In the mid-sixties, you couldn't move for Century 21 mini-albums - 7 inch 33rpm records each with "21 minutes of adventure". The likes of Scot Tracy and Lady Penelope narrated bite sized audio cut downs of classic Thunderbirds rescues whilst Steve Zodiac and Venus kidnapped a young boy and played sound effects from the moonshot to him. There was even a chance to go on a date with Troy Tempest...!
No Gerry & Sylvia Anderson puppet series was left untouched... except perhaps 'The Secret Service'. (We don't talk about the priest and his little gardener any more...)
There were a few that didn't get released. They tried to make them more instructional at one point but the arrest of Captain Zodiac and Dr. Venus and their subsequent trial put paid to that.
One oddity was their 'Daleks' record - a laboured re-telling of "Doctor Who's" battle with the Daleks on the planet Mechanus featuring the soundtrack of the final episode of 'The Chase'. It was narrated by an enthusiastic David Graham and book-ended by Eric Winstone's dance band version of the Doctor Who theme. They were going to do another Dalek themed one for Christmas and prepped a cover for it - until someone told them that the series' special Christmas episode - which occurred halfway through a mammoth twelve part Dalek adventure - had replaced the Daleks with a silent movie skit that wasn't really suited to audio... despite Tristram Cary's fun music.
Here's a selection from the archives. As always, none of this was ever released. It was just another dream episode...!
