Thunderbirds 2086

This Jap Anime cartoon was shown on Prism or Showtime if I remember correctly. I have ben searching for the name of this show for several weeks now and finally found it!! The Thunderbirds were a high tech rescure team who could rescue victims in the air on land or sea. Sort of Navy SEAL paramedics with a little of the Transformers and Voltron thrown in. A great animated seris if you can find it.

It has been years since I saw this show but at the time, I was able to see not only the US version but the original Japanese episodes which were used to make the US version so I was aware of what liberties were being taken to make the US version.

For example, the US version had US 3D footage added (as transition sequences) and had some cuts to remove parts of some of the scenes or other dumb editing that was made since the original was regarded as too sophisticated for the American audience.

An example of the former cutting was a scene where a character was caught in an explosion. The Japanese version showed the flaming gas hitting the character while the US version cut the actual contact.

In the dumb editing area was a sequence of a Spacestation-to-Spacestation shuttle (think of it as an airplane) being boarded by the passengers. They are shown floating (they are "weightless") down the center isle and seating themselves in the seats on the "floor" of the craft. The Japanese version continues with them then using the seats on the "ceiling" - which is cut out from the US version as well as having these seats hidden behind a matt-painting to hide their existence.

The dubbing also took liberties with the Japanese plotline and always had at least one "in-gag" reference per episode such as having one of the characters ask that an airlock on a space ship be opened (so he can enter) with the request "Open the Pod Bay, Hal" [2001 reference] or having a malfunctioning computer claim to be a "Wild and Crazy Computer" in a Steve Martin-like voice [a reference to his "Wild and Crazy Guy" routine].

When I heard about this show when I was a kid, I was really excited. However watching it, I was sorely disappointed.

Being a big fan of the Gerry Anderson original, the one thing I liked was how the in the original, even though the Thunderbirds had incredible machines, they still had limits & had to work around them. They only had so many specialised vehicles (the mole, firefly) so the stories tended to show how the dangerous situations were overcome using ingenuity, & cleverness.

In Thunderbirds 2086 however, International Rescue (now a huge none secret organisation) had dozens & dozens of thunderbird machines, that would just so happen to be designed exactly for whatever emergency the team had that week. Even as a kid I felt the stories were not as good as the original. But to be fair, I think the original was a hard act to follow, plus it was a Japanese cartoon, so maybe they didn't have the same exposure the the original that we had.

One of the formative shows of my childhood, this captivated me thanks to its intelligent, imaginative and optimistic vision of a future world where technology both enriches and expands humanity's reach on earth and the inner solar system, while also opening the door to new dangers and disasters. Fortunately the International Rescue team is on hand, equipped with gigantic combining space vehicles, a rousing orchestral soundtrack, science, and a team of brilliant pilots.

As a kid I had the episodes 'Cloudburst' and 'Nightmare' on VHS, both of which are standouts. Cloudburst is an especially tense example of this show's ability to use thoughtful science to drive compelling plots that slowly ratchet up the tension, as a meteor storm knocks out a weather control satellite, which in turn leads to a disastrous hurricane which threatens inhabited islands.

I didn't know or care that this started out as a heavy Japanese homage to a 60s puppet show (legitimised when it was ported over and translated) because it has enough great ideas to stand on its own. In hindsight some stilted voice acting in the English dub and a few dubious episodes prevent it from fully meeting its potential. But it deserved better than to sink into obscurity and be forgotten.

Anime from the early '80s this short lived series (many Japanese animated series are short lived) based heavily on the '60s British children's show "Thunderbirds" about an international rescue organization. The original program used puppets (awful) and models of the equipment and spacecraft (awesome). The plots were silly and the puppets annoying. The producers for this later went on to make a couple of S/F series (U.F.O. and Space 1999) and for some reason they all seemed to involve a character with white-blond hair. Go figure.

Some things CAN be made better. In my humble opinion "Thunderbirds 2086" is much superior to the original series in plot, characters, and technical areas. The Animation is some of the best for the early 1980s, the plots good enough for even adults to enjoy, and the characters and situations they are in believable (As hard as this may seem for Anime). The series has a nice on-going plot but each episode can be enjoyed on it's own without having seen all the previous episodes. Even the dubbing was good at a time when most dubbed Anime was somewhere between poor and unbearable. And NO dumb songs!

To my knowledge it was shown in syndication about 1986 because that's when I was watching it regularly. I don't know about Showtime or anything else, I was watching it on the local FOX affiliate.