Thank you bruceberg  and kungphu . 

I too loved the show as a child and even had a Fireball XL5 toy set. I rediscovered it two years back when it became available to watch with a Shout Factory subscription through Amazon Prime. As I watched each episode I thought "This would be perfect to animate with iClone." There was a central cast of 6 and limited sets and settings. I admit I've been enjoying doing it. 

Thank you again for watching.

Hey walt fantastic work better than the orignial.

Thank you, vlado. 
Working on sets and characters for episode 3, part 1.  I hope to release it in August or September.

As others have said, truly great work.

I am indeed old enough to have watched these shows originally (although this old brain misremembered -- I would have bet my life the originals were in color).  Seeing your color version has an interesting effect of actually seeming like my old brain remembers it this way, if I can explain it properly.  Just like things seem more vivid in retrospect, my "memory" of the show is actually more in line with what you have achieved than the actual show was.  In my mind the show was widescreen (my brain knows it was not, but my heart...) and in vivid colors and the characters were just as you rendered.

So I actually watched this side by side with the original, on my dual monitors, pausing and playing a few minutes from each to compare.   Looking at the original it's pretty amazing that it's no where near as good as I remembered... but your version is.  It's like you're inside my mind!!  <g>.  Almost every single choice you made was how I either remembered it or how I would have liked it to have been (down to such things as having the young trainee actually look young, whereas in the original he looks at least as old as Steve).  The only "nit" I would pick is your robot is much fatter (I would have preferred him to be as sleek as the original).  But that's a very minor nit -- otherwise you put it through the "make it better" filter and it came out glorious.

So I assume you didn't have a mocap solution since you talked about the animation being the difficult part.  When watching this all I could think of in that regard was -- even with mocap, could I actually "perform" the way the marionettes do?  I'm not so sure, but you sure have got it nailed down however you are doing it.

I eagerly await your next episodes.  

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Alienware Aurora R16, Win 11, i9-149000KF, 3.20GHz CPU, 64GB RAM, RTX 4090 (24GB), Samsung 870 Pro 8TB, Gen3 MVNe M-2 SSD, 4TBx2, 39" Alienware Widescreen Monitor
Mike "ex-genius" Kelley

Mike (Kellytoons), I am deeply flattered that you watched the  original episode and my reanimation side-by-side.   I agree what we watch in the  past and how we remember it varies greatly.

I was 4 and 5 years old when Fireball XL5 originally aired  on US television. Afterward I became a fan of Gerry Anderson’s StingRay and  Captain Scarlett, then as I grew older UFO and Space 1999.

The one show I never watched as a child was Thunderbirds (I don’t  remember the reason why).

Flash forward, two years ago, all these great shows became  available to stream. I was most excited about Thunderbirds believing it to be  Fireball XL5 (for I had forgotten the name). When I watched the Thunderbird episodes,  I was baffled because this was not the show I recalled seeing. I started to doubt  that the show I saw as a child ever existed. Part of the problem, I was absolutely  convinced Fireball was in color. Also everyone my age kept telling me the show  I was talking about was called Thunderbirds. Nearly convinced my memories were  faulty, I just happened to watch a Black & White episode of Fireball XL5. It  was like rediscovering childhood friends. With each episode I became captivated  all over again. I thought to myself this hidden gem of a children’s show would  be perfect to animate in iClone.

Again, thank you for watching and I hopefully future  episodes will all be “Go! Go! Go!”