ddw@cornell.UUCP (08/18/83)
From: ddw (David Wright)
To: net-tv
Still more useless info on various tv shows:
The scientific wizard behind International Rescue (Thunderbirds) was a
fellow known only as "Brains." Wore glasses and stuttered a lot. The
bad guy on the show was known as "The Hood." (I got this name from the
books; I don't think he was ever named on the show.) He was always
trying to steal IR's secrets; his ace in the hole was that Kyrano (the
servant of the IR family) was his half brother, and by looking at a
statue of Kyrano he kept around, the Hood could hypnotize the real
guy and get info about IR's latest projects (the statue would talk!)
You knew when the Hood was doing this because his eyes would light up.
(Literally.) IR did have other agents around the world; I can remember
some Ma-and-Pa-Kettle types from one show who almost give some guy in
a sports car heart failure by passing him in their souped up Model T.
(Well, it looked a lot like a Model T, anyway.) That Brains was a
busy fellow.
-------------
The first lines of the Fireball XL5 song were
"I wish I were an astronaut,
The fastest guy alive.
I'd fly you 'round the Universe
In Fireball XL5."
-------------
The name of the organization to which Captain Scarlet belonged was
Spectrum, I think. All the major agents were "Captain <Color>;" I
recall a Captain Okra (honest!) from one show. The baddies were
the Mysterons and came from outer space. At the beginning of every
show, they'd kill off some poor schmuck and take over his body. You
knew they were doing this because these white rings of light would
appear and pass over the deceased poor schmuck. The Mysterons were
always warning Spectrum what they were going to do next, although
usually in an oblique and misleading fashion. They continued to do
this despite the fact that Spectrum always figured it out in time
and saved the day. Sort of makes you wonder how smart they really
were. Never knew what their motivation was, either. ("This is the
voice of the Mysterons. We know you can hear us, Earthmen....")
Captain Scarlet was indestructible (even the theme song for the show
mentioned the fact), but I don't know how he got that way. One of the
neatest features of the show was that the pilots of the fighter planes
were women (hey, let's hear it out there!) and were known as Melody,
Rhapsody, and Harmony Angel. (These \could/ be code names, let us hope.)
The Shadow Box of David Wright
{vax135|floyd|allegra|decvax|ihnp4|uw-beaver}!cornell!ddw
ddw.cornell@udel-relay
ddw@cornell (Arpanet and CSnet)edward@utcsrgv.UUCP (Edward Hsing) (08/19/83)
Yah!! I remember those fighter pilot ladies. Weren't they called the Blue Angles. Why don't they make shows like that anymore
dws@mit-eddie.UUCP (Don Saklad) (08/21/83)
Babes in Toyland, Peter Pan and Gianni Scichi are three musical and opera broadcast extravaganzas. Zero Mostel's performance as a Puccini character who portraying a man in his last throws writes a will after the real death of the wealthy Buozo Donati was on CBS. A one shot deal with little publicity before the broadcast. Would someone remind me about production credits and details for Babes in Toyland -- wasn't there the banana man who extracted an entire toy trainload of things from his pockets, including violins and watermelons. He must have been in vaudeville. The toy train carried him and all the many wonders from his pockets off at the end.
spaf@gatech.UUCP (08/23/83)
Captain Okra!? Might you mean Captain Ocre? Or was
he a disgusting vegetable due to some accident?
(Collision with collard greens and grits, perhaps?)
--
The soapbox of Gene Spafford
CSNet: Spaf @ GATech ARPA: Spaf.GATech @ UDel-Relay
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