Joe 90 (TV Series 1968–1969)
Joe 90 is a 1960s British science-fiction television series following the adventures of a nine-year-old child, Joe McClaine, who starts a double life as a schoolboy-turned-spy when his scientist father invents a device capable of duplicating and transferring expert knowledge and experience from one human brain to another. Equipped with the skills of the foremost academic and military minds, Joe is recruited by the World Intelligence Network and, becoming its "Most Special Agent", pursues the ideal of world peace and saving human life. Created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and filmed by Century 21 Productions, the 30-episode series followed the earlier Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons.
First broadcast in the UK between September 1968 and April 1969 on the ATV network, Joe 90 was the sixth and final of the Andersons' productions to be made exclusively using the form of marionette puppetry termed "Supermarionation". Their final puppet series, The Secret Service, used this process only in combination with extensive live-action filming. As in the case of its antecedent, Captain Scarlet, the puppets of Joe 90 are of natural proportions as opposed to the more caricatured design of the characters of Thunderbirds.
Characters
Series Cast
Len Jones ... Joe McClaine (30 episodes, 1968-1969)
Rupert Davies ... Professor Ian McClaine (30 episodes, 1968-1969)
Keith Alexander ... Sam Loover / ... (30 episodes, 1968-1969)
David Healy ... Shane Weston / ... (30 episodes, 1968-1969)
Gary Files ... 1st Guard / ... (23 episodes, 1968-1969)
Jeremy Wilkin ... 2nd Russian / ... (16 episodes, 1968-1969)
Sylvia Anderson ... Stewardess / ... (9 episodes, 1968-1969)
Shane Rimmer ... Clerk / ... (5 episodes, 1968-1969)
Martin King ... Banning / ... (4 episodes, 1968)
Season 1
S1, Ep1
Sep. 29, 1968 The Most Special Agent
Joe McClaine, the adopted nine-year-old son of electronics expert Professor McClaine, is a normal, healthy, games-loving youngster with a sense of adventure, but little guessing that the Professor's latest invention is going to plunge him into the sort of excitement-packed life every boy dreams about.
The invention is a machine called BIG RAT - which stands for Brain Impulse Galvanoscope Record And Transfer. It enables a recorded brain pattern to be transferred from one person to another. When it is shown to Shane Weston, Deputy Head of the World Intelligence Network, the Professor realises that Weston sees a way of using Joe as an agent for WIN.
Weston explains how this could be done by outlining a story of the Russian development of the fastest and most heavily armed aircraft in the work, known as the MIG 242. It has upset the balance of world air power and the West has no weapons capable of stopping it.
If Joe could steal a MIG 242, Weston explains, its secrets would be revealed and the balance of world power restored.
A Russian pilot who has flown this plane has visited London and BIG RAT has been used to record his brain pattern. This is later transferred to Joe, who has to wear a pair of glasses with built-in electrodes enabling the transfer to work. With these, he will have all the knowledge and experience of the expert whose brain pattern he has received.
The Professor and Joe fly to Russia for a special viewing of the MIG 242. Joe puts on his glasses and disappears. His absence is noticed, but no-one believes the Professor when he says his son is about to steal the new plane - but this is exactly what he is doing! He outmanoeuvres the jets which try to intercept him and reaches England. And no-one, of course, is going to believe that a nine-year-old boy has been responsible!
The Professor is appalled at the idea of Joe carrying out such dangerous missions, but Weston has shown how it could be done and Mac finally has to agree that there are enormous possibilities for Joe as WIN's Most Special Agent.
S1, Ep2
Oct. 6, 1968 Most Special Astronaut
Two astronauts manning a space station are in danger because the supply rocket from Earth goes out of control and has to be destroyed. It means that the two men have only three days' air supply left, and it is vital that they should be saved. For, as Shane Weston of WIN explains to Professor McClaine and Joe 90, the space station is, in fact, a construction commissioned by WIN to form the hub of a new orbital radar system.
Another rocket is prepared and Joe is given the brain pattern of an ace astronaut who has been injured in the supply rocket crash and is the only man with the sufficient knowledge to go through the tricky operation.
Now with this knowledge given to him through the brain pattern transfer, Joe sets off on his dangerous flight. But by now, the two men in the space station have only two hours' air supply left and are on the point of collapse.
Joe therefore has to land without their help and, in doing so, damages the capsule's aerial and navigation apparatus. He succeeds in providing the two astronauts with their fresh supply of oxygen, thus saving their lives, but now faces a perilous return journey to Earth with the very real danger that the capsule will burn up on re-entry to the atmosphere.
His damaged navigation apparatus, throws him off course, and all contact is lost with the Earth control room. It needs super-human skill on Joe's part .......
S1, Ep3
Oct. 13, 1968 Project 90
Professor McClaine is kidnapped by members of an international espionage ring anxious to discover the secrets of a closely-guarded file marked "File 90." And, in making their kidnapping plans, they hear about BIG RAT. They are determined to learn more about it and refuse to believe Mac when he volunteers the information that it stands for Brain Impulse Galvanoscope Record and Transfer, and that it transfers brain patterns to Mac's nine-year-old son, Joe. They refuse to take him seriously, especially when he says that Joe carries out dangerous missions for W.I.N., and prepare to torture him to extract what they hope will be the truth.
Mac is being held prisoner in a remote Alpine clinic, inaccessible except for a ski lift, operated from the clinic.
Meanwhile, Shane Weston, Sam Loover and Joe are holiday-making in the Alps. Unbeknown to the kidnappers, details of Mac's plight are passed on to them, and Joe goes to his father's rescue in a balloon.
It drifts slowly towards the clinic, but time is precious. It seems impossible for Joe to reach Mac in time to save him from his terrible torture, but with moments to spare Joe breaks through the glass sky-light in the clinic roof.
Mac is saved, but the kidnappers still believe that they have won the day when they rush for the ski-lift and escape - only to find themselves face to face with Weston and Sam at the bottom.
S1, Ep4
Oct. 20, 1968 Hi-Jacked
The World Intelligence Network decides that it's a mission for Joe when one of its agents is murdered* while investigating a ruthless and dangerous gun-runner and smuggler named Colletti. The agent managed to record a message that Colletti will be hi-jacking a delivery of arms that very night.
WIN have to think of a way of gaining access to the Colletti hideout, and Joe receives the brain pattern, through BIG RAT, of one of WIN's top agents. He is placed in one of the crates in the consignment of armaments, and finds himself taken to a remote barn which turns out to be the cover for Colletti's underground complex.
The alarm is raised when Joe walks through an unseen electronic ray and is captured. In the battle, he loses his glasses, and Colletti is more amused than worried when he discovers that the intruder is a nine-year-old boy. He simply laughs when Joe says he is a WIN agent, and tells his men to take the boy home. Joe is locked in the boot of a car so that he won't have any idea where he is being taken from.
But Colletti, on second thoughts, decides that Joe knows too much and orders his men to dispose of him. He will be driven to a cliff edge and plunged to his death. Joe, however, uses his pocket transmitter to make contact with his father, Professor McClaine, and Sam Loover of the WIN organisation, who tell him how to get out of the boot. He does so, and leaves behind a homing device which enables Sam and Mac to keep track of the car's movements and also to trace the whereabouts of Colletti's complex.
Joe, making his way back to Colletti's office in search of his glasses, has a fierce fight with the crook, and Joe is once again in deadly peril until Sam and Mac arrive.........
S1, Ep5
Oct. 27, 1968 Colonel McClaine
Sabotage has foiled efforts to get a new and very delicate liquid explosive across Africa to a huge new road construction which will link two African countries. W.I.N. are called in to investigate, and Joe 90 is given the brain patterns of an explosives expert and a top army driver to enable him to transport the explosives overland from an army base in the desert.
At the base, a Lieutenant Pearse gives instructions to two specially selected men, a Sergeant and Private Johnson, telling them that a Colonel McClaine is being sent to take charge. The men are astonished when Colonel McClaine turns out to be a nine-year-old boy, and Private Johnson is reluctant to take orders from him. Joe, however, shows how capable he is, and he wins Private Johnson's loyalty when the Sergeant is killed during an accident en route across the difficult and treacherous African countryside.
Joe and Johnson continue and are travelling in high mountainous countryside when a message is flashed to Joe that it has been found that Lieutenant Pearse was the saboteur, and that the explosives containers have been fixed so that they will detonate in a couple of minutes at a height of 5,000 ft. And they are just about at that height now.
Desperately, Joe swings the heavy truck off the road and plunges it down a steep slope. His driving is fantastic. Johnson can scarcely believe that a nine-year-old is at the wheel.... but, of course, he doesn't know Joe's secret.
S1, Ep6
Nov. 3, 1968 The Fortress
W.I.N. agents Laramie and Fleming, working in the Santa Marina section of a Far Eastern jungle, receive a vital report on microfilm. When they are ambushed, Laramie succeeds in transferring the film to Fleming - but Fleming is tracked and captured. In the nick of time, however, he gets a message through to W.I.N. headquarters but is trapped before he can say where he has hidden the film.
Fleming is held prisoner in a virtually invincible fortress, and Laramie lies in a coma.
The situation is serious. If Fleming is forced to talk and the microfilm is found, the covers of every W.I.N. agent in the area will be blown. There is just one chance, and that is to give Joe 90 the brain patterns of Mike Laramie from a previously-taken tape. With these, Joe will possess Laramie's vast knowledge of the jungle rivers and the fortress.
Joe is flown out to the Far East and gets into the fortress. Once there, he finds that Fleming is being subjected to vicious cross-examination. His torture has left him almost unconscious, but once he is convinced that Joe is a W.I.N. agent, he manages to get as far as the window of his cell, and Joe helps him down to his waiting hovercraft.
Ducking shots from the guards, they make their escape, and then comes the torturous journey through the jungle to recover the microfilm which Fleming has hidden. They are tracked by guards all the time, but Joe is able to outmanoeuvre the enemy....
S1, Ep7
Nov. 10, 1968 King for a Day
The Sultan of Ardaji is killed in a car crash deliberately caused by the Regent, Ben Shazar, who has designs on the throne. The custom of the country is that the new Sultan must be crowned within twenty-four hours.
The heir is at school in England, and Ben Shazar's men abduct him. The World Intelligence Network is informed, and Joe 90 is given the brain patterns of the young Prince's tutor so that he can take the Prince's place and be familiar with the country, its customs and its people.
While the WIN organisation searches for the young Sultan, Joe flies to Ardaji, where he is put through every test by Ben Shazar who, when satisfied that this really is the Sultan, realises the only way for him to gain the throne is to arrange a second kidnapping. Joe is abducted after his food has been drugged.
But by now the real Sultan has been found and is already on his way to Ardaji for the coronation. Ben Shazar is dumbfounded when he discovers that the coronation is to take place with the rightful heir, after all, but now his treachery is known. Can he escape and can Joe be rescued?
S1, Ep8
Nov. 17, 1968 International Concerto
Igor Sladek is a world-famous concert pianist, but why should the World Intelligence Network require his brain patterns? Professor McClaine is puzzled - until he makes the discovery that Sladek is, in fact, one of the WIN organisation's top agents.
The sensible precaution of taking his brain patterns becomes clear when the pianist, during a concert tour of Eastern Europe, is detected by the authorities, and a coded message received in London warns that he hears he is about to be arrested.
The brain pattern is therefore transferred to Joe 90, who accompanies Professor McClaine to Europe just as Sladek's latest radio concert is to begin, watched closely by the authorities. Joe succeeds in getting permission to turn over the music for the pianist, and Sladek asks for the baffle screens to be shifted slightly. In doing so, he knows he will be out of the sight of those watching him.
During the concert, Joe puts on his special glasses, taking over the pianist's brain pattern, then changes places with Sladek at the keyboard. It is impossible to detect any difference in the playing, which makes it possible for Sladek to be smuggled out of the broadcasting studio without anyone suspecting that Joe has taken over from him.
Professor McClaine drives him away in a car. A border guard is suspicious, but a telephone call confirms that the recital is still in progress, and they are allowed through. But what of Joe 90? Will he be able to get away when the trick has been discovered?
S1, Ep9
Nov. 24, 1968 Splashdown
Two major air crashes are complete mysteries, but they have one thing in common: in each case, an electronics expert has disappeared, and it is suspected that they were kidnapped before the crashes.
The World Intelligence Network plan a trap to foil a third attempt by persuading Professor McClaine and Joe to fly to Istanbul. As a world electronics authority, the Professor will be the bait, and Joe is given the brain pattern of a U.S. Army Air Force test pilot.
Sure enough, Mac and Joe are tailed on their way to the airport, and the flight is well under way and not far from Athens when a man named Kramer, with the help of the stewardess, makes an appearance and drugs both the pilot and co-pilot. Beneath them in the sea a launch waits to transfer the Professor to a submarine.
Mac is forced at gun-point to escape by way of a parachuted cylinder, together with the stewardess and Kramer, but Joe is left in the plane, which is now pilotless.
Joe dons his special glasses and takes over the controls. Returning to the spot where his father was abducted and where the launch is preparing to contact the submarine, he produces some spectacular flying to prevent their joining up. The sub is forced to submerge, Mac is saved, and a sinister death plot is revealed.
S1, Ep10
Dec. 1, 1968 Big Fish
An advanced two-man submarine is damaged through a missile outlet fault which allows an inrush of water. The crew are rescued by helijet, but unfortunately the sub has drifted into forbidden waters and now lies in Porto Guavan territory.
This threatens a tricky international situation unless the sub can be moved without discovery. Joe 90 is therefore given the brain patterns of the world's leading aquanaut, and he and Professor McClaine visit Porto Guava, ostensibly on a fishing trip.
But they attract the suspicions of a boatman, from whom they hire his craft. The Porto Guavan Coastal Control is also suspicious, and sail out to make inquiries just as Joe is under-water, trying to get into the stricken sub. To make matters worse, he is trapped. The authorities, believing that he must have been deliberately drowned, arrest the Professor and the boatman on suspicion of murder.
Joe, however, succeeds in freeing himself and also getting the sub safely away from the forbidden area before arriving at the jail to prove that he certainly hasn't been murdered and that there is no case against his father and the boatman!
S1, Ep11
Dec. 8, 1968 Relative Danger
Three men, a noted geologist and two young physicists, are trapped in an old silver mine while searching for Uranium 534. The geologist is Willie Loover, father of Sam Loover, of the WIN organisation, who knows that his father is suffering from a medical condition which involves the injection of a serum at regular intervals. And he will die unless the serum can reach him.
Sam appeals to Professor McClaine for help, and Joe is given the brain pattern of one of the world's leading underground explorers.
The situation is desperate, but Sam is able to give Joe exact directions regarding the underground tunnel where his father is lying helpless and the other two men are trapped.
Even with his brain pattern, Joe finds the task a treacherous one, with crumbling footholes and dangerous drops, and with sheer rock faces which have to be scaled with ropes. But after a terrifying struggle through a very narrow passage, Joe at last reaches the old man and gives him an injection in the nick of time.
Meanwhile, rescuers are drilling their way through and all are saved, with Willie Loover still miraculously alive, thanks to Joe.
S1, Ep12
Dec. 15, 1968 Operation McClaine
Maurice Estoral, one of the world's most famous writers, is facing a major brain operation, but the specialist, Dr. Emil Kados, is seriously injured when the plane bringing him from Switzerland to England crashes.
The news reaches Professor McClaine, who is very concerned to save the life of the eminent writer and fears that the less experienced Dr. Blakemore, who will now have to carry out the operation, will not be able to succeed.
He and Joe therefore pay a secret visit to the unconscious Dr. Kados to collect his brain pattern, which is transferred to Joe. And, because it is obvious that the hospital would not permit a nine-year-old boy to operate, Mac himself receives the brain pattern of a WIN agent and accompanies Joe.
The patient is wheeled into the operating theatre, and Mac makes his dramatic move. He holds the hospital staff at gun-point while Joe carries through the difficult operation. It's a triumphant success - but how can the secret be kept? Mac manages this by pointing out to the hospital staff that they will have to take the credit. After all, who would believe them if they said a nine-year-old boy had carried out such an operation?
S1, Ep13
Dec. 22, 1968 The Unorthodox Shepherd
When the WIN organisation is investigating the passing of counterfeit notes, Joe 90 is given the brain pattern of a World Bank President and he establishes the important fact that the forgeries are very recent - printed within the past two weeks - and that they are from the original dollar bill plates which were supposed to have been destroyed.
The apparent haunting of a church coincides with these events, and suspicion points towards the Reverend Joseph Shepherd when he pays forged notes into the bank. Professor McClaine and Joe call on him and find a very worried man, but they can get no help at all from him until they eventually force him into admitting that he is being blackmailed by a group of forgers who are using his church crypt as a workshop. His verger is being held there as a hostage.
A plan is worked out which will foil the forgers with Joe's help. He undertakes quite a new role, this time as a ghost! Dressed in phosphorescent white and with a power pack on his back, Joe drifts into the crypt and terrifies the gang so much that they run into the arms of the waiting police.
S1, Ep14
Dec. 29, 1968 Business Holiday
Professor McClaine and Joe 90 are planning a holiday and therefore reject Sam Loover's appeal for help on a new assignment. Apparently accepting defeat, he suggests that Borova would be an ideal spot for a vacation. They go there, only to find that Sam has tricked them: this is just where he wants them for the assignment he has in mind!
The new government in Borova has ordered the World Army to evacuate the Beneleta base, and the World Army has pulled out on the understanding that the base would be dismantled. But WIN agents have reported that the new government have not done any dismantling and are using the base for their own ends. For the sake of world peace, the base must be destroyed.
But the only man with the right experience and intimate knowledge of the base's advanced warning system is Colonel Henderson, and he has been injured. Joe is therefore given his brain pattern, and embarks on a hazardous military operation to destroy the base.
The attack begins at dawn .......
S1, Ep15
Jan. 5, 1969 Arctic Adventure
A World Air Force bomber goes off course in a storm in the Arctic and is forced to ditch and destroy its secret nuclear bombs. The crew eject safely, but unfortunately one of the bombs has failed to explode and is now buried in Arctic waters. A major political incident is threatened because the spot is in Eastern Alliance territory.
The one man who has the knowledge and ability to recover the bomb is Dr. William Kelvin. But he is 70 years old - too old for this sort of venture. However, during a quick visit to him, his brain patterns are recorded and later transferred to Joe 90
Joe, now equipped with unrivalled knowledge of the sea-bed, is taken to the Arctic and goes off on a solo search in a tiny submarine. He locates the bomb, but radar gives warning to the Eastern base commanders, who send two killer submarines to search for the mystery intruder.
Despite the acute danger he is now in, Joe grimly goes ahead with his task of trying to dislodge the bomb from the rocks in which it is wedged. Somehow, he has to elude the chasing killer-subs, and also get the bomb to safety....
S1, Ep16
Jan. 12, 1969 Double Agent
When three W.I.N. couriers are shot and their despatch cases stolen from them, Shane Weston begins to wonder if there is a traitor in the Courier Department. The situation is now acute because there is a particularly big assignment coming up. New codes and cypher tapes have to be taken to the whole of W.I.N.'s eastern network. It's so important that Harry Sloane, head of the Courier Department, says he will do the job himself, but Shane Weston refuses to allow this. Instead, Harry Sloane's brain patterns are transferred to Joe 90, who sets off on the assignment.
Joe's movements are puzzling. When he gets to Paris, he changes 'planes and goes to Copenhagen, and then gives W.I.N.'s men the slip.
Now he is in dire danger because it becomes clear that Harry Sloane himself is the double agent, and Joe is acting as if he were Sloane. Copenhagen receives instructions from W.I.N. headquarters to put out a C48 on Joe....it's a red priority to all W.I.N. agents: "Shoot target on sight!"
Professor McClaine and Sam Loover have a nightmare chase to try to reach the boy before the instructions can be carried out, but the double-dealing Harry Sloane himself gets to Joe first. In a fight, Joe is disarmed and loses his glasses, which means that he no longer thinks like Harry Sloane. But how are the other agents to know this?
When Sloane manages to get away with the case, the situation looks desperate. But there is a remote control "destruct" system in the case which is put into operation. The case explodes and destroys the helicopter carrying Sloane.
Joe's life has not been risked in vain.... the guilty man has been found and destroyed!
NAME: Joe McClaine
AGE: 9
BORN: Hampstead, London 1st April
POSITION: W.I.N.’s Most Special Agent
HEIGHT: 4’3"
HAIR: Sandy/blonde
EYES: Brown
Just an ordinary boy - that’s Joe 90. But through the genius of his adopted father, Joe has become the World Intelligence Network’s top secret agent. And Joe 90 is just nine years old.
Born in Hampstead, London on 1st April, Joe was orphaned at the age of 12 months when both his parents were killed in a car crash. Nothing more was known of his mother and father, but having no close relatives to take custody of him, Joe was sent to Caxton Manor Orphanage in East London. The orphanage became mother and father, sister, brother and cousin to the infant.
Life in the orphanage had its disadvantages, yet the boy they called, simply, ‘Joe’, thrived within the vast community of children his own age. But when he was old enough to grasp the simple values of life, he realised that something was missing. That something was a family life, a mother, a father, and a real home.
Like all small boys, Joe was very interested in cars. And it was his interest in cars that forced his presence upon Professor Ian McClaine. It was a summer in London, and the Caxton Manor Orphanage had arranged an outing in the city to see the sights. As the small party of uniformed children passed down Fleet Street, a gleaming green car caught Joe’s eye. It was certainly no ordinary car and Joe decided to investigate the unique vehicle further. Breaking away from the "Crocodile", he climbed inside the car and scrambled behind the seats to chance a glimpse at the twin aero turbines. To his horror, the car swept off, carrying him away as a stowaway. The driver of the car was Ian McClaine.
On reaching the McClaines’ house, Joe made his presence noted. Instantly, the McClaines and Joe became united in friendship. The friendship was stimulated so much that the McClaines paid regular visits to the orphanage and, in turn, Joe was allowed to spend weekends at their home in Culver Bay.
Joe adored his two new-found friends, and for the first time he experienced the family life he had been missing, becoming a real person instead of just another name in a register. And his new foster-parents grew fond of little Joe. So fond, in fact, that adoption procedure was started to allow Joe to cherish family life forever.
The adoption went through without a hitch. Joe became part of the family unit - he became Joe McClaine. He was now five years old and for the first time in his life he had a real mother and father and a real home in Culver Bay, Dorset. Joe became an ordinary boy, and went to an ordinary school, Culver County Junior School. But tragedy was to hit the McClaine household a year later, when Mary McClaine was killed in a car accident. It was a bitter blow to Joe, for it was the first time he had felt deep emotion, the loss of a loved one.
But thanks to his upbringing, tragedy slipped into the past. Joe continued his existence living to the full once more, only this time terribly conscious of his adopted father. He became very attached to his father, sharing the same love for electronics and scientific research. And he helped his father, during his vacations, to work on the brain child that was to become the BIG RAT.
At school, Joe was not academically inclined - one field in which he failed to emulate Ian McClaine. Instead, Joe’s love turned towards the football field, fishing and pop music, though he still appreciated the rather more classical forms of music.
In his spare time, Joe loved to go fishing or camping with his father and to help him in his laboratory. It was great to have someone to share his life with - a father. At the age of eight, Joe became engrossed with the exploits of a fictitious secret agent, longing to copy his literary hero. So engrossed in the idea of becoming a secret agent was the young eight-year old that he started a gang with his local friends. They sent coded messages amongst themselves and executed imaginary assignments, hoping that one day fantasy would give way to reality. It was Joe’s love of adventure and the outdoor life, as opposed to academic studies, that overjoyed Joe McClaine when he was chosen to become a secret agent for the World Intelligence Network, when Professor McClaine’s fantastic invention of the BIG RAT changed his life of an ordinary boy into that of real life spy adventures.
It was a dream come true, but just another of so many dreams that have come true in the nine year life of Joe McClaine, known throughout the world as JOE 90.
NAME: Ian McClaine
AGE: 48
BORN: Baron's Court, London 24th June
POSITION: Electronics Engineer
HEIGHT: 5' 10"
HAIR: Blonde
EYES: Brown
At the age of 48, Ian McClaine, an electronics engineer, has become one of the scientific geniuses of the twentieth century. His brains, his know-how and his invention of the BIG RAT have helped to keep the present world politically stable, and through him world peace has been stimulated. He is a quiet, stubborn and determined man.
Born in Baron’s Court, London, Ian McClaine was the son of a physicist, employed by the British Government Research Department. His mother was a famous novelist. Date of birth 24th June (series is placed 30 years hence).
Mac’s early life was spent in the country while his father was commissioned to the top secret research development station in Dorset. It was a favourable move for the members of the McClaine family, giving his mother peaceful surroundings to concentrate on her writing, and giving Mac the dream environment of every young boy: tumbling sands, green fields and the magnetic sea, so very different to the city life he’d been used to.
It was during his early boyhood that Mac developed a love for the county of Dorset, and all it stood for, he vowed that wherever life led him in the future, he would always return to the place that had meant so much to him.
The young Ian McClaine revelled in the sunshine. His greatest love being fishing, he spent endless hours at sea in his father’s yacht, lazing away his time with a fishing rod. But all this was soon to end, for at the tender age of nine, Mac was sent to Canford Magnor, one of Britain’s leading public schools, in the hope that a good education would bring Mac to emulate his father’s career.
Ian McClaine thoroughly enjoyed his school days. He excelled on the academic front, concentrating his studies on physics, aerodynamics and electronics. In the sports, too, he was tops. By the end of his nine year stay at the school, Mac had attained distinctive honours in his three chosen subjects. He was given a scholarship to Cambridge, an exceptional credit to his ageing parents.
Mac graduated to Cambridge University to study electronics and aerodynamics. And it was here that Mac first discovered his flair for ballooning. It was during Mac’s second year at the newly-founded St Lucifer’s college that Mac attended an optional lecture on the art of ballooning. He loved every second of it. After the talk, he trapped the lecturer in endless conversation on the possibilities of piloting balloons in the present day.
The next day, Mac decided to try out the lecturer’s theory. Summoning all his financial resources he managed to buy the raw materials used in the construction of a balloon and he set out to design, and ultimately build, his own balloon with the intention of flying it. It took him just three days to formulate a prototype model and then construct the real thing.
Having gained permission to use the University’s store of helium gas, Mac put into operation his first attempt to fly his balloon. A large crowd had gathered to see a feeble attempt. But Mac astounded them. The balloon rose into the air, and with the aid of directional navigation, a unique series of equipment designed by himself, Ian McClaine piloted the balloon around the perimeter of the city and landed on the University’s playing fields to a hero’s welcome. This was the first spark that made Mac give up three years of his later years to design and build balloons. But it was also the spark that was to almost cost him his life not three years later.
Apart from this act of extroversion, Mac settled down to a normal existence at Cambridge. He studied hard and had excellent results in his yearly examinations. In his last year at University, Mac relinquished all his non-academic interests to concentrate on his studies with the hope of gaining an advanced scholarship to the United States at Stanford University. Mac’s hopes were realised on graduation day, when he received great commendation for his excellent academic results in electronics and aerodynamics. He was granted that elusive ticket to Stanford.
But the scholarship had its drawbacks. It was a grant to be used a year hence, meaning that Mac had to "kill" time - kill a year of his life somehow. He decided that his love for balloons should be activated, so he enrolled at the Aerodynamic Academy in London to study ballooning, under the watchful eye of the lecturer who had made the sport so real to him while at Cambridge.
In the short 12 month spell, Mac, with the help of fellow students, piloted his balloon on dare-devil journeys around the globe. In doing this he carved a name for himself in the annals of history. He crossed the Alps from Switzerland to Italy; flew a balloon along the full length of the Mississippi; and circumnavigated the continent of Australia. All in 12 months, and all by balloon.
But amid the triumph and success, Mac had his set backs, for on the eve of his accession to Stanford, his parents were both killed in an explosion at the family home, when Mac’s father was experimenting with dangerous chemicals.
Mac moved from Britain to America and a three year course at Stanford. And it was here that the Englishman met a man destined to be his life-long friend - Sam Loover. Mac and Sam Loover studied electronics together, they followed the same pastimes together, and were virtually inseparable - a friendship that was stimulated a year later when Sam saved Mac’s life after a ballooning accident in the Arizona desert.
Life at Stanford came naturally to both Loover and McClaine. Both graduated from the academy with degrees in electronics. Sam moved into government research, while Ian McClaine left for England with an undecided mind about how he wanted to employ his talents.
At the age of 24, Mac returned to England, to London and the Aerodynamic Academy to study further developments in ballooning. For three years he studied, putting forward new ideas, going on new safaris with his balloon and conquering many heights. His achievements were headline news.
During Mac’s three years of indecision with regard to a chosen profession, he met a woman at the academy with the same ideals as himself - Mary Reed - who was later to become Mary McClaine. Together these two worked to design, build and pilot balloons across the face of the globe.
Three years passed, and McClaine was offered a job as electronics controller of a private industrial firm dealing with computers. He accepted the job and stayed with the firm for eight years, graduating from electronics controller to general manager of the company, and the firm thrived on numerous inventions made by this master mind.
Mac was now 36, and had yet again come to a milestone of indecision in his career, so he decided to put his inheritance to its best uses. He bought a tiny, picturesque cottage near the sea in his childhood home of Dorset. His intention was to convert the old sea tunnels running under the cottage into a luxury research laboratory. He intended to devote his life continuing his father’s research into advanced computerisation of brain patterns.
Mac contracted a building firm to build his underground laboratory, sparing no expense. But the building of the wonder-lab took time, so Mac decided to take a flat in the heart of London and write, so that his knowledge could be passed on to the world. The first book he published was not on electronics but on ballooning - signs of a divided love. Fate then played a great part in Professor McClaine’s life. He decided that he needed a secretary to help with the backlog of unfinished manuscripts. He advertised the position, and a long lost friend - Mary Reed - applied for the job, accepted, and three months later was married to the sandy-haired scientist.
By now the world knew the name Ian McClaine. His books on ballooning and electronic aerodynamics were best-sellers. He appeared on television, and everywhere he went he was given celebrity treatment. Then, suddenly, the professor faded from the public eye. His dream cottage was complete, and he moved underground to turn his dreams into wonder equipment, to live the life of a seemingly eccentric scientist. But Mac was a scientist who knew just what had to be done and how to do it.
The cottage is a wonderful combination of the old and the new - labour saving devices for housework etc. although these are not used by Mrs Harris.
For eight years, the McClaines lived in the country retreat. Mac worked on his experiments and wrote occasional books, and Mary acted as a normal secretary-housewife. It was during these intense but leisurely days that Professor McClaine designed and built his wonder car, a car that could travel on land, in the air and on water, a car built for the performance of its unique tasks as opposed to a sleek, slimline pleasure model, for the Professor did not appreciate fine frills. It was this car that was to bring him together with Joe, the boy he was later to call ‘son’.
One morning, Mac was summoned to London by his publishers, to discuss a new book on Mac’s experimental achievements. The Professor parked his car outside the publishing house in Fleet Street and went inside for the discussion. A few minutes later, a party of children from the nearby orphanage passed on a sight-seeing visit to the newspaper centre of the world. Fascinated by the parked car, a small fair-haired boy divorced himself from the main party, intent on looking into the car. But he didn’t stop at looking. The boy climbed inside the cab for further investigation. Minutes later, McClaine came out of the publishing house, got into his car and drove off, carrying the stowaway huddled behind the seat.
Arriving home, Mac was amazed when Joe revealed himself. In fact, the Professor was aghast. He didn’t know what to do. But he invited Joe in for tea and showed him around the laboratory, demonstrating experiments all afternoon. Joe loved every minute of it. Though only five years old, he revelled in the whole set-up. Soon it was time to return Joe to the orphanage, and Joe was extremely reluctant to part company with his new-found friends, the McClaines. With a pledge to visit Joe in the orphanage and let the boy visit the cottage, Joe finally agreed to be taken home and Mac drove back into London with his cargo.
Joe’s friendship with the McClaines increased and they decided then that would take him away from the home to live with them as a family: give him a real family upbringing. So Mac and Mary decided to adopt Joe. The adoption procedure was long, but within six months, Joe McClaine quickly adapted to his role at Culver Bay. Joe was devoted to his parents and indeed, his inquisitive presence stimulated Mac’s powers of experiment.
For a full year, the McClaine family lived happily. Joe was sent to the local school while Mac carried on with his new experiments in brain pattern transference. But the happiness of the year was to end abruptly when, in the autumn, Mary McClaine was killed on a visit to Mac’s publishers in London. Her car crashed at high speed on the Dorset to London motorway. It was a crippling blow to both Mac and his six year old adopted son and Mac, ridden with grief, shut himself away in his laboratory to spend endless hours on his newest invention.
But, spurred on by the completion of his wonder machine and his new responsibility towards Joe, Ian McClaine completed his task of building a super brain pattern transplant machine - the BIG RAT. It took him three years to achieve what many critics had called impossible and BIG RAT was at last born, born into the service of world peace. For Professor McClaine it was a dream come true. And for Joe, the start of a whole series of adventures that neither father nor son had envisaged.
Mac's voice was supplied by actor Rupert Davies, best known for his portrayal of Maigret in the 1960s BBC Television series of the same name. Unlike Keith Alexander and David Healy, Davies only voiced a few other guest characters in the Joe 90 series.
Rupert Davies died in 1976.
NAME: Samuel William Loover
AGE: 44
BORN: Flagstaff, Arizona, USA 15th December
POSITION: Deputy Head of W.I.N. London Office
HEIGHT: 5' 11"
HAIR: Grey
EYES: Blue
Sam Loover was born 44 years ago in Flagstaff, in the middle of the Coconino National Forest at an elevation of 7,000 feet. He was brought up in a family of stability rather than wealth, and his father had great ambitions for his son in the engineering field. William Loover, Sam’s father, wanted so much for his son: he wanted Sam to follow the family tradition of individuality and determination with his chosen career. In fact, he wanted his son to succeed where he had failed and, with this in mind, William Loover had worked his hardest, employing his money as he saw best to further his son’s career.
Being brought up in the Arizona desert gave young Sam a hardened outlook on life. He was an expert hunter and angler, and excelled in all the outdoor activities one associates with an "all American boy". Sam was at home in this wild, rough land, but this "training" was to set Sam up for the job that fate had carved for his future life.
At the age of 10, Sam was sent to Phoenix to be educated at Arizona’s most renowned technical school. For Sam, this was a milestone in his career, as he was used only to the local junior school, and being in the bosom of a family that numbered the complete population of Flagstaff. At this early age in Phoenix, Sam studied electronic engineering in the hope that his basic training in this field would yield a place at America’s technological institute at Stanford. But city life was too unnatural to Loover, who had known only the wide open spaces of tumbling sand and wooden buildings. He felt condemned in this concrete jungle.
Although stifled in this man-made complex of concrete and steel, Sam continued his studies, forced on by the hidden goal of success that he wanted so much - not for his own material gains, but for the pride and strong family ties that he had with his father. Sam’s drive to reach this goal was stimulated three years later for, at the age of 13, his mother was killed in a freak sand storm that devastated Flagstaff. It was a bitter blow to the close family unit, and Sam was torn between two evils - to return home to his father and relinquish his bonds with an engineering career, or to carry on and materialise his father’s dream. Sam chose the latter.
For a further five years, Sam studied for his chosen career, and at the end of his training in Phoenix his dream was realised. Sam Loover was awarded a top scholarship grant to Stanford, having gained outstanding results in electronics, engineering and dynamics. This result could have come at no better time, for his father was dangerously ill in his homestead town. Doctors had given him an even chance of survival. The news of his son’s achievements succeeded where all medicine had failed in promoting a quick and complete recovery for William Loover.
After a long vacation with his father, Sam returned to the big city life, taking up his elected position at Stanford University to study electronics. It was during this advanced education that Sam Loover met a young Englishman - a fellow electronics student in his first year. This man was Ian McClaine - a man who was to have a great bearing on Sam’s later career.
These two men became great friends. It was a friendship that deepened a year later when Sam and Mac were on vacation in Sam’s home-town - when the Arizona desert was almost to claim another life to add to the long roll-call fated to its existence.
It was summer. Ian McClaine was dabbling in aerodynamic experiments. He had built a balloon and was piloting it from Phoenix to Flagstaff. Three days out from Sam’s home, a freak storm blew up, forcing Mac’s balloon violently off course, over a rocky uninhabitable part of the desert. The balloon was struck by lightning and Mac was forced to make a crash landing on the jagged boulders, miles from anywhere. He crashed down and on impact he broke his leg. Hopelessly lost, Mac decided to crawl - to crawl anywhere, rather than to stay undefended, at the mercy of the elements. Summoning his courage, he set out on the long journey, a journey to nowhere but disaster.
Three hundred miles east, Sam Loover feared for the fate of his friend. Sensing danger, young Loover set out in search of Mac. He was four days alone in that merciless desert, searching, hoping, praying. On the fifth day he found his friend, lying in a small depression in the sand. His leg was broken in three places and he was suffering from extreme exhaustion and exposure. It was touch and go whether or not the two friends would make it home alive. They did, although Mac was close to death.
A four-month stay in hospital righted all the wrongs that the desert had inflicted. Mac left hospital mended, with a stimulated friendship, and an even greater love for balloons.
It was back to their studios for the now inseparable team of Loover and McClaine. It was a partnership that was not to be broken until Graduation Day. On this day, with grade "A" passes in electronics for Loover and Mac, they split up. Mac went back to England while Sam Loover progressed to a high position with the American government. The partnership was to be brought together 15 years later, never to be broken, on the day Sam was best man at Mac’s wedding.
For Sam Loover a dream had been realised. He was immediately snapped up by the American government for a position within the module of Cape Kennedy - dealing with the electronic aspects of security on the base. From here Sam worked through the ranks. His brilliant application of his subject revealed true genius. He combined his academic brilliance in electronics with his flare and initiative for security. The results were dynamic and, within a short period of time, Loover had revolutionised the security aspects of Cape Kennedy, making it impregnable.
It took Sam Loover just five years to establish himself at the Cape. Promotion followed promotion. He became chief security officer at the Government establishment; he was then promoted to security controller for the Western block of the States; and was finally enrolled as Chief Security Adviser to the Secretary for Defence of the United States of America.
Sam Loover held this position for just 12 months, for it was an unsung tradition that the US Defence Secretary was also the head and brains behind the C.I.A. When the C.I.A. merged with other Western secret service organisations in 1974, Secretary Calloway was appointed as Supreme Head of W.I.N. and his first action as head of this World Intelligence Network was to enrol the services of Loover as his number one operative agent. Loover was sceptical at first, but realised the potential offered. It was an ideal situation in which to employ his amazing prowess, achieved through his country upbringing and hard study. After much thought he accepted.
From then on in his career, Sam Loover never looked back. It was an ideal situation which blended his amazing talents, and released their energy to one common cause. Operating as W.I.N.’s top secret agent, Sam Loover’s record book read like a fictitious spy novel. His daring deeds, quick-thinking and superb judgement and initiative made him master of his trade.
For security reasons, none of his exploits as an active agent can be revealed. But recognition was granted in the right places, and after 15 years of active service with the U.S. Head Office in Washington, Loover was promoted to Deputy Head of the London Office attached to W.I.N. In England, Sam was reunited with his old friend, Ian McClaine. It was four years later with the discovery of the BIG RAT that the partnership was refounded, McClaine and Loover working together with one sole aim in mind.
As Deputy Head of W.I.N.’s London system, Sam Loover took complete charge of agent’s operations, combining three staff divisions into one. Though reducing his own field work to a minimum, Sam Loover was, and still is, the master mind behind most of the World Intelligence Network’s greatest achievements. He is a true credit to world peace.
Sam's voice was provided by actor Keith Alexander. Keith had previously worked on the feature film Thunderbird 6 as the voice of John Tracy (in the absence of Ray Barrett) and the narrator. He also had experience voicing another very different puppet character; the mouse Topo Gigio.
After Joe 90, Keith went on to appear as the Flight Director in the Andersons' first live-action feature film Doppelgänger (known in the US as Journey To The Far Side Of The Sun). Following this, he had a regular role in UFO as SHADO Operative Lieutenant Keith Ford.
NAME: Shane Weston
AGE: 45
BORN: Carson City, Nevada
POSITION: W.I.N. Deputy Controller Supreme Commander of W.I.N. London Office
HEIGHT: 6'
HAIR: Grey-brown
EYES: Steel blue
As Supreme Commander of W.I.N., London office, and Deputy Head Controller of the entire W.I.N. Organisation, Shane Weston has blazed a trail as a secret agent for all to follow and emulate. For the past 20 years, he has been one of the world’s top undercover agents, operating across the face of the globe. His achievements are second-to-none!
Shane Weston was born in the United States of America, in Carson City, a small township on the edge of the great Nevada desert. The son of a small-time ranch owner whose mother was a Cherokee Indian, Shane Weston had an unhappy childhood. When he was seven, his mother died of an incurable illness and the hardship and uncertainty that ended her life affected the boy’s early life. It affected him so much in fact that he became very much a "loner", preferring to spend days on end in the wide expanse of the desert, climbing and swimming, rather than spend his time with his father, whom he had grown to dislike.
It was during his exploits in the desert, living dangerously and taking his life in his hands with every new challenge, that Shane Weston developed super-efficient senses and extremely powerful strength and ability to accept and execute the most dangerous of self-chosen assignments. His love of the rough and wild country taught the young Weston to use his wits and keep his head in any situation.
Being alone for so many days on end and so far removed from his father, Shane Weston grew so far away from his only parent that he treated him as a stranger. Both father and son were at fault in the relationship, neither wanting to accept the other. And so, at the age of 12, Shane decided that the best thing to do was leave home. With very little education behind him, save his own talents, Weston left the Nevada homestead and travelled east hoping to find the elusive pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
The next four years were spent on the road. In and out of menial jobs, he earned enough money to travel further, living rough and sleeping at the roadside. It was a tough life, which Weston accepted and thrived on: a tough training course to harden his already concrete senses with a glazed exterior.
But at the age of 16, the young Weston decided to stop running away from life, to go back and accept the convention of living in the twentieth century. And so, faced with the unenviable proposal of re-joining his father, he took the only way out he saw fit and joined the US Army as a marine, signing on for an eight year stint.
The army was the life for Weston and he revelled in the new challenges put before him. Enlisting as a private, Shane Weston was determined at this stage of his life to carve a career, picking up the remnants of his former life and moulding all his experience and super-human senses left to him from a long line of Cherokee Indians, together hoping that the end product would be good.
It was, and Shane Weston slotted easily into the jigsaw pattern of army life. But he still remained the eternal loner, preferring not to make too many close friends: to exist for himself. And Weston's flare for challenges made him set himself new and more difficult targets to achieve. He decided that he had to reach the position of Commander by the end of his eight year service, a target that he was to pass with flying colours. After his initial two years training and preliminary service, Weston was promoted to the rank of Corporal and given charge of his own platoon. With promotion came active service overseas in America’s role as "Peace Officer" of the World, so Weston and his platoon were posted to trouble spots in Asia.
It was here that Weston excelled. In the resulting minor skirmishes and occasional pitched battles in America’s voluntary peace keeping acts, Weston became the Marines' hero. His outstanding record was a credit to the service. Time after time, he was left in charge of a suicidal post for which all hope was lost, and time after time, he managed to survive the onslaughts of the enemy, reasserting the role and changing certain defeat into glorified victory. And with his heroic deeds came reward from back home. Promotion followed promotion, medal followed medal, and at the end of a three year period as war gave way to peace and the troops were returned to the States, Shane Weston stood supreme. But now it was Captain Shane Weston with the distinctive order of valour, The Purple Heart, pinned to his breast.
Back to America came the somewhat quelled character of Shane Weston, now 22 years of age. His love for campaigning had to take a back seat now that the World was nearing peace, and he had to step in line with the more conventional attitudes of an army in peace time. Reluctantly, Weston adopted these attitudes realising that he had just three years outstanding before he became a civilian, three years that passed slowly, with Shane Weston marking out time as a desk-bound Captain dealing solely with defence security, a life he didn’t cherish.
With the dawning of his release from active service, Weston realised just in time that he was not yet fit to take up a life as a civilian and so decided to seek further positions in his army career. He joined the Army Intelligence Network, thus signing himself on for a further 10 years. But with the increased service came an increase in promotion and Weston's aims had been realised, for, with the advent of accepting the post, Weston was promoted to the rank of Commander!
At last, Shane Weston had found the life for which he was suited. Though a commander in the field, Weston was assigned as an active intelligence agent, the army’s equivalent to the secret agent, and attached to the CIA. As one of the top agents for the service, Weston saw tremendous action both in the USA and abroad. He revelled in every moment of his employment, gaining outstanding recognition for his valuable services - services achieved with the help of his extraordinary supersensitive powers. For two years, Weston worked as an active field agent for the CIA, serving his country abroad. It was while on active service in Britain that he met a young English girl, Sue Denver. After completing the assignment - which ended in success with Weston smashing an enemy plot to destroy London - Weston returned to the States taking Sue Denver with him as his wife.
Now married, Weston thought of retirement from the service, but he shunned the idea and continued in the only business he knew how to handle. Times changed, and with it he saw the decline of the CIA to be co-opted into the new Intelligence Network - W.I.N. - and Weston was the immediate choice as active agent for this new network, this time attached to the United States divisional section.
For nine years, Weston worked hand in hand with W.I.N., smashing enemy infiltration on numerous occasions and gaining himself recognition for bravery throughout the underworld realms of the World's Secret Service. But then, at the age of 35, his career almost came to and abrupt and merciless end.
It was while on assignment in South America that Weston came up against Lomax Brunt, an underworld assassin employed by the enemy to deal with death. After hunting the enemy killer from town to town, the two super-men met in the Amazon jungle. The meeting was a chanced rendezvous. Both were out to kill the other, and it was only a question of who would survive. In the resulting duel, Brunt was shot three times in the heart, but still refused to die before inflicting a serious wound to Weston’s spine. Both men fell to the blood-spattered jungle carpet and when W.I.N. homed in on the position they found Brunt dead and Weston dying.
A two year spell in hospital followed the encounter, after which Weston was retired from active service to become deputy head of the American zone of W.I.N. In this new role, Weston excelled himself, planning campaigns and counter-planning to outwit the enemy, he even trained his agents to reach the peak of super-human ability. He got results and the name Shane Weston virtually took over from the W.I.N. organisation.
For five years, Weston headed the secret service files of W.I.N. - American zone, before being called to higher offices in appreciation for his inexhaustible services. Appreciation came in the form of promotion to Head of the W.I.N. office in London, and with this job came the added responsibility as Deputy Head of the W.I.N. Organisation, a great honour bestowed on a man who deserved far more.
For two years now, Shane Weston has been in charge of W.I.N. in the London office, working hand in hand with his deputy, Sam Loover. To his own active agents he is the boss - the man who knows the game and how to play it! He has the experience and know-how to back up this statement. At the age of 45, Weston knows the capabilities of his men: he trains them himself and is sure that they are the best in the world. His career with W.I.N. is at its peak now, his record will remain legend forever. One thing is certain: when Shane Weston accedes to the Number 1 position in the World Intelligence Network as Supreme Controller, peace will echo around the world for a long, long time.
Shane Weston's voice was supplied by American actor David Healy. Healy had already worked for the Andersons providing voices for Captain Scarlet and The Mysterons, and after Joe 90 he continued voicing characters in the final Supermarionation series, The Secret Service. He later appeared in the UFO episode Ordeal as SHADO missile technician Joe Franklin.
When Gerry Anderson made the pilot episode of Space Police in 1986, Healy was cast as the voice of Officer Tom. Eight years later, he provided the voice for the Creon Officer Beezle in the promotional film which finally sold the series that became Space Precinct. In the episode Protect and Survive he was the voice of Armand Loyster. Sadly David died in 1995 after a heart operation.
Mrs. Harris is about 55 years old. Born in London. She visits the cottage every day to clean and sometimes makes small meals (Mrs. Thursday type). She is thoroughly dependable but not very imaginative when it comes to understanding the unusual interests and activities of the McClaine family.Operative Lieutenant Keith Ford.
S1, Ep17
Jan. 19, 1969 Three's a Crowd
Professor McClaine finds his heart ruling his head when an extremely lovely girl named Angela Davis comes along to see him, saying she is an American reporter. He ignores the possibility that she may be an agent working for a foreign country - which she is, in fact - and is both flattered and interested to find that she is knowledgeable about electronics and that she finds him attractive.
Joe 90 views the friendship with growing mistrust. So does Sam Loover, who is worried when given a report on their many meetings by the security people who have Mac under surveillance.
But when Sam speaks to Mac about it, he draws a blank. Mac insists that his personal life is no concern of Sam's. Sam, however, finds a willing ally in Joe 90, who is given Miss Davis's brain patterns. When Sam begins to question him, it is almost as if Joe can read Angela's mind and his story of what he thinks she intends to do reveals that she is definitely a spy. He can clearly see her taking photographs of the laboratory and stealing vital plans, then driving to an aircraft waiting to take her to an unknown destination.
Dare Mac be told? It is Joe who sees a way to outwit the scheming Angela.....
S1, Ep18
Jan. 26, 1969 The Professional
A revolution breaks out in a country to which an aid organisation has just given ten million dollars to help with the building of schools and hospitals, and the new dictator begins using the money to manufacture weapons instead.
An appeal is sent to the W.I.N. organisation for help in recovering the money, which is in the form of gold bullion and is sealed in the vault of an impregnable castle.
The only man in England capable of breaking into such a place is a jailbird serving a prison sentence, so his brain pattern is recorded and transferred to Joe 90. Joe and Professor McClaine manage to get across the border into the dictator's country and reach the castle, which is protected by electronic radio-controlled guard vehicles called Spiders. They keep a constant patrol, but Joe uses his newly-transferred skill to cut his way through without being detected, and has a proton lance to help him get to the gold vault.
He is nearly caught, but by burning his way through the vault doors and destroying the alarms as he goes, he gets to the gold. Further dangers imperil him, however, before he can take the gold to safety, and he and Mac face a hail of gunfire as the raging dictator sees his stolen gold taken away from him, speechless with rage at having been outwitted by a nine-year-old boy!
S1, Ep19
Feb. 2, 1969 The Race
Shane Weston, of W.I.N. headquarters in London, accepts a challenge from the World Army's General Tempest, who claims that Military Intelligence can operate more efficiently than W.I.N., and that W.I.N. should become obsolete. The challenge is a contest to be run between two teams, one from the Army and one from W.I.N., in two vehicles with Monte Carlo as the goal. And no holds barred.
Joe 90, chosen to be W.I.N.'s No. One driver, is given the brain patterns of a Monte Carlo Rally winner, and he finds himself competing against a Private Clooney. The two vehicles involved are Professor McClain's [sic] own car, capable of great speed on land, in flight and as a hovercraft and General Tempest's is a high-speed amphibious U87.
General Tempest stops at nothing to get the better of the W.I.N. team. Signposts are altered and a jet-transporter is used. But Mac, Joe and Sam show equal enterprise, and the two teams reach a road block together and agree to make it a straight race from there to Monte Carlo.
The two vehicles battle dangerously through the winding and uncertain Alpine roads, both drivers showing tremendous skill - and with Joe passing the chequered flag just ahead of his rival.
S1, Ep20
Feb. 9, 1969 Talkdown
A new hypersonic fighter 'plane of advanced design crashes while undergoing trials by test pilot Jim Grant, who succeeds in ejecting but breaks an ankle in doing so.
The reason for the crash is a mystery. Exhaustive tests fail to reveal any defects, and the W.I.N. organisation is called in.
Another 'plane is available, and a demonstration for a number of high-ranking officers is due. But Grant's injury makes it impossible for him to fly and there is no other pilot familiar with the machine - except for Joe 90, who is given Grant's brain patterns.
The demonstration begins, and Joe gives a faultless display until it's time for him to land. Then over his W.I.N. transmitter he tells Mac and Sam that he does not know the landing procedure!
The reason for the crash is now obvious: Grant must have had a mental block about landing.
There is only one way to save Joe, and that is to make Grant talk him down. Mac and Sam rush to the hospital. But can they force him to overcome the fear which made him forget the landing procedure when testing the 'plane?
He is the only man who can help Joe ......
S1, Ep21
Feb. 16, 1969 Breakout
Two convicts, Real and Marney, escape from a work party in the Canadian mountains and seize an unexpected opportunity to make a daring getaway and a fortune.
For their escape coincides with the arrival of the Prime Minister. A salute is to be fired in his honour from an old gun on a hill overlooking a railway bridge, but the two convicts overcome the gun crew and take charge. They blow the far end of the bridge away as the train approached, and then destroy the other end of the bridge so that the train is trapped.
Real and Marney then signal the authorities and demand one million dollars as ransom and also a helicopter to help their escape. Unless these terms are met, and if any rescue attempt is made, they will blow the train to smithereens.
But Joe 90 is on holiday there, with the brain patterns of an Olympic bob sleigh champion to help him enjoy his visit, and he is persuaded to take the money to the convicts, with a helijet. The two men double-cross him, however. Joe is captured and taken as hostage in the helijet.
The Prime Minister is safe and is rescued from the train just as the entire bridge collapses, but Joe is in dire peril - until he sees a chance to take the controls of the helijet and teach the convicts a sharp lesson ......
S1, Ep22
Feb. 23, 1969 Child of the Sun God
Four world statesman are paralysed after being struck down by poisoned darts from a blowpipe, and when it is discovered that the poison is from the ancient Amaztec civilisation, which flourished in the foothills of the Andes, Joe 90 is given the brain patterns of an expert on the Amaztecs.
He flies out to try to discover the lost tribe and obtain an antidote for the poison. Alone in the jungle, he is captured and taken to the temple to face the God who is, in fact, a white man who has obtained power over the natives by a series of electronic tricks.
Fearful that his trickery will be exposed, the God demands that Joe is sacrificed, but the natives spare him because they believe he may be the "Child of the Sun God." He must now face trial by entombment to prove that he is a god, and is taken to a cave, which is blocked by a huge stone over the entrance.
Joe's only hope of survival is to prove that he is a god - and he succeeds in convincing the natives that he is indeed the Child of the Sun God when he escapes by an underground waterway and reveals the white god to be a fraud.
S1, Ep23
Mar. 2, 1969 See You Down There
Clayton is a financial shark. He will use any method to squeeze a rival into submission, but is clever enough to stay just inside the law. One of his victims is Harris, the owner of a small engineering business. Harris in the past has done valuable work for W.I.N. but at present he is in Clayton's clutches. W.I.N. decide that Clayton should be taught a lesson.
Professor McClaine goes to his office and tells him that he has slipped a drug into the tea he has just drunk. This drug will produce hallucinations which will continue until Clayton changes his ways and he is given the antidote. There is, in fact, no drug.
Sam, Shane, Mac and Joe then proceed to convince Clayton that he is seeing things. They do this chiefly by giving Joe a series of brain patterns which enable him to do things a nine year old would never be able to do normally. Clayton is scared into submission, becomes a new man and swears in future he will be honest.
S1, Ep24
Mar. 9, 1969 Lone-Handed 90
Like most nine-year-old boys, Joe 90 is an ardent Western fan, so it's not surprising that he should dream of becoming a fast-shooting, tough Sheriff when he falls asleep while watching a Western on TV.
He finds himself facing the WIN gang who have been in town only a few minutes before they make trouble in the saloon. Sheriff Joe is soon on the scene and rounds them up. Safely behind bars in jail, with the Doc looking after them, Joe goes off on another assignment, but the gang break loose, overpower the Doc, tie him up and set fire to the building.
The Doc manages to edge his way to the telephone and make contact with Joe, who saves him in the nick of time, then sets off in chase of the gang who are on their way to carry out another daring raid, planning to hold up the noon express.
It's a melodramatic chase climaxed with Sheriff Joe again triumphant and this time saving the life of his father, Mac, who has somehow become involved in the hectic adventure!
S1, Ep25
Mar. 16, 1969 Attack of the Tiger
Somewhere in Asia a W.I.N. agent observes a secret underground rocket complex. He is spotted and chased but manages to reach a frontier post just before he is shot.
The message he has dictated into his W.I.N. pen recorder tells Sam and Shane that their worst fears are about to be realised. The opposition plan to put a nuclear device into orbit from the underground complex and hold the world to ransom. The base must be destroyed, and World Intelligence are given the task.
They will use the VG 104, the Air Force's most heavily armed fighter bomber, piloted by Joe with the brain patterns of an expert on the Eastern Alliance System. His code name will be Tiger.
Joe takes off and, refuelling on route, reaches the enemy coast and flies in under the radar. He continues to the base and despite the tremendous anti-aircraft fire presses home the attack. In a desperate final dive Joe hits the fuelled rocket which explodes and destroys the complex. Mission accomplished.
S1, Ep26
Mar. 23, 1969 Viva Cordova
Juan Cordova is a man of the people and has just been elected President of his country.His liberal ideas have, however, made him enemies and his wife is so fearful of his safety that she contacts the W.I.N. organisation, asking if they can help guard him but warning that her husband will not have any form of bodyguard and that efforts to protect him must be kept secret.
Joe 90 is therefore given the brain patterns of a top agent on the assumption that Cordova will certainly never suspect a nine-year-old boy of being a bodyguard. The President's wife, however, is appalled when she finds that Joe has been given this major task. But Joe succeeds in reassuring her, and they leave for a mountain resort.
Cordova is blissfully unaware that he is being protected, and quite ignorant of the fact that, during the journey, Joe has to outwit an ambush attempt; that, while at the hotel, Joe has to thwart two attempts on the President's life; and that Joe overcomes the opposition's final play during a tense and dangerous encounter under-water!
S1, Ep27
Mar. 30, 1969 Mission X-41
A demonstration of the new virus X-14* shows that it is capable of breaking down the molecular structure of a building and will go on destroying everything in its path unless halted by the antibody.
W.I.N. has isolated the virus but still have not perfected the antibody. The formula for this must be obtained to restore the balance of power. Joe, with the brain pattern of a top W.I.N. agent, is dropped by parachute near the enemy research station and after making plans with W.I.N. agent 84 allows himself to be captured. The General in charge of the research station is amazed at the presence of a nine year old boy and does not believe Joe when he admits to spying.
While the area is being searched for Joe's non existent accomplices, agent 84 creats [sic] a diversion and in the confusion Joe manages to break into the laboratory and get the formula for the antibody. The guards realise he is free in the research station and close in on him but Joe audaciously steals one of their own aircraft and escapes, leaving the General a very confused man.
S1, Ep28
Apr. 6, 1969 Test Flight
Disaster strikes as Mac, Joe and the project controller, Brad Johnson, watch a new Orbital Glide Transport aircraft take off. The O.G.T. crashes on to a control building, trapping the personnel inside.
This is the last in a series of sabotage attempts and unknown to everyone Brad Johnson has fitted a monitoring computer in the control building. This will pinpoint the saboteur, but there are two problems, first to rescue the trapped men and then get to the computer.
W.I.N. are called in and all the trapped men escape except one, Slade, the saboteur. He remains in the doomed building to find and destroy the computer, the one thing which would incriminate him.
With the brain pattern of a computer and explosives expert, Joe goes down a small bore hole too small for a man to enter. W.I.N. have assumed Slade is dead and as the O.G.T. sways precariously above him, Joe finds the computer, only to be confronted by the saboteur with a gun. The O.G.T. is slipping and one spark will ignite the fuel and destroy the control building. Joe uses the explosive to blow an escape chute, knocking out Slade in the process. Just in time, he manages to get out with the computer readout and the unconscious saboteur, Slade, before the fuel explodes in an inferno of fire.
S1, Ep29
Apr. 13, 1969 Trial at Sea
A warning that a bomb has been placed in the world's first Hoverliner is received by the company's chairman, Sir George Harris. The bomb is found, but then another telephone warning is received saying that the liner will be blown up on its maiden voyage.
This time, however, the W.I.N. organisation has moved in, the telephone tapped and the mystery voice recorded. A search fails to reveal the existence of a bomb, but in the meanwhile Sam works on the voice pattern of the caller and discovers that it belongs to a man named Johnson Webb*, who has a grudge against Sir George and his company.
Sam visits him and secretly takes his brain patterns before handing him over to the police. The patterns are transferred to Joe, who is thus able to reveal that the bomb is, in fact, aboard the liner. It's of a deadly design, and Joe 90 is the only man** who can handle it.
There's a desperate race against time ahead of him to get to the liner and work on the intricate triple detonator mechanism which could set off the bomb and plunge the liner to its doom........
S1, Ep30
Apr. 20, 1969 The Birthday
It is Joe's birthday but everyone seems to have forgotten about it. Mac is going out, Mrs. Harris apologises for not sending Joe a card, and he begins to feel very sorry for himself.
His father returns but still doesn't seem to remember and calls the unhappy Joe into the Dining Room. There to his surprise he finds a huge birthday cake and Mac, Sam and Shane waiting to greet him.
Joe is ten years old and over their tea, they reminisce about all that has happened over the last exciting year. Each in turn tells the story of one of Joe's missions for W.I.N. and in exciting flashbacks we remember them, too.
At the end of the day the toast is Joe 90 W.I.N.'s Most Special Agent.
BIG RAT - BRAIN IMPULSE GALVANOSCOPE
RECORD AND TRANSFER
The Music
The wonderful music for Joe 90 was by Barry Gray, who had already composed the themes and incidental music to Gerry Anderson's previous series from Four Feather Falls to Captain Scarlet and The Mysterons, and the feature film Thunderbirds Are Go. He would go on to provide the music for the series The Secret Service, UFO and Space:1999 (Year I), and the feature films Thunderbird 6 (recorded between Joe 90 sessions) and Doppelgänger (released in the US as Journey To The Far Side Of The Sun)
This is Professor McClaine’s brain child, the culmination of a lifetime’s interest and research in the field of electronics. It is housed in his top secret underground laboratory at the cottage where he and Joe live. It is a highly sophisticated electronic machine capable of recording the brain patterns of one person and transferring them to another. In the course of events, a number of "tapes" have been collected, but it is usually necessary when a JOE 90 mission starts to go out and get the brain recordings of the expert whose knowledge is needed.
To receive the brain transfer Joe sits himself comfortably in a special chair; this rises up into a circular "cage". Once inside, the machine is switched on, the "cage" begins to revolve - the tape is run.
Various electronic noises and psychedelic light effects are produced as the transfer begins to take effect. To Joe, this is a matter of routine and not an unpleasant experience - in fact he seems to enjoy it all.
After he has received the brain transfer, the recording works only when he wears a pair of special glasses with a set of built-in electrodes which connect to his temples. Wearing the glasses, Joe has the ability, skill, experience and knowledge of the expert. Without them he is just another boy.The exact technical details of the way in which the BIG RAT works are a closely guarded secret, known only to Professor McClaine. There are, of course, plans, circuit diagrams and other technical details stored away, but even if found it would require something of the genius of Professor McClaine to understand them.
This is an organisation similar to M.I.5. or C.I.A. Its Head Office is in Washington, U.S.A. London is the location of its second biggest office from other offices and agencies all over the world.
The world is split into an eastern and western block. The aim of World Intelligence is to assist in maintaining the balance of power by whatever means in their power - but mainly through the expertise of their intelligence agents and their most special agent - JOE 90. W.I.N. is not a rescue organisation nor is it a police force.
Until Joe 90 there were 89 London based agents in operation. Joe became the 90th - hence JOE 90.
W.I.N WORLD INTELLIGENCE NETWORK
