[25] The script for the first episode, "The Most Special Agent", was written by Anderson and his wife Sylvia as had been the case on earlier series created by the couple.
A top WIN agent finds his cover broken. [6][7] Other sources point to an undetermined year in the early 21st century, while the scriptwriters' guide gives the year as 1998. Sheriff Tex Tucker makes sure all is well in Four Feather Falls with the help of his dog Dusty and Rocky the horse. [81], In the 1980s, the rights to the ITC productions belonged to PolyGram Television. [6][58][72][76] The authors of Supermarionation Classics praise the writing and model work but add that the series "failed to arouse more than a passing interest" with some fans. See who else started out in horror films. As with its earlier productions, Century 21 produced tie-ins from comic strips to toy cars. [23] Noting Joe 90's subscription to "wider themes in Cold War culture", Cull likens the BIG RAT's capabilities to brainwashing but concludes that fundamentally it is "benign" technology. When a specialist neurosurgeon is injured in a plane crash, it is up to Joe to save the life of an ailing novelist. "[64], Both Anderson and Cull suggest that the series, with its bespectacled protagonist, boosted the self-confidence of young viewers who wore glasses.
[29] The final Supermarionation series, The Secret Service, advanced this hybrid format by combining puppet sequences with extensive footage of live actors. [53] Files said that he was "tickled pink" to be working with Davies, commenting: "I hated the way that so many so-called producers wouldn't meet his eye. The adventures of a preteen secret agent who can have any useful skills downloaded into his brain. The series has also drawn some criticism for its lack of female characters. [56][57], The series had several UK re-runs during the 1970s but was not shown on Yorkshire Television until 1981. EVERYTHING OF GERRY ANDERSON'S CAREER!!!!! [67] Comparisons have been made to other media featuring child spies, such as the Spy Kids films and the Alex Rider novels.
[78] "The Most Special Agent" was re-edited to remove its framing sequences, thus giving the impression that Joe's theft of the MiG-242 is a real mission rather than a fiction. As two stages were being used for filming, the "expressionless" main character puppets were also duplicated. Looking for some great streaming picks? Episodes are listed in the recommended broadcast order as published by ITC.
Episodes begin with either a cold open (a first for an Anderson series) or the title sequence, which sees Joe receiving a brain pattern from the BIG RAT.
[10][12] Hostile entities include the Eastern Alliance, which dominates Asia and appears in the episodes "Attack of the Tiger" and "Mission X-41". [10] The stronger violence introduced in Captain Scarlet is sometimes evident in Joe 90: in "Hi-Jacked", Joe kills an enemy with a grenade,[E 8] while in "Project 90", Mac narrowly avoids having his head pulverised by a drill. Joe tries to find out whether the crash of a prototype. World leaders are left paralysed after being attacked with poison darts known to have been used only by a lost South American tribe.
[7][8][36] Few new puppets were made, the only notable exceptions being Mac (who was sculpted on "bouncing bomb" designer Barnes Wallis), Joe and Mrs Harris. Joe poses as the heir to a Middle Eastern throne as WIN tries to rescue the real prince from kidnappers allied with a jealous. As a result, Joe is able to become a test pilot, brain surgeon, etc, as needed. With Len Jones, Rupert Davies, Keith Alexander, David Healy. [E 10], As in earlier Supermarionation series, the premise of Joe 90 features advanced technology,[E 11] rescue operations,[E 12] secret organisations[E 9] and threats to the safety of the world. [73] Jeff Evans, author of The Penguin TV Companion, criticises the glasses as a plot device, writing that they make Joe "look more like the class swot than a secret agent. Joe must take on his persona as a famous pianist if the agent is to escape his captors. Commentators have interpreted the spy-fi theme and use of a boy protagonist as both a "kids-play-Bond" concept and an enshrinement of children's imagination. Joe is sent in to destroy an Army base that has been taken over by enemy forces.
[7][8] Lane remembered that as producer he was responsible for "looking at the scripts, the effects, the puppets, the whole thing really". [41][45] Rating the CD three-and-a-half stars out of five, AllMusic reviewer William Ruhlmann comments that while the music is "not great writing" it remains "perfectly adequate, if not inspired.
A literally unkillable agent leads an international intelligence agency's fight against an extra-terrestrial terror campaign. [34] Other print media included 1968 and 1969 Joe 90 annuals by Century 21 Publishing as well as two short novels by May Fair Books: Joe 90 and the Raiders and Joe 90 in Revenge. Shane Rimmer Dies: Longtime Screen & Voice Actor In Bond Films, ‘Thunderbirds’ & Much More Was 89, Shane Rimmer, Actor in ‘Thunderbirds’ and James Bond Movies, Dies at 89, Thunderbirds: Co-Creator, Actress Sylvia Anderson Dies at 88. [16][53] Granada, which started its run with the Christmas-themed "The Unorthodox Shepherd" rather than "The Most Special Agent", was one of several broadcasters to transmit the series under the alternative title The Adventures of Joe 90. "[8][19][20] When it came to devising the series, Anderson was inspired by his early work as an assistant editor on films such as The Wicked Lady (1945), for which he handled recording tape on a daily basis. [78][79] Intended to boost US syndication sales, the film was one of several Anderson anthologies to be released in the 1980s under the promotional banner "Super Space Theater". For their regular roles in Joe 90 they were given a range of alternative "mood" heads, including "smilers", "frowners" and "blinkers". [E 2][E 8] There is some inconsistency as to why Joe has the codename "90": series publicity stated that he is so called as he is WIN's 90th London-based agent, but character dialogue in "Project 90" states that the codename originates from WIN's "File Number 90", which documents the BIG RAT. D&D Beyond Without them, he's a boy. [37] The puppets of Sam Loover and Shane Weston had each made several guest appearances in Captain Scarlet. I was really likening it to magnetic recording, where material could be stored or transferred to another tape.
Joe is unintentionally given the brain pattern of a, A nuclear bomb must be discreetly removed from the. [39], Besides the music for the first episode, "The Most Special Agent", Gray composed incidental music for a further 20 episodes.
[92], For the band named after the TV series, see, I liked the idea of it all being a sort of family thing and I also liked the puppets themselves more than the ones in, "Gerry Anderson: The Puppet Master – Part 3", "The Hows and Whys of Supermarionation – Part 4", "Complete Studio-Recording List of Barry Gray", "The Hound – May 2003: Joe W.I.N. Add the first question. [E 2][E 4][5][11] WIN is the successor to MI6, the CIA and the KGB, which have been merged to form the new global spy network. [25], A Christmas-themed episode, "The Unorthodox Shepherd",[E 1] featured location shooting to an extent that Century 21 had never attempted before. Joe 90 is a 1968-1969 British science-fiction television series created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and filmed by their production company, Century 21, for ITC Entertainment. The series is set in the near future. [33] During the 1990s, comparisons were made between Joe and then-Prime Minister John Major, also known for his large glasses. Nine-year-old schoolboy Joe McClaine is the adopted son of Professor Ian "Mac" McClaine, a widowed computer expert.
[30], Keith Wilson and Grenville Nott took over from Bob Bell as heads of the art department and built the inside of Culver Bay Cottage from a design by Mike Trim.
"[67], Ultimately, Joe 90 has proven to be less successful than earlier Anderson productions.
[58] Stephen Hulse refers to Joe 90 as "technically accomplished" and "clearly the most child-oriented" of the Andersons' later puppet productions, but also calls it one of their "lesser series". First broadcast on the ITV regional franchises between 1968 and 1969, the 30-episode series was the sixth and last of the Andersons' productions to be made primarily using a form of marionette puppetry dubbed "Supermarionation". When the launch of a mission to Mars goes awry due to sabotage, International Rescue is requested to assist in the mission's second attempt. [24][26] Anthony Clark of the British Film Institute commends Joe 90 for including more effective characterisation than Captain Scarlet, also praising the writing and Barry Gray's musical score.
Joe McClaine is a 9-year-old boy whose adoptive father has developed a method of transferring specialist "brain patterns", and hence skills, into his son's mind.
At the heart of the BIG RAT is the "Rat Trap": a spherical cage in which the subject sits while receiving the recorded "brain patterns".
Armed with the skills of the world's top academic and military minds, Joe is recruited by the World Intelligence Network (WIN) as its "Most Special Agent". After seven issues, this merged into Fleetway's Thunderbirds comic. "The Most Special Agent", "Splashdown", "Attack of the Tiger" and "Arctic Adventure", This page was last edited on 20 September 2020, at 00:14. Gerry Anderson had reached his goal with Joe 90 of having miniature people but it's a pity the scripts were a bit top-heavy with their wish-fulfilment fantasies of many of Britain's oppressed 10 year-old boys.
An exploitative businessman is compelled to change his ways after he is bewildered by Joe 90's multitude of brain patterns. Also available were Joe's WIN briefcase (complete with replica gadgets and pistol) and his WIN badge (reading "Most Special Agent").
[82][83] In the 1990s, PolyGram proposed a live-action film adaptation of Joe 90. Use the HTML below. [51] Peel suggests that the absence of women makes Joe 90, along with several other Anderson productions, inferior to Thunderbirds. [71] This concept, Cook suggests, is evident in the title "Joe 90" itself: "No longer is [Joe] a nine-year-old boy but instead his status and capacities have been multiplied tenfold to transform him into agent 'Joe 90', his name an appealing futuristic echo of the then distant year of 1990.
In the future, the Tracy family run a private mechanized emergency response service.
"[6], Joe 90 debuted on ATV Midlands and Tyne Tees Television in late September 1968.