Supercar

I used to watch Supercar in 1963/64 when we were living in a one bedroom apartment in Canyon, Texas. I was around 6 at the time. I can't picture all of the characters anymore. I remember the lead character and an old man. I think I remember the basic sound of the theme song. But, I remember I was quite taken in by the show and really watched it intently and regularly. There was something about being that age and seeing that show. It was really entertaining for a six year old, if not mesmerizing. I think it came on Saturday or possibly Sunday between morning and noon. It was quite a sight in 1964. I remember the "strings". I'm glad to find that people remember the show. Our family moved to California in the summer 64 and I never saw the show again. I've never met anyone in California (in the Sacramento area)who has seen it. But, we did have The Mighty Hercules!

I used to really enjoy watching this show as a youngster. I think some of the children's shows today are okay, but in general they just are not of the same caliber as Supercar and some of the other shows and cartoons that were around in 1961.

Maybe some of the cable stations should consider airing Supercar again. Even today in 2006, Supercar would still be futuristic. Maybe some of today's auto manufacturers should take notes.

Incredibly talented puppeteers made this a one-of-a-kind classic.

I hope Supercar used some fuel other than gasoline. They couldn't afford to run it at today's prices.

Mike Mercury, Dr. Beaker, Professor Popkiss, Jimmy, and Mitch, long time no see. Hope you are all well.

This is the program my friends and I would watch in the evening; then spend our days cutting up cardboard boxes to make our own "Supercars" (and, of course, each of us was Mike Mercury).

Supercar could do absolutely anything, go absolutely anywhere and get out of absolutely any nail-biting jam. What was great about Supercar was that it didn't rely on any previous-show precedent for design or capabilities...if Supercar needed new features, good ol' Doctor Beaker and Professor Popkiss just added them!

Comic relief came in the form of Mitch (some sort of anthropomorphic monkey), and the Dr. and the Professor (who tended to bumble). I never really understood why Jimmy was there, but I figured he was the luckiest kid on earth. So my friends and I would watch each episode, living vicariously through Jimmy, then construct our banana-box Supercars, complete with all of the most recent episode's modifications.

Now, that was truly TV for a kid's imagination! Just think what would happen if it played in 2005, with Dr. James Dobson watching like a hawk -- three men, a boy and a monkey living together!

Supercar was my absolute favorite show when I was around eight or nine years of age in 1962-63. I had enough knowledge to understand even at that age, exactly what this vehicle was. It was the first anti gravity aircraft. I knew what turbines were, and I loved the sound of them, and Supercar Had them! But what made Supercar levitate was NOT jet propulsion (as a Harrier jet uses now), but you could hear another certain sound it made like a bunch of gyros all spinning in hyper-unison velocity or something along with the turbines, and in my young mind that produced this anti-gravity. And that music throughout each episode was so perfect! Every time the spacey sounding organ music started as they slowly opened the roof doors and the clouds above came into view in anticipation of another flight, my eyes were as big as saucers, and you could'nt have pulled me away from the t.v. for ANYTHING! And even to this day..true anti gravity is elusive. And there has'nt been anything like it since (Thunderbirds, Stingray, Fireball XL5 was good, but of a different caliber as was other Sci-fi's).

I had thought about Supercar at times all my life afterwards, and never got to see it again for decades until around 1998, when I found Gerry Anderson in the library book of "Who's Who", and after a little detective work, I found the first English PAL VHS video versions of the first 16 episodes, and had them converted to NTFS so they could play in U.S. VHS players, and once again even now at age 57...am still fascinated at what Supercar is, and the adventures & characters that surround it, and was stunned when the entire series of 39 episodes finally came out on DVD, and was so clear and sharp that you could see the strings on the puppets even better than before! Ha! (love it, LOVE IT!). You should hear Supercar fire up it's engines on a 200 watt 12 inch woofer tower speaker stereo system cranked up enough to rattle the windows and vibrate right through your gut! (I guess i'm a big kid at heart, ha!)

Supercar was the first of the many Gerry Anderson puppet series and while the stories were simpler, and not as exciting compared to the later shows, it was a good series in its own right and a good start to Supermarionation as a whole.

Another of Supercar's plus points was that the stories were versatile; the title vehicle could travel on land, sea, air and space, so you had a good range of stories. And all the characters were likable, although Mitch the Monkey could be decidedly irritating at times.

Well worth watching if you are curious as to how Gerry Anderson's Supermarionation productions started.