I've been watching a puppet show series from the 1960s and boy is it ever nifty!!

"Thunderbirds" is a British show, set in the future, where International Rescue zooms around saving people from situations where they'd certainly die. They are all puppets but once you get past that, the show is FAB! They have these five specialized craft for land, sea, air, space and always show up in the nick of time. In tonight's episode, the Empire State Building was being moved 200 yards to the right (I know, I know, how is 200 yards to the right better than where it is, but OK...) and an underground river causes subsidence and the whole building collapses trapping a news crew underground!

The sets are all miniature and tremendously detailed. The vehicles all work and get all dented up in explosions. They puff diesel smoke and clank if on tracks. The spiral nose on the boring machine works. Rockets flame. It is all really cool and apparently was big in Britain in the mid-60s but holds up well even now. They even got some stuff about the future right - drones, for instance. And some stuff is just fun. Lady Penelope, their London secret agent, communicates with IR through her Regency tea pot, rides in a pink Rolls Royce outfitted with six wheels, machine gun in the grill, rockets in the headlights, Lexan bubble top and driven by "Nosey" Parker, a caricature of a British butler.

Tons of fun. FAB guys!!!

(FAB is what they say to indicate "message received and complying". When asked what the heck FAB stood for, series producer Gerry Anderson said "It stands for FAB". Well, duh...)