https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Po9oO3M1TjE
For some show , a Christmas episode interpret the perfect opportunityto gathering together friends and menage , to celebrate the essential bonds that at last unite the people that live a given fictional creation . But for the 1960s puppet espionage show Joe 90 , Christmas was the gross opportunity to mix together haunted churches , counterfeiter , bastard angel , and jetpacks , with one intrepid , glasses - wearing 9 - year - one-time boy on hand to tie it all together .
Joe 90 was the next-to-last show made using Supermarionation , the high-pitched - tech puppetry outgrowth created by Gerry Anderson and his team in the sixties . I ’ve never been timid about sharing my love of the likes of Stingray , Thunderbirds , and Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons — my certificate may be foundhereandhere — and today I come to apportion with you one of the oddest Christmas episode ever made , the Joe 90 episode “ The Unorthodox Shepherd . ” The video up top include the intact episode , but I ’ve localise it to start at the climax , in which unfearing child spy Joe McClaine becomes a jetpack - clad avenging angel .
https://gizmodo.com/and-now-the-most-ludicrously-over-the-top-launch-seque-5923503
https://gizmodo.com/how-not-to-make-a-1960s-british-sci-fi-puppet-show-5817812
Like I say , this is not your traditional Christmas installment , particularly compare to the other two yuletide Supermarionation debut : the Stingray episode“A Christmas to Remember”and the Thunderbirds tale “ Give or Take a Million . ” Both of those are relatively aboveboard stories in which the shows ’ heroes adjudicate to give adorable small kids ( an orphan in the first case , a children ’s hospital affected role in the latter ) the ultimate Christmas present : a trip to their top - secret bases , complete with oversize toy version of the shows ’ unbelievable machines , which I ’m going to go forward and arrogate were available at the fourth dimension from all fine retailer . Both episodes throw in a little excitement to equilibrize out the oecumenical Christmastime in force cheer , as the Stingray crew investigates a mysterious alien submarine and the Thunderbirds installment includes an elaborate bank heist that does n’t in reality involve any members of the International Rescue team . Also , the totality of the Thunderbirds episode technically ask International Rescue mind Jeff Tracy draw at duration to a young child the end and achievements of a planning committee , but what the hey . By Thunderbirds standards , that ’s normal enough . So lease ’s turn to Joe 90 , because I need to portion out this with you prissy mass .
avowedly , “ The Unorthodox Shepherd ” is a Christmas episode much assomething like pall Hard is aChristmas movie ; they ’re both set on the holiday , but the yuletide festivitiesare mostly incidental to the story at hand . The narration of “ The Unorthodox Shepherd ” is bonkers in the waymost Joe 90 episodes are , in that writerTony Barwick somehow has to invent an espionage fib that can only beresolved through the exertion of a nine - year - old son whose spyglass give him the skillsand knowledge of the world ’s most brilliant mind . In this case , counterfeitersare force a reverend in a tiny English town to help them cash in one’s chips almostundetectable forgeries into circulation . To that end , they have electrify up thechurch with mechanisation that makes it come along haunted , all so that villagers willbe too panicked to go around snooping . Also , Christmas is come on , whichif nothing else provides a convenient excuse for young Joe McClaine and hisfather to really bother to go to church . In its way , this is one of the morequietly religious Christmas episodes I ’ve get word , if only because there ’s no talkof trees or presents , but the level does end with a stumble to the church for theChristmas service .
In any case , Joe gets to show off a pair of brain patternsin this installment , first using the knowledge of a bank administrator to confirm thephony bills are indeed counterfeit and later on using the skills of a jetpackexpert to capture the counterfeiter by pretend to be an angel . Wait … I feel likethat involve slimly more linguistic context . Although there ’s really only so much moreI can say : Our Cuban sandwich ’ schema rest on the fact that one of the forgers is thenephew of the legendary criminal who masterminded the stealing of the currencyplates in the first place , and said fabled criminal is now buried on thechurch basis . Joe , his father , and their spy friend Sam Loover take the crooks’idea of scaring people with a fake haunting and crank it up to 20 , as Joedresses up as the avenge angel of the at rest master criminal .
It ’s a unfailing program , other than the minor detail that thedangerous criminals whom Joe intends to dash all have hitman and are n’t scaredof using them . As you may see in the clip above , there ’s no reading that Joeis wearing a unassailable vest or any other form of protection – he ’s justworking on the assumption that the crook will be too petrified to shootstraight . Which , all thing regard , is n’t actually that terrible anassumption — he ’s certainly prove correct , inasmuch as this episode of Joe 90 does n’t end with its untried herogunned down by booster — but it still seems like a seriously insane risk tobuild a plan around , particularly when Joe ’s own father is one of other master visionariesbehind the scheme . Still , if dressing up your own son as an angel and havinghim fly a jetpack flat at a bunch of armed , desperate counterfeiters isn’tthe truthful meaning of Christmas , I do n’t want to acknowledge what is .
Gerry AndersonTelevisionthunderbirds
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