Supercar

I can't remember just where now, but the other day I was talking to someone about Gerry Anderson shows and about Supercar in particular.

They said they knew someone who looked and spoke just like Dr Beaker, the character on the left.

First broadcast in early 1961 Supercar was about a futuristic combination car, submarine, hovercraft and aircraft. Designed and built by Professor Popkiss and Dr Beaker and piloted by Mike Mercury, the chap in the middle, it's first mission was to rescue the orphan Jimmy Gibson on the right of the photo.

Dr Beaker was a charicature of an English academic, whose favourite phrase was "Satisfactory...most satisfactory..."

I always maintain you can know someone's age by showing them photos of Gerry Anderson shows...

Venus - Your Strings Are Showing...

Every now and then my screensaver throws this one up at me from all the thousands of images I have on the computer.

I always think you can judge someone's age by the earliest Gerry Anderson show they remember. I'm a Four Feather Falls man myself...

That was preceded (apparently) by Torchy the Battery Boy and Twizzle but they mean nothing to me other than having seen photos of them.

Four Feather Falls was a western, in an era when both childrens' and adults' TV was dominated by American western series - The Lone Ranger, Bronco Lane, Cheyenne Body, Tenderfoot, Champion the Wonder Horse, Laramie, The Rifleman, Waggon Train, My Friend Flicker, the list is almost endless! I can still remember the theme tunes from the first five of those!!!

Anyway Four Feather Falls was followed by Supercar, then Fireball XL5 which is shown, during which colour TV came out which led to the first Gerry Anderson colour series, Stingray. The hugely popular Thunderbirds followed that and then I was getting less interested in things like Joe 90, The Secret Service, Captain Scarlet etc. Interest revived with live action series like UFO and Space 1999 and Space Precinct which was quite a bit later.

Right: me with the man himself - Gerry Anderson at Memorabilia in 2006.