Stingray was filmed in 1963 using a combination of electronic marionette puppetry and scale model special effects.
It was APF’s sixth puppet series and the third to be produced under the banner of “Supermarionation”.
It debuted on British television in October 1964.
Set in the 2060s, the series follows the exploits of the World Aquanaut Security Patrol (WASP), a military organisation responsible for policing
the Earth’s oceans. The WASP’s top vessel is Stingray, a combat submarine crewed by Captain Troy Tempest, navigator Lieutenant “Phones” Sheridan
and Marina, a mute young woman from under the sea. Stingray’s adventures bring it into contact with various underwater civilisations, some friendly
and others hostile, as well as mysterious natural phenomena.
In preparation for the series, APF acquired new, larger studios that it would continue to occupy for the remainder of the 1960s.
Filmed at a cost of approximately £1 million, Stingray was the first British TV series to be made entirely in colour, a move intended to increase
its appeal to the lucrative American market.
The underwater sequences were filmed “dry” by shooting the sets through thin aquaria, while surface shots were filmed on water tanks
incorporating lowered back walls to create artificial horizons.
Stingray was the first Supermarionation series whose puppet characters were provided with interchangeable heads enabling them to show a
variety of facial expressions.
Stingray’s 39 half-hour episodes were originally broadcast on Associated Television in the United Kingdom and in syndication in North America.