When the Century 21 puppet workshop embarked upon the creation of a brand-new generation of
Supermarionation
puppets for the start of filming on
Captain Scarlet And The Mysterons,
a cast of over 60 marionettes had to be created to populate Captain Scarlet's fully-realised 21st Century world. As with the previous Supermarionation series, the main cast of puppet characters were supported by a large repertory puppet cast of 'revamp' marionettes: puppets who could be used and re-used as necessary according to the requirements of each new script. With a costume change and, occasionally, a different coloured wig or change in skin colour, each of these puppets could take on any variety of suitable roles, moving from episode to episode much as an actor would do in repertory theatre, assuming a different character each week. Just as if these puppets were Century 21's 'actors', so they were cast for their roles from a directory of photographs, the Supermarionation version of the actors' directory Spotlight.
production number
regular cast appearances
joe mcclaine
prof. ian mcclaine
sam loover
shane weston
ada harris
episode title
1
Most Special Agent
2
Hi-jacked
3
Splash Down
4
Operation McClaine
5
Three's A Crowd
6
International Concerto
7
The Big Fish
8
The Unorthodox Shepherd
9
Relative Danger
10
Business Holiday
11
King For A Day
12
Double Agent
13
Most Special Astronaut
14
Arctic Adventure
15
The Fortress
16
Project 90
17
Colonel McClaine
18
The Race
19
The Professional
20
Attack Of The Tiger
21
Lone-handed 90
22
Talkdown
23
Breakout
24
Test Flight
25
Mission X-41
26
Child Of The Sun God
27
Trial at Sea
28
Viva Cordova
29
See You Down There
30
The Birthday
When production began on the next Supermarionation series,
Joe 90,
it made economic sense (in terms of both the budget and production schedule) to continue to use the Captain Scarlet puppets and, in time, supplement these with new puppets who would also go on to appear in the final Supermarionation series,
The Secret Service.
Two of the Captain Scarlet revamp puppets were given a complete make-over to appear as regular characters in Joe 90
(
Sam Loover
and
Shane Weston),
while the other three were newly created for the series.
Whereas the puppets portraying the main characters in the series had a variety of alternative heads created for them ('smiler', 'frowner' and 'blinker'), all of which were duplicated to enable the simultaneous shooting of two separate episodes on the two Century 21 Studio puppet soundstages, the revamp puppets were mostly all one-offs, although a few did have 'blinker' heads created if their characters had to be seen opening/closing their eyes — otherwise, the appearance of being asleep or dead was achieved with Plasticine eyelids overlaid on the puppet's eyes. However, as some of the Joe 90 revamp puppets had originally appeared as regular characters in Captain Scarlet (most notably
Colonel White,
Captain Ochre
and
Captain Grey),
these puppets also had a variety of facial expressions available to the puppeteers — indeed, on at least two occasions, two different heads created for the same Captain Scarlet regular character, appear as two separate revamp characters in the same Joe 90 episode
Lieutenant Green
in
King For A Day
and
Dr. Fawn
in
Viva Cordova).
The
first part
of this Century 21 Supermarionation Puppet Catalogue covered the puppets that appeared during the course of Captain Scarlet's 32 episodes. This second part features those puppets that appeared in Joe 90. Including the five regular cast puppets, we have identified 70 different puppets used in Joe 90, all but 17 of which had previously appeared in Captain Scarlet. The majority of these puppets made multiple appearances in the series. Although they were all originally identified by number (inscribed in the back of the puppet's head) during filming, we have assigned character names to the puppets according to the role for which they will be most familiar to viewers — be it from an appearance in Captain Scarlet, Joe 90 or The Secret Service.
The following catalogue lists each puppet's Joe 90 roles, so far as can be determined from what can be seen on screen and other photographic reference (some puppets are shrouded in darkness, have their backs to the camera or are so out of focus that they cannot be identified). For certain puppets, this list is supplemented with additional information about previous appearances in Captain Scarlet and subsequent roles in The Secret Service, so as to help to clarify the identity of the puppet. A table detailing the episode-by-episode appearances of the regular cast puppets appears opposite.
Chris Bentley, Stephen Brown & Lynn Simpson
Mervin Brand
First seen as Macey in Captain Scarlet And The Mysterons – Big Ben Strikes Again, but better-known from that series as Mervin Brand in The Launching, this puppet later appeared in The Secret Service as Mark Slater in The Deadly Whisper.
this page is based on material originally published in FAB #34
