Belgian Monty cards
Previously I wrote: This set is a bit of a mystery to me. I have only been able to trace these meagre few copies of the set thanks to a Belgian submitter on Catawiki; I don't even know how large it is. Also, since the captions only mention the series name, this leads me to suppose that other Supermarionation series featured in this card collection as well. What intrigues me most though, is the subject matter of the pictures: some are behind the scenes shots, some seem to be specially posed for this series.
Now, thanks to the sleuthing efforts of Dutch collector Bert van IJken, I can tell you that these cards were manufactured by Monty as part of a series issued in Belgium titled 'TV Shows'. It contains a total of 69 cards with blank backs which concerned itself with TV shows in general and the numbers 17 through 29 [the cards shown here] were dedicated to
Thunderbirds.
As I noted before, the subject matter is unusual; rather than the wellknown publicity shots used on other cards of the same era, these cards show a combination of
behind the scenes shots
and posed photos shot by in-house photographer
Doug Luke
which were used for i.e. the
front pages of
TV21.
To wit:
- #18, when inspected closely, is a small scale FAB 1 and mansion, judging by the detailing on the mansion and the lack of passengers in the car;
shows what I believe to be the same setup from another angle
- #17 & #19 are clearly photographed against the same painted mountain background flat — by the looks of it, these were hastily thrown together, possibly a rush job to illustrate a TV21 headline [these publicity shots often had to be put together after regular shooting had ended]; a cropped version of #17 was used for
of Dutch TV21 spinoff
TV2000
#26 from 1967
- #20 & #22 were both taken during the special effects shoot for
;
for more details see the special effects gallery linked above
- #24 is a frame from the first Thunderbirds movie
Thunderbirds Are GO!,
also used on
of the accompanying
brochure
which dates this card set as following the film's premiere date, december 23d, 1966
- #25 & #27 both look like posed publicity shots: the set in both pictures is the salon in Lady P's mansion, the chair she sits in and the props surrounding her are the same and, by the looks of it, the puppet is the same too, even the pose she sits in, only the costume differs
- #29 was taken during the special effects shoot for
;
for more details see the special effects gallery linked above
images sourced from the
Catawiki
website
