed only maybe two of the Supermarionation shows that I can recall… ‘Thunderbirds’ and ‘Stingray’. It wasn’t until Amazon Prime video launched that one could see all of the shows though. I found them all fascinating in their own special way. Honestly I just liked the esthetics of the shows.
It's art.
He was voiced by actor Francis Mathews
As you state here, in the 70s and 80s THUNDERBIRDS was the only puppet series channel 9 (Australia) were willing to replay - and it drove me around the bend! If 9 were so willing to replay THUNDERBIRDS every year and every month - why not give us some variety and add Scarlet or Stingray into the mix???? Finally, like you, I found them on VHS in the 90s but by then I was aged in my 20s or 30s and a little old for them. Bloody channel 9!
This is utterly fascinating! Where the heck was this on Saturday mornings in the 70's? I feel my childhood was diminished by stupid American TV producers that wouldn't pick up the show. Egad.
I was born in the UK in the 80s. I got to see all of these on TV as a kid.
It was glorious.
All these shows were re-run like OG Star Trek.
Captain Scarlet is my favourite show.
OMG......kkkkkkk.....so many jokes and puns in so little time. I loved this series, but unfortunatly only a few episodes were shown here in Brasil on the 70's. Thank's God we now have internet and youtube.
Greetings from Brasil
I really enjoyed going down memory lane with this as a kid my dad was stationed in London 1965 first time I saw the the and and then we came back stateside and I kind of forgot all about until in the late sixties early seventies they started broadcasting the Thunderbirds by this time I was in my teens and like I told my friends and my cousin's about the and then we would like ditch school go home and watch the Thunderbirds or Captain Scarlet whichever one was on and to help us alone we will smoke a little pot LOL I had a really good time watching but I've always enjoyed the Thunderbirds Captain Scarlett there was another show that was pretty good but I can't remember the name
I think it was a great kids show. Loved it when I was a kid even more than Thunderbirds.
Captain Black was as sinister as Hell.
Anyone got a favourite creepy Captain Black scene?
I choked on my drink at the apt description of the Mysterons' voice. xD
I liked the reboot. Same vibes as the original complete with horribly gratuitous death scenes for a kids show, but Lt. Green is a lot more likable and the explanation of how Scarlet turned good while keeping his abilities was nice seeing how they didn't even attempt it in the original.
I really love your video reviews. I've been binging them all week. This one is especially funny and well done.
If Captain Scarlet is blown to bits, which part comes back to life? Do the pieces need to coalesce?
Captain Scarlett and The Mysterious sounds like a British Invasion Band name...
please do Thunderbirds or Stingray too!
5:20 - Well that’s hardly surprising that he ‘suspiciously sounds like Cary Grant’; Scarlet’s voice was brought to life by Francis Mathews apparently doing an impression of Cary Grant
Robert Mitchum also starred in this series, 06:24.
All I remember was that each episode ended with an image montage of what looked like a much more exciting show.
I always thought Cpt Scarlet looked like a young Elvis Presley;
I remember one episode where--gasp!--Captain Scarlet REALLY died and Spectrum was being destroyed. Ha but not really, the whole thing turned out to be one of the angel's dreams.
Captain scarlets voice is deep in my mind
Oh my! “Like all marionette heroes, he’s well hung … but that’s no help.” 🤣😂🤪
It's really early in the morning here, but I belted maniacal laughter upon hearing that. 😂
😂😂😂😂
Captain Scarlets voice was modelled on Cary Grant
Francis Matthews was in lots of shows 50's to 70's. I only just realized how much he sounded like Cary Grant.
“Captain Splat” is hilarious!
0:17 Captain Scarlet From Gerry Anderson's Captain Scarlet And The Mysterons The Original Series In 1967 Thinks He's Looks Like James Bond 007 From Ian Fleming's Dr No And The Spy Who Loved Me In 1962 And 1977. Spectrum Is Green. My Name Is Bond. James Bond. Thanks Mate. X
1) Thunderbirds, 2) Stingray, 3) Captain Scarlet.
Captain Scarlett was pre Kenny of SouthPark, or better yet he was the Redshirt of Star Trek.
I once visited the thunderbird studio at weta. Interesting stuff if a little weird.
Mysterons sound like...... Brilliant!
It's a shame what they did to the CGI version when it first aired.
It got chopped up and dished out in sections that were a few minutes long, over the course of a 2-3 hour Saturday morning tv show. Anderson was reportedly (and understandably) livid.
And while the original version was my favourite of the two, the CGI version had promise and deserved better.
Thanks for posting. Suggest uploading complete series of both original and CGI series please
Excellent stuff. Have subscrived. Please please please do Stingray, Thunderbirds, Joe 90 and UFO. Oh and 1860's Batman!!!
1860s Batman? Huh. Presumably he starts out helping the Abolitionists with the Underground Railroad pre-ACW and then when the war broke out he fought saboteurs and traitors and crooked businessmen in whichever Northern city corresponds to Gotham. Maybe make his arch-nemesis a Joker-cognate who embraces the anarchy of the Civil War and wears a hood (perhaps red, perhaps white) to conceal his disfigurement - or his race? That...actually sounds like it could be an interesting read as an Elseworlds concept story. Do we play with the origin story and have Bruce's parents killed for pro-Abolition leanings - or perhaps he's a beneficiary of the Railroad himself and his parents were killed getting him to freedom?
Of course you probably mistyped and meant 1960s and Adam West there, but I still think you might have unintentionally stumbled on a neat idea. It's hard to come up with new things to do with the Batman archetype at this point.
I love this channel
I'm torn about Gerry Anderson's awesome shows. Puppets like these were so rare when I was a kid, that these would've creeped me out at 1st. But I also know, if I could've gotten past that (and purged that ventriloquist episode of Twilight Zone, brrr), I know me and my buddies would've loved these. Especially any Western themed ones. Wait, his color scheme and healing factor-was this the inspiration for Deadpool?
Really well done all these animation puppet tv series
The artwork at the end of the show could have been used in a new version of the board game Cluedo.
"I believe it was Captain Blue in the Refuse Compactor with the Spikey Wall Crush-o-tron. (tm).
Wrong! it was Rhapsody Angel in the Pilot's Ready Room with the Cyanide Lipstick!
you get my Sub for one thing you said . Mysterons. have the power of UNDO. I am in stiches
"Hanging had been abolished in the UK, but this is Supermarionation. They all hang." 🤣🤣👍
Health and safety? You say "On paper their record looks OK, only one death". What about Captain Brown and Captain Indigo? There were probably hundreds of Spectrum workers in that building in episode 1. I can't be bothered to watch all the episodes to tot up the the actual number of employees of Spectrum who paid the ultimate price, but I will watch it in it's entirety at some point again because it's really good.
Spectrum . . . Makes me think of M.A.S.K.’s computer. The round table and team around it makes me think it could be more than chance.
"Like all marionette heroes, he was well-hung." Bravo. Bravo.
It wasn't the first manned trip to Mars - that was in Thunderbirds are Go
Marionettes Thunderbirds, i loved that one.
I love your reviews. Very well done. But, I sense a deeply rooted childhood trauma that is somehow related to a bullshit restocking fee.
I don't think I've ever seen this, seen plenty of Thunderbird's and read alot of Eagle comics with Dan Dare. How has this come to pass?
So many Anderson puppet series and the only ones I had ever seen on Broadcast TV were Thunderbirds and Terrahawks.
There's an "urban myth" that the voice of Captain Scarlet was provided by...Cary Grant! Actually it was really Francis Matthews, who got the job after Gerry Anderson heard him playing Cary Grant on the radio.
I know someone who used to fancy Captain Scarlet.
He's a good guy, just a little wooden. 😉
Yes , as a child I fancied him and have recently found out that " he" was modelled on Roger Moore but with black hair. Really the likeness is obvious and it was pointed out by the very dashing and amusing Roger in an Dick Caverner interview.
I watched Captain Scarlet way before I knew of the Thunderbirds.
This is exactly how I perceive human beings.
When every fun fact or jk pun you can come up with is already in the stam video
Yeah, he really strings you along