2003 Archive 
First it was Robert Holmes A' Court, then Alan Bond. Australia's richest men both had their hands on the Thunderbirds, but let the classic '60s show slip from their grasp. Now it looks like the rights to the series will soon be back on the market and creator Gerry Anderson is on the lookout for another wealthy Australian. "Listen, I don't mind if they're in prison or in Majorca. If that's what it takes, I'm going to go there!" Later this month, Anderson will visit Australia to promote and sell limited edition "fine art" reproductions of Thunderbird 1 pilot, Scott Tracy ($1,100 (AUS)), and 600 lithographs (from $400 (AUS)) from the series at an exhibition that also honors his ground-breaking career.
No matter that his show was made for American television. Its popularity extended to 66 countries in the year after its 1965 debut. But the biggest markets were always Australia, England and Japan, says Andrew Van Embden, curator of the forthcoming "Fabulous Thunderbirds Experience" exhibition at The Comic Art Gallery in Armadale.
The rights to the Thunderbirds have always belonged to bigger players. Though Anderson and his first wife Sylvia created the series together - they split acrimoniously in 1976 - Anderson's company was a subsidiary of big-time television and movie producer Lew Grade's enterprise (which was also responsible for The Saint, On Golden Pond and Jesus of Nazareth). Anderson eventually sold the company to Grade. After Grade came Robert Holmes a' Court and then Bond.
When Grade's distribution company in America, ITC, had a management buyout, it bought back the rights from Bond until PolyGram got the Thunderbird bug and took over, explains Anderson. "The interesting thing is, PolyGram is being taken over by Universal Pictures and according to the trade press, Universal does not want the film division, so I think the Thunderbirds rights will be coming back on the market, in which case I will be looking for a rich Australian to come and help me buy it!" An historic fondness for controlling interest is not the only Australian link to the show. A clutch of Australian actors working in England were prized by the Andersons for their ability to do a good American accent. Regulars included Ray Barrett (Hotel Sorrento and Brilliant Lies) as John Tracy and the villainous Hood, and Charles Tingwell, who voiced characters in most episodes. Barry Humphries, John Bluthal and John Tate were also involved, but Anderson's memories of the Antipodean extras are dim.
"Ray Barrett was a very nice guy and very, very important member of the team. "Anderson recalls Barrett also playing a kidnapped duchess. "I can see the recording session right now when he did it. Everyone had the greatest difficulty not laughing." Our illustrious city (Melbourne) also featured in an episode called The Mighty Atom, says Van Embden: "Something about a radioactive duststorm sweeping across Australia and heading for Melbourne." In the Cry Wolf episode, two Australians on an outback farm sent hoax calls to the Tracy family organisation, International Rescue, and in the movie 'Thunderbird 6', a shot of the Sydney Harbour Bridge is included in Skyship One's round-the-world voyage. OK, that might be stretching it a little.
PolyGram's recent plans for another movie (there have been two: Thunderbirds Are Go in 1966 and Thunderbird 6 in 1968) fell in a heap, much to Anderson's relief "I'm not very keen on PolyGram, I'm afraid," says the reticent Anderson. This genteel scolding is, you imagine, as close as he gets to engaging in the twisted politics of Hollywood.
"They behaved atrociously to me and, frankly, they didn't have a clue how to handle the picture and as a result it's collapsed. Originally, they asked me to make it and then they decided to give it to one of their production companies. But they didn't understand the series and they had a script that was more like a James Bond picture than a Thunderbird picture and they produced a ridiculously high and unnecessary budget because, in my view, they didn't approach it the right way."
If the movie ever gets up, it will certainly spawn a merchandising frenzy (Sydney-based Southern Star owns those rights in Australia), but in the meantime, collectors pay dearly for what 33-year-old relics remain.
The holy grail for any collector is an original puppet, which can command up to $90,000 (AUS) at auction. One British worshipper paid $85,000 (AUS) for a Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward puppet, all 55cm of her, and another paid close to $60,000 (AUS) for her pink Rolls Royce with the Thunderbirds' call-sign F.A.B. on the numberplate.
As for the other members of the Tracy family -patriarch Jeff and his five sons Scott, Virgil, Alan, Gordon and John - Van Embden suggests that possibly only their heads have survived and may be in circulation. "Nobody had the foresight of knowing what these things would be worth. They were part of the tools, nothing else ... Most of the actual Thunderbirds props, because they were so big, and I think this was true for every series including Irwin Allen's Lost In, Space, were just turfed. Those wonderful models and everything." It's sad to imagine the Pacific island headquarters of International Rescue fossilising in land-fill. Or the dashing Scott, with his Rob Lowe looks and come-kiss-me dimples, and Baywatch babe Alan, as bodyless heads in a television trivia graveyard.
Brains and Tin Tin, meanwhile, survive. Somewhere in South Australia, for the past decade, they have remained sealed in glass cases. The collector does not want his or her name or their auction prices released, but has agreed to display them at the forthcoming exhibition. Likewise, Anderson has Aloysius Nosey Parker, Lady Penelope's manservant, hidden with a bag over his head, until he goes to auction in coming months. "I am not a collector and I never have been. I have pretty well nothing from the series at all and I don't mean this in any way disrespectful to the shows I've made, but if the show's on television, I just walk out of the room ... I never think about them unless it's an interview, like today."
The continuing adulation, Van Embden hears, is not something that sits comfortably with Anderson. Yet he must be responsible for the vigorous Web following the show commands three decades later, the episodes still carried in video stores and the worldwide networks forced to repeat his series over and over again. After such resounding early success, why, then, did Anderson only make 32 one-hour episodes? Incredible as it seems, it simply wasn't done back then. "When I went to see Lew Grade, who was the guy who'd backed it, he said to me 'Gerry, I think it will be difficult to sell more of the shows and it would be easier for me if you make something new". And I was horrified, but I never used to argue with this guy because he was a very nice guy and like all of us, he makes mistakes but he had a good track record of making the right decisions."
Anderson's own company included toy, record and publishing arms and was equipped to carry on the Thunderbirds enterprise for years to come, but he required the financial backing of Grade's company to produce another series. "I've never been in a position to finance anything of that calibre. In today's money we're talking in the order of