THE FAB WORLDS OF ANDERSON

Next weekend Gerry & Sylvia Anderson fans will be making their way to the National Space Centre in Leicester to marvel at what is boasted to be the largest exhibition of original Anderson puppets seen in years, thanks to a few dedicated expert collectors who are happy to display them.

I imagine there’ll be a few replicas amongst them as many of those iconic earlier characters either no longer exist or are held in private collections no longer in this country.

As many of you will know, some of the original puppets still have their original pink faded eyes, which some jokers liken them to being ‘mysteronised’.  However, some have been expertly altered to look normal, so it’s not always a dead giveaway.

This was something that some of the more uninitiated commented on when I did my previous post on the  Joe 90 series coming up to fifty.

The exhibition will naturally be celebrating fifty years of Joe 90 too, with displays showing the original Joe and Mac puppets.

One thing that a few people raised during my other post was just how old is Joe 90, the character? Well, the obvious answer is he would be 59 now in 2018.  He was nine in the series and the series is now fifty, simples

But as an alternative, if you consider the series is set in the near future it’s open to a little fun interpretation. The series scriptwriters guide has it set in 1998, which would make Joe twenty years old in 2018. However, visual evidence in the episode, The Unorthodox Shepherd , has a ‘Clem Mason’s’ church burial dated April 14^th, 1996, seventeen years  in the past from the events in the episode. That would  set the series in 2013, so Joe being 9 at that point would have been born in 2004, which in 2018 would make him 14.

“I hate maths, Uncle Sam, can’t I go off a kill a few baddies”

“I’d rather you didn’t Joe, but anyone who makes a crack about ‘social services’ is fair game”

There are some special guests turning up who worked on some of the series during the sixties and early seventies, subject to availability of course.

Everyone’s favourite Scott Tracy impressionist, Shane Rimmer will in attendance, along with the highly entertaining Matt Zimmerman , aka Alan Tracy. Matt really does love meeting the fans.

Special effects wizard, Brian Johnson who worked on Thunderbirds and is best known for his work on Space:1999 will be joining the party on Saturday.

For those interested in finding out about the new pilot minsode of ‘Firestorm’ and some behind the scenes secrets, Gerry’s son, Jamie Anderson will be hosting a Q&A session on the Sunday.

The team behind the kickstarter 50^th Anniversary Thunderbirds episodes based on three of the original 1960’s Century 21 Records recordings will also be there, doing demonstrations and screening behind the scenes footage.

This, of course is just a taster .There will also be many other models, props and costumes on display, as well as several other attractions.

Well, I’m bound to say it’s got the makings of a FAB weekend….