The worlds of Gerry Anderson have always lent themselves incredibly effectively to sprawling avenues of eclectic merchandise, including toy incarnations of our beloved hero vehicles from the likes of Thunderbirds, Space: 1999, Captain Scarlet and beyond. Throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s, as toy engineering enjoyed significant advances, large-scale playsets of classic Anderson headquarters became commonplace.

Anderfans of certain generations will surely recall growing up enjoying their Tracy Island, Cloudbase or Marineville playsets from the likes of Matchbox or Vivid Imaginations. Older fans would no doubt have also enjoyed the Space: 1999 Adventure Playset from the 1970s. However, there's an abundance of other iconic headquarters scattered throughout Gerry's worlds that never received a toy incarnation. Let's count down ten Gerry Anderson playsets that we'd love to have seen - but never existed!

10. Space City

In all technicality, we are cheating with this first entry! Despite its notable absence from toy shelves, a Space City playset was indeed produced in 1964 by MPC. This component-heavy rendition of Space City has remained the only toy-friendly incarnation of Fireball XL5's base of operations. What if a far more modern and improved Space City playset could have existed in the 1990s, with the more contemporary toy engineering from Matchbox or Vivid Imaginations? It's an unenviable task to unite all of Space City's sprawling components into a single unit, but such a move was achieved by Matchbox's take on Marineville. A Space City slightly reimagined into a single unit would have made a superb encapsulation of Fireball XL5's unconventional HQ.

9. Titanica

A Titanica playset would be a marvellously detailed and multi-coloured thing to pour over. It features could have comprised of levelled buildings, intricately connected travel tubes and launch bays for marauding Terror Fish. Such a playset would have been great fun to accompany Matchbox's early 1990s die-cast take on the Stingray and Mechanical Fish vehicles and a brilliant enemy equivalent to their marvellously full-featured Marineville set.

8. Hawknest

What was surely missing from Bandai's releases of the Terrahawks' vehicles was the outfit's operational base to house the vehicles themselves. Hawknest is one of the trickier Anderson HQ's to envision as a functioning playset. For starters, we would likely have to sacrifice the whirlpool feature for Hawkwing and the collapsible tree silo for Treehawk. The White House itself would have been the centrepiece of any Terrahawks vehicular playset, but the depths from which Battlehawk blasts off would have demanded that the White House be an awkwardly tall playset to accommodate its star vehicle.

7. Glenn Field

Would this boast being the largest playset ever produced from any Gerry Anderson production? There'd be no trimming down like Space City or Marineville; Glenn Field Spaceport comprises of its eye-catching control tower, lengthily runways, dominating storage units that house all of the mighty spacecraft Zero X's several components. The unusual centrepiece feature of the MEV's descent from the Glenn Field Control Tower would be great fun to enliven its interactivity. Zero X's TV21 strip also reveals that Glenn Field Control Tower itself boasts Marineville-style 'battle stations' configuration. Its complicated and large-scale design may be a toy designer's nightmare, but a Glenn Field playset would nonetheless be the most enjoyably ambitious set for any Anderfan.

6. Black Rock Laboratory

From the far-reaching vastness of Glenn Field to something scaled back, Supercar's Black Rock Laboratory would undoubtedly be one of the more modest playsets from the worlds of Anderson. Supercar boasted many embryonic elements that would be expanded upon in further Supermarionation productions; in particular, the launch sequence of the hero vehicle. A Black Rock Laboratory playset could feature relatively simple retractable roof doors and be accompanied by several figures of the Supercar gang to populate the control room and Beaker's lab. A more small-scale playset compared to others on this list would likely work superbly well with individual figures of the characters.

5. Island of Lemoy

Not the most obvious contender on this list for Anderson playsets which should have been, but a worthy inclusion. While a playset of Surface Agent X-20's dilapidated house wouldn't be the most attractive toy on the shelves, the internal transformative capabilities of X-20's spy-fi headquarters invites tantalising possibilities for inventive toy engineering and design. This playset could comprise of spring-activated walls and furniture that swing to reveal control consoles and computer banks to match X-20's deceptive home as it's portrayed in Stingray.

4. Professor Mac's Laboratory

Joe 90 may have lacked as huge a merchandise campaign as Thunderbirds or Captain Scarlet, but a playset based on Professor Mac's laboratory, including the BIG RAT itself, would have been an underrated experience. Imagine something built to the scale of Matchbox's Gerry Anderson action figures, complete with a spinning BIG RAT and retractable banks of computers, dazzling with electronic lights and sounds that replicate the series' classic opening sequence.

3. SHADO Moonbase

If UFO had received the same Stateside success that Space: 1999 enjoyed, a SHADO Moonbase set could have been a highly likely endeavour (then again, Space: 1999 would never have existed if UFO had been a runaway hit!). A Moonbase playset would consist of the unconventional multi-domed structures, perhaps with detachable tops to allow for interior detail to be savoured of all of Moonbase's internal operations. Launch pads for lunar modules and Moonhoppers would add that interactive element, however, the crowning feature would surely be retractable launch bays for SHADO Interceptors.

2. Creighton-Ward Mansion

Another set that would perhaps work best in relative scale to Black Rock Laboratory, Lady Penelope's mansion would balance regal elegance and charm with an abundance of spy-fi features, all hidden at the press of a button. In keeping with the mansion's portrayal in Thunderbirds, any number of bannisters, teapots or other items of furniture may be pressed to activate all manners of sound clips of Penelope and Parker in action. A playset that would perhaps prioritise design over features.

1. The Mysteron Complex

Speaking of playsets that may prioritise looks over interactivity, this playset would resoundingly be the most esoteric item of any Gerry Anderson toy line! The scarily undefinable nature of the Mysterons has always made producing toys of them an unenviable challenge to rise to. But with its captivatingly weird structures and fluorescent colours, a playset of the Mysterons' Martian complex would be a visually sumptuous playset to savour.

Perhaps key play features would include sound clips of the Mysterons' doomily disembodied voice and ability to project the infamous green rings to allow retrometabolism to take place against any of the Matchbox or Vivid Imaginations Spectrum vehicles! The Mysteron Complex would surely be the most eerily immersive playset ever produced from Gerry Anderson's creations.

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