Thunderbirds at 60: The grief, genius and enduring magic behind Gerry Anderson’s sci-fi classic

Created using the Andersons’ signature 'Supermarionation' technique – a combination of puppetry, model work and special effects – Thunderbirds became a landmark in British television. Its ambitious production design, distinctive characters and iconic theme music helped it stand apart from other science-fiction series of its time. The show went on to inspire feature films, spin-offs and modern reimaginings, securing its status as a cultural touchstone and a lasting symbol of creative ambition.

When Jamie Anderson reflects on his father’s most famous creation, he does so with both affection and awe. "I’ve been considering this a lot over the last few months," he says. "And I think Thunderbirds is the one show that taps into the greatest number of important things that were central to Dad’s life, his existence, and his emotional world."

For all its futuristic sheen, Thunderbirds came from a deeply emotional place. Gerry’s elder brother Lionel was a Royal Air Force pilot who died in 1944 when his de Havilland Mosquito was shot down over the Netherlands. He was just 22. It’s said that the name Thunderbirds itself was inspired by "Thunderbird Field", the Arizona air base where Lionel trained during the war.

His loss haunted Gerry throughout his life, and Jamie – a producer, writer and director who manages his father's legacy through Anderson Entertainment – believes that grief is woven into the very fabric of the show. "I think it’s the one where he put most of his trauma on screen," he says of Thunderbirds, a series which followed Gerry's earlier efforts including Supercar, Fireball XL5 and Stingray.

"Those traumatic things from his childhood resulted in themes that are universally resonant – things like family, and family being at the centre of everything."

That sense of family became the heartbeat of Thunderbirds, with the close-knit Tracy brothers risking their lives in the name of International Rescue. "That family relationship was drawn from his own – his difficult relationship with his parents and his relationship with his brother,” Jamie explains. “It wasn’t a happy childhood, and his brother became that kind of hero, aspirational figure."

In the Anderson household, Lionel’s memory was never far away. "I don’t think Dad was consciously aware of how much of himself he had poured into the emotional engine that drove Thunderbirds," Jamie says. "But he would often say to me, 'I have never and will never get over Lionel’s death.' It came up a couple of times a year – whenever there was news about wartime, or conscription, or stories about people in the services, he’d always end up saying, 'I’ll never get over the loss of my brother.'

"He wasn’t nostalgic, but Lionel was his hero. I think there must have been some emotional solace in revisiting that relationship through Thunderbirds."

It’s this emotional honesty – combined with the show’s dazzling sense of scale – that explains why Thunderbirds continues to resonate with new generations. Jamie sees it as part of a broader post-war creative flowering, where young men shaped by conflict imagined better worlds.

"That whole generation of kids who grew up during wartime and went on to have fantastic creative careers – Dad being the top of that list, but also people like Brian Clemens [the screenwriter and television producer, best known for writing and producing classic British TV series such as The Avengers, The New Avengers and The Professionals].

"These wartime kids grew up in a fractured, difficult, damaged world, then went on to imagine a creative future that was unified, hopeful, and used technology for good."

At the same time, Thunderbirds stood apart from much of children’s television that followed. "I maintain that kids don’t really want to see kids on screen," Jamie says. "This obsession with 'kidifying' children’s TV characters just needs to stop. Thunderbirds proves it’s not needed – as does Doctor Who. When I was young, I couldn’t wait to watch things that were too old for me. It’s about not over-engineering things to tick boxes, but instead making what you genuinely care about. That’s what Dad did. He cared deeply about the morals and the inspirational qualities of his hero brother – and those values ended up on screen."

That integrity extended to the show’s extraordinary craftsmanship. From its lavish model work to its ambitious 'Supermarionation' puppetry, Thunderbirds was an astonishing technical leap forward from Gerry's previous works.

"Technically, the puppetry and special effects advanced as far as they possibly could," Jamie says. "The character designs became more attractive; the aesthetic was nailed. The models – Derek Meddings and his team – clearly had time to play around with blowing things up, making things look bigger, and inventing new tricks. They built such an incredible toolbox that there was almost no challenge too big."

The balance between humour and sincerity was just as deliberate. "If you look at the ratio of comedy to serious storytelling, it gradually shifts," Jamie explains. "Fireball XL5 still had a tweeness to it; Stingray mixed that with saccharine romance. But Thunderbirds reached a point where it took itself seriously most of the time. The weight went into the action, drama and aspirational, selfless acts from the boys – with just the right amount of humour on the side. I think they hit a kind of magic golden ratio in the tone of the show."

Gerry, however, wasn’t always comfortable with his most famous work. "By the late ’80s, he still thought Thunderbirds was his pinnacle – but he wanted to move on," Jamie recalls. "Then when the BBC resurgence came in the ’90s, that shifted his perspective. Until then, he was quite dismissive about it: 'Yes, I’m the guy that did Thunderbirds, but let’s move on.' But when a new audience embraced it, thinking it was made just for them, I think that awakened him to its true power. It wasn’t something to be slightly ashamed of anymore – it was his calling card."

Over the years, Gerry toyed with returning to the world of Thunderbirds. "I’ve got four or five different treatments he wrote between 2001 and 2008. In one of the later ones, the opening disaster was a mining disaster – still referencing the original inspiration from the 1960s [Thunderbirds was part-inspired by real-life mining rescue efforts in the early 1960s, particularly the 1963 Lengede disaster in Germany, which sparked Gerry Anderson’s idea for a series about heroes using technology to save lives.].

"So even in the 2000s, he was going back to that. I think in his mind, it was: if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it."

Despite its relatively short original run – just 32 episodes between 1965 and 1966 – Thunderbirds has endured in a way that few franchises can match. Later revivals included Jonathan Frakes’s 2004 live-action film, which failed to capture the spirit of the original, and ITV’s 2015 series Thunderbirds Are Go!, which mixed CGI with practical model work. Yet none of them have dimmed affection for the original.

"Unlike Star Trek or Star Wars, which have had constant new iterations, Thunderbirds only ran for 18 months in the mid-'60s," Jamie says. “Since then, there’s really been nothing – other than the films. And yet Thunderbirds has endured. That’s quite special."

That enduring appeal was proven again this month, when the Thunderbirds 60 cinema event brought two classic episodes back to the big screen. "When I first suggested it earlier this year, the reaction from distributors was: 'That’s nice – maybe we’ll get 10 screens,'" Jamie admits. "But I felt strongly that the appetite was still there, and it turned out to be much bigger than any of us expected. We got more screens for two episodes of a 60-year-old TV show than many independent films get now. Seeing three generations of families watching together – and standing ovations at the end – was mind-boggling."

He smiles when considering what his father would have made of the event. "I think Dad would have been both massively proud and infuriated that it had been blown up to such high fidelity on the big screen, with puppet wires now two inches thick in close-ups!"

That mix of pride, humour and humanity feels fitting for Thunderbirds’ diamond anniversary. It’s a series that dared to dream big, but also one born from the ache of a brother lost too soon. As Jamie puts it, it’s that combination of passion and pain that continues to make it timeless. "It’s basically passions and trauma from the creatives, expressed through their work, that made Thunderbirds so... authentic," he says. "I hate that word, but it’s the best catch-all term we’ve got. It gave audiences the potential to connect with it for the rest of time."

Read more:

• Thunderbirds creator Gerry Anderson-inspired new animated series confirmed
• Thunderbirds gets special edition Blu-ray set as it turns 60 – and there's more good news for fans

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