The Secret Service
North American DVD release
Genre	Fantasy-Adventure
Running time	30 min.
Creator(s)	Gerry Anderson Sylvia Anderson
Starring	Stanley Unwin
Country of origin	UK
Original network/channel	ITV
Original run	September 21, 1969 – December 14, 1969
No. of episodes	13

• This article is about the television series. For the form of government policing, see secret service.

The Secret Service is the title of a British children's SpyFi series that was produced by Gerry Anderson and Lord Lew Grade's Century 21 Productions company for ITC Entertainment in 1969 and broadcast on some ITV stations in the United Kingdom. The series was created by Anderson and his wife Sylvia and produced by Reg Hill, and was the final television series to use Gerry Anderson's trademark Supermarionation process which made use of specialized marionettes. Gerry Anderson and Sylvia Anderson are most famous as the production team for several futuristic childrens television shows involving specially modified marionettes, a process called supermarionation. Their most famous production is Thunderbirds, which was produced by their production company, originally known as AP Films and later renamed Century 21... Gerry Anderson and Sylvia Anderson are most famous as the production team for several futuristic childrens television shows involving specially modified marionettes, a process called supermarionation. Their most famous production is Thunderbirds, which was produced by their production company, originally known as AP Films and later renamed Century 21... See: Stanley Unwin (comedian) for the comedic writer and performer, inventor of Unwinese (also known as goobledegook). ... Independent Television (ITV) is the name given to the original network of British commercial television broadcasters, set up to provide competition to the BBC. In England, Wales and southern Scotland, the channel has been rebranded to ITV1 by ITV plc, the owners of the broadcasting licences for those areas. ... September 21 is the 264th day of the year (265th in leap years). ... 1969 (MCMLXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1969 calendar). ... December 14 is the 348th day of the year (349th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1969 (MCMLXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1969 calendar). ... Because of both the secrecy of secret services and the controversial nature of the issues involved, there is some difficulty in separating the definitions of secret service, secret police, intelligence agency etc. ... SpyFi is a genre of spy fiction that includes elements of science fiction. ... Gerry Anderson and Sylvia Anderson are most famous as the production team for several futuristic childrens television shows involving specially modified marionettes, a process called supermarionation. Their most famous production is Thunderbirds, which was produced by their production company, originally known as AP Films and later renamed Century 21... Lew Grade, Baron Grade (birth name Louis Winogradsky) (December 25, 1906 - December 13, 1998) was an influential showbusiness impresario and television company executive in the United Kingdom. ... Century 21 Productions was a British film and television production company of the 1960s and 1970s, best known for the hit TV series Thunderbirds. ... -1... 1969 (MCMLXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1969 calendar). ... Independent Television (ITV) is the name given to the original network of British commercial television broadcasters, set up to provide competition to the BBC. In England, Wales and southern Scotland, the channel has been rebranded to ITV1 by ITV plc, the owners of the broadcasting licences for those areas. ... Gerry Anderson and Sylvia Anderson are most famous as the production team for several futuristic childrens television shows involving specially modified marionettes, a process called supermarionation. Their most famous production is Thunderbirds, which was produced by their production company, originally known as AP Films and later renamed Century 21... Supermarionation (standing for super marionette animation) is a puppetry technique devised by the British production company AP Films and used extensively in its numerous action-adventure series, the most famous of which is undoubtedly Thunderbirds. ... Phillip Huber (L) and David Alexander of the Huber Marionettes perform with marionettes hand-made by Huber for scenes for the feature film Tillamook Treasure 2005 Marionette in Prague A marionette is a type of puppet moved by strings, as in a puppet show. ...

Overview

The Secret Service broke the pattern of most of the Supermarionation series that preceded it by being set in the present day (most of Anderson's other shows of the 1960s were set in the near or far future). It also made unprecedented use of live action footage, which was blended in with closeups of the Supermarionated puppets. Where in previous series, live action was limited to closeups of hands or feet, footage of real actors was often used when showing characters from a distance, driving a car, etc. The outrageously crowded Woodstock festival epitomized the popular antiwar movement of the 60s. ...

The series followed the adventures of Father Stanley Unwin, a priest who moonlights as a secret agent for an organization called BISHOP (British Intelligence Secret Headquarters, Operation Priest). Answering to a man known as "The Bishop", Unwin is partnered with Matthew Harding, who works as his gardener as cover for his espionage work. A gardener is any person involved in the growing and maintenance of plants, notably in a garden. ... Espionage is the practice of obtaining information about an organization or a society that is considered secret or confidential (spying) without the permission of the holder of the information. ...

Unwin uses a device called a Minimizer to shrink Matthew so that he can better sneak into sensitive areas undetected. Father Unwin carries Matthew to wherever he is needed in a specially-designed suitcase (perhaps not unconsciously reflecting the metaphorical title of an earlier spy series, Man in a Suitcase), communicating with him by means of a miniature two-way radio - Father Unwin's earpiece is disguised as a hearing aid. A typical suitcase A suitcase is a narrow box-shaped bag, usually made of cloth or vinyl that more or less keeps its shape, has a handle at one end and is used mainly for transporting clothes and other possessions during trips. ... Man in a Suitcase was a 1967 television series produced by ITC Entertainment, one of several ITC productions that used an American star in an attempt to boost the shows sales in the US - in this case Richard Bradford, a method actor who had been spotted after appearing opposite... Behind the ear aid A hearing aid is a device used to help the hard-of-hearing hear sounds better. ...

The minimizer shrinks Matthew to a height of two feet (60 cm), which just happens to be the puppet's real height. This allows the puppet to interact with full-size sets and occasionally live actors whose faces are not seen in the same shot. The Minimizer is also often used to shrink enemy agents, literally bringing them down to Matthew's size. The actual miniaturization effect appears to be achieved by filming the puppet in front of a blue screen, progressively reducing the size of the image in an optical printer and replacing the blue screen with a static background. The bluescreen setup The final image Bluescreen (known in television as chroma key) is a term for the filmmaking technique of shooting foreground action against an evenly-lit monochomatic background for the purpose of removing the background from the scene and replacing it with a different image or scene. ... An optical printer with two projector heads, used in producing movie special effects. ...

In a somewhat unusual occurrence in television history, the voice and (when required) physical actions of Father Stanley Unwin was actually performed by an actor named Stanley Unwin. Unwin, a popular British comedian, was best known for speaking in a form of gibberish he called "Unwinese" or "gobbledegook", a gimmick which was utilized in the series to allow the fictional Unwin to confuse his enemies. Cover from Rock-a-bye Babel by Stanley Unwin and Roy Dewar. ... Gibberish is a generic term in English for talking that sounds like speech, but has no actual meaning (like the maves rint is slanphed up). This meaning has also been extended to meaningless text (such as hgtdkygfdkyfkk). // Gibberish language game Main article: Gibberish (language game) Gibberish is also used...

According to the book The Complete Gerry Anderson, the decision to incorporate the real Unwin's mannerisms into the series proved to be its undoing. Lew Grade, seeking another series to sell to the United States, felt Unwin's gobbledegook would confuse overseas viewers and cancelled the series after viewing the first episode. Ultimately, 13 half-hour episodes would be produced and broadcast in the UK, but the series has rarely been seen in North America; even in Britain it was not broadcast nationally, and is therefore considered the least-known of Gerry Anderson's Supermarionation programs. Anderson, for his part, has been quoted as calling The Secret Service his favourite puppet program.

Ultimately, The Secret Service would be Anderson's last full-scale puppet series until the 1980s; for the next decade, he would work almost exclusively on live action productions such as Space: 1999 and The Protectors. It was also the final Supermarionation series, although, in 1973, Anderson would produce an unsuccessful pilot for another Supermarionation/live action hybrid series called The Investigator. (A later series, Terrahawks, used another form of puppetry called "Supermacromation".) The 1980s decade refers to the years from 1980 to 1989, inclusive. ... Left to right: Barbara Bain, Catherine Schell and Martin Landau from Space:1999s second season. ... // The series The Protectors was a British television series, an action thriller created by Gerry Anderson - his second TV series using live actors as opposed to animated puppets, and the first of these that was not science fiction. ... 1973 (MCMLXXIII) was a common year starting on Monday. ... North American DVD release of the series. ...

Production of the series occurred simultaneously with filming of Anderson's live-action series, UFO, and in fact Unwin's distinctive yellow 1917 Model T Ford "Gabriel" (seen illustrated on the DVD box cover, above) appeared in several UFO episodes as a prop car in a movie studio. UFO was a British television science fiction series created by Gerry Anderson and produced by Andersons and Lew Grades Century 21 Productions for Grades ITC Entertainment company. ... 1917 (MCMXVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar (see link for calendar) or a common year starting on Tuesday of the 13-day slower Julian calendar. ... Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Ford Model T For the blues musician, see T-Model Ford. ... Film refers to the celluloid media on which movies are printed. ...

The series has been released on DVD in Region 2 and in North America. To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... World map showing North America A satellite composite image of North America. ...

Episodes

September 21 is the 264th day of the year (265th in leap years). ... 1969 (MCMLXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1969 calendar). ... September 28 is the 271st day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (272nd in leap years). ... 1969 (MCMLXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1969 calendar). ... October 5 is the 278th day of the year (279th in Leap years). ... 1969 (MCMLXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1969 calendar). ... October 12 is the 285th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (286th in leap years). ... 1969 (MCMLXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1969 calendar). ... October 19 is the 292nd day of the year (293rd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1969 (MCMLXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1969 calendar). ... October 26 is the 299th day of the year (300th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 66 days remaining. ... 1969 (MCMLXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1969 calendar). ... November 2 is the 306th day of the year (307th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 59 days remaining. ... 1969 (MCMLXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1969 calendar). ... November 9 is the 313th day of the year (314th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 52 days remaining. ... 1969 (MCMLXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1969 calendar). ... November 16 is the 320th day of the year (321st in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 45 days remaining. ... 1969 (MCMLXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1969 calendar). ... November 23 is the 327th day of the year (328th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 38 days remaining. ... 1969 (MCMLXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1969 calendar). ... November 30 is the 334th day (335th on leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 31 days remaining. ... 1969 (MCMLXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1969 calendar). ... December 7 is the 341st day (342nd in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1969 (MCMLXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1969 calendar). ... December 14 is the 348th day of the year (349th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1969 (MCMLXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1969 calendar). ...

External Links

• FANDERSON - Official Gerry Anderson appreciation society