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dblackshire
Reviews
Supercar (1961)
Supercar still does it.... "Now who's a fool"
Supercar for me has been a TV program that has had to wait. Way back in the 1960's in the UK many people had TV sets that only could receive BBC programs, in other words a single TV tuner. Many of my friends could watch ITV programs which Supercar was featured on at the time. I spent part of my childhood trying to understand what my friends were on about when they mentioned Mike Mercury and Mitch the Monkey. A long time had to pass, in fact I was in my mid 50s before the thought came to me to buy the DVD box set. WOW what a surprise that was. I was expecting something quite childish and on a par with maybe Torchy the Battery Boy, but no this was of a high standard in deed. Each episode has an excellent story the best ones feature the arch villain Master Spy. Check out as the episodes progress how the special effects get better. I think that's due to the introduction of Derrick Meddings.
Orlando (1965)
Children's B&W TV half hour program
From what I can remember the character Orlando played by Sam Kydd was a bit of a scoundrel made good, after all this was a kids TV program. The main feature that I can remember was that Orlando has an amphibious car, probably one of the first in the UK. This car was featured in a few of the episodes. The episodes tended to feature children in the action and Orlando resided in a Boat Yard in the UK where he didn't seem to do very much apart from get into scrapes. I understand the character of Orlando was featured in an earlier TV program (Crain). All in all a delightful TV program which filled the boredom between the end of school and tea time..
Space Patrol (1963)
excellent pre Anderson Puppet series
Although for children the content is quite watchable by any age. This series sticks in my mind as one of the best thought out scifi TV programs of the sixties. OK so we know Mars and Venus have no life as such but don't let this spoil your enjoyment. Exceptional animation at times and dialogue thats usually non PC. This is a true treasure that shows what can be done on a budget.
I think Gerry Anderson used some ideas for what followed. Fireball XL5 although had a bigger budget didn't come anywhere near Space Patrols story lines.
db