# Joe 90 Mac's Car



## Xenodyssey (Aug 27, 2008)

I decided to dig an old kit out of my stash and FINALLY build it. It must have been there for nearly 30 years. It's the green flying jet car for the Gerry Anderson puppet series Joe 90 which featured a scientist (Mac) and his son (Joe) working for the World Intelligence Network. The car converts from drive to flying mode by raising it's legs and extending flying vanes.

www.xenodyssey.com/portfolio/Models/MacsCarBoxTop001.jpg

I decided to add some more detail to it. The cockpit did have a nice bust of Joe in it, I gave him some legs and added seats and some more controls. To the jet engine I added the missing rib detail. 

www.xenodyssey.com/portfolio/Models/MacsCarCockpitWIP1.jpg

www.xenodyssey.com/portfolio/Models/MacsCarTurbineWIP.jpg

More photos soon.


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## Fozzie (May 25, 2009)

Never really heard of this, but I like threads on "unusual" subjects. Thanks for posting!


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## SteveR (Aug 7, 2005)

I still have the old Dinky! Neat car!

Here's the open and close on YouTube: 



... and here's the Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_90


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## Xenodyssey (Aug 27, 2008)

Here are some more in progress shots taken a day or two ago.

The almost complete cockpit.

www.xenodyssey.com/portfolio/Models/MacsCarCockpitWIP2.jpg

Top and bottom shells painted with Mr Hobby Metallic Green

www.xenodyssey.com/portfolio/Models/MacsCarTOPWIP.jpg
www.xenodyssey.com/portfolio/Models/MacsCarBotWIP.jpg

Some other painted parts.

www.xenodyssey.com/portfolio/Models/MacsCarPart1.jpg
www.xenodyssey.com/portfolio/Models/MacsCarPart2.jpg


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## Steve H (Feb 8, 2009)

Joe 90 is a VERY disturbing show. 

I have no idea how Mac's car got any kind of licensing approval from the British authorities. Maybe they have special allowance for boffins. 

Coming along nicely! It's a REALLY oddball design, the only design that Meddings did for the show IIRC and, well, it's so darn odd, it makes one wonder if it needed another 'pass' to alter this or that.

I always wanted the Tamiya version, but it looks like Imai did a credible job there.


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## Xenodyssey (Aug 27, 2008)

The IMAI version is mostly accurate. The cockpit is the area with the most inaccuracies. The suspension for the front axles is different since they actually have it being able to fold up and fit in the hull. Took me a little filing but I managed to get that happening.

The turbines are simplified and it doesn't come with the rear light/bumper bar, I added that to the model. There are also the two bits of extra "detail" on both sides of the cockpit. I've left them there for now.


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## Xenodyssey (Aug 27, 2008)

Here are the finished photos. I keep retouching things but here is the road version.

www.xenodyssey.com/portfolio/Models/MacsCar_3Q.jpg
www.xenodyssey.com/portfolio/Models/MacsCar_Road3Q.jpg
www.xenodyssey.com/portfolio/Models/MacsCar_RoadTop.jpg
www.xenodyssey.com/portfolio/Models/MacsCar_RoadRear.jpg

And converted to the flying version. Yes, the front wheel assembly folds up into the hull. The rear wheels just tilt back.

www.xenodyssey.com/portfolio/Models/MacsCar_FlyingModeTop.jpg
www.xenodyssey.com/portfolio/Models/MacsCar_FlyingModeBot.jpg


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## Steve H (Feb 8, 2009)

Looks really nice! Man, that front end is pure Meddings, isn't it? As as design it just kind of falls apart once you get past the cockpit. 

Can you imagine taking that thing for a trip to the grocer?


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## SUNGOD (Jan 20, 2006)

Nice job on a great Meddings design. I've got one of those somewhere (unfinished) and the larger Imai one with both Joe and Mac in the cockpit.


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## terryr (Feb 11, 2001)

Nice job.

I like how the wheels fold. Better than the TV version. 
It's a cool car/VTOL/plane/boat. But fuel economy must be lousy with 2 turbines.

And how do they get in and out?


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## Xenodyssey (Aug 27, 2008)

I've read on the Joe 90 wikipedia page I think that Gerry Anderson was of two minds when presented with the car design. It was pretty different to designs from other, early shows but he still signed off on it since he though maybe they were sticking in the mud a bit and needed a change.

I was wondering last night about how they used to get in and out. There was kind of a door hinted at the back of the interior set but that would have been between the turbine intakes. I'd imagine the fuel economy would have been similiar to an Abrams tank!


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## Steve H (Feb 8, 2009)

terryr said:


> Nice job.
> 
> I like how the wheels fold. Better than the TV version.
> It's a cool car/VTOL/plane/boat. But fuel economy must be lousy with 2 turbines.
> ...


It was a mystery to me as well, for the longest time! In early episodes they cheated like mad but eventually they showed that parts of the windshield are actually doors, pretty much from the 'back' of the cockpit body to the center post. HUGE clear glass door. Yeah, awkward as all get out. Not to mention stepping up and down. 

I really hate to say it but I can't help but feel the design is 'half baked', just not thought out completely.


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## Xenodyssey (Aug 27, 2008)

I'm going to have to go through my dvds of the show and see if I can frame grab that scene of the window/door.

Yes. Maybe they just decided they weren't going to use it as much as say, Thunderbird 2 and so didn't think everything out. The gimmick of the flying conversion being the main selling point of the design.



Steve H said:


> It was a mystery to me as well, for the longest time! In early episodes they cheated like mad but eventually they showed that parts of the windshield are actually doors, pretty much from the 'back' of the cockpit body to the center post. HUGE clear glass door. Yeah, awkward as all get out. Not to mention stepping up and down.
> 
> I really hate to say it but I can't help but feel the design is 'half baked', just not thought out completely.


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## Steve H (Feb 8, 2009)

Xenodyssey said:


> I'm going to have to go through my dvds of the show and see if I can frame grab that scene of the window/door.
> 
> Yes. Maybe they just decided they weren't going to use it as much as say, Thunderbird 2 and so didn't think everything out. The gimmick of the flying conversion being the main selling point of the design.


I remember it being late in the series. 

Yeah, I think the main point was toy sales. It reminds me of that 'Star Cruiser' thing. Decent idea, slapdash execution.


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## scotpens (Sep 6, 2003)

Steve H said:


> Joe 90 is a VERY disturbing show.


_Joe 90_ is the only Gerry Anderson Supermarionation show I've never seen. In what way is it disturbing?


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## Xenodyssey (Aug 27, 2008)

To modern day sensibilities the idea of a father letting his 9 year old son battle spys, dictators and assorted maniacs would be disturbing. Then again, the show was fiction after all.


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## scotpens (Sep 6, 2003)

Xenodyssey said:


> To modern day sensibilities the idea of a father letting his 9 year old son battle spies, dictators and assorted maniacs would be disturbing. Then again, the show was fiction after all.


Well, that's just silly. How is it any more "disturbing" than kids playing at being spies -- or cops and robbers for that matter? It's a boy's wish fulfillment fantasy.

I mean, for Christ's sake, we're talking about PUPPETS here.


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## Steve H (Feb 8, 2009)

scotpens said:


> Well, that's just silly. How is it any more "disturbing" than kids playing at being spies -- or cops and robbers for that matter? It's a boy's wish fulfillment fantasy.
> 
> I mean, for Christ's sake, we're talking about PUPPETS here.


Yes, that's true, and Joe 90 has all the elements of 'wish fulfillment' that should be perfect for boys. 

And yet. 

OK, what I found disturbing about Joe 90. 

Joe was frighteningly placid. His father would tell him something like "Alright, Joe, now, you know what to do" "Yes, father. Go in, steal the plans, plant the bomb and leave" calm as can be.

Joe, a 9 year old boy, has gotten into gun battles, including one pitched one with some weapons smugglers that ended up involving machine guns and hand grenades.

The mental impressions never take control of Joe, but it's clear that EVERYTHING in a person's mind is there (because it's logically all intertwined). There's an experiment Mac does, loading HIS mental tape into Joe to see if they end up having the same dream at night. It's a good thing the show was light on female characters as that could have gotten rather creepy.

Mac built the Big Rat to fit Joe. The times he's been in the chair to load tapes into himself he makes comment on the tight squeeze. 

The increasing ease of recording mental impressions has frightening implications. You would never need to capture a spy and question him, just steal his brain and have Joe tell you whatever you want to know.

If not for the times that Mac has taken on impressions I was starting to believe that maybe Mac's greatest creation was actually Joe 90 himself. An android, maybe made in the image of the son he lost or some such. 

See, that's the thing. Joe never seems to act like a real 9 year old. I'm sure some of that is the limitations of the puppet work, and there's only a half-hour to tell stories, but there's none of the 'getting dirty chasing frogs when he's supposed to keep neat for guests arriving' sort of thing that one expects.He's the perfect, obedient, well-mannered child. He does his sums, he eats his peas, he doesn't whine or mope... I can't think of a time in the show when he's begged or thrown a tantrum to do something, and the only instances of defying his father I recall were all while he was 'in active impression use' mode so that voice was more the tape than Joe. 

There's a COLDNESS to the series Joe 90. A static impression. For all the work to make even more realistic puppets and the sets it seems to have lost the energy of the earlier Anderson shows. My casual memory of Joe 90 is "people sitting around and talking and then some spiff effects shots".

does that answer any questions? Oh, probable the main one. Should you track down a DVD set and get it, is it actually worth watching? Yes. It's not a 'must have' in my book, I'm very much a 'Thunderbirds' and 'Captain Scarlet' fan and have come to really appreciate 'Stingray', but the model work on Joe 90 is top-notch and the show IS fun at times. I'm glad to have watched it, unlike, and here's where I lose street cred, unlike Supercar. Man, that's just a grind to watch, I haven't gotten past the first disc of the set.


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## scotpens (Sep 6, 2003)

Steve H said:


> If not for the times that Mac has taken on impressions I was starting to believe that maybe Mac's greatest creation was actually Joe 90 himself. An android, maybe made in the image of the son he lost or some such.


Isn't that the origin story of Astro Boy?



> _There's a COLDNESS to the series Joe 90. A static impression. For all the work to make even more realistic puppets and the sets it seems to have lost the energy of the earlier Anderson shows._


Improvements in mechanics and electronics allowed the characters' heads to be more in scale with their bodies, but I think making the puppets more realistically proportioned was a mistake. No one ever complained about the oversized puppet heads in _Supercar_, _Fireball XL5_, _Stingray _and _Thunderbirds_. What's wrong with having puppets that look like puppets?


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## Steve H (Feb 8, 2009)

"what's wrong with having puppets that look like puppets?"

You'd have to have asked Gerry Anderson that. The man really burned to be a 'real' TV/Movie guy, not someone 'churning out' children's programming. All the things I've read, Anderson really felt some shame or maybe disappointment, at being so typecast. He really thought he was a massive creative engine. I think history shows that in the larger picture it was working with Silvia, combined with having the most fantastic and able stable of creative talent there was in the British industry at the time. Maybe some would disagree but I really thought once Silvia and Gerry split up some heart, some soul vanished from Anderson's works. 

As much as I love Thunderbirds, watching Stingray was really a revelation. The characters had so much ENERGY! The voice actors really emoted like crazy. The whole 'love triangle' going on with Troy was surprisingly sophisticated for a children's show. And I never saw the puppets walking, a huge issue with Anderson, as that big a problem, as so 'wrong' or unrealistic. I thought the puppet handlers were very skillful in understanding the limitations and working within same. 

Wasn't too crazy about the characterised aspect of the puppets, but it was much worse back on Supercar and Fireball XL5. 

I note with great amusement that some current toys lines such as Bratz and Monster High use 'Thunderbirds puppet' proportions and this is considered radical and cutting edge and so on.


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## scotpens (Sep 6, 2003)

Steve H said:


> I thought the puppet handlers were very skillful in understanding the limitations and working within same.


"Puppet handlers"? I'll have you know that the proper job title is "puppeteer." Some of the higher-paying jobs in the field even require a degree in advanced puppetology.


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## Steve H (Feb 8, 2009)

scotpens said:


> "Puppet handlers"? I'll have you know that the proper job title is "puppeteer." Some of the higher-paying jobs in the field even require a degree in advanced puppetology.


Yes, I know. For some reason when I type 'puppeteer' my brain short circuits and I start thinking Known Space and how Niven has it all wrong in that Pak Protectors did NOT build Ringworld and... my mind is a messy attic at times. 

And I SHOULD have used puppeteer, as properly the puppet handler was the one on the stage floor helping place them on their 'marks', doing final clothing and hair touchup, spraying anti-flair on the wires...


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## Trek Ace (Jul 8, 2001)

I've seen equally ridiculous stories about nine-year-old kids doing very adult adventures. In fact, a certain sci-fi fantasy film comes to mind, where a kid builds and repairs robots, races high-speed vehicles, travels to other worlds with magical knights who fight with laser swords and blows up a space station while flying a space fighter during a huge outer space battle.


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## terryr (Feb 11, 2001)

I never liked Joe. He was such a 'perfect little boy'. Very polite, neat, courteous. Blah. He was an adults idea of a little boy.

The vehicles and stuff were very cool though.

Anderson later said he made a mistake with Joe 90s audience. Little boys didn't want to pretend they were little boys but men.


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## BruceDownunder (Aug 25, 2008)

All the effects and design oddities aside, I think Joe 90 did have the coolest theme of all the Anderson shows.


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