Joe 90

Joe 90 is widely believed to be set in 2012 and 2013.^[3][4][5] The scriptwriters' guide stated that the year is 1998, while other sources place the series at an unspecified point in the early 21st century.^[4][6][7] The episode "The Unorthodox Shepherd" is implied to be set in 2013.^{[E 1][7]}

The series revolves around the eponymous Joe, a nine-year-old schoolboy and the adopted son of widowed computer expert Professor Ian "Mac" McClaine. Ostensibly an ordinary father-and-son pair, the McClaines live in an Elizabethan-style cottage on the Dorset coast. In the basement of the cottage is a secret laboratory containing Mac's latest invention, the Brain Impulse Galvanoscope Record And Transfer (referred to by the acronym "BIG RAT"): a machine capable of recording a person's knowledge and experience and transferring it to the mind of another. The BIG RAT is centred around the "Rat Trap": a spinning, spherical cage in which the pre-recorded "brain patterns" are uploaded to the recipient.

Sam Loover, a friend of Mac and an agent of the World Intelligence Network (WIN), recognises the potential of Joe and the BIG RAT and persuades the McClaines to pledge their services to the organisation. With the aid of the BIG RAT, Joe becomes a spy unlike any other: by taking on the brain patterns of expert adults, he gains the skills needed to undertake dangerous missions, while his youth helps him to avoid arousing enemy suspicion.^{[E 2]} As long as he wears a pair of special glasses, which contain electrodes that store the transferred brain patterns, he is able to carry out all manner of assignments – from piloting fighter aircraft^{[E 2][E 3][E 4][E 5]} to performing neurosurgery^{[E 6]} to playing the piano.^{[E 7]} Known as WIN's "Most Special Agent",^{[E 2]} Joe 90 reports to Shane Weston, the network's commander-in-chief in London, and carries a specially-adapted school case featuring a secret compartment that contains a radio transceiver and high-capacity handgun.^{[N 1][E 2][E 8]} The series ends with a clip show episode set on Joe's 10th birthday, in which a number of his missions are recalled as flashbacks during a surprise party.^{[E 9]}

Like earlier Supermarionation series, Joe 90 features secret organisations,^{[E 10]} rescue missions,^{[E 11]} global security threats^{[E 4][3]} and advanced technology:^{[E 12]} the last exemplified by the "Jet Air Car", a land-sea-air vehicle invented by Mac as the primary means of transport for him and Joe. Like the World Aquanaut Security Patrol (WASP) in Stingray, the World Intelligence Network (WIN) is a global organisation referred to by an acronym.^[8] In the fictional world of Joe 90, the Cold War – significant when the series was first broadcast, due to the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia – has ended and a world government has been formed.^{[E 2][E 4][3][9]} WIN is the successor to the Secret Intelligence Service, the Central Intelligence Agency and the KGB, which all merged to form the new global spy network.^[3] Although the first episode sees Joe hi-jack a prototype Russian fighter and bring it to England, this is revealed to be a fiction imagined by Weston to explain the types of espionage that the boy will perform as a WIN agent.^{[E 2][3]} This plot twist, which also reveals that Russia and the West are now allies, has been praised by media historian Nicholas J. Cull for its "progressiveness of spirit" and for demonstrating Gerry Anderson's wish to "[take] an end to the Cold War as a given in his work".^[3] Cull states that Anderson was motivated by what he viewed as a "duty to the rising generation to avoid perpetuating Cold War stereotypes".^[3]

However, despite the existence of a world government, the nations of Earth are still divided into Western and Eastern blocs. Here, Cull argues, Joe 90 is similar to earlier Anderson series in that it "unashamedly capitalised on the Cold War cult of the secret agent whose skills defend the home from enemies unknown".^[10] Hostile entities include the Eastern Alliance, which dominates Asia and appears in the episodes "Attack of the Tiger" and "Mission X-41".^{[E 4][E 5]} "Arctic Adventure" and "Attack of the Tiger" combine the threat from the East with dangerous nuclear technology: in the former, Joe attempts to recover a lost atomic warhead from the ocean floor while avoiding enemy submarines; in the latter, he must destroy a nuclear device before it is launched into orbit to hold the world to ransom.^{[E 4][E 13][11]} In contrast, "Big Fish" portrays nuclear technology as a force for good: in this episode, Joe pilots a damaged nuclear submarine out of the territorial waters of a Latin American police state.^{[E 14][12]}

Joe 90 was intended to be a different kind of Supermarionation series, with the emphasis less on action, gadgetry and special effects and more on characterisation and plots that were more spy thriller than science fiction.^{[5][6][13][14][15][16]} According to Gerry Anderson, "The show majored on its characters, which I thought were all very good. The puppets had become so lifelike, I now strongly believed that they could carry the action without the usual massive assistance from futuristic hardware."^[6][17][18] When it came to devising the series, Anderson was inspired by his early work as an assistant editor on films such as The Wicked Lady (1945), for which he handled recording tape on a daily basis.^[14][19] While reflecting on the uses of the tape, Anderson made an association with the workings of the human brain:^[14][19] "I read somewhere that the human brain is controlled by electrical impulses and how thoughts are stored electronically. I started toying with the story potential of a process that would allow the recording of brain patterns and transferring them to another brain. I was really likening it to magnetic recording, where material could be stored or transferred to another tape."^[6][17] As to naming the main character, Anderson remembered that Steve Zodiac, the protagonist of Fireball XL5, was originally to have had the surname "Ninety".^[4][20]

The series was commissioned by Lew Grade in the autumn of 1967.^[20] Pre-production was completed in October while the last episodes of Captain Scarlet were being filmed.^[6][21] Principal photography ran from 13 November 1967 to mid-August 1968 on the two puppet stages at Century 21's studios on the Slough Trading Estate in Berkshire.^{[4][5][22][23][24][L 1]} Each episode took an average of two weeks to film.^[23] The script for the first episode, "The Most Special Agent", was written by Anderson and his wife Sylvia as had been the case on earlier series created by the couple.^[1][20][25] Before WIN was devised, Joe was to have become the "Most Special Agent" of the CIA.^[1] Most of the episodes were written by Tony Barwick, with Shane Rimmer contributing six scripts. Rimmer was hired while co-authoring a book with Barwick, who initially offered him a two-script contract (these were filmed as the episodes "Splashdown" and "Big Fish").^[26]

Occupied by Thunderbird 6 and his live-action film Doppelgänger, Gerry Anderson was unable to serve as producer as he had on Captain Scarlet. The role was assumed by Reg Hill and David Lane.^[5][6] Lane remembered that as producer he was responsible for "looking at the scripts, the effects, the puppets, the whole thing really".^[22] He found support in Anderson's long-serving collaborator Desmond Saunders, who directed the first episode and stayed on as production manager for the rest of the series.^[22][23] Joe 90's other directors included Leo Eaton, Alan Perry and Ken Turner, all of whom had directed episodes of Captain Scarlet, and Peter Anderson, who was promoted from assistant director to replace Brian Burgess and Robert Lynn.^[23]

A Christmas-themed episode, "The Unorthodox Shepherd",^{[E 1]} featured location shooting to an extent that Century 21 had never attempted before.^[27] The following series, The Secret Service, advanced this hybrid format by combining puppet sequences with extensive footage of live actors.^[28]

 

Keith Wilson and Grenville Nott took over from Bob Bell as heads of the art department and built the inside of Culver Bay Cottage from a design by Mike Trim.^[15][30] Anderson remembered being pleased with the cottage set: "The interior, with its beams and lovely soft furnishings, was really beautiful."^[17] The BIG RAT model was built by the newly-formed Century 21 Props (or Electronics), which was based in Bourne End^{[L 2]} and was responsible for making the gadget props that appear in the series.^[23][27][31]

Though busy with Thunderbird 6 and Doppelgänger, Derek Meddings briefly reprised his role as special effects director to construct Mac's Jet Air Car.^[15] The vehicle was a disappointment to Anderson, who commented that it "looked like no other piece of hardware we had had previously, but I was wary of canning it as I feared I might be becoming stereotyped."^[15][32] Stephen La Rivière, author of Filmed in Supermarionation: A History of the Future, considers the Jet Air Car an update of Supercar from Anderson's series of the same name. However, he agrees that while the car is Joe 90's "star vehicle", it is unimpressive compared to the "beautiful, sleek design of its predecessor".^[15]

The Supermarionation puppets of Joe 90 were the naturally-proportioned kind that had been introduced for Captain Scarlet. The drive for increased realism in all design aspects that had begun with the preceding series continued in Joe 90.^[13][14][33] Except for Captains Scarlet and Blue, all of the main character puppets from Captain Scarlet were re-used.^[5][6][34] Few new puppets were made, the only notable exceptions being Mac (who was sculpted on "bouncing bomb" designer Barnes Wallis), Joe and Mrs Harris.^{[5][6][14][21][34]}

Joe was the first child marionette to be made as part of the new generation of Supermarionation puppets.^[35] The puppets of Sam Loover and Shane Weston had each made several guest appearances in Captain Scarlet. For their regular roles in Joe 90 they were given a range of alternative "mood" heads, including "smilers", "frowners" and "blinkers".^[5][6][21] The Weston puppet was also re-wigged.^[36] Many of Century 21's "revamp puppets", which had played supporting characters in Captain Scarlet, were copied in darker skin colours to portray a range of ethnicities. As two stages were being used for filming, the "expressionless" main character puppets were also duplicated.^[21] Like Captain Scarlet, Joe 90 also featured "under-control" puppets that were manipulated by levers from under the set instead of wires from an overhead gantry.^[21]

The theme and incidental music were composed by Barry Gray. Episodes begin with either a cold open (a first for an Anderson series) or the title sequence, which sees Joe receiving a brain pattern from the BIG RAT. The opening theme is dominated by the notes of guitarist Vic Flick, known for performing lead guitar in the "James Bond Theme" from the film Dr. No (1962).^[32] In Anderson's biography, What Made Thunderbirds Go!, the Joe 90 theme is described as a "dizzying piece of psychedelic pop art that could have been produced only in the late Sixties".^[32] The closing credits are superimposed over images of objects such as Joe's spectacles and WIN badge.^[37] While the concepts for these images were photographic, the final versions were augmented with airbrush artwork.^[37]

Besides the music for the first episode, "The Most Special Agent", Gray composed incidental music for a further 20 episodes.^[38][39] This music was recorded between 18 January and 27 September 1968, beginning with the titles and the first episode tracks in a session at the Olympic Sound Studios in London^{[L 3]} and ending with the music for "See You Down There" at CTS Studios.^[38][39] Recording was sometimes conducted at Gray's house in Esher.^{[39][L 4]}

Gray's compositions occasionally required guest talent. The piano music in the episode "International Concerto" was performed by Robert Docker (while the child's hands seen in the close-up shots of Joe playing belonged to Gray's son, Simon).^[40][41] "Lone-Handed 90" features a recurring harmonica played by Tommy Reilly.^[42]

Silva Screen Records released a Joe 90 soundtrack CD in 2006.^[39][43] Rating the CD three-and-a-half stars out of five, AllMusic reviewer William Ruhlmann comments that while the music is "not great writing" it remains "perfectly adequate, if not inspired."^[44] Earlier releases include a 45 rpm gramophone record, Title Theme from the ATV Series Joe 90, which also featured various incidental music.^[45]

 

Compared to Captain Scarlet, Joe 90 features a smaller cast of just five regular characters.^[21] Like the preceding series, it has been described as more "English-sounding" than Thunderbirds, the Andersons having dispensed with the idea that the main character should be a "square-jawed, fair-skinned male with a Mid-Atlantic accent".^[46][47] Instead, Joe 90 focuses on the strong American supporting characters of Sam Loover and Shane Weston.^[48]

• Len Jones as Joe McClaine. For realism, Joe was voiced by child actor Jones instead of an actress (as was usually the case for child characters in earlier Supermarionation series).^[49] Gerry Anderson commented that having a woman voice a boy "always sounded rather odd to me. It never sounded like a real little boy ... With Joe 90, I suggested finding a British kid and making him repeat the lines parrot fashion." He described Jones' performance as "only adequate, but at least it sounded authentic."^[17][32]
• Rupert Davies as Professor Ian "Mac" McClaine. At the time of production, Davies was well known for playing Maigret in the TV series of the same name, a role that had left him typecast.^[13][35][46] He was the most distinguished actor yet to contribute to an Anderson series.^[35][46] In Gerry Anderson's biography What Made Thunderbirds Go!, Simon Archer and Marcus Hearn describe Mac's "warm yet distinguished" English tones as a "perfect counterpoint" to Sam Loover and Shane Weston.^[46]
• Keith Alexander as Sam Loover. Alexander had previously voiced characters in Thunderbird 6 as a replacement for Ray Barrett.^[49] During the 1960s, he also provided the voice of another puppet character, Topo Gigio, on The Ed Sullivan Show in the US.^[13][50]
• David Healy as Shane Weston. Healy, an American expatriate actor, had voiced guest characters in Captain Scarlet and often played transatlantic characters in British television.^[46]
• Sylvia Anderson as Mrs Harris, the McClaines' housekeeper, who is unaware of their involvement with WIN. Anderson was best known for voicing Lady Penelope in Thunderbirds and its film sequels.

Supporting characters were voiced by Alexander, Healy and Anderson as well as returning voice actors Gary Files, Martin King, Jeremy Wilkin, Shane Rimmer and (for one episode, "Viva Cordova") Liz Morgan. Rimmer and Morgan were not credited for their contributions.^[51] Files said that he was "tickled pink" to be working with Davies, commenting: "I hated the way that so many so-called producers wouldn't meet his eye. He was Maigret forever, you see, in their eyes."^[35][52] On her one role in Joe 90, Morgan said: "They needed a voice, they called around and everyone else was out shopping. So they called me in."^[4]

Joe 90 debuted on ATV Midlands and Tyne Tees Television in late September 1968.^[4][14][51] Broadcasts on LWT, Southern Television and Anglia Television began shortly after.^[14][51] The series reached Harlech and Channel Television in November and Granada Television on Christmas Day.^[14][51] Granada, which started its run with the Christmas-themed "The Unorthodox Shepherd" rather than "The Most Special Agent", was one of several broadcasters to transmit the series under the alternative title The Adventures of Joe 90.^[51][53] In the US, Joe 90 aired in first-run syndication in 1969.^[54][55]

The series had several UK re-runs during the 1970s but was not shown on Yorkshire Television until 1981.^{[14][51][53][56]} Some broadcasters used an alternative version of the title sequence beginning with a zoom-in shot of Joe's special glasses accompanied by a voice-over from Tim Turner stating: "These are Joe 90's special glasses. Without them, he's a boy. Wearing them, he's an expert."^[4][5] These words, intended to warn young viewers not to endanger themselves by copying Joe's exploits, have sometimes been wrongly attributed to Keith Alexander.^[5][57]

In 1994, Joe 90 was shown on BBC1 as part of the Children's BBC strand.^[58] Rights holder PolyGram cleared the series for broadcast on the condition that the title sequence's "zooming" Joe 90 logo be replaced with a static version to distinguish it from the logo for G.I. Joe toys.^[59] The video tapes used for broadcast were 16 mm transfers of the original 35 mm film and were edited for timing reasons: cold opens were moved so that all episodes began with the title sequence, while the end titles were shrunk to allow a CBBC presenter to read out viewer birthday cards.^[59] A simultaneous run on Nickelodeon presented the episodes in their original forms.^[59] The series was shown several more times on the BBC until 1997. In 2009, the series aired on the UK Sci Fi Channel alongside Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet.^[60][61]

Author John Peel questions Mac's ethics in "experimenting on" Joe to further the development of the BIG RAT.^[62][63] On Joe as a secret agent he jokingly remarks "presumably there are no child labour laws in the future!"^[64] La Rivière's attention is drawn to Mac's line at the end of the first episode: the admonition "Don't come crying to me if you get hurt!" demonstrates the professor's willingness to "abnegate all parental responsibility".^[21] Noting Joe 90's subscription to "wider themes in Cold War culture", Cull likens the BIG RAT's capabilities to brainwashing but concludes that fundamentally it is "benign" technology.^[8] The stronger violence introduced in Captain Scarlet is sometimes evident in Joe 90: in "Hi-jacked", Joe kills an enemy with a grenade,^{[E 8]} while in "Project 90", Mac narrowly avoids having his head pulverised by a drill.^{[E 10][4]} Desmond Saunders comments: "There was an unpleasant side to [the series] which I never really understood. There was something about it that was very strange and sinister."^[4]

Producer David Lane praises the series for its humour, contrasting this with the darker tone of Captain Scarlet.^[22][24] He believes Joe 90 to be considerably more family-friendly, summing it up as "a great little programme".^[22][24] Anthony Clark of the British Film Institute commends Joe 90 for including more effective characterisation than Captain Scarlet, also praising the writing and Barry Gray's musical score.^[65] La Rivière highlights the connection between the boy protagonist and the theme of espionage, writing that the series' premise "taps into the fantasy indulged by most boys that they, even at nine years old, can be James Bond."^[19] Writer John R. Cook agrees with La Rivière's points on viewer self-identification, describing the series as "wish-fulfilment fantasy" and Joe as a reflection of the young target audience.^[66] Comparisons have been made to other media featuring child spies, such as the Spy Kids films and the Alex Rider novels.^[33][67]

La Rivière notes the intimacy of the premise and the predominantly male characters, suggesting that Joe 90 is "very much a Boy's Own adventure."^[49] Of the 30 episodes, only ten feature female characters, a fact that La Rivière attributes to Century 21's preoccupation with Thunderbird 6 and Doppelgänger.^[49] Peel suggests that the absence of female characters makes Joe 90 inferior to Thunderbirds.^[69] Grouping Joe 90 with Supercar and The Secret Service, Peel concludes that it is "hardly coincidental that these tend to be the least loved of [Anderson's] series; he had, after all, ignored half of his potential audience."^[69] He questions the comparisons to the James Bond films, arguing that "being a somewhat nerdy kid with glasses and brain implants was not really thrilling."^[63]

Both Anderson and Cull suggest that the series, with its bespectacled protagonist, boosted the self-confidence of young viewers who wore glasses.^[9][17][71] The name "Joe 90" has become a popular term of endearment for both children and adults who wear glasses similar to Joe's, such as snooker player Dennis Taylor.^[31] During the 1990s, comparisons were made between Joe and then-Prime Minister John Major, also known for his large glasses.^[72] Jeff Evans, author of The Penguin TV Companion, criticises the glasses as a plot device, writing that they make Joe "look more like the class swot than a secret agent."^[73]

Cook reads further into the series' theme of child empowerment, writing that Joe 90 creates a "technological utopia" around youth.^[74] He comments: "Through the character of Joe, his brain hardwired at the start of each episode into the BIG RAT supercomputer, the young are shown to be literally at one with technology."^[66] Cook suggests that BIG RAT's ability to provide Joe with instant access to brain patterns could be interpreted as a prediction of the development of the Internet.^[66] With his added knowledge and experience, Joe becomes the manifestation of homo superior, and yet his youth and imagination grant him the power to change the world in ways that no adult could.^[66] In this respect, Cook regards Joe 90 as a forerunner of The Tomorrow People, another series featuring themes of transcendence in children.^[70] This concept, Cook suggests, is evident in the title "Joe 90" itself: "No longer is [Joe] a nine-year-old boy but instead his status and capacities have been multiplied tenfold to transform him into agent 'Joe 90', his name an appealing futuristic echo of the then distant year of 1990."^[66]

Ultimately, Joe 90 has proven to be less successful than earlier Anderson productions.^{[4][56][71][75]} The authors of Supermarionation Classics praise the writing and model work but add that the series "failed to arouse more than a passing interest" with some fans.^[56] Stephen Hulse refers to Joe 90 as "technically accomplished" and "clearly the most child-oriented" of the Andersons' later puppet productions, but also calls it one of their "lesser series".^[13][14] The series' spy-fi theme was further developed in the following Supermarionation series, The Secret Service, which like Joe 90 features an unconventional secret agent (a vicar – Father Stanley Unwin) and an intelligence agency with an acronym for a name (BISHOP – short for "British Intelligence Service Headquarters, Operation Priest").^[75][76]

Tie-ins included a range from Century 21 Toys comprising friction-drive and battery-operated versions of the Jet Air Car and Sam Loover's car. Also available were Joe's WIN briefcase (complete with replica gadgets and pistol) and his WIN badge (reading "Most Special Agent").^[77]

Joe 90 was also given its own weekly comic, Joe 90 Top Secret, published by City Magazines, which ran for 34 issues and presented the TV episodes in strip form, while also including strips based on the TV shows The Champions and Land of the Giants.^[32][78] In September 1969, Joe 90 Top Secret merged with TV21 (formerly TV Century 21) to form TV21 and Joe 90.^[32] After a further 36 issues, the Joe 90 strips were dropped and the title reverted to TV21.^[32] Other print media included 1968 and 1969 Joe 90 annuals by Century 21 Publishing/City Magazines as well as two short novels by May Fair Books: Joe 90 and the Raiders and Joe 90 in Revenge.^[79]

During the 1990s, Joe 90 appeared as a comic strip in the Funday Times. Strips from the discontinued Joe 90 Top Secret were reprinted in a new publication, Joe 90, which was launched to tie in with the 1994 BBC repeats. After seven issues, this merged into Fleetway's Thunderbirds comic.^[80]

In 1981, the New York branch of ITC Entertainment released a Joe 90 compilation film, The Amazing Adventures of Joe 90, comprising the episodes "The Most Special Agent", "Splashdown", "Attack of the Tiger" and "Arctic Adventure".^[81][82] Intended to boost US syndication sales, the film was one of several Anderson anthologies to be released in the 1980s under the promotional banner "Super Space Theater".^[81] "The Most Special Agent" was re-edited to remove its framing sequences, thus giving the impression that Joe's theft of the MiG-242 is a real mission rather than a fiction.^[82] The British Board of Film Classification rated the film PG, though the episodes are individually rated U.^[83]

In 2001, three Joe 90-themed "trailers" were filmed to accompany the BBC nostalgia series I Love The '90s. Each of these depicts Joe entering the BIG RAT and receiving the brain pattern of a 1990s household name, from Liam Gallagher to Vic Reeves to the character of Garth (played by Dana Carvey) from the film Wayne's World. The trailers are included as a special feature on the Joe 90 Region 2 DVD box set.^[84]

In the 1980s, the rights to the ITC productions belonged to PolyGram Television.^[85][86] They were later sold to Carlton International and then Granada International, which merged with Carlton in 2004 to form ITV Global Entertainment, a division of ITV plc.^[85][86] In the 1990s, PolyGram proposed a live-action film adaptation of Joe 90.^[87] In 2003, Variety reported that a film version was in the planning stages with Disney producing.^[67][88][89] The film remains undeveloped. In 2005, while discussing obtaining remake rights from Granada, Anderson said: "We have regular meetings and although they are very polite and very nice, nothing ever happens."^[90] Anderson died in 2012.

In the 1980s, Channel 5 (later PolyGram Video) released the series on home video in the UK.^[91] The eight-volume set featured the episodes "The Most Special Agent", "Splashdown", "Attack of the Tiger" and "Arctic Adventure" in their re-edited forms from the 1981 compilation film The Amazing Adventures of Joe 90, which itself received three video releases in the 1980s.^[91] Re-released in 1992, the set used 16 mm prints of poorer quality than the original film.^[91][92]

In 2002, Carlton released a five-disc Region 2 DVD box set and a VHS box set of 5 tapes sourced from a digital remaster of the original 35 mm prints.^[92] This was followed by DVD Region 1 and Region 4 releases in 2003.^[92] A French-language release – Joe 90: Agent Très Spécial – hit the Canadian market in 2004.^[92] Through these releases, the episodes that make up the compilation film were made commercially available in their unedited forms for the first time.^[91]

Primary sources

Secondary sources

Works cited

Production locations

• Joe 90 at IMDb
• Joe 90 at the BFI's Screenonline
• BIG RAT
• The Gerry Anderson Complete Comic History: Joe 90