Commander Straker in UFO looks and sounds an awful lot like Captain Blue in CAPTAIN SCARLET. Coincidence? Absolutely not. Captain Blue was voiced by American actor Ed Bishop in his first role for Gerry Anderson, and the puppet bore a strong resemblence to Bishop with one exception: Blue was blond, while Bishop had dark hair. When Bishop was later cast as the lead in UFO, his hair was bleached blond, which made the resemblence between Straker and his previous series incarnation even stronger. Reportedly Bishop asked for the Captain Blue puppet as a souvenir after SCARLET ended and was turned down.