For reasons over which we need not tarry I recently had cause to revisit the 1967 television show Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. There are several notable and interesting things about it which I shall get to shortly however the most amazing personal revelation was that, contrary to my recollection, I had never actually seen it.
Captain Scarlet, as it was ubiquitously called, was first shown in 1967 and, no doubt, repeated many times over on budget constrained British commercial television of the 60s and 70s. The theme tune, which was actually the closing theme, with its bombastic refrain of INDESTRUCTIBLE was a constant in the playground of my primary school in the mid 1970s. So I thought I was familiar with the Captain Scarlet canon. As I watched the 32 episode series I realised I was not and had never seen any of them.
To summarise, Captain Scarlet is was a Supermarionation, more commonly known as puppetry, production set in 2068 when Earth is engaged in some manner low key, shadowy war with Mars and its implacable autochthonous lifeforms: the Mysterons. The first notable observation is that the Martians, in an invention born of fiscal restraint, are depicted merely as projected circles of light. This gives a fresh and interesting take on the problem visualising alien life forms. They are also, for unknown reasons, oft given to broadcasting their nefarious intentions at the start of each episode.
The puppetry demonstrated several technical innovations over previous Supermarionation productions such as Thunderbirds. The puppets were larger and possessed of more conventional facial physiognomy compared to the Thunderbirds which had the goggle eyed look of a surprised pug. In Thunderbird and earlier shows characters walking always proved problematic as they moved as if having recently soiled themselves or suffered a grave injury to the genitals. Captain Scarlet skilfully obviates this limitation of string borne puppets by the simple expedient of never having any character walk anywhere ever. All scenes are transacted by stationary characters.
Captain Scarlet himself is a curious Christ-like figure whose resurrection from death is often a plot device. However, the most shocking thing about Captain Scarlet when viewed from these more sensitive times was the sheer scale of the violence and mayhem. Terrorism by crashing an airliner into the sea, assassination by suicide bomber and shootings too numerous to catalog were all considered perfectly acceptable early evening viewing for children in 1967.
On the whole, thoroughly recommended.
Captain Scarlet, as it was ubiquitously called, was first shown in 1967 and, no doubt, repeated many times over on budget constrained British commercial television of the 60s and 70s. The theme tune, which was actually the closing theme, with its bombastic refrain of INDESTRUCTIBLE was a constant in the playground of my primary school in the mid 1970s. So I thought I was familiar with the Captain Scarlet canon. As I watched the 32 episode series I realised I was not and had never seen any of them.
To summarise, Captain Scarlet is was a Supermarionation, more commonly known as puppetry, production set in 2068 when Earth is engaged in some manner low key, shadowy war with Mars and its implacable autochthonous lifeforms: the Mysterons. The first notable observation is that the Martians, in an invention born of fiscal restraint, are depicted merely as projected circles of light. This gives a fresh and interesting take on the problem visualising alien life forms. They are also, for unknown reasons, oft given to broadcasting their nefarious intentions at the start of each episode.
The puppetry demonstrated several technical innovations over previous Supermarionation productions such as Thunderbirds. The puppets were larger and possessed of more conventional facial physiognomy compared to the Thunderbirds which had the goggle eyed look of a surprised pug. In Thunderbird and earlier shows characters walking always proved problematic as they moved as if having recently soiled themselves or suffered a grave injury to the genitals. Captain Scarlet skilfully obviates this limitation of string borne puppets by the simple expedient of never having any character walk anywhere ever. All scenes are transacted by stationary characters.
Captain Scarlet himself is a curious Christ-like figure whose resurrection from death is often a plot device. However, the most shocking thing about Captain Scarlet when viewed from these more sensitive times was the sheer scale of the violence and mayhem. Terrorism by crashing an airliner into the sea, assassination by suicide bomber and shootings too numerous to catalog were all considered perfectly acceptable early evening viewing for children in 1967.
On the whole, thoroughly recommended.
