Sci-Fi Storm

For years, American and Canadian fans of British TV Producer Gerry Anderson’s shows, such as Thunderbirds, Space: 1999, UFO, Captain Scarlet, Supercar, Stingray, and Fireball XL5 have been frustrated in their search for collectibles based on the ’60’s and ’70’s sci-fi programs. Forced to buy goods from sources outside of North America, many fans have been swindled by unscrupulous dealers, waited months to get orders that were incorrectly filled, or been charged high shipping prices for merchandise. And thus begat FABGEAR. Read More for the full story.

For years, American and Canadian fans of British TV Producer Gerry Anderson’s shows, such as Thunderbirds, Space: 1999, UFO, Captain Scarlet, Supercar, Stingray, and Fireball XL5 have been frustrated in their search for collectibles based on the ’60’s and ’70’s sci-fi programs. Forced to buy goods from sources outside of North America, many fans have been swindled by unscrupulous dealers, waited months to get orders that were incorrectly filled, or been charged high shipping prices for merchandise.
FAB Gear (a division of Proteus Media Group) means to end the suffering of fans who are fed up with hunting for goods overseas and the hassles of obtaining them.
October sees the launch of the company’s new website at http://fabgearusa.com which caters to Anderson fans in America and Canada and offers them a “one stop” shopping experience for merchandise based on the shows. The website features toys, collectibles and dvds based on many of the programs. In addition, Fabgearusa.com offers a message forum for fans world wide to meet and talk about the fondly remembered shows. The forum has boards for discussion of all of the Anderson produced programs as well as areas for news, fan fiction, and an area for collectors to swap and sell collectibles, among others.
“We hope to build an on-line community for fans of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson’s TV shows,” says FAB Gear spokesperson Anthony Taylor. “We believe there are many, many fans in North America but lacking a place to meet on-line, quite a few of them wind up never discovering there are other people who remember and love the shows.”
Gerry and Sylvia Anderson produced Supercar, Fireball XL5, Stingray, Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet, Joe 90, and The Secret Service in the revolutionary “Supermarionation” process from 1959 to 1968 for Britain’s Independant Television Corporation. Moving into live action production, the duo produced UFO and Space: 1999 in the 1970’s for ITC.
The summer of 2004 marks the release of a live action feature film of Thunderbirds from Universal Studios and Working Title films. Gerry Anderson is currently producing a new series of computer animated Captain Scarlet shows for release in 2005, and Carlton International is preparing an all new puppet series of Thunderbirds for broadcast in 2005 as well, to mark the 40th anniversary of the original series.
In addition, Disney has optioned Joe 90 and is preparing it for a feature film.
“With so much activity happening in regard to the shows, we want to focus the fan activity and give everyone a place to not only buy toys and collectibles, but make new friends as well,” Taylor says. Taylor is currently writing a comic book series based on Anderson’s UFO for publication early next year.
FAB Gear is named after the popular call sign from Thunderbirds, “F.A.B.!”, which stands for nothing at all, according to Gerry Anderson. Fab was simply a popular slang term when the series was produced in 1965, and the producer adopted it for the show.