Francis Matthews signed photo

Francis Matthews as Captain Scarlet. Matthews, who had previously turned down offers or lacked availability for voice-acting on Thunderbirds, claims that Gerry Anderson went to great lengths to get him to sign on to Captain Scarlet because of the skilled Cary Grant impression that he had once used for a radio programme. Anderson, however, claims in his biography that the impression was Matthews' choice at audition, and while it was not what had been intended for Captain Scarlet, they chose to use it

Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, often referred to simply as Captain Scarlet, is a British science-fiction television series produced by the Century 21 Productions company of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson. It was first broadcast in the UK on ATV Midlands between September 1967 and May 1968, and has since been shown in over 40 countries, including USA, Australia, and Japan. It featured a form of marionette puppetry Anderson termed Supermarionation, which used solenoid motors to create synchronised mouth movements, combined, for the first time, with realistic scale model special effects.

Set in 2068,[eps 1] the series charts the hostilities between Earth and a race of Martians known as the Mysterons. After human explorers destroy their city over a misunderstanding, the Mysterons declare war on Earth and begin a series of revenge attacks,[eps 1] which are countered by Spectrum, a worldwide security organisation. Spectrum boasts the extraordinary abilities of its top agent, Captain Scarlet, who comes to possess the Mysteron power of "retro-metabolism" — this ability to return to life after suffering fatal injury makes him "indestructible".

Captain Scarlet is one of several sci-fi adventure series that the Andersons produced in the 1960s, immediately preceded by Thunderbirds and followed by Joe 90 and the little-seen The Secret Service. In terms of visual aesthetic, the series represents a departure from the style of Thunderbirds due to its use of realistically-proportioned, non-caricatured marionette puppets. Re-run a number of times on British television and broadcast extensively overseas, the series has been the foundation of merchandising campaigns since its first appearance, including toy dolls and other associated media such as audio adventures, and was purchased by the BBC in 1993.

Compared to its antecedents, Captain Scarlet continues to be recognised as much "darker" in tone and less orientated towards child audiences due to increased levels of violence and themes of extraterrestrial malevolence and interplanetary conflict. A computer-animated reboot series, Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet, began UK transmission in 2005.