5 MARIONETTES SHOW THAT BRING US TO LIVE!

What's Marionette? It is a small figure of a person operated from above with strings by a puppeteer... Inspired from a famous book tale about a life wood puppet dream to be a human named Pinocchio, The dream developed into a live TV entertainment in the 60's presented us the unique technologies brought the dolls come to live... I was not borne in that era but cyberspace media given me the opportunity to watch it magical and wonders over and over again and gratefully admired those inventors who created this marvelous show... In reality it was almost one man territory that contributed us all the exceptional puppet show by the man named Gary Anderson... This article's mostly tribute masterpieces for him...

1. Stingray

Genre: Action,Adventure,Children's Science fiction
Format: Supermarionation serial
Created by: Gerry Anderson,Sylvia Anderson
Written by:Gerry Anderson,Sylvia Anderson,Alan Fennell,Dennis Spooner

Ending theme: "Aqua Marina"
(sung by Gary Miller)
Composer(s): Barry Gray
Country of origin: United Kingdom
Language(s):English
No. of series: 1
No. of episodes: 39 (List of episodes)
Producer(s):  Gerry Anderson,Sylvia Anderson

Running time: 25 mins approx. per episode

Production company(s): AP Films

Distributor: ITC Entertainment

Original channel: ATV

Picture format: Film (35 mm)

Audio format: Mono

Original run: 4 October 1964 – 27 June 1965

Stingray is a children's marionette television show, created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and produced by AP Films for ATV and ITC Entertainment from 1964–65. Its 39 half-hour episodes were originally screened on ITV in the UK and in syndication in the USA. The scriptwriters included Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, Alan Fennell, and Dennis Spooner. Barry Gray composed the music, and Derek Meddings was the special effects director. Stingray was the first Supermarionation show to be filmed in colour, and also the first in which marionettes had interchangeable heads with different facial expressions. It was also the first British television programme to be filmed entirely in colour (the earlier series The Adventures of Sir Lancelot had been made in colour from halfway through its run). At that time the US stations were gearing up for full-time colour broadcasting, although Independent Television in Britain did not begin colour transmission until November 1969.

Production
Supercar had featured a vehicle that could travel on land, sea and air, and Fireball XL5 had featured a spaceship. The next logical step was a series about a submarine, which presented a number of technical challenges.
Scenes featuring model submarines or marionettes underwater were actually filmed on a dry set, with the camera looking through a narrow water tank containing air bubblers and fish of different sizes to simulate perspective, thereby creating a convincing illusion that the models or puppets were underwater. This was enhanced with lighting effects that gave the impression of shafts of light refracted through the surface of the sea.
Scenes on the ocean's surface were filmed using a large tank filled with water and blue dye. To prevent the edges of the tank from showing it was deliberately overfilled so that the water would constantly spill over the edges and conceal them. These techniques proved so successful that they were also used for underwater scenes in Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and Joe 90.
The show's 39 episodes were filmed as three blocks (or series) of thirteen episodes each, as ITC boss Lew Grade was accustomed to ordering further batches of 13 shows each as need demanded, as he had done on the earlier Anderson shows Four Feather Falls, Supercar and Fireball XL5 (all of which also ran to 39 episodes).

Story and characters
Stingray, a highly sophisticated combat submarine built for speed and manoeuvrability, is the flagship of the World Aquanaut Security Patrol (WASP), a 21st Century security organisation based at Marineville in the year 2065. She is capable of speeds of up to 600 knots (1,100 km/h) and advanced pressure compensators allow her to submerge to depths of over 36,000 feet (11,000 m), which permits cruising to the bottom of any part of any ocean in the world.
Marineville is located somewhere on the California coast of the United States. In the event of attack, the entire base can descend on hydraulic jacks into underground bunkers. Marineville is 10 miles (16 km) inland, and Stingray is launched from the base's "Pen 3" through a tunnel leading to the Pacific Ocean.
"Action Stations," "Launch Stations," and "Battle Stations" are sounded not by sirens but by a rapid drum-beat, composed and recorded by series composer Barry Gray, played over the Marineville public address system.
The pilot of Stingray is the square-jawed Captain Troy Tempest, the Supermarionation puppet who was modelled on James Garner, accompanied by Dixie navigator Lieutenant George Lee "Phones" Sheridan, nicknamed "Phones" because of his job as Stingray's hydrophone operator. His real name, George Sheridan, is referred to in the show's publicity material, but is never mentioned on-screen. Troy and Phones board Stingray by sitting down in their side-by-side command chairs in the stand-by lounge, which are lowered rapidly into the submarine on long tubular poles called injector tubes. An additional seat and pole is situated just behind theirs, for use by a third crew member, usually Marina, or a passenger. They take their orders from the crusty, "hoverchair"-bound Commander Samuel Shore, whose daughter, Lieutenant Atlanta Shore, is also a WASP operative and is enamoured of Troy. Sub-Lieutenant John Fisher also regularly takes shifts at Marineville Control. The reason Shore is confined to a hoverchair is revealed in the episode The Ghost of the Sea. As a security agent for a deep sea mining platform, he was attacked by a submarine. He managed to ram his attacker in return, and then escape to the surface with scuba gear, but in so doing, he lost the use of his legs. All this took place five years before the time in which Stingray is set.
During the course of the series, Stingray encounters a number of underwater races, both hostile and otherwise. The "aquaphibians," a submarine warrior race, appear frequently, often under the command of King Titan, whose puppet was modelled on Laurence Olivier, and who is the ruler of the underwater city of Titanica.
In the pilot episode, Stingray is attacked by Titan's forces and Troy and Phones are captured. They are rescued by Titan's slave girl Marina (modelled on Brigitte Bardot)[citation needed], a beautiful mute young woman who can breathe underwater. Troy is immediately smitten with Marina, and Atlanta becomes jealous. Meanwhile Titan swears revenge for Marina's betrayal. Marina becomes a regular member of Stingray's crew, and later acquires a seal pup called Oink, who features in a number of episodes.
Many subsequent episodes involve Titan's schemes to destroy Stingray and Marineville. These often fail due to the incompetence of Titan's spy, Surface Agent X-Two-Zero, whose puppet is modelled facially on Claude Rains[citation needed] but whose voice is imitative of Peter Lorre.
Almost all the characters, places and vehicles in the series have names connected, in some fashion, with the sea. Character names of this type include Captain Tempest (as in storm), Commander Shore (as in seashore), Lieutenant Fisher, Atlanta (from Atlantic), Marina (from marine), and the hostile aquaphibians. Place names associated with the sea or water include Marineville and Aquatraz; and vehicle names include the super-sub, Stingray, itself named after a type of marine creature, and Titan's deadly submersibles, which he calls Terror Fish.

"Stingray Class"
According to the Stingray comic strip in the weekly Countdown comic there was more than one Stingray class submarine in the Marineville fleet. They had names like Spearfish, Barracuda, Moray and Thornback and were identified by different numbers on their fins suggesting that the '3' on Stingray's fins did not indicate she was Stingray Mark III after all.
A similar idea was used by author John Theydon in his second Stingray novel, Stingray and the Monster, some years earlier. In the novel, another WASP submarine (unnamed and referred to as Number Thirteen) is hijacked by an old enemy of Commander Shore. Theydon's description of the hijacked boat, both inside and out, is recognisably similar to that of Stingray, with the specific exception that Number Thirteen is stated to not have Stingray's exceptional performance, being limited to around 400 knots rather than the 600 that Stingray is quoted as being able to reach. The implication, never explicitly stated, is that Stingray is an upgraded version of the design. Somewhat later, TV21 mentioned a second "super-sub" entering service with the WASPs—that is, until it is stolen by a Mysteron agent as part of the plot of a Captain Scarlet story.

And much more HERE...

I'm still remembering the part  where the Stingray submarine chase by a vicious submersibles fishlike 'Terrorfish' jump into the air from the ocean with background chorus it was like goosebump-ing me every time I watched it... That's truly magnificent moment...
And then the romantic ending part where the hero meet his mermaid lover with synchronizing song that bring to you what shockingly puppets can do...


2. Thunderbirds