50 Fun Facts About Thunderbirds

Jeff Tracy's sons all take their first names from which group of real 1960s Americans?

The Mercury Seven astronauts lent their first names: Carpenter, Glenn, Grissom, Cooper and Shepard. Jeff himself was an early lunar astronaut before founding International Rescue.

What slides aside at the foot of the Tracy Island villa so Thunderbird 1 can launch vertically?

A swimming pool hides the hangar, a design Den of Geek found alarming given the risk of 'a great big rocket ship appearing out the bottom' of it. It still ranked the island the seventh-best secret base in film and TV.

What lining Tracy Island's runway swings outward to clear Thunderbird 2's wingspan at launch?

Palm trees tilt back as the transporter taxis out, then the craft tips up a ramp to launch, which the series says beats its VTOL thrusters for fuel efficiency.

Which marque lent its name and a real £100 grille to Lady Penelope's pink six-wheeled FAB 1?

Rolls-Royce sent a genuine radiator grille, Spirit of Ecstasy included, reasoning the show might 'inspire a child to own one, one day'. Its designer put two axles at the front purely for looks.

Which reply by Penelope's chauffeur in Thunderbirds was the working title of a co-creator's memoir?

'Yes, M'Lady' was the original title of the co-creator's autobiography before it became My FAB Years. The chauffeur hypercorrects his Cockney by adding aitches where none belong.

Which Star Trek: The Next Generation actor directed the 2004 live-action Thunderbirds film?

Jonathan Frakes, a fan of the original, also plays an uncredited police officer arresting the Hood's minions. He blamed the flop on opening against Shrek 2 and Spider-Man 2.

In Terror in New York City, which landmark collapses while being moved on rails to a new site?

The Empire State Building was being shifted for a Midtown regeneration, and its fall traps reporter Ned Cook in an underground river. Gerry Anderson based it on a real store that was jacked up and moved inch by inch.

Which British pop-punk band took the 2004 Thunderbirds film's theme song to UK number one?

Busted's 'Thunderbirds Are Go' topped the chart and won the 2004 UK Record of the Year, faring better than the film, which Gerry Anderson called 'the biggest load of crap I have ever seen'.

Which BBC children's show showed viewers how to build their own Tracy Island when the toy sold out?

Blue Peter's Anthea Turner built one from household waste in January 1993, and the BBC eventually sold her demonstration on VHS. Radio Times later called it one of the show's most iconic moments.

The giant reptiles of Attack of the Alligators!, APF's first use of live animals, were really what?

Juvenile crocodiles from a private zoo in northern England stood in, and an anonymous tip-off brought an RSPCA inspector to the studio, who took no action. One got loose mid-shoot and sent the effects director sprinting from the tank.

Gerry Anderson coined 'Supermarionation' during which series, APF's first for Lew Grade's ITC?

Supercar was in production when the name was minted as a promotional tool, Anderson admitted, to set APF apart from Muffin the Mule and Flower Pot Men; it never described a real process.

Why were the Thunderbirds puppets' heads noticeably too large for their bodies?

The lip-sync solenoid that snapped each lower lip open in time with the dialogue lived in the head, and scaling bodies up to match would have meant enlarging every set. Later series moved the mechanism to the chest.

Which feature did Thunderbird 2's designer add purely so it would stand out beside real aircraft?

Forward-swept wings were pure aesthetics: 'All aircraft have swept-back wings, so I thought I'd sweep mine forward,' the designer said. Graeme Shimmin rates it the best aircraft in fiction.

How many interchangeable equipment pods does Thunderbird 2 choose from before launching on a rescue?

Six pods slide along a conveyor until the right one sits under the craft, and together they make up nearly half its volume. Thunderbird 4 usually rides along in Pod 4.

What colour is Thunderbird 4, the rescue submersible piloted by aquanaut Gordon Tracy?

Yellow Thunderbird 4 is too slow to travel far by itself, so the Daily Mirror asked why a craft that 'can't even go anywhere on its own' counts as a Thunderbird at all.

Which pod vehicle appears in Pit of Peril, City of Fire and The Duchess Assignment?

The Mole is one of the few pod vehicles to appear in more than one episode, and commentator Fred McNamara ranks it fifth among all the Anderson shows' vehicles.

Which Tracy brother spends solitary three-week tours aboard the space station Thunderbird 5?

John's quiet, astronomy-loving nature made him the natural pick, and his puppet's looks were modelled on Adam Faith and Charlton Heston. He gets a week's rest on Tracy Island between tours.

Which Tracy brother, an off-duty painter and pianist, pilots the heavy transporter Thunderbird 2?

Virgil's voice changed between series: David Holliday, the cast's only American, went home after Series One and Jeremy Wilkin took over for Series Two and the films.

Gordon Tracy won an Olympic title in which stroke before joining International Rescue?

Butterfly gold preceded service in the World Aquanaut Security Patrol, the WASP borrowed from an earlier Anderson series, where he captained a bathyscaphe.

Jeff Tracy, the Air Force colonel who founded International Rescue, grew up on a wheat farm where?

Kansas wheat-farmer's son Jeff rose to colonel in the US Air Force; his mother, the farmer's widow, later joins the island household as Grandma.

Who voiced Lady Penelope in 1960s Thunderbirds, co-created her and was secretly the puppet's model?

Sylvia Anderson reprised the voice in 1994 when Penelope appeared to Edina in an Absolutely Fabulous dream sequence, and guested in the 2015 remake as Great Aunt Sylvia.

Whose real voice, heard often by the crew, became the Cockney accent of Lady Penelope's chauffeur?

A pub wine waiter at the Kings Arms in Cookham, Berkshire, supplied the accent, and on Gerry Anderson's advice Parker's voice actor dined there to pick it up.

David Graham voiced Brains and many villains, plus which regular he reprised in the 2015 remake?

Parker, a reformed cat burglar and safe-cracker, got the same voice 50 years on; its sculptor based the face on clichéd butlers from black-and-white English comedies.

Under which alias does Brains build the Skythrust airliner, a name the 2015 remake later made real?

Hiram K. Hackenbacker is one of several covers: the board behind Skyship One knows him only as 'Mr X', and the 2004 film went with Ray Hackenbacker instead.

The Hood shares a parent with which Tracy Island resident, whom he torments telepathically?

Kyrano collapses in agony under these intrusions yet passes them off as faintness, never betraying the Tracys; which parent the two share is never revealed.

Which Tracy Island resident, daughter of Jeff's manservant, is youngest brother Alan's girlfriend?

Tin-Tin was conceived, a co-creator wrote, to 'redress the balance' of a male-dominated puppet cast, and Jeff paid for her maths and engineering degree in gratitude for her father's service.

The Hood, International Rescue's masked enemy, plots from a temple in the jungle of which country?

Malaysia's jungle temple holds a statue of his half-brother, before which the Hood stands to make his telepathic calls; he does not appear at all in the second series.

In the pilot Trapped in the Sky, the Hood bombs which atomic-powered airliner on its maiden flight?

Fireflash cannot land without setting the bomb off, so International Rescue's Elevator Cars catch it on the runway; the original design sketch had it flying for BOAC, not 'Air Terrainean'.

How was the Series One finale Security Hazard written to recoup money after two episodes overspent?

As a flashback clip show it needed just 17 minutes of new footage, after Attack of the Alligators! and The Cham-Cham had both blown their budgets.

In final episode Give or Take a Million, a child prize-winner visits Tracy Island for which holiday?

Christmas on the island even gets snow: Brains has everyone shut their eyes, then switches on a snow-making machine he built after hearing the odds of a white one were slim.

Which earlier Anderson series did well enough for Lew Grade to commission Thunderbirds?

Stingray's success bought a budget that made Thunderbirds APF's costliest production and one of the most expensive TV series made up to that time.

Which Thunderbirds effects chief designed its craft, then did effects for James Bond and Superman?

Derek Meddings found Thunderbird 5 the hardest to design and remembered the Thunderbird 2 model as 'awful' to fly; he and Mike Trim dressed models with parts from children's toys and off-the-shelf kits.

Stanley Kubrick, impressed by Thunderbirds' effects crew, hired several of them for which film?

2001: A Space Odyssey got its effects supervisors from a puppet show whose typical episode carried around 100 effects shots, completed at up to 18 a day.

In 1966's Thunderbirds Are Go, the spacecraft Zero-X flies the first crewed mission to which planet?

Mars was the Andersons' swap for the Moon, adapting the Space Race to the show's future, and the crew find hostile 'rock snakes' on the surface.

Which pop star and The Shadows appear as puppets in a dream sequence in 1966's Thunderbirds Are Go?

Cliff Richard signed up in Portugal, where he and Shadows member Bruce Welch owned homes near the Andersons, and performs 'Shooting Star' as Cliff Richard Jr.

In the 1968 film Thunderbird 6, which vintage biplane is finally unveiled as the sixth Thunderbird?

A Tiger Moth beat a fleet of fantasy machines; the real G-ANFM used for filming, built in 1940, later joined the Diamond Nine aerobatics squadron.

Which Gone Girl star voiced Lady Penelope in the 2015 CGI remake Thunderbirds Are Go?

Rosamund Pike followed Sophia Myles, who played the role in the 2004 film and used a movement director to perfect a graceful walk.

Weta Workshop built the miniatures and CGI for 2015's Thunderbirds Are Go in which country?

New Zealand's Weta got the job after its founder visited Gerry Anderson at Pinewood and won his approval for a revival, co-produced with ITV Studios and Pukeko Pictures.

Which actor, as the voice of Jeff Tracy, delivers the title sequence's '5, 4, 3, 2, 1' countdown?

Peter Dyneley's archive countdown was reused in the 2015 remake's titles and launch sequences, half a century on; the English-Canadian also voiced airport chief Commander Norman.

Shigeru Miyamoto says Thunderbirds' puppet style shaped which Nintendo series from its N64 game on?

Star Fox 64's jerky, puppet-like character animation was a deliberate tribute from Miyamoto, a self-declared fan, and the same show influenced Neon Genesis Evangelion in Japan.

Tracy Island, the hidden base from which International Rescue launches, lies in which ocean?

Pacific seclusion is read by critic Ian Haywood as 'a Pacific base for American influence', a technological utopia where nature has been tamed.

In which decade do the original Thunderbirds episodes take place?

The 2060s (2065 to 2067, precisely) host a Tracy family 'headed by American industrialist and ex-astronaut Jeff Tracy', with atomic airliners as everyday kit.

Which carmaker built the 2004 Thunderbirds film's working FAB 1 after the original marque declined?

Ford adapted its own eleventh-generation Thunderbird, a redesign Gerry Anderson strongly disliked; one look at the picture, he said, and 'I'm out'.

Which Twister and Apollo 13 actor played ex-astronaut Jeff Tracy in the 2004 Thunderbirds film?

Bill Paxton saw Jeff as 'a kind of teacher', and took the young cast out for a meal on arriving in London to build the family bond.

Fresh from House of Sand and Fog, which Oscar winner played the Hood in the 2004 Thunderbirds film?

Ben Kingsley took the part because his children were fans, and his Hood swaps the puppet's hypnosis for telekinesis and levitation.

Scott Tracy's puppet face was modelled on which actor, then starring as James Bond?

Sean Connery's features went to Scott; Jeff got Lorne Greene's, Brains got Anthony Perkins's and the chauffeur got comedian Ben Warriss's.

In 2015's Thunderbirds Are Go, Jeff Tracy is presumed dead; where do his sons eventually find him?

Trapped in deep space, Jeff is brought home aboard the 'Zero-XL', a spacecraft assembled from the five main Thunderbirds, in the final series' closing arc.

Thunderbird 3, the space rescue rocket, blasts off from beneath which Tracy Island building?

The Round House is the island's guest accommodation, and its circular shape also inspired the design of Thunderbird 5.

What does the Hood repeatedly try to obtain, only to lose it on the one occasion he succeeds?

Photos of the rescue machines are his obsession: the one time he films Thunderbirds 1 and 2, he flees in a grounded light aircraft, crashes and loses the pictures.

Which Indian Ocean nation's North Island stood in for Tracy Island in the 2004 Thunderbirds film?

The Seychelles' North Island hosted the start of filming in March 2003, before the shoot moved to Pinewood Studios and London, with Cliveden House in Buckinghamshire standing in for Lady Penelope's mansion.