History YMMV / Thunderbirds

* RetroactiveRecognition: Arguably the only worthwhile aspect of the 2004 movie, for adolescent males at least, was Tin-Tin being played by a pre-''Film/HighSchoolMusical'' Music/VanessaHudgens.

** Considering how young the family is (Alan, the youngest, is only 16), you'd think their mother's passing would be recent enough to merit even a little mourning, yet she is not mentioned even once in 32 episodes and 2 movies. Not even a photo of her is seen around the house. You have to wonder what sort of monster she was to have been written out of their lives so completely.

* HilariousInHindsight:
** When Creator/JKRowling revealed the American [[Franchise/HarryPotter wizarding school Ilvermorney]], Thunderbird is the name of one of the houses.
** A lot of the [[WesternAnimation/ThomasAndFriends Thomas]][=/=]Thunderbirds parody clips can be this given that a few voice actors from the CGI era of Thomas have appeared in ''WesternAnimation/ThunderbirdsAreGo''.

* FanonDiscontinuity: Don't expect fans of the original TV series to acknowledge this movie as a proper adaptation.

* IdiotPlot: In the Nintendo ([[NintendoHard Hard]]) game based on the show, Hood threatens to bombard Earth with meteors in two months unless International Rescue turns the secrets of the Thunderbirds over to him. Ignoring the overkill of this plan, Brains immediately figures out why Hood's deadline is so far away: he needs the intervening time to gather the resources to make good on his threat. And the Tracys immediately discover where he's doing it and work to cut him off. Oops.

** [[SugarWiki/CrowningMomentOfAwesome The Fireflash rescue in the pilot episode]]. Talk about first impressions for a series!
* SpiritualLicensee: A whole bunch of them.

** More recently, there's been ''WesternAnimation/TransformersRescueBots'' (also MerchandiseDriven, of course), where the rescue vehicles are sentient beings, and ''WesternAnimation/PawPatrol'', which is this show crossed with PreciousPuppies.

** The sexism depicting the major female characters has become glaring. For instance, Tin Tin is rarely much more than a DistressedDamsel. At the same time however, she clearly isn't a full member of International Rescue as we never once see her in uniform; she's a civvy that occasionally helps out. It makes complete sense that she wouldn't have anywhere near as much to do as the Tracy boys. There is the IR uniform she wears in “Sun Probe” and “The Uninvited”, however both come early enough into the series to arguably qualify as EarlyInstallmentWeirdness.

* {{Padding}}: A positive example to a degree. When [=LewGrade=] insisted that the episodes be hour long ones, the producers had to pad out the time of their first stories already scripted and in production. What they did was add in additional plot twists and character asides such as the trope immediately below which gave the stories a great sophistication than what they thought was possible.

* NeverLiveItDown: Fans tend to give Lady Penelope a lot of flack for her [[WomenDrivers bad driving]] and her [[EekAMouse fear of mice]] despite the fact that these "faults" only appeared in one episode, and in case of the bad driving, she got better at it, as shown in a later episode.

** "Terror in New York City" (in which Thunderbird 2 is shot at by an American aircraft carrier who have mistaken it for an enemy aircraft) and "Operation Crash Dive" (featuring planes that end up going off course and sinking in water due to engine malfunctions) become harsher to watch after [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_MH370 Flight [=MH370=]]], where the plane went off its scheduled course and crashed into the water, the first of which was never found (and some people suggest the plane was shot down).
** Also the beginning of "The Mighty Atom" becomes this when you think of just which reactor went at [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster Chernobyl]].

** Some of the TechnologyPorn is a little hard to swallow now. Apart from the casual use of nuclear-powered technology, there's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWcvEB6NYpA this scene]] of a massive roadbuilder blasting its way through a rainforest with carpet mortar bombing. Take that, you Amazon-loving treehuggers!

** Some of the TechnologyPorn is a little hard to swallow now. Apparent from the casual use of nuclear-powered technology, there's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWcvEB6NYpA this scene]] of a massive roadbuilder blasting its way through a rainforest with carpet mortar bombing. Take that, you Amazon-loving treehuggers!

* ValuesDissonance: The sexism depicting the major female characters has become glaring:
** For instance, Tin Tin is rarely much more than a DistressedDamsel. At the same time however, she clearly isn't a full member of International Rescue as we never once see her in uniform; she's a civvy that occasionally helps out. It makes complete sense that she wouldn't have anywhere near as much to do as the Tracy boys. There is the IR uniform she wears in “Sun Probe” and “The Uninvited”, however both come early enough into the series to arguably qualify as EarlyInstallmentWeirdness.

** Outside gender roles, many of the characters including the Tracys and Lady Penelope were [[SmokingIsCool shown to be smoking]] from time to time. This often caused controversy when re-runs were shown since the 80's and beyond.

** A lot of the [[WesternAnimation/ThomasTheTankEngine Thomas]][=/=]Thunderbirds parody clips can be this given that a few voice actors from the CGI era of Thomas have appeared in ''WesternAnimation/ThunderbirdsAreGo''.