I loved Joe 90 as a kid. Most little boys dreamed of being a secret agent like James Bond, and this series made it seem like it was possible. "Forget waiting until you grow up, you can do it now!" It really sparked my imagination.
“Packed with explodium” - I’m going to have to use that again sometime 😀. The plot of that episode obviously has no resemblance whatsoever to the 1953 French film, The Wages Of Fear.
“Explodium” is known to be a major component of Star Trek starships, and commonly produces explosions on parts of ships where nothing should really be exploding; and which often results in rocks being part of the debris.
Definitely, Barry Gray was vastly underrated, brilliant arrangements and very in tune with the popular music of the period when he would have been considered an old fogey!
Joe 90 seems to sit in a weird place. The premise has clearly been written to be more safe/child friendly after Captain Scarlet, yet is probably the most mature and violent in parts. The problem is the tone can shift wildly between episodes, stopping forgers with a wacky priest one episodes, violent torture the next. The show so often seems to be fighting itself about what it wants to be.
No, it just knows how to tell a wide array of stories, which is not a problem at all. Even the original Star Trek did this, with episodes ranging from noir-ish mysteries, lighthearted fantasies, classical morality plays, and everything in between. You don’t know what “variety” means.
I always wondered if other thoughts were recorded and transmitted by the BIG RAT. Angela Davis from 'Three's A Crowd' must have had lots of very adult thoughts going through her head - she was what we'd call now, a 'Honeytrap'. Some of her memories probably don't bear close scrutiny. So what a nine year old felt must be mind boggling. 'Hijacked' has to be the darkest of all the episodes, by far. Show it to the TV execs who think that all children's TV nowadays has to be as soft as cotton wool, and carry a message, and they'd probably have a collective brain aneurism. Good. I always liked how Mac would always tell the absolute truth when the inevitable question: "Professor MacClain, where is your boy?" was asked. On telling the brutal truth, that a nine year old boy was going to do something appallingly risky/dangerous/stupid, he'd be laughed at, and basically told to sod off and stop wasting their time, all the while thinking: 'Nutter'. Then it all kicks off, and P45's (or their equivalents) are written out en masse.
I think there are a few factor that underscore the dark moments The low key lighting, Shane RImmer,s writing contribution and more electronic and Cold War sound, given the episode overlap between the space race and Cold War Most special astronaut is also notable in terms of dark moments.
I found it a bit disturbing in the first episode, when people keep emphasising the fact that Joe is adopted while discussing the potential danger of his new role.
The episode where Joe steals a MiG-242 was probably seen by someone who wrote a novel, which was made into a film you may have heard of; 'Firefox' starring Clint Eastwood.
It's to Gerry's credit that he didn't sugarcoat things for children - and to the broadcasters that they backed him. You couldn't get Joe 90 or Captain Scarlet commissioned today. 😞
I was hoping to re-watch Joe 90 on Britbox, but while Thunderbirds, Stingray & Captain Scarlet have all the episodes to watch, Joe 90, Fireball XL-5 and Supercar just have a single episode of each to watch :-(
I never thought anything in it was inappropriate for kids. I used to watch it as kid was never disturbed etc by anything. Maybe our generation was made of tougher stuff. Lol
I first saw properly saw Joe 90 when ITV Granada repeated it in the early 1980s. I loved Gerry Anderson shows so I was already aware of it. I would have been about 11 or 12 at the time but even then I found it uncomfortable that Joe carried, and used, a gun. I have a horrible suspicion that Joe grew up to be as damaged as Rusty Venture.
The subtle puppeteering on display here is just incredible. Oh.... and Joe (if he wasn’t already, considering he was fine to be turned into a super soldier every week when all he probably ever wanted prior to it all was a new bike) I suspect he clearly grew up to be a sociopath! 🤣
No, you're just cynical, and being "fine to be turned into a super soldier every week" does not inherently make one a sociopath. Are you going to call every kid who imagines how cool it would be to be James Bond (i.e. the literal concept of the show) a sociopath? You're essentially saying that children are sociopaths for having imaginations.
There's also the episode 'Attack Of The Tiger', where Joe, flying a supersonic bomber, destroys a huge (obviously North Korean) missile site built into a mountain. The place must have had thousands of people there. Not after Joe had gone home. No pocket money this week, Joe. 😆
Breakout also has the body count from the train. We see only the prime minister and his aide airlifted to safety and the train plunges down the ravine seconds later. There would be the train crew, other aides, perhaps travelling press pack. I'm sure the prime minister would be the first to be rescued so lots more to add to the death toll for this episode.
I just don't get it how the British censors allow the premise of a child undergoing covert operations and commit killing of nefarious criminals instead of bringing them to justice... I know this is a product of fiction but still this concept of a child committing the act of killing and not be psychologically scarred is beyond me...
watching the few episodes I had of Joe 90 before the advent of DVD & Blu-Ray, it actually made me yearn for the Agents Case toy which I never got until I was much older. does that mean I'm now a crazed psychopathic killing machine?? hell no!!! however, if it had of been tailored differently & not had the kid element thrown in, would it have been an improvement????
No, it wouldn't have. The show is based around a "kids play Bond" concept, with Joe 90 living out of the fantasies of boys at the time. If the show was purposefully written to be this way, then how is it a flaw? And if you're suggesting that Joe wanting what you did makes him "a crazed psychopathic killing machine," you must have an extremely loose definition of that phrase and are ignoring the kind of job Joe has, along with the risks that come with it.
Even with magnetic media, a clean erase and record might contain some artefacts of a previous recording. Degaussing a tape will wipe it but... would Joe have recalled previous events as a child in his later years such as being in peril or taking a life. What about Joe’s mental well-being? I loved Joe90 when I was a child. I always wanted a school briefcase like his!
Just to defend the murerous rampage of an obviously out of control ten year old, this was a time of cowboys and indians (errr, redskins... err, native Americans.) Kids loved running around shouting "bang, you're dead" and never took these things seriously into real life. Sadly that bit seems to have changed.
He's not "obviously out of control." He's just doing his job. Also, this wasn't so much "a time of cowboys and indians" as it was Americans/Brits and Russians, but the idea remains the same.
The darkest moment of the series is when Joe's dad transfers all his knowledge and experience into Joe. Therefore he gets the knowledge of what his mother looked like the moment he was conceived.
No not really i thought Joe 90 was a bit sleepy, ho hum yawwwwwnnn , ,,,,,,,,i was MORE of a THUNDER BIRDS kid,,,,, and captain Scarlett,, ,,👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍😊😊😊😊😊
"No not really" yourself. You must be a narcoleptic or just ridiculously easy to bore, and you can't reasonably blame that on Joe 90. There's no need to put down one show to praise others.
I know, let's create a show in which a 10 year old boy's father and uncle regularly brainwash him in order for him to obey their wishes?...not very dodgy at all. Lol ...However, it is a super- stylish show with a fantastic theme tune and great characters .
I'd rather not be reminded of Will after his 'contribution' to our beloved Thunderbirds timeline. It took me 3 years of therapy to exorcise all memory of that film from my mind.
Historical/design note - the train in "Breakout' (at the 7:05 mark), was based on - and looks remarkably close to - a real train - the CN Rail Turbo, which was a diesel powered 'bullet' train on gimbals: these allowed it to take conventional track curves at speeds higher than normal. Though the train was considered a plausible mode of transcontinental travel, it was chiefly designed and used to travel the conurbation corridor from Toronto to Montreal between 1969 and the mid-70s in hopes of relieving the 401 superhighway - still the most congested highway in North America - of cars. Though it was sleek and futuristic and even had a small cocktail lounge the in the domed top (the 747 like hump at the front and rear) it never took off as a major phenomenon, and though it did travel 'the snows of Canada', these tended to be the bleak, dingy snows of an average Toronto to Montreal January and not the magisterial glacial bergs which many non-Canadians erroneously believe pop up outside Halifax and keep going until they tumble into the Pacific thousands of kilometres to the west.
Not sure why you think violence like this is unusual for children. Most children at the time grew up on fairy tales which were largely brutal stories. The Twelve Dancing Princesses for example was about a King offering his kingdom to whoever found out where his daughters went at night. If the man failed then they were executed and their head placed on a spike. The daughters must have known this but drugged each man who took the challenge anyway with a sleeping potion so they could get out without being followed.
My problem with the series isn't the incorrect assumption that it's a child friendly series due to having a child lead character, it is more to do with how, like Scrappy Doo and Albert the fifth Musketeer, Joe, the small lead character, upstages the grown ups. When I was growing up, I looked at characters from Gerry's shows like the Tracy brothers in awe, ignoring the fact that they were puppets, and revel in the amazing action they were made to be involved in. With Joe 90, there was none of that, at least for me. It's was, Joe is using this person's brain pattern and he's being made to look awesome without skills of his own. This is why, Talkdown is my favourite episode of Joe 90. He receives a brain pattern of a traumatised test pilot and the same pilot has to talk Joe down to save himself and the aircraft he's flying, the brain pattern in itself was little help when the donated brain pattern had gaps in the knowledge acquired. The pilot, Grant, was terrified of landing and his mind blanked it out to protect himself, and so as a result did Joe
But Joe 90 isn't like those examples because he's the central character. His name is the title, for crying out loud. The show is based around a "kids play Bond" concept, which Joe is the embodiment of, so saying that he "upstages the grown ups" is missing the point entirely.
Can you imagine any of this getting past the woke tv censor police nowadays on what is essentially a kids show ! Brilliant loved Gerry Anderson as a kid 👍
@@johngreen-sk4yk Yeah, it is true. "Woke" us a nonsense term. If nothing else, the TV censors of today are just as stringent about violence as back in the Sixties. It doesn't mean they're "woke," just doing the same job they have always done.
@@AlexGreeneHypnotist can't agree fella ,you would never see a kids tv series with kids using guns nowadays not pc ! Things are definitely more stringent nowadays than back then.
Do not fall for woke stereotypes , i am sure 99.999% of all `woke` will enjoy this show for what it is . My kids watch some seriously violent shows , rik and morty is my fav , but scratchy and itchy ...and adventure time !!! what's the one with carter in it , one of the kids in that dies weekly .
Hmmm, am I the only one who remembers the Thunderbirds episode where one of them is captured on an island and escapes by gunning down a dozen of the enemy?
All deeply disturbing and/or deeply uncomfortable. So, as a nanny world, we won’t show this influential material to our pandered younger generation and that way they will grow up without any violent thoughts. That’s really working out well!
I think the reason he’s just known as Sergeant is because he’s solely concerned with his mission, unlike Private Johnson who likes to express himself a bit more.
@@brianartillery - sorry - no - the flying car was ok, Sams car was boring and I never had the cap gun....none of it a patch on TB or SC toys. Each to their own....
And that very pink shirt on that guy in the Splashdown episode, way ahead of the fashion curve. Also, the water in some shots looks like it's had blue colouring added to it.
Nice one, Chris! You could say that Joe didn't do any of this; the brain patterns of the people the BIGRAT gave him were the ones in charge, and after the mission was over he didn't remember...OR my favorite fancanon--Joe fell asleep outside Sam's office in the first episode and the whole series was his dream of getting to be a man of action at the age of ten! (yay no more cognitive dissonance!) Seriously, some of these were stone cold but I always thought it was because Joe wasn't really acting like himself while on a mission. How his father reconciled this God alone knows!
The explosives in trucks is based upon 'The Wages of Fear' originally a French novel, made into a film of the same name, then an episode of Joe90, then 'Sorceror' in the 1980s, and another film more recently.
The death count may not have been on the scale of Captain Scarlet, but it wasn't that far behind. & this was even more aimed at younger kids, about a nine-year-old going on dangerous missions. Albeit with the mind of some top men aided by special glasses.
Just one more small comment "Staggeringly inappropriate for a child audience"...in 2023!. Although I don't disagree in abstract that many of the scenes presented here are a bit extreme I also like to remind younger people that 'Boys Own'-type/Cold War adventure series from the mid-and late 60s were quite violent - but the sensibility of the time more or less took this in stride [of course there were many calls for TV violence to be reduced as it was thought it contributed to anti-social and violent behaviour....poor demure television....it ain't got nothin' on you-know=what for that!] - as a boy at the time I was enthralled by the 'adult' feel of series like this (The 'Dragon's Domain' episode of Space: 1999 really, really freaked me out as an 8 year old - it was disturbing - And I don't regret seeing it for one minute!!!); you had the sense that this was a serious world where things were taken seriously: people died, people were deceitful, people made poor judgements from time to time, innocent people were often treated as meaningless quantities or got unfairly caught in the crosshairs of the caprices of others; it hurt, but you somehow fell you were looking in through a magic telescope on the way things really were...that world you would get to around 18 or 19...(minus all the F.A.B technology.)
I hope this video was delivered mostly in irony. What makes Joe ab-F.A.B. is precisely its perversity, moral dis-ease, and ethical discomfort. In a sense it is a work of profound pop art because, acting in innocence, it takes the dominant values of a culture and packages them in a way that reveals their original inherent perversity: the ecstasy of primal, random violence braided in with the jouissance of high tech...and what's even more rich is the complete lack of complex morality to the program: the attitude is ultimately lean and 'Jesuit' - the ends justifying the means, with Joe never changing, Joe never experiencing existential crises, Joe never manifesting PST from being a child soldier (such, petty, encumbering, sentimental values are gorgeously irrelevant in Joe's world which is nothing more than (and by that everything!) our ultimate landscape of wish fulfillment.
I know this is for laughs (and it succeeds!) but clearly back in 1968 nobody batted an eyelid about the violence involving a child character, recognising it was all make believe and so on. And now over 50 years later people are far more sensitive about the content; perhaps even offended by it. TV companies would think twice about which bits they could show to kids... I'm not sure why that should really be. People today should be able to still see this for what it is - a made up story with made up things happening; none of which would happen in real life.
I loved Joe 90 as a kid. Most little boys dreamed of being a secret agent like James Bond, and this series made it seem like it was possible. "Forget waiting until you grow up, you can do it now!" It really sparked my imagination.
We had a teacher in our school that was nick named Joe 90 🤣
“Packed with explodium” - I’m going to have to use that again sometime 😀. The plot of that episode obviously has no resemblance whatsoever to the 1953 French film, The Wages Of Fear.
“Explodium” is known to be a major component of Star Trek starships, and commonly produces explosions on parts of ships where nothing should really be exploding; and which often results in rocks being part of the debris.
One of the best Anderson theme tunes too!
Definitely, Barry Gray was vastly underrated, brilliant arrangements and very in tune with the popular music of the period when he would have been considered an old fogey!
Lack of health and safety protocols killed the sergeant.
RIP Sarge. Never forgotten.
(Whatever your name was)
Alec Baldwin auditioned for the role of Sarge. But declined the part due to ' Lack of health and safety protocols'. Wow. Whatever happened to him ?
Joe 90 seems to sit in a weird place. The premise has clearly been written to be more safe/child friendly after Captain Scarlet, yet is probably the most mature and violent in parts. The problem is the tone can shift wildly between episodes, stopping forgers with a wacky priest one episodes, violent torture the next. The show so often seems to be fighting itself about what it wants to be.
No, it just knows how to tell a wide array of stories, which is not a problem at all. Even the original Star Trek did this, with episodes ranging from noir-ish mysteries, lighthearted fantasies, classical morality plays, and everything in between. You don’t know what “variety” means.
Love Joe 90!! Doesn’t get the recognition it deserves
Joe 90 is fantastic and would make a great live action film now he's James Bond junior. I wanna see that flying car on the big screen!
Joe 90 was my favorite show for quite some time.
Explodium. It does what it says on the can
Haha ..with a name like they , you wouldn't expect anything else
Unless you mix in some DampSquibium.......
Unobtainium.
I always wondered if other thoughts were recorded and transmitted by the BIG RAT. Angela Davis from 'Three's A Crowd' must have had lots of very adult thoughts going through her head - she was what we'd call now, a 'Honeytrap'. Some of her memories probably don't bear close scrutiny. So what a nine year old felt must be mind boggling.
'Hijacked' has to be the darkest of all the episodes, by far. Show it to the TV execs who think that all children's TV nowadays has to be as soft as cotton wool, and carry a message, and they'd probably have a collective brain aneurism. Good.
I always liked how Mac would always tell the absolute truth when the inevitable question:
"Professor MacClain, where is your boy?" was asked.
On telling the brutal truth, that a nine year old boy was going to do something appallingly risky/dangerous/stupid, he'd be laughed at, and basically told to sod off and stop wasting their time, all the while thinking: 'Nutter'. Then it all kicks off, and P45's (or their equivalents) are written out en masse.
I think there are a few factor that underscore the dark moments
The low key lighting, Shane RImmer,s writing contribution and more electronic and Cold War sound, given the episode overlap between the space race and Cold War Most special astronaut is also notable in terms of dark moments.
I still say "have you seen my Joe90s anywhere", when I can't find my glasses.
I feel similar when my glasses get knocked off. Then I say "My Glasses!" like Joe.
I found it a bit disturbing in the first episode, when people keep emphasising the fact that Joe is adopted while discussing the potential danger of his new role.
An early Harry Potter - they placed him in danger all the time, then when he managed to survive laughed at him.....kind of a pattern me thinks.
@@michaelwhiles5282 At least Joe got cooler glasses.
The episode where Joe steals a MiG-242 was probably seen by someone who wrote a novel, which was made into a film you may have heard of; 'Firefox' starring Clint Eastwood.
It was so educational. What kids thesedays would even recognise a cold war soviet aircraft let alone know how to pilot one?
Oh man Joe 90 was just seeing how many traumatising situations they could chuck a child character into
Joe 90 has the best intro of them all and still love the 60s sound track and the look of the Big Rat.
The Joe 90 theme tune is a Northern Soul classic.
It's to Gerry's credit that he didn't sugarcoat things for children - and to the broadcasters that they backed him. You couldn't get Joe 90 or Captain Scarlet commissioned today. 😞
They wouldn't be greenlit simply because most of the characters were male, forget about the violence part.
@@Catubrannos not on UFO!
@@Catubrannos No reason why it couldn't be Joanne 90, raised by a single mum, overseen by Sheena Weston & Sam(antha) Loover.
@@Catubrannos agreed but you can't judge the 60s and 70s by standards of today
Yes - even Torchy the Battery boy had an evil looking face and had found work as a Toy boy
I was hoping to re-watch Joe 90 on Britbox, but while Thunderbirds, Stingray & Captain Scarlet have all the episodes to watch, Joe 90, Fireball XL-5 and Supercar just have a single episode of each to watch :-(
I never thought anything in it was inappropriate for kids.
I used to watch it as kid was never disturbed etc by anything. Maybe our generation was made of tougher stuff. Lol
I first saw properly saw Joe 90 when ITV Granada repeated it in the early 1980s. I loved Gerry Anderson shows so I was already aware of it. I would have been about 11 or 12 at the time but even then I found it uncomfortable that Joe carried, and used, a gun.
I have a horrible suspicion that Joe grew up to be as damaged as Rusty Venture.
The subtle puppeteering on display here is just incredible.
Oh.... and Joe (if he wasn’t already, considering he was fine to be turned into a super soldier every week when all he probably ever wanted prior to it all was a new bike) I suspect he clearly grew up to be a sociopath! 🤣
No, you're just cynical, and being "fine to be turned into a super soldier every week" does not inherently make one a sociopath. Are you going to call every kid who imagines how cool it would be to be James Bond (i.e. the literal concept of the show) a sociopath? You're essentially saying that children are sociopaths for having imaginations.
In Episode 10 he kills an entire army base of people, with an explosive tank. The evil little sod. :P
There's also the episode 'Attack Of The Tiger', where Joe, flying a supersonic bomber, destroys a huge (obviously North Korean) missile site built into a mountain. The place must have had thousands of people there. Not after Joe had gone home. No pocket money this week, Joe. 😆
@@brianartillery His diary must be fairly full, murder, murder, murder, lunch, murder, murder, murder, afternoon tea. etc. :P
Kid-friendly! Think again! Joe 90 is absolutely amazing and you should watch it!
Breakout also has the body count from the train. We see only the prime minister and his aide airlifted to safety and the train plunges down the ravine seconds later. There would be the train crew, other aides, perhaps travelling press pack. I'm sure the prime minister would be the first to be rescued so lots more to add to the death toll for this episode.
Never could wrap my mind around this show. The premise alone was pretty darn dark. :(
Ah these are no more dark than most cowboy serials, if you want the stuff of nightmares try Pipkins!
I just don't get it how the British censors allow the premise of a child undergoing covert operations and commit killing of nefarious criminals instead of bringing them to justice...
I know this is a product of fiction but still this concept of a child committing the act of killing and not be psychologically scarred is beyond me...
It's a TV SHOW.
I feel the same way.
Ohh yes I remember that scene from Hi-jacked Colletti met his demise.
For me Joe 90 is Gerry Anderson's most refined project.
Us Yanks missed out. I love this show and all of Andersons work.
watching the few episodes I had of Joe 90 before the advent of DVD & Blu-Ray, it actually made me yearn for the Agents Case toy which I never got until I was much older.
does that mean I'm now a crazed psychopathic killing machine?? hell no!!!
however, if it had of been tailored differently & not had the kid element thrown in, would it have been an improvement????
No, it wouldn't have. The show is based around a "kids play Bond" concept, with Joe 90 living out of the fantasies of boys at the time. If the show was purposefully written to be this way, then how is it a flaw? And if you're suggesting that Joe wanting what you did makes him "a crazed psychopathic killing machine," you must have an extremely loose definition of that phrase and are ignoring the kind of job Joe has, along with the risks that come with it.
A perfect example of why the Thunderbirds movie failed, Anderson shows were for kids but they were never childish
Don't get me started on what Mr Frakes did to it...
I always wondered how Harry Hill spent his childhood.
The Joe 90 theme was played at my wedding.
Children can be so cruel.
🤣
Even with magnetic media, a clean erase and record might contain some artefacts of a previous recording. Degaussing a tape will wipe it but... would Joe have recalled previous events as a child in his later years such as being in peril or taking a life. What about Joe’s mental well-being?
I loved Joe90 when I was a child. I always wanted a school briefcase like his!
Never understood why Joe 90 sat in the middle of that swirling thing
Just to defend the murerous rampage of an obviously out of control ten year old, this was a time of cowboys and indians (errr, redskins... err, native Americans.) Kids loved running around shouting "bang, you're dead" and never took these things seriously into real life. Sadly that bit seems to have changed.
He's not "obviously out of control." He's just doing his job. Also, this wasn't so much "a time of cowboys and indians" as it was Americans/Brits and Russians, but the idea remains the same.
Best music - Joe 90 or UFO?
The darkest moment of the series is when Joe's dad transfers all his knowledge and experience into Joe. Therefore he gets the knowledge of what his mother looked like the moment he was conceived.
Great Series, glad I've got it on Blu Ray now!
No not really i thought Joe 90 was a bit sleepy, ho hum yawwwwwnnn , ,,,,,,,,i was MORE of a THUNDER BIRDS kid,,,,, and captain Scarlett,, ,,👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍😊😊😊😊😊
Scarlet!
"No not really" yourself. You must be a narcoleptic or just ridiculously easy to bore, and you can't reasonably blame that on Joe 90. There's no need to put down one show to praise others.
Malone: “Isn’t that just like Colletti? Brings a machine gun to a grenade fight!”
2- His name was Sergeant Tu Yew!
Or was it Sergeant Sargent? 😜
I think breakout was a violent episode it reminds me of team America
I know, let's create a show in which a 10 year old boy's father and uncle regularly brainwash him in order for him to obey their wishes?...not very dodgy at all. Lol ...However, it is a super- stylish show with a fantastic theme tune and great characters .
09:25, wasn't this guy killed by captain blacks sniper rifle whilst holding a martini glass? Lol
5:56 I do believe that is Lady Penelope's living room!
Gerry did like him a good explosion. BOOOM!!
Great to see William T Riker make an appearance at 1:38
I'd rather not be reminded of Will after his 'contribution' to our beloved Thunderbirds timeline. It took me 3 years of therapy to exorcise all memory of that film from my mind.
Jonathan Frakes makes a cameo 01:38
Historical/design note - the train in "Breakout' (at the 7:05 mark), was based on - and looks remarkably close to - a real train - the CN Rail Turbo, which was a diesel powered 'bullet' train on gimbals: these allowed it to take conventional track curves at speeds higher than normal. Though the train was considered a plausible mode of transcontinental travel, it was chiefly designed and used to travel the conurbation corridor from Toronto to Montreal between 1969 and the mid-70s in hopes of relieving the 401 superhighway - still the most congested highway in North America - of cars. Though it was sleek and futuristic and even had a small cocktail lounge the in the domed top (the 747 like hump at the front and rear) it never took off as a major phenomenon, and though it did travel 'the snows of Canada', these tended to be the bleak, dingy snows of an average Toronto to Montreal January and not the magisterial glacial bergs which many non-Canadians erroneously believe pop up outside Halifax and keep going until they tumble into the Pacific thousands of kilometres to the west.
Not sure why you think violence like this is unusual for children. Most children at the time grew up on fairy tales which were largely brutal stories. The Twelve Dancing Princesses for example was about a King offering his kingdom to whoever found out where his daughters went at night. If the man failed then they were executed and their head placed on a spike. The daughters must have known this but drugged each man who took the challenge anyway with a sleeping potion so they could get out without being followed.
Christ i certainly would not have taken Joes Dinner money from him at school!!!!
My problem with the series isn't the incorrect assumption that it's a child friendly series due to having a child lead character, it is more to do with how, like Scrappy Doo and Albert the fifth Musketeer, Joe, the small lead character, upstages the grown ups.
When I was growing up, I looked at characters from Gerry's shows like the Tracy brothers in awe, ignoring the fact that they were puppets, and revel in the amazing action they were made to be involved in. With Joe 90, there was none of that, at least for me. It's was, Joe is using this person's brain pattern and he's being made to look awesome without skills of his own. This is why, Talkdown is my favourite episode of Joe 90. He receives a brain pattern of a traumatised test pilot and the same pilot has to talk Joe down to save himself and the aircraft he's flying, the brain pattern in itself was little help when the donated brain pattern had gaps in the knowledge acquired. The pilot, Grant, was terrified of landing and his mind blanked it out to protect himself, and so as a result did Joe
But Joe 90 isn't like those examples because he's the central character. His name is the title, for crying out loud. The show is based around a "kids play Bond" concept, which Joe is the embodiment of, so saying that he "upstages the grown ups" is missing the point entirely.
@IMF's Resident Otaku maybe so, but it doesn't change my opinion on the series
Can you imagine any of this getting past the woke tv censor police nowadays on what is essentially a kids show ! Brilliant loved Gerry Anderson as a kid 👍
Considering Disney's The Black Hole and a lot of Dr Who episodes. Yes. Woke is right wing fake news.
@@seriousmaran9414 If only that were true .
@@johngreen-sk4yk Yeah, it is true. "Woke" us a nonsense term. If nothing else, the TV censors of today are just as stringent about violence as back in the Sixties. It doesn't mean they're "woke," just doing the same job they have always done.
@@AlexGreeneHypnotist can't agree fella ,you would never see a kids tv series with kids using guns nowadays not pc ! Things are definitely more stringent nowadays than back then.
Do not fall for woke stereotypes , i am sure 99.999% of all `woke` will enjoy this show for what it is . My kids watch some seriously violent shows , rik and morty is my fav , but scratchy and itchy ...and adventure time !!! what's the one with carter in it , one of the kids in that dies weekly .
By this time there was no longer any need to continue using marionettes.
Hmmm, am I the only one who remembers the Thunderbirds episode where one of them is captured on an island and escapes by gunning down a dozen of the enemy?
I love Joe 90. I think it was a brilliant phase at Century 21. I only wish Candy and Andy had been made into a TV series!
At school in the 70s i wore nhs glasses and was called Gordon, and as you can imagine my school years were just fantastic. lol
One puzzling factor is Joe 90 has the IQ of a expert pilot, driver etc how does reach pedals ,hand controls etc?
Pulls a handle and moves the seat right forward, I expect.
Hope he didn't try that in the MiG-242 (Firefox), though;-)
Thank you!
Joe 90 was always a bit dark, considering this was an innocent kid commiting murders
Murders?
All deeply disturbing and/or deeply uncomfortable. So, as a nanny world, we won’t show this influential material to our pandered younger generation and that way they will grow up without any violent thoughts. That’s really working out well!
Loved Joe 90 proberbly why Gen X kids look at millennials with such derision lol, we had joe 90 they had tellytubbies
2:29 When a Gerry Anderson production predicts eyewear fashion pretty accurately.
I think the reason he’s just known as Sergeant is because he’s solely concerned with his mission, unlike Private Johnson who likes to express himself a bit more.
The more i hear about this show, the more I want to watch lol
Joe 90 was for me a bit of a misfire - also there were less cool toys ! Such things matter when your'e young !
You didn't like the Dinky cars, or the Lone Star diecast capgun and silencer, then? Brilliant merchandise.
@@brianartillery - sorry - no - the flying car was ok, Sams car was boring and I never had the cap gun....none of it a patch on TB or SC toys. Each to their own....
Back in the 60s and 70s we figured if it's a puppet show, it's appropriate for kids, and left it at that
Great show well done Gery
Love the intro music. Makes me want to dance.
This was DARK
So much better than the PC correct crap nowadays
And that very pink shirt on that guy in the Splashdown episode, way ahead of the fashion curve.
Also, the water in some shots looks like it's had blue colouring added to it.
Nice one, Chris! You could say that Joe didn't do any of this; the brain patterns of the people the BIGRAT gave him were the ones in charge, and after the mission was over he didn't remember...OR my favorite fancanon--Joe fell asleep outside Sam's office in the first episode and the whole series was his dream of getting to be a man of action at the age of ten! (yay no more cognitive dissonance!) Seriously, some of these were stone cold but I always thought it was because Joe wasn't really acting like himself while on a mission. How his father reconciled this God alone knows!
3:32 Fantastic explosion and effects. Better than any big budget disaster movie.
That truck explosion is almost all I remember of Joe 90.
Great stuff!!!
What about the episode where Joe almost gets his face drilled off?
Or the one when joe tied a terrorist to back of the jet car
It’s so realistic!
Oh my god! This made my day. I haved laughed so hard in ages. "Breakout- all of it"
私が小さい頃の番組で、ジョー90も本当に好きで、音楽サウンドが最も凄ましいです！また主人公の日本語訳は去年亡くなられていたあの太田淑子さんでした！！
The explosives in trucks is based upon 'The Wages of Fear' originally a French novel, made into a film of the same name, then an episode of Joe90, then 'Sorceror' in the 1980s, and another film more recently.
Which probably goes to prove that if you have a good story, you can repackage it and retell it repeatedly.
The death count may not have been on the scale of Captain Scarlet, but it wasn't that far behind. & this was even more aimed at younger kids, about a nine-year-old going on dangerous missions. Albeit with the mind of some top men aided by special glasses.
Let's analyse the depths of a programme....play it backwards it calls Satan, oh no that was judus priest. It's for entertainment 🙄
Joe 90 grew up to become James Bond.UKs best agent
I am late fan of Joe 90 (as an adult) I still prefer Captain Scarlet. I was shocked by the violence of Joe 90 with a kid hero. Especially number four.
Just one more small comment "Staggeringly inappropriate for a child audience"...in 2023!. Although I don't disagree in abstract that many of the scenes presented here are a bit extreme I also like to remind younger people that 'Boys Own'-type/Cold War adventure series from the mid-and late 60s were quite violent - but the sensibility of the time more or less took this in stride [of course there were many calls for TV violence to be reduced as it was thought it contributed to anti-social and violent behaviour....poor demure television....it ain't got nothin' on you-know=what for that!] - as a boy at the time I was enthralled by the 'adult' feel of series like this (The 'Dragon's Domain' episode of Space: 1999 really, really freaked me out as an 8 year old - it was disturbing - And I don't regret seeing it for one minute!!!); you had the sense that this was a serious world where things were taken seriously: people died, people were deceitful, people made poor judgements from time to time, innocent people were often treated as meaningless quantities or got unfairly caught in the crosshairs of the caprices of others; it hurt, but you somehow fell you were looking in through a magic telescope on the way things really were...that world you would get to around 18 or 19...(minus all the F.A.B technology.)
I hope this video was delivered mostly in irony. What makes Joe ab-F.A.B. is precisely its perversity, moral dis-ease, and ethical discomfort. In a sense it is a work of profound pop art because, acting in innocence, it takes the dominant values of a culture and packages them in a way that reveals their original inherent perversity: the ecstasy of primal, random violence braided in with the jouissance of high tech...and what's even more rich is the complete lack of complex morality to the program: the attitude is ultimately lean and 'Jesuit' - the ends justifying the means, with Joe never changing, Joe never experiencing existential crises, Joe never manifesting PST from being a child soldier (such, petty, encumbering, sentimental values are gorgeously irrelevant in Joe's world which is nothing more than (and by that everything!) our ultimate landscape of wish fulfillment.
I know this is for laughs (and it succeeds!) but clearly back in 1968 nobody batted an eyelid about the violence involving a child character, recognising it was all make believe and so on. And now over 50 years later people are far more sensitive about the content; perhaps even offended by it. TV companies would think twice about which bits they could show to kids... I'm not sure why that should really be. People today should be able to still see this for what it is - a made up story with made up things happening; none of which would happen in real life.
10:35 It's *not* my job to decide whether God can forgive arms smugglers. However it *is* my job to send them to him!
Joe 90, probably
Try watching Chocky if you want a harrowing childrens tv series. It was written by John Wyndam.
Chris Dale is very cool.
Makes every video highly entertaining.
One word:
Based
Trust me. All of this poor boys moments were dark.
Shame that directors and producers no longer trust young audiences with such mature themes.
I didn't discover Joe 90 until 2018 on Tubi 👍🏾
The baddie with the ray-ban olympians & cravat is très chic
This was so freaking funny. Love Joe 90...