Gerry Anderson Postage Stamps!

At last some proper recognition from the establishment for creative genius Gerry Anderson (why is he not Sir Gerry?).  The Royal Mail has come out with  a series of stamps commemorating 50 years since his first Supermarionation series, Supercar; the very first TV programme we can remember.

To be fair we were very young indeed when Supercar was on TV and we remember much better Fireball XL5, with its groovy early sixties theme song by the incomparable Barry Gray.

We approve of the way that they have produced the stamps representing the first two series in black and white, as were the TV shows, even though there are colour stills from both productions.  Things suddenly burst into colour with the arrival of Stingray; the first British TV show to be made in colour.  But that's not the way Triple P saw it, of course, as the colour was for the American market, we still had glorious monochrome in Britain.

Next, in the series of stamps, is the one commemorating Anderson's masterwork, Thunderbirds,  Triple P's absolute favourite TV programme when he was younger (and still up there in his the top 5, we suspect).  We are delighted that they chose Triple P's favourite, Thunderbird 2, to represent the series!

The fifth stamp represents Anderson's underrated Captain Scarlet, surely some of the darkest children's TV ever produced.

Anderson's final Supermarionation series, Joe 90, was never such a favourite but they have inlcuded the iconic image of the faintly annoying Joe being programmed into a new role by the BIG RAT; an idea stolen by the producers of the recent Dollhouse series in the US.

In addition there is a set of four "lenticular" stamps, the technology in which means that the image appears to move as you look at them from different angles.  Not new technology but the first time its been used on a stamp in Britain and a suitable space age approach to these retro images of the future.

FAB!