No.181

Everyone’s seen Thunderbirds and Stingray, but not many have had the pleasure of Gerry Anderson’s tour-de-force high-action puppet extravaganza, Mike-65. Set in the not-so-distant future of 2065, the programme tells the story of Mike, the son of a military designer who is given a prototype jacket for his birthday. Little does he know that this jacket gives the wearer the attributes of all the M-65 jacket wearers throughout cinema history. One minute he’s dispatching mafia bosses like Ghost-Dog, the next he’s delivering one liners in the cold tones of The Terminator, all in full colour supermarionation. Surprisingly, Mike-65 never got past the pilot episode…