LOL! My nephew is a big South Park fan and loved the movie Team America, as did I. But I had to explain to him that one of the reasons that I found it so funny was that as a kid in the ‘60’s, I watched Thunderbirds and Stingray. He had no idea that this was where the SP guys got their inspiration for Team America, the use of marionettes and had never seen Thunderbirds.
I had to send him clips from YouTube to convince him that the show was real and that it was produced by Brits:
Of course there was no explicit "Supermarionation" sex scenes back then…. : ),
Of interest:
The Making Of Thunderbirds The Documentary
This documentary actually shows how really advanced they were in back then in model making and in filming the special effects. I have to wonder if George Lucas didn’t learn a few things from watching the Thunderbirds as a kid…
The puppet shows were never really my thing but the model making and effects on those shows impressed me.
RIP Sylvia A.
There was also Fireball XL5 in the same era. That was the one I remember, I don’t think we got Thunderbirds where I lived.