Overview
Space: 1999 is the last in a long line of science-fiction series that Gerry and Sylvia Anderson produced as a working partnership, beginning with Supercar in the early Sixties and including the famed marionette fantasy series Stingray, Fireball XL5, Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, Joe 90 and The Secret Service, as well as the live-action alien-invasion drama UFO. Space: 1999 owes much of the visual design to pre-production work for the never-made second series of UFO, which would have been set primarily on the Moon and featured a more extensive Moonbase.
Space: 1999 drew a great deal of visual inspiration (and technical expertise) from the Stanley Kubrick film 2001: A Space Odyssey. The programme's special effects director Brian Johnson had previously worked on both Thunderbirds (as Brian Johncock) and 2001.
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