The link between The Wormton Lamb and Thunderbirds

I’ve just discovered that Thunderbirds explored the issues of growth hormones getting into the environment before I did with The Wormton Lamb.

For Christmas my wonderful sister got me the Thunderbirds DVD boxed set and when I mentioned this to my friends a number of them said, “Oh yes, Attack of the Alligators – they were real baby crocodiles you know.”

I could recall Pit of peril (walking army thing falls into a hole) , The man from MI5 (Lady Penelope helps a secret agent called Bunsen - or Bondson!)and Move and your dead (the road racing one) but Attack of the Alligators escaped me.

Well, thanks to the bad weather outside I’ve now worked my way sequentially to this episode and it’s a tropical version of The Wormton Lamb with alligators and International Rescue. Apart from that there’s little resemblance and I can’t imagine Gerry Anderson taking me to court like Henry Lincoln and Michael Baigent did to Dan Brown over The Da Vinci Code.

The basic plot is that a wonder chemical called theromean has been developed from a rare tropical plant. In the twentieth-first century, food production will be (is?) a major concern. “A few drops of theromean could increase Argentina’s beef production by 10%.”

So – you see- it’s potent stuff.

An entrepreneur called Blackner, which sounds a little bit Blackman if you listen with lo-fi speakers, visits the research station in the jungle but his unscrupulous riverboatman (not The Hood for a change) steals the theromean, pouring some down the drain. The drain empties into the river (so much for progress into the twentieth-first century) and alligators swim through with terrible consequences.

I find myself wondering how they got the baby alligators so cross. They’re obviously being tormented by something off camera to make their tails, which are in frame, flail around. And there’s one scene where Scott Tracy fires a missile at them and it looks like real flames leap out at them.

In fact, throughout the Thunderbirds series, I am struck by the woeful lack of any health & safety standards. It’s the same with my Captain Scarlet boxed set. There are nuclear reactors you can’t shut down, runaway monorails with no manual over-ride, trigger happy Americans and suspension bridges that explode when automatic rockets travel across them (allowing the rocket to begin its pre-programmed unalterable launch sequence with its care and maintenance technicians still on board). I could go on.

Thank heavens for International Rescue and Spectrum.

I can’t tell you how Attack of the alligators ends yet so I can’t spoil your watching pleasure, even if I wanted to, because I’m writing this behind the settee. It doesn’t look good though and maybe this is one rescue they can’t pull off. (I suppose this is inevitable eventually).

More info on Attack of the alligators is available at the Fanderson site.

And more info about The Wormton Lamb (since you mention it) is on Amazon and Anarchadia.

If you haven't got your boxed sets of Thunderbirds or Captain Scarlet yet do so - every home should have one. There's such good value! And the machines are all Vintage Things!

I think Thuderbirds might be why I became an industrial designer.

I will also say that no children or animals or classic cars were harmed in the writing of The Wormton Lamb.