RIP in peace, Gerry Anderson

If you were born in the last 60 years, you probably know who Gerry Anderson was. Anderson created many of the most untypical children's shows on TV, airing first in the United Kingdom and then slowly migrating to the States.

While Hannah-Barbera insulted your child like minds with the Banana Splits, Anderson thought the children of the world, and I was one of them, could handle shows shot in SUPER MARINATION that involved puppets doing adult things, like working and having adventures without any children around to make them cute.

And these weren't any puppets - these amazing marionettes (See the clip above) that held down important jobs and had inter-species love triangles and adult theme music.  Male and female role models for kids - that made kids feel like they were talking to them.  What more, in Stingray, Anderson had a physically challenged marionette with a cool mobility device.

Mind you, Anderson made all this happen in 1964, DECADES before government and watchdog groups made TV networks air bullshit crap like the Noodle and Doodle Bus (where children are encouraged to hop aboard (unescorted, mind you) a bus driven by "Joel", a man who's into cooking and crafts and plays with, get this, puppets. Look at this douchebag on the right.  WHAT PARENT WOULD LET THIS MAN, OR ANY MAN, HOST THEIR CHILD ALONE IN A BUS?

Anderson later went on to film the syndicated SPACE 1999 about a moon crashing through outer space with Martin Landau and Barbara Bain in charge.  Hot!

So here's to you Gerry Anderson, for widening our horizons and giving us that bizarre inter-species love triangle between the Captain, the Admiral's daughter and the mute Mermaid.