Team America - Supermarionation?

[Jubal]

I can't comment on the precise puppetry techniques - certainly Team America mimics supermarionation in style (so I've kept the new split thread (yay mini admin moment)) in the subforum. I'd put the high use of gore in Team America as a stylistic difference, despite how suitable puppets are for it the original supermarionation techniques rarely involved actually removing or destroying any parts of puppets. There are also many more direct plays on the fact that in Team America the audience are supposed to be consciously aware of the puppetry going on.

I think there are much bigger differences with what I consider the supermarionation fandom shows, those being Gerry Anderson's original 1960s ones, which all share certain characteristics and themes. Again Team America parodies some of these (the operative/control room split is familiar, also the use of high tech vehicles, villain bases, etc) but in content Team America sets out to do very, very different things, it's a (in my mind a tad clumsy) satire and very self-conscious in how it reflects the real world - whereas the original supermarionation fandom is much more about down-the-line adventure shows and stories. The focus is just very different.

It is difficult in that supermarionation half refers to a specific visual technique but that technique is intrinsically linked with a certain set of shows telling certain stories a certain way, I will admit, but those are my thoughts anyhow.

[comrade_general]

Team America: World Police, a 2004 film by South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, is inspired by and uses the same style of puppetry as Thunderbirds. Stone and Parker, however, dubbed their version of the technique "Supercrappymation" since the strings controlling the puppets were intentionally left visible.

Not directly related to the original, but wouldn't otherwise exist in the form it does without them.

[Jubal]

Yeah, I think I'd agree with that; as I initially said, it's an homage, but overall it's using the technique for different reasons and doing different stories with it.