They Aint Heavy, They're the Hollies

 

The mid 70s was a good place to begin exploring the music of the 1960s. Pop was in the doldrums – glam rock had sunk into rock and roll revivalism, and the charts were easy pickings for any bunch of session musicians who fancied a crack at number one. On the album scene, heavy and progressive rock ruled – and I've always hated heavy rock.

It was in the spring of 1974 that I began to look back at the music of the past decade, beginning with The Beatles. I knew most of their singles, but didn’t own any of their records. This was soon set to rights with the acquisition of the 1966 compilation A Collection of Beatles Oldies. Over the next twelve months, my brother and myself would gradually acquire their entire back catalogue, with the curious omission of the ‘White Album’ and the more understandable absence of Yellow Submarine (after all, who wanted half an album of George Martin intrumentals?)

Jimmy Savile’s Double Top Ten Show had introduced me to the music of The Shadows, a band whom I knew primarily for their 1975 Eurovision appearance, and I didn’t need much encouragement to begin exploring their back catalogue in greater detail. Fortunately, almost all of their original albums were still readily obtainable. But when it came to bands like The Hollies, it was a different matter altogether.

Skimming through the record section in our local branch of W.H. Smith, I turned up numerous Hollies LPs – but they were almost all recent releases in naff sleeves. The only item of any vintage was the late 60s collection Hollies Greatest, with a sleeve showing the band’s somewhat risible attempt to look psychedelic. They looked as if they’d got dressed in the dark, donning random items from a jumble sale. I would soon come to realise that ‘psychedelic’ and The Hollies were uneasy bedfellows… but I wasn't about to let their image deter me from delving into their back catalogue...

A school friend owned a double LP of their hits, which served as my introduction to chart singles like “We’re Through” (the band’s first self-composed ‘A’ side), “Yes I Will” and “Bus Stop.” The same friend owned a vintage LP that he’d discovered in a local junk shop. Dating from summer 1966, Would You Believe was a very listenable collection of well-chosen cover versions and intriguing original numbers. Revisiting it this week, I realised that it’s a contender for the band’s best album. The playing is tight, Ron Richards’ production work excellent, and the always superb vocals are backed up by some fine instrumentation. Lead guitarist Tony Hicks had recently acquired a Vox Phantom electric 12-string guitar, and its jangling tones are all over the album. Elsewhere, he plays a Gibson ES-345, a guitar with a 6-way tone control that he seems to have kept set permanently on position number three. When, years later, I acquired the same model, I immediately recognised position three as the ‘Tony Hicks sound’. 

Graham Nash’s influence was beginning to make inroads into the band’s songwriting, as was the influence of Bob Dylan – the second cut on side one is the decidedly Dylanesque “Hard, Hard Year”. Nash gets to sing lead vocals on a couple of his self-composed songs “I’ve Got a Way of My Own” and “Fifi the Flea.” The latter really shouldn’t work at all, being a sentimental/whimsical tale of unrequited love between two fleas in a flea circus – but somehow, Nash managed to pull it off after Allan Clarke refused to sing it.

The cover versions were amongst the best in the Hollies’ catalogue, including a reading of Paul Simon’s “I am a Rock” that if anything surpasses the original. For me, on first hearing this album way back in the mid 70s, the track that really stood out was “Don’t You Even Care (What’s Gonna Happen to Me?)” a song by Clint Ballard Jnr. who had previously supplied the band with their number one hit “I’m Alive.” The song sounds as if it had been intended as a follow-up single, with a great arrangement and stunning harmonies – surely the Hollies' hit that never was.

This album really convinced me that The Hollies were a band I should be taking more seriously – but tracking down their original album releases would prove to be a challenge, demanding of both time and money. The best I could manage at the time was a borrowed pre-recorded cassette of their 1967 album Evolution. Both title and cover design hinted that change was afoot – suddenly, The Hollies had gone a bit weird...

Back in the 1990s, the music magazine Mojo used to run a column called ‘Lance Corporal Nutmeg’, which investigated albums that had, in its own words, ‘missed being Sergeant Pepper by a country mile.’ One of the albums they featured was Evolution – and they weren’t kind to it. Evolution had the extreme bad luck to be released on the same day as Sergeant Pepper, and for all its endearing qualities, it really couldn’t hold a candle to what the Fab Four had been cooking up in the studio next door. The psychedelic Hollies sounded as daft as they looked on that greatest hits sleeve. Luckily, Evolution still leaned heavily on the pacey, harmonised pop that had become the band’s trademark, but where it deviated from the norm the results were mixed to say the least. “Heading for a Fall” included the drone of bagpipes (!) and “Water on the Brain” featured a tuba solo (!!) ‘Twee nonsense’ was how Mojo described the harpsichord-led “Ye Olde Toffee Shoppe”, which was as gruesome as its ‘olde worlde’ title suggests. But the worst cut by a long, long way – and arguably the worst recording in the band’s entire catalogue – was Allan Clarke’s “Lullaby to Tim”. It would have been mildly innocuous had it not been for the inexplicable decision to feed Graham Nash’s vocal through a Leslie speaker with the tremolo effect set to maximum. He comes out sounding like a gargling Dalek.

For all its 1967 trappings, Evolution was still, at its core, a great mid-60s pop album – but The Hollies were only halfway up their ascent of Mount Psychedelia, the summit of which would be attained with the album Butterfly, released a mere five months later. Back in the 70s and 80s, this album was hard to find, and for a long time, I didn’t even know it existed. I finally tracked down an original copy at a vintage record store on Birmingham’s Summer Row. The front cover was clearly influenced by the late 60s mania for Edwardiana, while the rear sleeve was a shot from the same photo session that provided the greatest hits cover, with the band in their carnaby street togs.

Before I got as far as Butterfly, I had to backtrack somewhat. I’d still not heard the band’s 1966 collection For Certain Because… notable for being The Hollies’ first album to consist entirely of self-composed material. It’s been described as the Mancunians’ take on Rubber Soul, and that’s not a bad summary. Nine of its twelve tracks are straightforward jangle pop, and it’s clear that the Clarke-Hicks-Nash songwriting team had upped its game, as there isn’t a bad one among them. Tony Hicks’ distinctive echoing banjo that had featured on the single “Stop, Stop, Stop” can be heard on two other cuts, and is a musical signature that no other band ever attempted. New arrival Bernie Calvert adds echoing electric piano to the song “Pay You Back With Interest” (a single in some territories) which also features Bobby Elliott on tubular bells, chiming in with Tony Hicks’ twelve-string.

Beyond these standard pop productions, the band took its first steps into the realm of orchestrated production, signalling the way towards future efforts like “King Midas in Reverse” and “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother.” The results are a mixed bag – “High Classed”, opening side two, aims at a kind of New Orleans style, while “What Went Wrong” pomps up an otherwise average song with histrionic brass and timpani. “Crusader” clearly displays the influence of Graham Nash, and again hints at a future musical direction – albeit one he would follow alongside David Crosby and Stephen Stills.

It wasn’t until the late 1980s that I finally netted Butterfly. Of all the Hollies albums I’d discovered to date, this one was perhaps the most disappointing. ‘Self indulgent piffle’ was Mojo's opinion of tracks like the sitar-drenched “Maker” at the time of the album’s CD reissue some years later. The trouble with psychedelia was that it tended to encourage bands into one of two camps – serious or whimsical. The Hollies aimed for the former with tracks like the Nash-influenced “Try It” and “Elevated Observations?” but landed in out and out whimsy with songs like “Wishyouawish” and Tony Hicks’ “Pegasus”. On first play, I hated most of Butterfly. The overtly psychedelic tracks just sounded derivative, and elsewhere the band were veering dangerously close to cabaret, a direction they would pursue more vigorously in 1968.

After the comparative failure of Nash’s ambitious, orchestrated single “King Midas in Reverse”, The Hollies reassessed their position and decided that they should return to straightforward, commercial pop. The result was the single “Jennifer Eccles” and another substantial hit. But Graham Nash still haboured ambitions to be taken seriously as an artist. When he offered up his breezy, pot-fuelled travelogue “Marrakesh Express”, the band were having none of it, opting to cut an album of Bob Dylan covers instead. Thus ended their ‘classic’ era, with Nash departing for America to team up with Crosby and Stills.

With Nash gone, the band still cut some fine singles: but songs like “Sorry Suzanne” were more suited to acts like Herman’s Hermits, and clearly labelled The Hollies as a family-friendly cabaret turn. My own personal exploration of their back catalogue ended with Butterfly, although I later chanced upon the 1969 album Hollies Sing Hollies when it emerged as a CD reissue and found it to be a decent if slightly bland collection of self-composed material.

Ironically, it was their post-Nash 1969 hit “He Aint Heavy, He’s My Brother” that had properly introduced me to The Hollies. I’d heard some of their singles prior to this, but had never quite put a name to the band. I missed out on hearing their subsequent singles until 1974’s comeback hit “The Air That I Breathe”, by which time Allan Clarke had left, tried to make it as a solo artist, and rejoined. By now, The Hollies felt very much like golden oldies, but I was impressed with Tony Hicks’ guitar work on the track. As a budding player myself, I was far more influenced by players like Hicks than any of the era’s rock gods. His work was always tasteful, interesting and to the point.

A 1988 CD collection, Rarities, gathered together some of the more obscure odds and ends from the Hollies' back catalogue, including their one and only movie theme "After the Fox", that saw the band, accompanied by vocal interjections from Peter Sellers, perform what must surely be Burt Bacharach's worst ever composition... it certainly contains one the most perverse chord changes in the history of popular music. Judge for yourself:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0b4k91aGn_U

By the 1990s, the old Hollies albums were beginning to resurface as reissues, initially on vinyl, then latterly as CDs. To begin with, EMI licensed the albums to independent labels like BGO, but eventually put out a decent set of reissues that offered up both mono and stereo versions of the original albums on a single CD (it’s a pity they’ve never done the same thing for The Beatles). Alongside these, comprehensive collections like The Hollies at Abbey Road made every A and B-side available on CD, together with unreleased tracks and a few alternate takes.

I sometimes feel sorry for bands like The Hollies: they set out in an era of uncomplicated beat music and quickly mastered their art. Then along came The Beatles and the game changed. It was no longer enough to put out radio-friendly commercial pop – you had to demonstrate your credentials as a serious artist, and that meant making ‘statements’ in the form of albums. Yet there has never been anything wrong with a commercial, hook-driven, well-performed pop single, and few bands could do that better than The Hollies. If, like me, you choose to explore their albums, don’t look for artistic statements or cerebral concepts – you won’t find any. What you will find are some great collections of songs that could easily have been singles. And the beauty of those CD reissues is that you can skip over the embarrassing bits...

007 on TV

 

‘BOND ON TELLY FOR 1^st TIME’ shouted my all-caps diary entry for Tuesday 28 October 1975. The film was, of course, Dr. No, and it went out on ITV at 8pm that evening, the most anticipated televisual event of the year. The TV Times celebrated with a cover featuring Sean Connery and Ursula Andress; the magazine had primed viewers a week early, with a four-page feature on the Bond phenomenon, which continued the following week by focusing on ‘The Gorgeous Girls of James Bond’ (well, it was 1975 after all…) On the listings page for Tuesday 28 October, Bond incongruously shared column inches with Crossroads, The Benny Hill Show and an advert targeting sufferers from back-ache...

Dr. No may have been thirteen years old, but its arrival on television was greeted as a media event. It seems curious, looking back, that ITV had chosen a Tuesday night for Bond’s TV debut – surely this was worthy of a Sunday evening, or even Christmas? Latterly, this would certainly be the case, but back in 1975, ITV was treading very carefully. The broadcaster had come under some pressure from cinema owners who feared a drop in takings when the still very popular film franchise made the transition to the small screen.

The ITV deal, reportedly costing £850,000, had been announced in the press as far back as January 1974, when it was hoped that the broadcasts would begin in September of that year. ITV initially denied the reports, claiming in The Stage that no such deal had been done. It was the Daily Mail that finally confirmed the story on 18 January 1974, sparking an immediate backlash from the cinema industry, with the result that Bond’s television debut would be deferred by a whole year, during which time the films were re-released to cinemas in a package of double bills. It was thanks to this round of cinema screenings that I got to see my first Bond movies in the summer of ‘74.

ITV’s contract allowed for each of the films in the initial package to be broadcast just twice, not exceeding two screenings within the space of one year. There was further controversy when it emerged that the Trident Television group, made up of the Yorkshire and Tyne Tees regions, was proposing to hike advertising rates during the Bond films from the standard £3,700 to £5,000 for a thirty second spot. This decision was reversed following intervention by the UK Price Commission, a body that had been set up by the Heath government under the Counter-Inflation Act of 1973.

From Russia With Love was the next Bond to find its way onto the small screen in May 1976 and this time was afforded the prestige of a Sunday evening slot, running from 7.55 until 10pm. The ITV screenings were all very well, but you had to put up with the commercial breaks, and the presentation on old school 4:3 format television was hardly comparable with what one saw in the cinema or on today’s widescreen transmissions. Most of the films were also trimmed slightly for violence. Compared to the high definition remasters that are used for today's broadcasts, the 1970s television Bonds would look quite crude to modern viewers, presented from 35mm physical film, complete with dirt, sparkle (dirt on the negative printed into the film) and occasional splices.

In line with their contractual agreement, ITV were able to show another Bond movie during 1976, and Goldfinger duly put in an appearance on Wednesday 3 November. These midweek screenings were most likely an appeasement to cinema owners, whose Saturday night turnover would have taken a hit with a competing Bond film on television. The following year brought Thunderball (Sunday 26 February) and You Only Live Twice (Sunday 20 November), whilst in 1978, ITV kicked off its autumn season with On Her Majesty’s Secret Service on Monday 4 September, and hoped for a Christmas Day ratings winner with Diamonds Are Forever, which went out at 6.45pm. On this occasion, however, Bond failed to do the business, the BBC having countered with a blockbuster of their own: The Sound of Music was given its UK television debut at 4.20pm that afternoon, and Auntie won the ratings war hands down: even the might of Bond, Morecambe and Wise couldn’t compete with the combined talents of Julie Andrews, Mike Yarwood and Frank Spencer…

By now, the ITV Bonds were slowly catching up on the cinema releases. When the broadcasts began, back in 1975, Dr. No was over a decade old. Now the TV Bonds had reached the 1970s. Viewers would have to wait a year to see Live and Let Die, and when it premiered on ITV on Sunday 20 January 1980, an astonishing 23.5 million viewers were tuned in, a record audience for any film on UK television which has never been beaten. The year was topped and tailed by 007, and The Man With the Golden Gun was ITV’s Christmas Day offering. Roger Moore graced the cover of the double issue TV Times in a specially-comissioned photo shoot alongside Janet Brown (in character as Margaret Thatcher) and Morecambe and Wise. The film went out at 6.10pm, putting it up against Larry Grayson’s Generation Game and Dallas over on BBC1.

All this time, I’d been keeping up with the Bonds on their ITV premieres, but from Moonraker onwards, I took less of an interest. When The Spy Who Loved Me arrived on television on 28 March 1982, I was elsewhere (at a special screening of Avengers episodes, in fact). Moonraker was that year’s Christmas Day offering, just over three years on from its theatrical debut.

By now, I’d lost interest in the Bond franchise: Moonraker was the last of the series that I saw in a cinema, and it wasn't until much later that I caught up with Roger Moore’s last few films, by which time television screens had expanded to 16:9 allowing the movies to be shown in their original aspect ratios.

After an interregnum commencing in 2012 during which Sky owned broadcast rights, ITV began screening the Bonds again in 2022, to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the franchise. In all this time, Bond has only appeared once on BBC television, when From Russia With Love was shown on BBC2 (Sunday 29 July 2007) as part of a season celebrating British cinema.

Today, Bond is still a regular fixture on ITV, with the ‘classic’ era films (Connery-Moore) often appearing in weekend afternoon and late night seasons, and more recent entries going out in primetime slots. Following the broadcast of No Time to Die on New Year’s Day 2021, the TV Bonds finally caught up with the cinema releases. What happens next is anybody’s guess, with the franchise now in the hands of Amazon, although it is reported that ITV has done a deal to secure broadcast rights for the foreseeable future.

Movies on television are no longer quite the events they were half a century ago, when British viewers had only three channels to choose from, and most of today's blockbusters find their way to the small(ish) screen in a relatively short time – it's unthinkable that any film today would take thirteen years to make the transition from cinema to television, or that the TV premiere of any movie could cause such a stir as did James Bond back in 1975.

Boing! (Again...)

 

Sixty Years of the Magic Roundabout

An icon of children’s television has just turned 60, for it was in October 1965 when viewers young and old first took a spin on The Magic Roundabout. Created by French advertising executive Serge Danot and animated by his colleague Ivor Wood, Le Manège Enchanté had been a big hit on the ORTF network in 1964, but the BBC initially passed when offered the filmed series. The creators persisted, and following a reshuffle in the BBC children’s department, the series was duly accepted.

In its French incarnation, Le Manège Enchanté was a somewhat frantic five minutes of jabbering characters with eccentric voices. Pollux, a shaggy dog, was a comical English hound whose French was delivered with a very bad accent (anticipating the policeman of ‘Allo ‘Allo…) British viewers, however, would get to see something rather different. The task of providing English narration fell to actor Eric Thompson, who could neither read nor speak French. For the most part, he ignored the original scripts, and made up his own stories based on what he could see on screen. Thompson took the stories at a leisurely pace – his narration style, leaving just the right amount of space between the dialogue, was later perfectly imitated by Jasper Carrott’s memorable 1970s parody: “Hello Dougal… said Florence.”

ORFT had used the series to fill a five-minute gap before their evening news bulletin, and mindful of their success with this piece of innovative scheduling, the BBC did likewise. The corporation had, in fact, been trialling a ‘pre-news five minutes’ slot since September of 1965, filling it with episodes of Hergé’s Adventures of Tintin, prior to which the evening news had generally been preceded by programmes of twenty or twenty-five minutes duration. Tintin lasted just four weeks before his place in the schedule was handed over to the new arrival.

The first series of The Magic Roundabout had been filmed in black and white, and unlike the standalone stories that followed, took the form of a serial. Episode one  sees a magical jack-in-the-box called Zebedee delivered to forlorn Mr. Rusty, and promising that he will bring back the children to ride on his neglected roundabout https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZlhnP8TBCY. Over the coming episodes, a quartet of children appeared, of whom only one, Florence, would go on to be a regular in the series. As yet, there was no sign of Dougal, Brian, Dylan or Ermintrude the cow; but once they made their appearance, the whole style and tone of the series would be transformed.

Thompson based Dougal’s character on the world-weary cynicism of Tony Hancock, rubbing up against the eternally jovial Brian Snail, and began to insert sly references into the dialogue, realising that a substantial adult audience was watching on the quiet. Dougal would occasionally refer to weatherman Bert Foord, whose bulletins invariably followed the daily visits to the Magic Garden. Some of the ‘adult’ references probably went over the heads of even older viewers: ‘I am a camera,’ declares Brian Snail in one episode (a camera tripod having been mounted on his shell), referencing the 1951 play by John Van Druten. It was almost post-modern…

Two Dougals are joined by Dylan, Mr. MacHenry, and Zebedee –
the small plastic figures were given away in packets of Kellogg's Ricicles circa 1969

The knowing tone of the scripts soon gave rise to an urban myth that has persisted to the present day, to the effect that the series was delivering a sly drug culture subtext. Dylan the sleepy, guitar playing rabbit was key to this ‘interpretation’; named after the most famous guitar-wielding folkie on Earth, he gave every impression of being stoned, while Dougal consumed huge quantities of sugar lumps, well known in counter cultural circles as a means to partake of LSD...

Whatever was going on, The Magic Roundabout was an immediate hit on BBC1. Its first series ran until Christmas 1965, and was repeated immediately. Not only was the series itself deemed a success, the BBC realised that the ‘five minutes before the news’ slot in the schedule had great potential. In the collective memory, it seems as if The Magic Roundabout was always on, and always in that same slot, but as we’ll see, this was by no means the case. A new, Hungarian cartoon series, Peter’s Adventures, took its place in March 1966. Totally forgotten today, this was a quirkily experimental cartoon with a wordless soundtrack of music and sound effects that depicted the surreal adventures of a small, round-headed boy, his sister Kati and their pet dachshund. Lasting for less than a month, it was replaced by further adventures of Tintin, which now annexed the pre-news slot for the forseeable future.

On Monday 3 October, The Magic Roundabout returned with a second series, filmed in colour, but broadcast in black and white (British viewers would not see it in colour until 1970). The slow, melancholic theme tune of the first series was given a jaunty makeover this time around, which would linger long in the memory. The first episode was entitled Florence Give Dougal a Shock: but it was viewers who were in for a shock, when, on Monday 17 October, and without any warning, the BBC moved the programme an hour earlier to 4.55, with an episode appropriately titled Dougal Finds Life Dull.

The scheduling reshuffle meant that, for the time being, there was no five minute, pre-news programme – even Junior Points of View had been migrated to the earlier time. Viewers were furious and complained to the BBC. The corporation had seemingly been unaware of the series’ crossover appeal between children and adults, but were quick to respond to the many complaints, and on Monday 28 November, The Magic Roundabout was returned to its beloved spot before the news.

Above (and top): a selection of the Magic Roundabout sweet cigarette cards, circa 1970

By this time, the series wasn’t just a success on television: it was being eagerly taken up by merchandisers, again taking the BBC entirely by surprise. A swift internal memo was circulated listing similar series with the potential for licensed character merchandising (intriguingly, Peter’s Adventures was amongst the titles listed). For Britain’s animators, the success of The Magic Roundabout must have come as a wake-up call. Here was a prime slot in the TV schedules, with the power to reach much wider audiences than were available for the lunchtime placement of Watch With Mother. Even so, it would be a few years before any home-grown productions appeared ahead of the evening news.

For the first six months of 1967, The Magic Roundabout remained unassailable in its prime early evening spot. Through July, August and September, Dougal, Florence and co. took a summer vacation, with the slot filled by the return of Tintin, a repeat run for Peter’s Adventures (never to be seen again), and another French animation, Little Joe in Beesburg, which has also been consigned to obscurity. On Monday 2 October, the same day as the beloved serial Belle and Sebastian made its British television debut, The Magic Roundabout was back. 

Over the coming years, the series maintained its popularity with children and adults alike, but faced increasing competition from other productions aiming for the same pre-news audience. One of the more popular rivals for viewers’ affections arrived in 1968 in the form of Hector’s House, a series of glove-puppet tales featuring the titular hound and his friends Zaza the cat and Kiki the frog.

By the late 60s, Ivor Wood had parted company with Serge Danot, and whilst The Magic Roundabout kept turning into the new decade, Wood returned to his native England, where his FilmFair company would produce series such as The Herbs and Paddington – the latter proving to be one of the last of the ‘classic’ pre-news animations when it debuted in 1976. Uprooted from The Herbs, Parsley the lion was given his own series of pre-news five minute adventures, debuting in 1970. 

One of two Magic Roundabout stories published in 1971

Magic Roundabout merchandise was appearing in earnest by 1967, with some very realistic soft toys of characters like Dougal and Brian Snail being available through toyshops. Dougal and Florence soon found their way onto (and into) packets of Kellogg's Ricicles, where a set of plastic figures was given away during 1969. The promotion was advertised on television using the original puppets, and with narration from Eric Thompson. A picture strip story appeared in the comic Playhour, and the series inevitably found its way into numerous annuals and picture books. Two French novels featuring Dougal were also given Eric Thompson’s customary treatment, although the laconic narrative style was rather less appealing in print than on screen. Merchandising on the series continued well into the 1970s with Corgi toys offering a range of Magic Roundabout vehicles from 1972, beginning with an open top Citroen (naturally!) fitted with plastic figures of Dougal, Brian and Dylan. A whole ‘Magic Roundabout Playground’ would later appear from the same manufacturer, and is now highly collectable.

Corgi toys' Magic Roundabout car, as featured in the company's 1972 catalogue

New episodes of The Magic Roundabout continued to air until 1977, with the series clocking up over 400 different instalments. The BBC showed it in repeats until 1985, by which time the early evening schedule looked very different and the famous ‘pre news five minute’ spot had disappeared forever. For the record, viewers’ last chance to see Dougal, Florence, Dylan and co in their original incarnation came on Christmas Eve, 1985 at 10.25am – although a solitary episode has been shown more recently on BBC4.

Latterly, a collection of episodes, claiming to be previously unseen (they probably weren’t), found their way onto Channel 4, with narration from Nigel Planer. Away from the confines of the small screen, the series had been developed into a feature-length movie, Dougal and the Blue Cat (1970), which presented a very different asethetic from the colourful minimalism of the TV episodes, and has a darker, surreal quality. Much later, a CGI movie revived the format in 2005, and there is talk online (yet no sign so far) of a new reboot for the series. This is all very well, but rather misses the point that it was the asethetic of real world stop-motion animation that gave the original its charm, alongside which CGI, however well meaning and expensively realised, simply looks shiny and devoid of personality.

For creator Serge Danot, The Magic Roundabout was a career highlight he would never equal. A new animated series failed to find favour with viewers in France and was never taken up by the BBC. He died in 1990. For Eric Thompson, whose witty scripts and charming narration accounted for much of the series’ enduring popularity, ‘time for bed’ came in 1982, at the age of just 53.

The Magic Roundabout belongs to an era when television was the all-powerful mass media influencer, capable of transforming a modest, low-key animated film series into a cult phenomenon. Nobody set out to make it that way – it simply happened, by the happy accident of being the right programme, reaching the right audience at the right time. 

In a future post, I’ll look at the whole phenomenon of the BBC's ‘five minutes before the news’ spot in greater detail.

Thunderbird Sixty – part 3

 

3: End of the Road

By Christmas of 1967, Thunderbirds was last year’s news. The strip in TV21, now given an insane slant by writer Scott Goodall, would endure even beyond the comic’s demise in 1969, but on television it had, for the moment, run its course. For young viewers like me, it was Captain Scarlet all the way, and the new series meant a new range of toys in the shops. The first of these had appeared by Christmas, in the form of a nicely realised friction-drive model of the Angel Interceptor aircraft. TV21 promoted the new toys in a series of half page black and white ads, and it’s interesting to note how ‘The Angels’ were marketed as a separate entity from Captain Scarlet, with their own logo. Even so, the marketing campaign was small beer compared with the full colour advertisements that had helped to sell the range of Thunderbirds toys.

But we weren’t done with Thunderbirds just yet. The Andersons still had one more shot left in their locker. Stung by the disappointing response to the first feature film, they somehow convinced United Artists to do it all over again, and thus it was that, in July 1968, Thunderbird Six limped its way into the cinemas. The phenomenon of the ‘summer blockbuster’ was unknown in the late 60s, so the July release date was clearly timed to coincide with the long school summer holiday (although the film had received its BBFC classification back in January). In fact, it was released as a 'Sunday double bill', with Thunderbird Six playing in the afternoon while a brace of Bonds took over in the evening.

In the pages of TV21, the new film got scarcely a mention. There would be no photo-strip this time around, and aside from a couple of modest black and white quarter page blocks, there was no other publicity for the new venture. Away from the comic, a life-sized FAB1 toured the country accompanied by a real life Lady Penelope: in a nice bit of unpaid publicity from the rival TV network, the vehicle even made an appearance on BBC1’s Blue Peter.

For me, the film was a bit of a disappointment. Any chance to see Thunderbirds in colour in the cinema couldn’t be missed, of course, and the finale was as explosive as anything else in the Anderson canon. The featured vehicle, Skyship One, was a nice design, but we’d come to the cinema to see a brand new Thunderbird in action, and the final revelation of the Tiger Moth came as a giant let-down, clearly intended to amuse adult viewers. The rest of the film was little more than an innocuous travelogue showcasing some typically gimmicky Anderson ideas, with an unimaginative hijack plot bolted on. Thunderbird 6 was another box office failure. As a movie, it was sheer self indulgence. Thunderbirds deserved better.

By this time, the TV21 Thunderbirds strip was still in the very capable hands of Frank Bellamy, who managed to combine a bravura style with faithful depictions of the characters and hardware. The scripts, originally from Alan Fennell, and latterly from Scott Goodall, began to bear less and less resemblance to the series, with bizarre super-villains who seemed drafted in from the Marvel universe. The strip reached a nadir in the spring of 1968 with a storyline that began with the apparent murder of Brains, went on to depict the destruction of Thunderbirds 2 and 3, and culminated with the Hood attempting to saw the top off Tracy Island!

Despite this farrago of nonsense, the strip remained one of TV21’s most popular features. Equally insane, if not more so, was the Zero-X strip, which saw its characters subjected to endless ‘bodyshock’ storylines: one saw them turned into bald-headed, white skinned, red-veined mutants, whilst another had them taken over by malevolent cylopean leaves that attached themselves to their victims’ faces. Yet another adventure saw them melted into puddles of blue liquid. TV21 was beginning to look not unlike a horror comic… When the ailing title was combined with its sibling paper Joe 90, Thunderbirds was one of only two Anderson strips to survive the makeover. It would later resurface in Countdown, competently illustrated by Don Harley, who had covered during Frank Bellamy's brief absence from the TV21 strip in the autumn of 1966.

Thunderbirds as it appeared in the first issue of Countdown, February 20, 1971

In the ATV Midlands region, the series was still on air, and had more or less taken up residence in a Friday teatime slot, where it was to be found throughout the whole of 1969 and 1970. It was back again in 1971 for what must have been its fourth or fifth run. 18 episodes were shown before Land of the Giants took over the slot in June. TV now became a Thunderbirds-free zone until a handful of episodes turned up on Saturday mornings in early 1973. 

All this time, I'd been watching in black and white, so it was a revelation finally to see episodes in colour. For me, this didn't happen until 1975, when Lord Parker’s ‘Oliday was shown at Easter, and Richochet at Christmas. The series would not return to TV until 1981 – at least not here in the Midlands. Yorkshire Television, however, showed a batch of episodes in 1979, VHS dupes of which found their way to me the following year: they were low resolution and the colours were smeary, but it was better than nothing.

Also better than nothing were the few Thunderbirds episodes that had found their way onto the 8mm home movie format, albeit in heavily truncated form, and with captions instead of soundtracks. It's unclear when these films were originally released: the box artwork has the series copyright date of 1965, which fans (and the internet) have assumed to be the release date of the films themselves. This is highly unlikely, especially in light of the fact that at least one episode (Attack of the Alligators!) wasn't even broadcast until 1966. Either way, the films were still being sold in the mid 70s, making them some of the last items of original Thunderbirds merchandise to be available in the shops. I acquired an 8mm projector in 1977 and soon got hold of the 8-minute black and white versions of Day of Disaster and Thirty Minutes After Noon. The absolute last fling for Thunderbirds merchandising was Dinky's venerable Thunderbird 2 which finally dropped out of the catalogue in 1979.

Three of the Arrow Thunderbirds home movies, in 1-reel and 50ft editions

By 1980, I felt like nobody else still cared about Thunderbirds. I’d had one friend at school who wasn’t ashamed to admit he still liked the series, but I’d lost contact with him, and Thunderbirds fandom at this point in time seemed to consist of myself and Tim Beddows. We soon made contact with others, though, and spring of 1980 saw a kind of ad hoc international convention take place in our living room, attended by Starlog’s David Hirsch, Theo De Klerk and a couple of other ‘uber fans’ (there was no other kind at that time).

1981 saw the series return to British television with what appeared to be brand-new 35mm prints. Here in the Midlands, the repeats began on Sunday 30 August, at 1.00pm, and I was now able to record episodes on VHS tape.  The series continued until Christmas, in its 'official' broadcast order, with Thunderbird Six making an unwelcome intrusion into the run on Sunday 20 September. The repeats resumed on Sunday 12 September 1982, beginning with Desperate Intruder, and running all the way through to Christmas, with Give or Take a Million appearing on Sunday 12 December. My diary records that it snowed all day – thanks, Brains!

By early 1983, when the oprhaned episode Path of Destruction finally made it onto air, I now had a complete set of Thunderbirds on VHS tape, so it no longer mattered whether ITV chose to repeat it again or not. In the event, they didn’t, and while the 1980s would see the gradual emergence of an organised fan network devoted to the work of Gerry Anderson, there were no further sightings of Thunderbirds on the small screen as the ITV regions ploughed through the other Supermarionation series, covering everything bar Supercar and The Secret Service.

I could hardly have anticipated what came next. In September 1991 a repeat run began on BBC2 of all places. For viewers like me, Thunderbirds had been inextricably linked with ITV for the past twenty five years and to see it on BBC was almost a form of culture shock. It also meant that the series was shown without advert breaks for the first time in its history* and, more importantly, was being nationally networked. With an average of over six million viewers tuning in every week, there was clear potential for a new range of toys and other licenced products, and when the Matchbox Tracy Island appeared on the market, it became the season’s must-have toy. As a fan, I welcomed this new range of merchandise, but couldn’t keep up with the releases as every week seemed to bring rafts of new toys to the shelves of our local Woolworth’s. Many years later, during a house move, I sold on all of my remaining 1990s Thunderbirds toys – somehow, they lacked the charm of the 1960s originals, and the packaging was unappealing.

The idea of a full-scale revival of the series began to gain ground, and, inevitably, a movie resulted. I’ve never bothered with this worthless endeavour that saw the asethetically pleasing vehicles of the 1960s given a ‘twenty first century’ makeover (the new FAB1 must qualify as one of the most hideous reimaginings of a hero vehicle in the entire genre of sci-fi/fantasy). Later still came a TV revival, Thunderbirds Are Go, of which I watched a solitary episode out of curiosity. I was puzzled by the ‘plastic-haired’ appearance of the CGI characters and disappointed by the theme tune which reiterated the first phrase of Barry Gray’s original like a stuck record.

Over the years, Thunderbirds became a lightning rod for misguided creativity. Gerry Anderson had sold all his interests in the series back in the 1970s and since then had been forced to sit back and spectate as other hands made a travesty of his original concept. Thunderbirds 2068 was a pointless manga revamp of the format, but the wooden spoon for the worst production ever to sully the brand goes to 1994’s Turbocharged Thunderbirds, which mashed up the original footage into a gimmicky teenage format that saw the characters presented as ‘virtual lifeforms’ on another planet. Garbage doesn’t even begin to describe it.

There can surely be no point or merit in further attempting to revive Thunderbirds. The original can and should be left to stand alone for what it was – an artefact of its era and the apotheosis of the Andersons' unique film production technique. There have, of course, been more recent and accurate revivals of Supermarionation, but nothing will ever be equal to the original.

Thunderbirds is readily available to watch in HD on ITVX and on ITV’s YouTube channel. Though dated in many respects, the series stands alone, even amongst Gerry Anderson's repertoire. Thunderbirds was where it all came together: the perfect format, with a cast of warm, believable characters and imaginatively conceived hardware.

Watching Thunderbirds back in the 1960s and 70s, I'd hardly have imagined it would still be remembered so many years later. Being made in colour certainly helped to 'future proof' the series, and whilst its aesthetics are very much those of the 1960s, the fact of its being made with puppets and models makes it look a lot less dated than live action productions of the same era, while its real world physical effects really set it apart in an era of ubiquitous CGI.

I've no doubt that Thunderbirds will continue to be celebrated even when it reaches its centenary, in the TV21 year of 2065... and beyond?

[* To be pedantic, some of the ITV morning repeats in the 1970s were broadcast advert-free, including the YTV batch from 1979. The original commercial break captions subsequently became extremely rare] 

Thunderbird Sixty – part 2

 

2: Thunderbirds Toys – for Girls and Boys

Last time, I looked at the first weeks of Thunderbirds and how young fans of the series (like myself) acted out our own adventures with toys, with existing toys often standing in for the International Rescue vehicles in our imaginations (well, mine at least). My original ‘Thunderbird One’ was played by a friction-drive Gloster Javelin (with realistic sparking engine), which you can see pictured below. It took a few months before any bona fide Thunderbirds toys appeared in the shops, but once the floodgates opened, there was no stopping them.

It wasn’t just the International Rescue vehicles that I wanted to own: my favourite piece of hardware from the series was the Fireflash airliner – arguably a better and more realistic design than any of the Thunderbird craft themselves. Back in 1965, no toy manufacturer would dream of releasing a model of a vehicle that appeared in only a handful of TV episodes, and although our dad valiantly searched the shops that Christmas, no Fireflash toy was to be had (I wonder how many other kids of my age also wanted one?) As a substitute, I received a battery-operated model of the coolest real world aircraft currently available – the ill-fated TSR-2. In real life, the TSR-2 project had been cancelled (by Harold Wilson) by the time I got my hands on the toy, and I knew nothing of its intended purpose (it carried a nuclear payload). Decades later I saw an actual example at RAF Cosford where I'd gone, ironically, to look at a Gerry Anderson exhibition...

Thunderbirds 'stand-ins': Left, Gloster Javelin (Thunderbird One), right, TSR2 (Fireflash)

Apart from the vehicles themselves, the next most essential toy to own was a Thunderbirds outfit. This was available as a complete costume, comprising top, trousers and over-the-shoulder sash/belt, plus, of course, the famous cap. I don’t know whether our toy shop had sold out or whether the price of the complete boxed outfit was too steep, but I ended up with just the cap and the sash, which I had to wear over my ordinary clothes. The cap, being made of black felt, wasn’t exactly true to the series, and was replaced in the autumn of 1966 by a cardboard version given away with TV21 comic (issue 90, dateline October 8 2066). I wore it until I was old enough not to want to play Thunderbirds in the back garden any more, by which time it was held together with sellotape.

A near complete set of Thunderbirds dolls (minus TIn Tin), as seen on an auction site last year. The set realised £2,100

Spring 1966 had seen the very successful UK launch of Hasbro's GI Joe, rebranded as Action Man for the British market. Many adults were sceptical about a doll for boys, but the new toy was an immediate success, and inspired a range of Thunderbirds characters made in a similar manner, which arrived in toy shops later in the year. All the regular characters were available, and the likenesses were some of the best ever created for action figures. Unfortunately, they were nowhere near as robust as Action Man, being constructed of soft, flimsy plastic and held together internally by staples and elastic. When the staples rusted, your Thunderbirds doll fell to pieces. They were also incredibly hard to find in toy shops – all the Tracy brothers sold out almost immediately. A classmate turned up at school with Scott Tracy, but by the time I got down to the toy shop next weekend, only John Tracy remained. The less popular dolls (including, amazingly, Parker), could still be found in toy shops two or three years later.

1966 was the true 'Thunderbirds Christmas'. J.Rosenthal's range of toys had by now been rebranded 'Century 21', and dozens of other manufacturers had licenced products on the market. TV21 regularly featured whole page colour advertisements promoting the Century 21 range of 'Thunderbirds toys – for girls and boys.' These ads were to be found regularly in the comic (example above), with their last appearance coming in issue 131 in May 1967.

Sound Only Selected

Unless you’d taped episode soundtracks for yourself, the only way to revisit Thunderbirds when not on air was on vinyl. Century 21 records had launched in October of 1965, and amongst its first batch of releases was the Mini-album ‘Introducing Thunderbirds’. I had this bought for me, but didn’t think a lot of it – rather than an episode soundtrack, it was merely Jeff Tracy demonstrating the Thunderbird vehicles (or rather, their sounds) to Lady Penelope and Parker. What the record desperately lacked was music. Music was, of course, an essential part of the series, and I always made sure to hum some Barry Gray themes as I flew my Thunderbirds toys around the living room. 

The Century 21 'Mini Albums' are launched in TV21, issue 41, 30 October 2065. This was also the first photo of Thunderbird One to appear in the comic.

Much better record releases were to come – at my birthday in 1966 I was bought the ‘Thunderbird One’ EP, which condensed the pilot episode into a very effective twenty-minute narrative. My brother had the ‘FAB’ record bought for him at the same time, on which could be heard the decidedly iffy vocals of Lady P and Parker warbling a Barry Gray ditty about the Abominable Snowman.

Thunderbirds continued to be a big deal as far as I was concerned. Autumn 1966 saw new episodes appear in a two-part format, along with re-edited versions of the first series, now shown over consecutive evenings, Batman fashion. The series joined TV21 comic in January 1966, and by the end of the year had found its way onto the big screen. I was taken to Birmingham to see the film, my first experience of Thunderbirds in colour. I still recall hearing a child in a nearby seat telling his parents ‘that’s Thunderbird One’ as Zero-X Lift Body One emerged from its hangar. The fool!

Century 21 toys' Zero-X (1967)

Zero-X provided the last of the Century 21 Thunderbirds toys, but it took nearly a year to reach the toyshops and was eventually released alongside the short-lived range of 'Project SWORD' vehicles. As you can see above, Zero-X was one of the most realistic toys ever produced by Century 21. The main body and MEV were independently powered, by batteries, with coloured flashing tail lights at the rear, activated from a walkie-talkie style controller. My brother and myself both received the toy as a present that Christmas and mine remains more or less intact, and boxed to this day. Although it hadn't been run for more than half a century, the motorised MEV, when loaded with batteries, whizzed away across the floor like it was escaping from a hoard of Rock Snakes...

Thunderbirds continued on British television for much of the 1960s, although it was banished for twelve months in 1968 when the ITA decided that ATV had been giving undue prominence to the Anderson productions in the children’s schedules. It also made a difference where you lived: we were in the ATV region, and as financial backers of the series, they kept Thunderbirds on air almost continually from 1969 through to 1971. From November 69, those with colour televisions could see it as it was meant to be seen (I wouldn’t get to see a colour episode myself until 1975).

In part three, I'll look at the 'afterlife' of the series...

Thunderbird Sixty

TV21 counts down to Thunderbirds, December 1965

1: Early Days - 1965-66

You’ll need to be in your mid-sixties or older to remember seeing Thunderbirds the first time around. I was four and a half when the series burst onto our screens in September 1965 in a blaze of publicity, of which I retain some distant recollection. Over the next few blogs, I'm going to look back on some sixty-year-old recollections of how we experienced Thunderbirds for the first time.

The promotional trails began maybe a week or so before the series went on air. I vividly recall watching these with my mum – the Thunderbird 2 launch sequence was shown, along with a clip from the episode The Perils of Penelope showing Parker rescuing Lady P from a locked room using rockets in the back of FAB1. I’m sure other clips must have been shown as well, but these were the ones that most impressed themselves on my imagination. Lady Penelope herself was interviewed, on our local news magazine programme ATV Today: I remember very clearly how she described the new series as being ‘like Stingray, Fireball and Supercar all rolled into one.’ As a sales pitch, that rather put me off: I had bad memories of being scared of Supercar – or, more specifically, the series’ bald-headed bad guy Masterspy. Thunderbirds had its own bald baddie, and he turned up in the first episode – but even with his glowing eyes, the Hood never bothered me.

The Hood should, in theory, have been the first character we saw on screen when Thunderbirds made its TV debut on the last day of September 1965 – but I remember that premiere broadcast of Trapped in the Sky somewhat differently. In my recollection, the first scene showed the Fireflash airliner on the tarmac at London Airport. I don’t remember the establishing scenes in the Hood’s temple at all. That’s not to say they were missing – but script editor Alan Pattillo’s diary made reference to the first episode being ‘hacked to ribbons’ when it was shown on ITV London two days later, so maybe they were. I always felt it was an odd choice to start the series by introducing viewers to the bad guy. Anyway, we’ll never know for certain unless someone, somewhere has kept an off-air audio recording.

We did actually record part of the soundtrack of a Thunderbirds episode from that first run. On Friday 25 March 1966, our dad had purchased a Fidelity open-reel tape recorder, and the following Thursday, he taped parts of that evening’s episode – which also happened to be the last in the original series, Security Hazard. That tape confirms that ATV’s presentation of Thunderbirds was less than reverential – the opening titles were hacked off after the episode preview section, depriving viewers of the Thunderbirds theme. Likewise, the end credits were faded out early (over the caption of Thunderbird 2) and the continuity went straight into a commercial. This was somewhat ironic given that our dad had set up the recorder specifically to capture the music on tape.

Returning to that first broadcast, we find ourselves on the evening of Thursday 30 September 1965. It was 7.00pm – for some reason, ATV decided that the Gerry Anderson series deserved to be shown in this ‘family viewing’ slot and the first runs of Fireball XL5 and about half of Stingray had been scheduled the same way. It wasn’t just our family who sat down to watch Trapped in the Sky – we were joined by a lad from down the street, whose parents didn’t hold with television (they were teachers). Not having a TV set, I’m not sure how he even knew about Thunderbirds, but he was there on that first evening and on many weeks to come, and would be back when Batman began in the spring of 1966.

Thunderbirds was an immediate hit with me. I particularly liked the episode Pit of Peril and when it was repeated the following year, recorded my own version of it on our dad’s tape machine, with me doing all the voices. But how did we play at Thunderbirds in those early weeks on air, when toys had yet to arrive in the shops? Simple – we used our imaginations.

I had a box full of plastic aircraft, of which the most futuristic looking was the delta-winged Gloster Javelin. It looked nothing like Thunderbird One, but that didn’t matter – in my imagination it became the International Rescue scout craft. I’m not sure if I had a substitute for Thunderbird 2, but it didn’t really matter – TB1 was my favourite, and Scott Tracy was my favourite of the Tracy brothers (where everyone else tended to prefer Virgil). Century 21 Toys – or rather, J. Rosenthal Ltd – were already on the case, however, and at the beginning of 1966, a friction-drive Thunderbird One arrived in the toyshops. It had a blue plastic fuselage, but we were watching in black and white  so that hardly mattered. What did matter to me (aged almost five) were the toy's red plastic wheels. Thunderbird One didn’t have wheels! Especially not under the nose cone. This bothered me so much that I managed to get our dad to hack them off with a Stanley knife. The toy soon lost its brittle plastic tailplanes, broken in action, and was replaced a short while later by a grey version which I subsequently  customised into a more, ahem, ‘realistic’ model...

Rosenthal's Thunderbird One is announced in TV21. A year later it would cost two shillings less!

Thunderbird 2 was a much more successful toy, and, just like it did on TV, the toy took rather longer to reach the shops than Thunderbird One: indeed, it was beaten to the punch by Thunderbirds Three and Five which arrived in toyshops during March 1966, whereas TB2 wasn't announced until early June, when a half page ad in TV21 alerted readers to 'stand by' for the new release, which would be on 'limited sale in the shops'. This, together with the extended production timeline suggests problems behind the scenes. With its folding legs and detachable pod, TB2 was by far the most complex of the Thunderbirds toys to go on sale, and batches were made in both Hong Kong and the UK.

Being another friction-drive model, TB2 of course had wheels, but this time they were integrated more successfully into the design and the toy was a good representation of the ‘real’ thing. The un-numbered pod (I got our mum to rub on a numeral from a sheet of Letraset) contained a green plastic jeep. Thunderbird Four would have been a better pod vehicle, but a few months later a Smiths Crisps promotion allowed one to send away for snap-together model kits of the International Rescue craft. As luck would have it, their Thunderbird Four scaled perfectly with the Century 21 model of TB2.

The same but different: JR21's Thunderbird 2– on the left, made in England, on the right, made in Hong Kong.

The TB2 toys came in two slightly different versions (above), according to whether they were manufactured in England or Hong Kong. Mine had white plastic feet on the fold-out legs, and pierced foil inside the rear engine nacelles. My brother’s example was a slightly darker green, had red plastic feet and a grey plastic grid inside the nacelles. It also had the Mole in the pod, which was a distinct improvement on the jeep.

Although it had been released in March '66, I didn’t get Thunderbird 3 until a visit to the Ideal Home Exhibition at Birmingham’s Bingley Hall much later in the year. Until then, my games of Thunderbirds in toys made use of a 'JR21' X60 space rocket which, with its three booster nacelles, made a passable stand-in. The toy, which came on a blue roadgoing trailer, retailed at 8/11d. There was a giant-sized TB3 exhibit at the Ideal Home Exhibition, which you could go inside if you were prepared to wait ages in a queue. We didn’t wait, and all I saw of the interior were a few flashing lights. Thunderbird 5, modified from a flying saucer toy and only slightly resembling the real thing, came at Christmas 1966, and I had to wait for my sixth birthday to get Thunderbird Four. 

This, then, was how Thunderbirds left its impression on those of us who saw it first time around. I’m sure my experience must have been typical. Whether it was a good impression is less certain: the endless explosions and destruction certainly found their way into my childhood games and drawings. I recall smashing up a perfectly good plastic garage in the course of a game of Thunderbirds, and my drawing books became pages of scribbled explosions. I didn’t grow up wanting to plant bombs in airliners or steal the secrets of atomic power stations, but the series certainly seemed to foster an appetite for scenes of explosive destruction. And what of the friend from down the street whose parents didn’t own a television? He went on to become a barrister in London, whereas I ended up designing advertisements and DVD sleeves. That’s where too much television will get you…

In the next part, I'll revisit some of those early Thunderbirds toys in more detail.

A tabletop of Thunderbirds toys that have survived from childhood: Clockwise from bottom left: 'Repeater' water pistol; Lincoln International snap-together motorised TB4; battery operated TB5; friction drive TB2 (UK version); friction drive TB3; TB2 (Hong Kong version); TB3 'conversion'; Dinky FAB 1; friction drive TB1 'conversion'; battery operated TB4; dart gun. Centre: cap gun, hat, head of John Tracy doll, half a 'Mole' and, er, The Mighty Atom (okay, it was really a toy for cats...)