Vintage Guitar‘s well-researched history of the Vox musical equipment company contains a particularly delightful side story about “wee” instruments that were designed and manufactured strictly for marionettes! Peter Stuart Kohman has the scoop:
One of the most oddball Vox orders was for a set of miniature equipment for singing puppets, specifically, a set of toy-sized Phantom guitars and AC30 amps. These were supplied for ‘The Beakles‘ from The Pinky and Perky Show, a popular children’s program starring marionettes. The Beakles’ gear was built to look like the real thing by prototype designer Mick Bennett and showed JMI [i.e., Vox]’s commitment to having beat groups on TV – even fictional ones – properly equipped.
Unfortunately, the only good image of The Beakles that can be found online shows the avian instrumentalists merely playing acoustic guitars – definitely not the modernist, asymmetrical Vox Phantom:
The (unnamed) Beakles
Depicted on 45 picture sleeve for Pinky & Perky EP
Delightful pastiche of The Fab Four’s 1963 UK debut album
“Please Feed Me” And 12 Other Songs
Kohman also points out that UK’s preeminent instrumental band, The Shadows, would be the recipients of similarly exquisite custom miniature gear in conjunction with their first full-length motion picture: “The Shadows also appeared in marionette form in the 1966 film Thunderbirds Are Go with miniature [Vox] AC30 [valve amplifier]s but ‘playing’ their signature Burns guitars.”
The (mini) Shadows can be seen backing Cliff Richard in this charming performance of “Shooting Star” from their big-screen debut:
“Shooting Star“
Cliff Richard & The Shadows (1966)
According to Thunderbirds Wiki —
“The real-life Hank Marvin loved his puppet so much, he tried so hard to buy it, but it was later reused for another character.”
Hey, Wikipedia tells me that that sound you hear at the beginning of “Thunderbirds Theme” is Hank Marvin himself (not bassist, Jet Harris) playing a Fender VI six-string bass!
LINK to Animation in Popular Music on Zero to 180
