2003 Archive 
Ok - it's over. BBC4 showed "Thunderbirds Night" last Wednesday. To start with 2 episodes of Thunderbirds (in Horrendous Surround) and the pilot of Captain Scarlet.
Been there, seen that. Skip it.
On to the new things: the "All about Thunderbirds" documentary. It had some new twists. Gerry is sitting on the bonnet of the real size FAB1 (the one that is far too square to be the real FAB1) and this car drives through London with some look-alike (well, actually, not very) Gerry and Sylvia in the back seat. The well known story from Supercar onwards to Space:1999 is told. But with some new footage from home movies showing Lew Grade and his LG10 Rolls Royce, and memories from Alan Perry, Alan Shubrook, Mary Turner, Matt Zimmerman, Shane Rimmer , David Graham, Gerry as well as Sylvia (drinking tea in some stately home, but not Stourhead). And Nick Parks admitting his tribute in Wallace & Gromit's Close Shave.
The premiere of "Trapped in the Sky" was re-enacted with a cardboard back of Lew Grade's head and the historically incorrect widescreen showing of the pilot.
All clips from the series are in widescreen, as is the documentary itself. If this is any sign of what the future Blue Ray/High Definition DVD releases are going to look like: I hope it won't happen. To make a 3:4 image 9:16 means chopping off a lot of bottom and top - reducing the heads to part-heads upto their eye browses. So better picture, but much less of it. Why not just leave it 3:4 and use black side bars at left and right. And while going on, reinstall the original mono soundtrack. At least as an option. See below for comparisons of the two framing ratios.
The documentary is broken in two parts (oddly enough break at 40 minutes) and the Zoom commercial with Jeff Tracy is shown. Also in widescreen. So Henk van Zanten's submission of his 16mm print to Carlton at the time, has served its purpose once more. And again, half of it is missing thanks to widescreen/short sight.
The next item is "The Reunion Party". Built from linking footage for Stingray as released on the Stingray DVD set as bonus. Now the missing episode bits are inserted and shown as the 40th episode. Again in widescreen. Which required the end titles to be re-done (as the original sliding in bars with the credits were either out of screen or at least partly gone). Dare I mention 3:4 would do fine here?
The following images illustrate the 9:16 widescreen image of the Stingray episode (shot from the pilot used in "Reunion Party") and compares it with the same picture from the ordinary 3:4 episode.
In this latter picture I have bleached out the part of the image that makes up the widescreen image. The remainder (here mostly on the bottom part) is simply dropped off.
So we have a bigger, wider image but with much less information. Not the way to treat old 3:4 films.
The final item is Mastermind with a maths teacher specializing in Gerry Anderson's Thunderbirds (in order not to be confused with the failed movie of 2003). It was amazing the guy did not know who the special effects director was. That he did not know Warren Grafton as the crook in Brink of Disaster may be forgiven. I don't know the name of the constable either who was put out of action by Parker...
Additional questions the Mastermind did not know the answer to were:
- name of the hospital from Give or Take A Million (passed)
- author of episodes like Mighty Atom (wrong: John Read)
And what drink was drugged for Penelope in Paris? (wrong answer: her coffee). (correct answer is pernod)
All in all, it was rare treat for fans, marred only by the decision to use widescreen inappropriately for 3:4 ratio clips and taking some liberties at historical facts.
UPDATE:
On Friday afternoon BBC4 suddenly programmed two additional short programs of 5 minutes:
- The making of Thunderbirds: Gerry Anderson's Grand Day Out. This is the well known colour newsreel showing Stingray and Thunderbirds. But the featurette has been shortened to make some room for the opening footage where Gerry Anderson is driven in this real sized FAB1 and introduces the featurette. The real sized FAB1 was shown before at a Fanderson convention and is modelled after the Dinky Toys model. I'm told the radiator can be moved downwards to show a life-sized arrow with red top. Cool!
- Future Fashions. Introduced by the BBC as fashion for the marionettes, but actually a short interview with Sylvia Anderson in psychedelic late-60's surroundings about the purple wig and silver costumes of SHADO Moonbase personnel. The interview is preceded by a short introduction of today's Sylvia Anderson from the mansion where she's having tea.