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Terrahawks
''Terrahawks'' is a 1980s British science fiction television series created by Gerry Anderson and Christopher Burr for London Weekend Television. The series was Anderson's first in over a decade to use puppets for its characters, and also his last. Anderson's previous puppet-centric TV series included ''Thunderbirds (TV series), Thunderbirds'' and ''Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons''. Set in the year 2020, the series follows the adventures of the Terrahawks, a taskforce responsible for protecting Earth from invasion by a group of extraterrestrial androids led by Zelda. Like Anderson's previous puppet series, futuristic vehicles and technology featured prominently in each episode. Premise The series is set in the year 2020, after an alien force has destroyed NASA's Mars base and Earth is under threat. A small organisation, The Terrahawks, is set up to defend the planet. From Hawknest, their secret base in South America, they develop sophisticated weapons to prepare for the ba ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Gerry Anderson
Gerald Alexander Anderson (; 14 April 1929 – 26 December 2012) was an English television and film producer, director, writer and occasional voice artist, who is known for his futuristic television programmes, especially his 1960s productions filmed with "Supermarionation" (marionette puppets containing electric moving parts). Anderson's first television production was the 1957 Roberta Leigh children's series '' The Adventures of Twizzle'' (1957–58). '' Torchy the Battery Boy'' (1960), and '' Four Feather Falls'' (1960) followed. ''Supercar'' (1961–62) and '' Fireball XL5'' (1962–63) came next, both series breaking into the U.S. television market in the early 1960s. In the mid-1960s Anderson produced his most successful series, '' Thunderbirds''. Other television productions of the period included ''Stingray'', ''Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons'' and '' Joe 90''. Anderson also wrote and produced several feature films, including ''Doppelgänger'' (aka ''Journey to th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Tony Barwick
Anthony Clive Barwick (10 July 1934 – 18 August 1993) was a British television scriptwriter who worked extensively on series created and produced by Gerry Anderson. Career Television Barwick scripted episodes for Gerry Anderson's Supermarionation series '' Thunderbirds'' (two out of 32 episodes), ''Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons'' (21 out of 32 episodes), ''Joe 90'' (16 out of 30 episodes) and '' The Secret Service'' (four out of 13 episodes), as well as his live-action series '' UFO'' (14 out of 26 episodes), '' The Protectors'' (ten out of 52 episodes) and '' Space: 1999'' (two out of 48 episodes). He also contributed scripts to Anderson's and Christopher Burr's Supermacromation series ''Terrahawks'', writing under various pseudonyms for all but one episode. All of these pseudonyms ended with the suffix "-stein" in imitation of the name of the leading character, Dr Tiger Ninestein. Barwick wrote 35 of the 39 episodes of ''Terrahawks''; "The Midas Touch", which he co-wr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Denise Bryer
Denise Bryer (5 January 1928 – 16 October 2021) was an English actress, known for her voice roles on television and radio. Career Bryer was born 5 January 1928 in Kensington, London to Claude and Susie ( Mott) Bryer. Her father was a jeweller and her mother a former actress. She was the youngest of seven children. Her eldest sister, Vera, was also an actor and dancer. Denise Bryer made her motion picture debut in 1937 in '' A Romance in Flanders''. Evacuated to Buckinghamshire during World War II, she attended school there before returning to London after the war. She subsequently studied acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Bryer resumed her acting career on the radio in 1947. Best remembered in her UK homeland for her work on the Gerry Anderson series, ''Terrahawks'', where she voiced both the main villain Zelda and the heroic Capt. Mary Falconer, Bryer became well known in the United States when she voiced Billina in Disney's 1985 film '' Return to Oz'', as wel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Windsor Davies
Windsor Davies (28 August 1930 – 17 January 2019) was a British actor. He is best remembered for playing Battery Sergeant Major Williams in the sitcom '' It Ain't Half Hot Mum'' (1974–1981) over its entire run. The show's popularity resulted in Davies and his co-star Don Estelle achieving a UK number-one hit with a version of " Whispering Grass" in 1975. He later starred with Donald Sinden in '' Never the Twain'' (1981–1991), and his deep Welsh-accented voice was heard extensively in advertising voice-overs. Early life Davies was born on 28 August 1930 in Canning Town, East London, to Welsh parents. In 1940 they returned to their native village of Nant-y-moel, Glamorgan. Davies studied at Ogmore Grammar School and worked as a coal miner. He performed his National Service in Libya and Egypt, with the East Surrey Regiment, between 1950 and 1952. Following teacher training at Bangor Teacher Training College, he taught English and Maths at Leek in Staffordshire, and at a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Richard Harvey (composer)
Richard Allen Harvey (born 25 September 1953) is an English composer and musician. Originally of the mediaevalist progressive rock group Gryphon, he is best known now for his film and television soundtracks. He is also known for his guitar concerto ''Concerto Antico'', which was composed for the guitarist John Williams and the London Symphony Orchestra. In April 2012, UK radio listeners voted Richard Harvey's Concerto Antico into the Classic FM Hall of Fame for the first time. Early life and career Born in Enfield, Middlesex, Harvey became involved in music, learning the recorder when he was four years old, switching first to percussion and later playing clarinet in the British Youth Symphony Orchestra. By the time he graduated from London's Royal College of Music in 1972, he was accomplished on the recorder, flute, krumhorn, and other mediaeval and Renaissance-era instruments, as well as the mandolin and various keyboards. He could have joined the London Philharmonic O ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
The Secret Service
''The Secret Service'' is a 1969 British science fiction television series created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and filmed by their production company, Century 21, for ITC Entertainment. It follows the exploits of Father Stanley Unwin, a puppet character voiced by, and modelled on, the comedian of the same name. Outwardly an eccentric vicar, Unwin is secretly an agent of BISHOP, a division of British Intelligence that counters criminal and terrorist threats. Assisted by fellow agent Matthew Harding, Unwin's missions involve frequent use of the Minimiser, a device capable of shrinking people and objects to facilitate covert operations. In hostile situations, Unwin spouts a form of gibberish (based on the real Unwin's nonsense language, "Unwinese") to distract the enemy. ''The Secret Service'' was the last Anderson series to be made using a form of electronic marionette puppetry called "Supermarionation". This technique was combined with scale model effects sequences and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Donald James
Donald James (born Donald James Wheal; 22 August 1931 – 28 April 2008) was a British television writer, novelist and non-fiction writer. Life and career Born in World's End, Chelsea, and educated at Sloane Grammar School and Pembroke College, Cambridge (where he read history), James completed his national service in the Parachute Regiment before returning to London to work as a supply teacher. He was the author of the best-selling novels ''The Fall of the Russian Empire'' (1982), ''Monstrum'' (1997), ''The Fortune Teller'' (1999), and ''Vadim'' (2000), as well as co-author of ''The Penguin Dictionary of the Third Reich'' (1997) under the pseudonym James Taylor. He wrote under a number of pseudonyms, notably Thomas Dresden and James Barwick (originally in collaboration with fellow writer Tony Barwick, another long-term contributor to the various television productions of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and their company, AP Films/ Century 21). James's career as a scriptwriter i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Supermacromation of the words "super", "marionette" and "animation")La Rivière 2009, p. 67. is a style of television and film production employed by British company AP Films (later Century 21 Productions) in its puppet TV series and feature films of the 1960s. These productions were created by Gerry Anderson, Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and filmed at APF's studios on the Slough Trading Estate. The characters were played by electronic marionettes with a moveable lower lip, which opened and closed in time with pre-recorded dialogue by means of a solenoid in the puppet's head or chest. The productions were mostly science fiction with the puppetry supervised by Christ ...
Supermarionation (a portmanteau In linguistics, a blend—also known as a blend word, lexical blend, or portmanteau—is a word formed by combining the meanings, and parts of the sounds, of two or more words together. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Desmond Saunders
Desmond "Des"''Full Boost Vertical - The Supercar Story'' Saunders (24 June 1926 – 21 April 2018) was a British people, British television director and Film editing, film editor. He had a long association with producer Gerry Anderson, having served as a director for the series ''Supercar (TV series), Supercar'' (1961–62), ''Stingray (1964 TV series), Stingray'' (1964–65), ''Thunderbirds (TV series), Thunderbirds'' (1965–66), ''Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons'' (1967–68), ''Joe 90'' (1968–69) and ''Terrahawks'' (1983–86). Saunders was also production controller for ''Joe 90'' and co-wrote one of the episodes, "Lone-Handed 90". He briefly worked as a production supervisor for ''The Secret Service'' (1969). Elsewhere in television, Saunders had both production and post-production roles for ''The Protectors'' (1972–73). His film editing credits are: ''RX for Murder'' (1958), ''A Woman's Temptation'' (1959), ''Escort for Hire'' (1960), ''Compelled'' (1960), ''Tarni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Supermarionation
Supermarionation (a portmanteau of the words "super", " marionette" and "animation")La Rivière 2009, p. 67. is a style of television and film production employed by British company AP Films (later Century 21 Productions) in its puppet TV series and feature films of the 1960s. These productions were created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and filmed at APF's studios on the Slough Trading Estate. The characters were played by electronic marionettes with a moveable lower lip, which opened and closed in time with pre-recorded dialogue by means of a solenoid in the puppet's head or chest. The productions were mostly science fiction with the puppetry supervised by Christine Glanville, art direction by either Bob Bell or Keith Wilson, and music composed by Barry Gray. They also made extensive use of scale model special effects, directed by Derek Meddings. The term "Supermarionation" was first used during the production of '' Supercar'', whose final 13 episodes were the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Bray Studios (UK)
Bray Film Studios is a British film and television facility in Water Oakley near Bray, Berkshire. It is best known for its association with Hammer Film Productions. History Down Place Down Place, also written as Dowan Place or Dow Place, was a large Thamesside house in the Berkshire hamlet of Water Oakley, was built in the 1750s for Richard Tonson, the Windsor (UK Parliament constituency), Member of Parliament for Windsor and relative of publisher Jacob Tonson. After Tonson's death in 1772, the family held onto Down Place until April 1775 when it was put up for sale. When Tonson's estate wasn't sold outright, it was planned to go up for auction on 12 July 1775. The auction of the estate and belongings was postponed until Monday 7 August, and was planned to last for the duration of five days. Sometime after the auction, the house was owned by the Duke of Argyll#Dukes of Argyll (1701), Dukes of Argyll and by 1792, it was home to John Barker Church. A later owner, Mr Hudlesto ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Thunderbirds (TV Series)
''Thunderbirds'' is a British science fiction television series created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, filmed by their production company AP Films (APF) and distributed by ITC Entertainment. It was filmed between 1964 and 1966 using a form of electronic marionette puppetry called "Supermarionation" combined with scale model special effects sequences. Two series, totalling 32 fifty-minute episodes, were made; production ended with the sixth episode of the second series after Lew Grade, APF's financial backer, failed in his efforts to sell the programme to US network television. Set in the 2060s, ''Thunderbirds'' was a follow-up to the earlier Supermarionation productions '' Four Feather Falls'', ''Supercar'', '' Fireball XL5'' and ''Stingray''. It concerns the exploits of International Rescue, a life-saving organisation with a secret base on an island in the Pacific Ocean. International Rescue operates a fleet of technologically-advanced rescue vehicles, headed by five craft ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
