Anything can happen in the next half hour!
This post is sort of pseudo-nostalgia, I guess. It concerns something from before I was born that I didn't really know about until this week, but I now find interesting enough to share. :)
Connor had a field trip to the Georgia Aquarium this week, and he was very excited about it. (He's gone before, but it's been a while, and he probably doesn't remember it in detail.) He was especially excited about being able to touch the stingrays (sadly, he didn't get to; they ran out of time). For days leading up to the trip he was talking about stingrays constantly.
I happen to have a song in my iTunes entitled "Stingray", which all the talk motivated me to play for Connor. It features mostly a driving drumbeat and the occasional repeated "Stingray . . . . Stingray!", and is part of an album entitled "100 Greatest TV Themes". But it's one of the few that I didn't actually know before buying the album. It is definitely not from this:
No, I actually remembered that show, a typical Stephen J. Cannell action joint from the 80's about a mysterious favor-trading do-gooder who drove a '65 Stingray and went only by "Ray" (presumably after the car). The music in my possession was different; the title of the track indicated an older show - older even than Ray's car. I had just sort of assumed without really thinking about it too much that it was an earlier version of the same idea, and the 80's version was a remake (or "reimagining").
Not even close.
The song is, in fact, from a Gerry & Sylvia Anderson "Supermarionation" series - the first to be filmed in color, the last one before Thunderbirds took off. Naturally, this being such a show, the title refers to a vehicle - in this case, a super submarine:
Not appearing in the actual title sequence, but present on the iTunes track, are lyrics. I can't imagine why they didn't want to break up that way-too-tense opening with a lounge lizard leisurely crooning thus:
It dives under the sea
Into the world below
Where adventure and mystery
Can always be found
It flies, fearless and free,
Chasing the strangest foe
But despite all adversity
Sails homeward bound!
Maybe they learned their lesson after Fireball XL5?
This led me on a trek through the Internet researching relevant things, so I also learned that one of the main reasons those shows were all about the vehicles, which always featured complicated auto-boarding gadgets, was because they couldn't get the Supermarionettes to walk in anything like a realistic manner. But sitting still doesn't make for very exciting TV. So they're always in elevators or on moving sidewalks or in personal hovercraft...
And that's today's episode of This Week I Learned!
Connor had a field trip to the Georgia Aquarium this week, and he was very excited about it. (He's gone before, but it's been a while, and he probably doesn't remember it in detail.) He was especially excited about being able to touch the stingrays (sadly, he didn't get to; they ran out of time). For days leading up to the trip he was talking about stingrays constantly.
I happen to have a song in my iTunes entitled "Stingray", which all the talk motivated me to play for Connor. It features mostly a driving drumbeat and the occasional repeated "Stingray . . . . Stingray!", and is part of an album entitled "100 Greatest TV Themes". But it's one of the few that I didn't actually know before buying the album. It is definitely not from this:
Click to viewNo, I actually remembered that show, a typical Stephen J. Cannell action joint from the 80's about a mysterious favor-trading do-gooder who drove a '65 Stingray and went only by "Ray" (presumably after the car). The music in my possession was different; the title of the track indicated an older show - older even than Ray's car. I had just sort of assumed without really thinking about it too much that it was an earlier version of the same idea, and the 80's version was a remake (or "reimagining").
Not even close.
The song is, in fact, from a Gerry & Sylvia Anderson "Supermarionation" series - the first to be filmed in color, the last one before Thunderbirds took off. Naturally, this being such a show, the title refers to a vehicle - in this case, a super submarine:
Not appearing in the actual title sequence, but present on the iTunes track, are lyrics. I can't imagine why they didn't want to break up that way-too-tense opening with a lounge lizard leisurely crooning thus:
It dives under the sea
Into the world below
Where adventure and mystery
Can always be found
It flies, fearless and free,
Chasing the strangest foe
But despite all adversity
Sails homeward bound!
Maybe they learned their lesson after Fireball XL5?
This led me on a trek through the Internet researching relevant things, so I also learned that one of the main reasons those shows were all about the vehicles, which always featured complicated auto-boarding gadgets, was because they couldn't get the Supermarionettes to walk in anything like a realistic manner. But sitting still doesn't make for very exciting TV. So they're always in elevators or on moving sidewalks or in personal hovercraft...
And that's today's episode of This Week I Learned!