Terrible Terrahawks ?

I clearly recall all the publicity leading up to the launch of the Anderson series Terrahawks and the talk of it being the new Thunderbirds. When it arrived and aired, I was bitterly disapointed by the ridiculous storylines and puerile characterisation. Andersons previous shows had a certain charm and although aimed at children, were never as condescending and silly. The puppets were awful and the characters themselves dull. Adding the stupidly comic Zeroids voiced by an ex comedy actor didnt help at all.

The vehicles though, more than made up for it and even though the thunderbirds style launches were still handled badly, the craft were generally impressive.

Oddly, the marketing of the toys was handled by Bandai/Popy as opposed to a european company and lots of toys were produced. Foremost were a range of expensive diecast ships, followed by various sizes of smaller diecasts and then small plastic toys aimed at younger children.

The main ship, the Battlehawk was a large TB2 type freighter, carrying the command ship Terrahawk and the Battletank and occasionally the FAB 1 like 'Hudson'. The model is large, about 10 inches long and feature laden with opening doors and ramps, a launchable Terrahawk and a release/recovery system to drop the Battletank and then scoop it up again on a winch. 

The extremely birdlike Terrahawk came in a large five inch version with moveable wings, retractable landing legs and firing missiles. It also arrived as a small diecast along with a slightly scaled up Battletank with snatch bar and pop-up Megazoid robots.

Easily my favourite ship was the Hawkwing, a dual part fighter with flying wing and detachable interceptor. Oddly, the large version was all plastic apart from steel wheels. Taking the naming convention a little too far for my liking was the Treehawk, the supply shuttle and TB3 variant. Launched unsurprisingly from a large tree (why ?) it serviced the Spacehawk station in orbit around Earth. The Treehawks large model is sleek and impressive with fold out wings and concealed launchers, a semi detachable nosecone and landing skids. The Spacehawk was made available in small 3 inch diecasts and featured on the box of the toys as a large model with a falshing light, which may not have made production.

The figures for the range were handled with less effect and were stiff, clumsy and poor. A wind up 'Action' Zeroid was produced which basically made the globe shaped droid spin and fall off its pedestal. When the toys were first released they were above average pricewise and hellishy expensive. After the show stalled, prices fell and i was able to collect most of the better toys inexpensively. One craft from the last show which never made production was the MEV - Martian Exploration Vehicle that Ninestein used to assault the Martian base - a cool 'Firefly' like crawler that only appeared in one episode.