I remember watching pretty much all of them as a young kid: Thnderbirds, Supercar, Fireball XL-5, Captain Scarlet, ... and I also liked the live action UFO in the early 70s as well as of course Space 1999.

Of the various toys and so on related to the shows, I had the Thunderbird 2 dinky and a Supercar board game:

There's a fun studio outtakes of The Beatles clowning around with lines and songs from various Anderson shows and the American accents. So at least Lennon and McCartney were not too old for kiddie puppet programs in the '60s. They go from quoting Supercar and Fireball XL-5 lines to one of them singing the Marina end theme from Stingray.

I can only speak for myself, but I had not the least inkling of MacDonalds or any other American fast food chain when I was a kid in the late 60s. We did get an A&W in the early 70s and a KFC a few years later. MacDonalds came a little after that, the late 70s or early 80s, and has never stopped feeling very weird to me, the commercials, the food, etc.

Very good point.

There have been many rumours over the years of a big-screen remake. But I'd be concerned that a movie would opt for CGI battles and have none of the subtlety of what you describe.

McDonalds wasn't really that prominent until the 70s (and more towards the middle of that decade).  Kroc got more agressive with the franchising then and you get the national tv push, with the McDonaldland characters. 

In Decatur, we had Sandy's, which was a smaller chain, started by a pair of frustrated McDonald's franchisers, who got diddled by Kroc and started their own rival.  I preferred their food; but, McDonald's had the might and they closed up by the late 70s.

Twizzle was their (Anderson-Provis, A.P. Films) first series, then after doing a series of Torchy following that they broke off from Roberta Leigh with Four Feather Falls followed by Supercar. Roberta Leigh kept going with Torchy and then Space Patrol. There were various spin-off books and comics of all of these.


Without author Roberta Leigh around, Sylvia Thamm, soon Sylvia Anderson, wrote the various Four Feather Falls books...

Four Feather Falls characters featured mouths that moved synchronized to the voice actors, and even the horse's tails would swish realistically and expressively.

Here's a great looking special TV Comic with Supercar featured. Later there would be seasonal special Fireball, Stingray and Thunderbirds issues of TV Century 21.

Just remembered. My boys got this one Christmas after they discovered "Thunderbirds."