Supercar (TV series) series proposed to the BBC by Hugh Woodhouse that was never produced. Anderson would later claim that the whole point of having a series based on a vehicle was to minimize having to show the marionettes walking, an action which he felt never looked convincing. The plot of the show consisted of Supercar, a vertical takeoff and landing craft invented by Prof. Rudolph Popkiss and Dr. Horatio Beaker, and piloted by Mike Mercury. On land it rode on a cushion of air rather than wheels. Jets in the rear allowed it to fly like a jet and retractable wings were
Thunderbirds (TV series) to the puppets". "Thunderbirds" has been praised for the quality of its effects. Jim Sangster and Paul Condon, writers of "Collins Telly Guide", consider the model work "uniformly impressive". To Paul Cornell, Martin Day and Keith Topping, writers of "The Guinness Book of Classic British TV", the effects are "way beyond anything seen on TV previously". Impressed by their work on "Thunderbirds", film director Stanley Kubrick hired several members of Meddings' staff to supervise the effects shooting for "". The series' title sequence, storyboarded by Gerry Anderson, is made up of two parts. It opens with a countdown of "5,