at age 83:
Gerry Anderson, a British filmmaker who transformed old-fashioned puppets into futuristic action heroes in the 1960s in the hugely popular children’s show “Thunderbirds,” and later cast real people in series including “U.F.O.” and “Space: 1999,” died on Wednesday in Oxfordshire, England. He was 83.
Although Thunderbirds is probably his most famous creation, I was a huge fan of Captain Scarlet and Space:1999.
and here's the Space:1999 pilot. How can you not like Barbara Bain and Martin Landau?
and for my bona-fides- I met the composer of all this awesome music- Barry Gray- at a Space:1999 convention in 1978 in Columbus, Ohio.
BTW the Telegraph link above is as good a testament as any:
I was five years old, ... and I was parked in front of the television on a Saturday evening. According to the newspaper, there was a programme on that would excite children of all ages.
An hour later, I felt as though the whole landscape of what passes for my imagination had been changed. I had just watched the first episode of Thunderbirds. It caused an excitement of the sort that is possible only for the very young, and it lasted for days. Indeed, every Saturday night was a renewal of the miracle. In that age before video recording, it was impossible to be anywhere else.