Four Feather Falls was the third puppet TV show produced by Gerry Anderson for Granada Television, from an idea by Barry Gray. Gray, most noted as a composer who created the theme songs for many of the Andersons' creations, also wrote the first episode.

The series is set in the late 19th Century Western town of Four Feather Falls, Kansas and features the adventures of its Sheriff Tex Tucker who was given four magic feathers by Indian Chief Kalamakooya as a reward for saving the life of Makooya, the chief's son. Two of these feathers allow his guns to swivel and fire automatically and the other two allow his horse (Rocky) and his dog (Dusty) to speak English.

The show was made on a tight budget and could not afford sophisticated special effects. To achieve the effect of the guns' muzzle flashes, small specks of black paint were carefully applied to the 35 mm negatives, so that they would appear as white flashes on the prints.

The series was the first to use an early version of Anderson's Supermarionation puppetry process, although the term wouldn't be coined until Anderson's next series, Supercar. The series has not been repeated in Britain since the 1960s. In December 2004 it was announced that the rights had been acquired by Network Video, which scheduled a Region 2 DVD for May 2005. It is the only Supermarionation series not yet released to DVD in North America as of January 2006.

After its cancellation by Granada Gerry Anderson was approached by Lew Grade to make puppet shows for ATV. Had Anderson failed to accept, later series such as Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons might never have been made. The rights to the series remained with Granada until Carlton's recent acquisition of the company. Almost all future Anderson productions were sold to Grade's ITC Entertainment. Grade also part-owned Anderson's AP Films (which later became Century 21 Productions.

• Producer: Gerry Anderson
• Voice Cast:
  • Nicholas Parsons
  • Denise Bryer
  • Kenneth Connor
  • David Graham

Barry Gray, the show's inspirator, also composed the music for the series. The best known song to come out of the series was "Four Feather Falls", sung in some episodes by Michael Holliday in the style of Bing Crosby. This song is sometimes described as the theme song to the series, but it was not as another song referring to the Tex Tucker character actually opened the episodes. The closing theme song was "Two Gun Tex of Texas".

External links

• FANDERSON The official Gerry Anderson appreciation society site.
• Nostalgia Central.
• Television Heaven feature

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