Thunderbirds Are Go - Low Cost!

[AndyThomas]

Very interesting. My lad and I were in an Entertainer toy shop over the weekend, and were hunting for posters of the Thunderbirds in order to enter a competition. I was casting around for Kayo, who was supposed to be there, and he said to me "Daddy, let's look in the girls area". And he was right, there near all the pink stuff was Kayo's poster. So despite being arguably the most kick-ass member of the team, it's a "boys want to play with action figures that are boys" assumption that's perhaps prevailing here? One token Transformers female (although maybe another in the current cartoon or the one before that, thinking about it?)

It's a complicated area, on the one hand my wife doesn't want to watch "boy" things with our little one because they don't interest her, but by the same token expects the small one to do domestic stuff because the sexism thing is so last century! Spot the contradiction! The thing is, boys and girls are typically going to have differing tastes. Otherwise life would be deeply boring. Lego, for example, realised that while girls would play with Lego, they weren't as into the construction aspect as boys. So you get Lego Friends, with some construction, but not loads and loads, and obviously lots of pink. Hm. But then major character in the Lego Movie is an all action female.

A lot of it comes down to how you're "indoctrinated" growing up. Every household is different. The toy makers, being capitalists, have to aim for the common denominator with the biggest profit margin. So if they figure more boys will buy boy Thunderbirds than girls will buy the girl Thunderbird, bingo, that's the priority. But it would be good to see them try it, just to see what the response would be from "modern" girls.

BTW, remarkably Tracy Island appears to be on its way. I'll let you know if it has a Thunderbird S launch slot!

[Crash]

That is very interesting. We'll have to see what they do with them once TB-S and KO get released in the toy line.

TB-S *will* be compatible with Tracy island but *only* via a sold-separately add-on or paid downloadable content, probably.

Jeff Tracy is another character that's been forgotten about.
How come no-one in the new series is grateful for being rescued? After working in technical support, I'd just let those people die.

[Vanessa]

Hmm, female characters in predominantly boys toy lines have been historically lacking since I was little, but there were some if you looked hard.
MASK had a Vanessa Warfield toy figure (why would I remember that?)
There were female Gobots (Crasher) and Rock Lords (Solitaire) with toys you could buy, again only a few, but they did exist. Transformers was different in that there were no female toys to go with the on-screen or in-comic characters, for years. Much to my annoyance as I always wanted an Arcee transformer when I was a nipper. At least they are redressing the balance now, as Hasbro are making plenty of female Transformers toys these days. Their latest Transformers cartoon, Robots in Disguise, has a leading female character called Strongarm, and there's a toy for her too, and for once it's not Pink, which I think is pretty cool. Although I don't read them, the IDW Transformers ongoing comics are featuring many female characters, and Hasbro are following suit and releasing toys to match. So at last times are changing, albeit slowly.

[AndyThomas]

Well, Tracy Island did indeed turn up yesterday and after much wrestling with its components I did manage to get it looking about right and up and running eventually - the launch sequence lifts are bloody noisy! It's pretty solid, lots of flashy LEDs and sound effects etc but I can now confirm that a Thunderbird S launch slot is nowhere to be seen. Quite frankly, it's big enough already!

The toy manufacturer tells me Kayo plans are afoot, but didn't expand! The back of the Tracy Island box also mentions a Brains figure will be coming out in due course - I imagine they're testing the water a little by releasing the core Tracy characters first before deciding how much further to take it.

When you stop and think about it, a lot of the 80s cartoons did have a pretty strong female showing. He-Man had She-Ra, Evil Lynn or whatever she was called. Thundercats had Cheetarah. Dwarfed by the male characters, but at least there was some representation on screen if nothing else. Might do another video about Tracy Island at some point, I guess other parents might be interested if nothing else as it ain't cheap!

[Crash]

I caught Hotel Transylvania on ITV this weekend. It was a really good film; very easy and enjoyable to watch at the same time.

During the adverts, ITV promised to have new episodes of Thunderbirds Are Go back on CITV "soon" but didn't say when.
Wikipedia says we get the second half of season 1 on 31st October.

[AndyThomas]

They'd better hurry up, the toy firm will not be impressed if they don't inject some more interest soon. I'm really surprised they've left it this long, unless perhaps they can do a big cliffhanger at the end of season 1 to make a long episode - they're going to run out of time to get them all out in 2015 otherwise. My son's drifting back into Octonauts' new series and I've already had a new Gup request, although he swears blind he didn't give permission for his Octopod to go the charity shop! I've just lost about 95% of the people reading this, haven't I?!

[Crash]

Speaking of Thunderbirds, I saw the 50-year anniversary magazine in WH Smiths.
It's £9.99 but it's very good.
The Eaglemoss Starship-of-the-fortnight was the timeship Aeon, which I think it a weird and ugly design. So, I got the Thunderbirds mag instead.
It has an feature about David Sisson and his epic model-building at the back as well.

The magazine is more image-heavy than narrative-heavy but the whole thing is a real visual feast and great to skim through.

[Crash]

Is it just me or is this new run of Thunderbirds Are Go episodes much better than the first?
I hope I'm not jinxing anything.

[Crash]

Wow, how great was Episode 25? - A definite "S" out of 5.

[AndyThomas]

The little one's watched it but I haven't yet, apart from the last couple of minutes. I love what they're doing with it, using Kayo as a source of uncertainty within the team due to her different proactive approach. I could see her and Lady Penelope being more of an intelligence unit. The whole approach of the show reminds me a lot of how Star Fleet got away with being quite dark and complex for a children's show; this new Thunderbirds is properly arc driven stuff, it's not just "rescue of the week" which they could so easily have done.

Reminds me, the little one was wanting to know which toy they were going to do a "supersize" version of next, better look into that!