Why was THUNDERBIRDS cut to a half-hour for its 1994 run on FOX?

The editing of THUNDERBIRDS from its one-hour original format to half-hour shows with new music, credits, and dialog track for its 1994 run on the U.S.-based FOX network has been the subject of much debate. In a letter widely circulated on USENET and the FAB-L mailing list, ITC claimed a number of reasons why THUNDERBIRDS had to be cut down: Pressure from FOX's Standards and Practices to remove unsavory or inappropriate elements (drinking, smoking, subservient minorities, excessive violence); the short attention span of U.S. children made the hour-long format impractical; the sale in the mid-1980s of the ITC music libraries to U.S. pop star Michael Jackson meant the music and vocal tracks had to be edited out and redubbed with new voices and music; the credits after all the edits were made were simply inappropriate to the new show.

There is much evidence to the contrary to counter ITC's assertions that these were the reasons THUNDERBIRDS was cut: Recent runs on The Sci-Fi Channel of SCARLET (one of Anderson's most violent shows) and STINGRAY (where all the characters smoke and drink in several scenes) and the THUNDERBIRDS films on TNT, all of which also used the ITC music and vocal tracks, were left reasonably unmarked (cut only for time constraints and commercial breaks); much of the Anderson library, including THUNDERBIRDS, had run in their original format on the BBC only a year earlier and had been released on laserdisk in Japan, also in their original format; computer technology has made scene-editing to remove undesired elements almost embarrassingly easy, meaning cigarettes and wine glasses could have been looped out without much effort.

There has been some debate on USENET and the FAB-L about whether the cutting for time compression of SCARLET and STINGRAY on SFC does not qualify as "editing", which is why SFC is able to get away with running the episodes with their original tracks, versus FOX's desire for more substantial edits creating "new use" of the footage that meant the vocal tracks had to be removed; much of that debate, however, is pure speculation. More than likely, the decision was a business one, done to maximize profits, and we shall never know the true reasons behind the dramatic editing done to THUNDERBIRDS.

By the way, the FOX editing was not the last editing done to THUNDERBIRDS to "bring it to a new generation," as ITC has repeatedly excused its cuts of the series. A completely reworked version of the FOX edits was made for the AMAZIN' ADVENTURES syndicated package of childrens shows running on affiliates of the U.S.-based United Paramount Network; the new version, which includes live-action footage of two teens at "Hacker Command" (a.k.a. Thunderbird 5) "controlling" action in "Thunder-World", is called TURBOCHARGED THUNDERBIRDS and began running in late 1994 and was withdrawn from syndication in mid-1995. Of considerable interest in the TURBOCHARGED THUNDERBIRDS version is the inclusion of some of the footage FOX found objectionable, particularly puppets smoking and some rather violent explosions.