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The Secret Service - 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 Lord Lew Grade's AP Films in 1969 and broadcast on ITV networks in the United Kingdom. The series was created by Gerry Anderson and Sylvia Anderson 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. 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 series followed the adventures of Father Stanley Unwin, a priest who moonlights as a secret agent for an organization called BISHOP. Answering to a man known as "The Bishop", Unwin is partnered with Matthew Harding, who uses a device called a Minimizer to shrink himself so that he can better sneak into sensitive areas undetected. In a somewhat unusual occurance 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. 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 and even in Britain is considered the lesser known of Gerry Anderson's Supermarionation programs. Anderson, for his part, has been quoted as calling The Secret Service his favorite 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 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. Production of the series occurred simultaneously with filming of Anderson's live-action series, UFO, and in fact Unwin's distinctive yellow car (seen illustrated on the DVD box cover, above) appeared in several UFO episodes. The series has been released on DVD in Region 2 and in North America. Episodes Secret Service, The Secret Service, The Secret Service, The
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