Drex mentioned Thunderbirds on another thread. I still haven't seen the movie, though I would recommend Team America for a parody version.

I loved these animatronics shows. The first I saw were Fireball XL-5 and Supercar. Then we had Stingray, where the mermaid Marina was modelled after Brigette Bardot.

And then the mighty Thunderbirds, yes! International Rescue, cool machines, espionage, awesome.

I did watch Captain Scarlet, not as interesting, though they had perfected the puppet technology by then.

These might have been my favourite Brit shows as a kid.