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"So, you never did need rescuing? I think someone had better do some explaining."
— Scott Tracy

"Cry Wolf" is the eighteenth episode of season 1, first broadcast on 27th January 1966.

Plot[]

Two young boys in Australia — Bob and Tony Williams — love to emulate their Thunderbirds heroes, by taking turns playing at being rescuer and rescued.

One day, though, the game spirals out of control when a call for help, transmitted over their walkie-talkies, accidentally summons the real International Rescue... in the person of Scott Tracy, who decides to bring them back to Tracy Island with him — so they can see, firsthand, the consequences of their actions.

After their return home — and the story of their brush with IR appears in the newspapers — the boys face genuine peril, from the evil actions of IR's nemesis, the Hood. But nobody at International Rescue will believe that — this time — their call for help is the real deal...

Will they eventually realise how serious the situation truly is?

Storyline[]

Main article: Cry Wolf/Storyline

Transcript[]

Main article: Cry Wolf/Transcript

Cast[]

Regular Characters[]

Guest Characters[]

Cameo Roles[]

International Rescue Equipment Used[]

Non-International Rescue Equipment Used[]

Locations[]

Trivia[]

  • The interior and exterior sets of the Monitoring Station were last used as the Satellite HQ in The Impostors, and would be reused again as another different building in Ricochet.
Grandma-house-2

Mr. Williams' house under construction

  • Mr. Williams' house is a remodeled version of Grandma Tracy's House.
  • Other Tracking Stations marked on Lansfield's console are located at Cranston, Kangaroo (East), and Spring Hill.
  • Geoff Meldrum or Noel Rowland is known to have been a camera operator on this episode, albeit uncredited.
WhatEpisodeOrFilmIsThis

The guy on camera is either Geoff Meldrum or Noel Rowland. But which one? They look so similar from behind.

  • Plot elements and names from this episode were borrowed and used in the Thunderbirds Are Go! episode Extraction.
  • Bob and Tony were named after art director Bob Bell and his son Tony respectively.
  • The episode's title refers to the idiom "to cry wolf", meaning to give a false alarm. It is also a title of one of Aesop's Fables: "The Boy Who Cried Wolf." Bob and Tony give a false alarm to International Rescue in the first half; when they are trapped in the mine by the Hood, they are initially rebuffed but are eventually responded to.
  • Second out of three episode plots to feature Australia (the next: Atlantic Inferno)

Goofs[]

  • The characters refer to Williams' station as Dunsley Tracker, and it is labeled as such on the puppet-sized version of Lansfield's console. But in a close up shot of the console (a large-scale section of the same set), the caption above the alert light reads 'Densley' Tracker.
  • When Tony and Bob fall down the mine shaft, Bob is trapped face down, by two heavy looking timbers, his whole body has turned 90 degrees to his feet, but in the next shot we see him sitting up contacting International Rescue on his walke-talkie. The timber has moved inline with the one trapping Tony. Also both boys miraculously look in good shape, considering they have just fell over 20 feet down a mine shaft.

Foreign Titles[]

  • French: Les amateurs
  • German: Blinder Alarm
  • Spanish: El Lamento del Lobo; El Espectro ataca (DVD)
  • Italian: Gioco pericoloso
  • Dutch: Een gevaarlijk spel (TV 1966); S.O.S. (TV 1992); Vals alarm (VHS); Loos alarm (VHS, DVD)
  • Portuguese: O Grito do Lobo
  • Japanese: 危険な遊び
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