Fireball XL5

Fireball XL5
Fireball XL5 title screenshot
Genre	Action Adventure Children's Science fiction Space Western
Format	Supermarionation puppetry
Created by	Gerry Anderson Sylvia Anderson
Written by	Gerry Anderson Alan Fennell Anthony Marriott Dennis Spooner
Directed by	Gerry Anderson David Elliott Bill Harris John Kelly Alan Pattillo
Voices of	Gerry Anderson (uncredited) Sylvia Anderson John Bluthal David Graham Paul Maxwell
Theme music composer	Barry Gray Charles Blackwell (lyrics) Don Spencer (vocals)
Composer(s)	Barry Gray
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Language(s)	English
No. of series	1
No. of episodes	39 (List of episodes)
Production
Producer(s)	Gerry Anderson
Editor(s)	Gordon Davie Eric Pask
Cinematography	John Read Ian Struthers
Camera setup	Single
Running time	25 mins approx. per episode (excluding advertisements)
Production company(s)	AP Films
Distributor	ITC Entertainment
Broadcast
Original channel	ATV
Picture format	Black and white Film (35 mm)
Audio format	Mono
Original run	28 October 1962 (1962-10-28) – 27 October 1963 (1963-10-27)

Fireball XL5 is a science fiction-themed children's television show following the missions of spaceship Fireball XL5, commanded by Colonel Steve Zodiac of the World Space Patrol. The show was produced in 1962 by husband and wife team Gerry and Sylvia Anderson through their company APF, in association with ATV for ITC Entertainment.

The show featured the Andersons' Supermarionation, a form of puppetry first introduced in Four Feather Falls (1960) and used again in their subsequent productions such as Supercar and Captain Scarlet. Thirty-nine black and white half-hour episodes of Fireball XL5 were made on 35mm film: all future Anderson series were produced in colour.

Several Anderson series have been shown in syndication in the US, but Fireball XL5 is the only Anderson series to have run on a US network. NBC (the National Broadcasting Company) ran the series in its Saturday morning children's block from 1963 through to September 1965.

A similar program often confused with Fireball XL5 is Space Patrol (known as Planet Patrol in the US), produced by Gerry Anderson's ex business partner and co-founder of AP Films, Arthur Provis due to a number of similarities and settings.

The complete series is available on DVD in the UK, Australia, Canada and the US.

Setting

Set between the years 2062 and 2063, the series featured the missions of spaceship Fireball XL5, commanded by Colonel Steve Zodiac of the World Space Patrol. The crew included glamorous Doctor Venus, a doctor of space medicine; middle-aged navigator and engineer Professor Matthew Matic and co-pilot Robert, a transparent anthropomorphic robot. Robert was the only character in an Anderson series that was actually voiced by Anderson himself, albeit with the aid of an artificial larynx.

In the series, the World Space Patrol is based at Space City, located on an unnamed island in the South Pacific, headed by Commander Zero. Zero is assisted by Lieutenant Ninety. For unspecified reasons the 25-storey T-shaped control tower at Space City rotates; in one episode a character inadvertently makes it rotate fast enough for those inside to suffer from vertigo.

Fireball XL5 patrolled Sector 25 of charted interstellar space (although there only appeared to be three sectors marked on the space chart seen in the Space City control room). The patrols were missions of three months duration but the ship was also on call when at base.

Fireball XL5 rocket

The patrol rocket Fireball XL5 takes off utilising a mile-long launch rail that culminates in a 40 degree incline, or sky ramp, which Anderson claims was inspired by an old Soviet design, a concept also used in the film When Worlds Collide.

The World Space Patrol included a fleet of at least 30 'Fireball XL' ships (an XL30 is referred to in The Firefighters episode), of which XL5 was the most famous. The ship itself is made up of two detachable sections. The winged nose cone, known as Fireball Junior contained the cockpit and separated from the main body to land on other worlds. The rest of the ship contained a navigation bay, laboratory, huge lounge, workshops and separate crews quarters, along with fuel and main nutomic rocket motors for interstellar travel. The ship would generally remain stationed in orbit after arriving at an alien planet. When Fireball XL5 returned to Space City, the whole ship would land horizontally (i.e. without separating) using its wings and retro-rockets. In the episode 'The Forbidden Planet', the aliens use a form of transporter (similar to that used in Star Trek, but of course pre-dating it) but this technology was not available to the World Space Patrol.

Inasmuch as the series used many classic early 20th-century science fiction themes reminiscent of the space opera of E. E. "Doc" Smith and because it was a children's show, it was not intended to be realistic. Fireball XL5 managed to travel handily around the galaxy without going faster than light (until the episode Faster than Light). The series observed few of the limitations of rocketry and only informed viewers that the ship's rocket motors were powered by a Nutomic reactor and that XL5 could safely travel at speeds of up to Space Velocity 7, which enabled her to reach the outlying planets of charted space within a few months. Furthermore the crew never wore space suits; instead they took "oxygen pills" to survive in the vacuum of space, where they manoeuvred in zero gravity with the aid of thruster packs or jet mobiles. They used neutroni radio communication, which appear virtually instantaneous within the sectors of charted space. XL5 and her sister ships were fitted with gravity activators that generate artificial gravity fields within.

Character voices

Regular characters were voiced by Paul Maxwell, Sylvia Anderson, David Graham and John Bluthal. In common with many of the Anderson puppet shows, most of the important characters have American accents, with some notable exceptions: Dr. Venus is French, Jock the engineer is Scottish and some of the aliens have remarkably sedate British accents (e.g. episode 33, the Day the Earth Froze). Language issues between alien races and Earth were rarely encountered as most races appeared to speak perfect English!

Theme song and merchandising

Fireball XL5 had separate opening instrumental theme music and a closing theme song. The closing theme, Fireball, written by Barry Gray and sung by Don Spencer, became a minor hit in Britain. Gray would have a long relationship with the Andersons' productions, writing themes for such series as Thunderbirds and Space: 1999. Don Spencer would become Australia's premier children's entertainer and founder of the Australian Children's Music Foundation. A group, The Flee-Rekkers, produced by Joe Meek, came out with an instrumental version in the style of Telstar.^[1]

In addition to the theme song, the series spawned a number of other licensed merchandising spin-offs including toys, an MPC playset with rocket ship and figures, model kits including a plastic kit of Fireball XL5 itself, puppets, ray guns, comic strips and annuals. In Britain, a 2-page black-and-white Fireball XL5 comic strip appeared in the weekly TV Comic between 1962–1964 before moving to the newly launched weekly TV Century 21 comic in January 1965 for another 5 years. The strips that appeared between 1965–1968 were in colour only reverting to black-and-white in 1969. Four hard cover Annual books were published in Britain by Collins between 1963–1966 featuring colour and black and white comic strip and text stories, while in the United States Gold Key Comics printed a single-issue colour comic book in 1963. Little Golden Books published a hard-cover colour illustrated story book in 1964 (later released as 'Fireball XL5 – A Big Television Book' in Britain).

During the mid 1960s there were also three soft cover colouring/puzzle books published in Britain and one soft cover colouring/story book published in the United States.

Home video releases

Like most of Anderson's Supermarionation series, this one was given a "complete series" release in Region 1 by A&E Home Video.^[2] A Region 2 version featuring new bonus material was released on DVD in those territories in 2009. On 22 October in Region B territories, an individual Blu-Ray featuring a colorised version of the episode A Day in the Life of a Space General will be released. The disc will also include an episode of Four Feather Falls and an extended version of the Wonderland of Stardust documentary released as a bonus on the Region B box set released earlier in 2009. [1]

Cast of characters

• Colonel Steve Zodiac, pilot and commanding officer of Fireball XL5 (voiced by Paul Maxwell). Commander of Fireball XL5. Zodiac was awarded Astronaut of the Year in the episode "Space City Special".

• Doctor Venus, Doctor of Space Medicine, of French origin. Personally chosen to be part of his crew by Steve Zodiac and with 5 years of service on the XL5 according to the episode "The Last of the Zanadus" (voiced by Sylvia Anderson).

• Professor Matthew "Matt" Matic, ship's designer, engineer, navigator and scientist of XL5 (voiced by David Graham, speaking in a voice similar to the actor Walter Brennan).

• Robert the Robot, co-pilot of XL5, a transparent robot invented by Professor Matic and Earth's most advanced mechanical man (voiced by an uncredited Gerry Anderson using an artificial larynx and the only main character Gerry Anderson ever voiced in one of his series).

• Zoonie the Lazoon, lazy, semi-telepathic pet of Dr. Venus from planet Colevio (voiced by David Graham). During his first appearances, he couldn't say anything but "welcome home" but his vocabulary grew as the series progressed, often due to him mimicking other characters.

• Commander Wilbur Zero, Operational Commander of the World Space Patrol and Space City's Chief Controller (voiced by John Bluthal). Despite his rough exterior, he cares deeply for his subordinates and respects them, especially Steve.

• Lieutenant Ninety, Assistant Space City Controller (voiced by David Graham). Ninety is young, inexperienced and the character most often on the receiving end of Commander Zero's scathing attitude. Despite the seeming high tension between him and Zero, Zero called him "the best lieutenant Space City has."

• Jock Campbell, Space City's Scottish Chief Engineer (voiced by John Bluthal). He makes it clear he doesn't think too highly of women but when Venus saves his life during an ill-fated mission, he starts to have a change of heart.

• Eleanor Zero, Commander Zero's wife (voiced by Sylvia Anderson)

• Jonathan Zero, Commander Zero's young son (voiced by Sylvia Anderson). According to the Little Golden Book 'Fireball XL5' story book published in the USA in 1964 young Jonathan was lucky enough to be a passenger aboard Fireball XL5's maiden voyage which included an unscheduled stop at the planet Geminy.

• Recurring villains included space spies Boris and Griselda, with their antiquated space ship S.S.Thor (S.S. stood for Space Spy) and the evil green alien Subterrains of Planet 46.

Planets

Many episodes of Fireball XL5 were set on exotic planets:

• Amazonia – a planet mentioned in the episode Prisoner on the Lost Planet as being a member of the United Planets Organization alongside Earth and which had banished its mad queen to an unnamed planet of active volcanoes.
• Cevena – an ice-planet that is home to an unnamed brain-creature which hopes to use hypnotic satellites to take control of the universe.
• Conva – a regularly featured planet first introduced in the episode "Space Pen" as a planetwide prison for criminals and featured prominently in the episode "Convict in Space", in which one of its convicts escapes.
• Granatoid – home of the Granatoid robots who appear in "The Granatoid Tanks" and described (though not seen) as having a completely technocratic society, led by a robot voiced by an uncredited Gerry Anderson.
• Granvenia – a planet mentioned as the destination of fuel tankers that are being diverted to the planet Cevena in the episode "Hypnotic Sphere".
• Hedera – a planet rich in plant life that was visited in the episode "Plant Man from Space" and home of a rampant strain of Ivy called Hedera helixa.
• Herbos – a jungle planet seen briefly in the episode "Last of the Zanadus".
• Magneton – a planet visited in the episode "Space Magnet" and inhabited by the invisible Solars.
• Membrono – a planet that was destroyed in the episode "The Doomed Planet".
• Mirana – a perpetually burning planet seen in the episode "Hypnotic Sphere".
• Monotane – a desert planet inhabited by a space monster in "Space Monster".
• New Earth – a planet with a thin atmosphere and little gravity that was to be colonised by the crew of the spaceship Mayflower-3 in the episode Space Immigrants until spaceship Fireball XL7, sent out to prepare for the arrival of the Mayflower-3, was captured by megalomaniacal aliens.
• Planet 46 – home of the Subterrains and a barren planet with an oxygen atmosphere; introduced in the pilot episode Planet 46 and appearing in numerous other episodes.
• Planet 73 – a planet colonised by Earth and attacked by the Granatoids in the episode The Granatoid Tanks.
• Planet 82 – a planet renamed Robotvia by Professor Al Himber.
• Platonia – a planet featured in the episode Planet of Platonia and revealed to be rich in Platinum and inhabited by silver-skinned aliens who eat 23-course meals. A trade agreement with Earth had created a power-struggle on the planet, which the XL5 crew was sent to calm.
• Rajusca - A desert planet featured in the episode Sun Temple, in which the Earth is attacked by sun worshipping Rajuscans living in the desert.
• Triad – a planet featured in the episode, The Triads, which is almost identical to earth in every way, except for being three times its size. Consequently, everything on it, plants, people, animals, etc. is three times the size it is on earth, also. The gigantic human inhabitants are friendly, but are at least 100 years behind earth technologically and were just attempting their fist space launches when the crew of the XL5 visited.
• Zanadu – a planet that featured a mysterious temple in the episode Last of the Zanadus
• Zofeit – a planet whose inhabitants, the Zofeits,were almost wiped out (only two males surviving) by a lone alien in the episode XL5 to H20. The crew of XL5 rescued the two survivors, who were evacuated to Earth.

Episode list

Main article: List of Fireball XL5 episodes

Fireball XL5 in other media

• The theme song from Fireball XL5 was sung by Sean Pertwee in the 2000 London gangster film Love, Honour and Obey in a Karaoke scene.^[3]

• Outside of the various spin-off titles, Fireball XL5 gained some minor recognition when it appeared in Marvel Comics, as one of the TV shows Meggan used to watch prior to meeting Captain Britain.

• Some scenes from Fireball XL5 are shown in the Tom Hanks movie That Thing You Do, watched by Lenny and James on the TVs in Guy's father's appliance store with one character remarking that his grandmother thought the puppets were real people.

• There is a homage to Fireball XL5 in an episode of Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet, entitled "Mercury Falling", which features a spaceship of similar design launching via a rail.

• A Fireball XL5 series featured in the TV21 comic, with some sophisticated story lines addressing space politics and time travel.

• A spin-off comic book series was planned by Gold Key Comics, June 2005 Steve Zodiac and the Fireball XL5 but only one issue was published in the series before it was abandoned.

• The closing theme song Fireball was used in the opening scenes of the episode "Spider" from the HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon

• In The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier, Allan Quatermain and Mina Murray steal a rocket named Pancake XL4. Each ship of the series is traditionally named after the manner of her predecessor's destruction. The Mushroom Cloud XL2 and the Shrapnel XL3 are named as other examples of the Fireball XL5's antecedents. The Pancake XL4 is destroyed by a collision with a mountain, exploding in a huge fireball and earning the XL5 its name. In addition, a Lazoon (called "Lazunes" in another portion of the comic) is bitten to death by other Lazoons due to it chanting "Welcome ho-ome" with a lisp. It is believed the dead Lazoon is Zoonie.

• In Scarlet Traces: The Great Game by Ian Edginton and D'Israeli, on the cover of issue 2, several ships labelled "FB XL" with a number following can be seen. One says "FB XL5", making it the Fireball XL-5.

• Steve Zodiac of British rock band Vardis is thought to have taken his name from the show.

• In order to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of America's first landing on the moon, Craig Ferguson lip-synched a musical number set to the theme song of Fireball XL5 on The Late Late Show.^[4]

• An episode of the Nintendo-based cartoon Captain N: The Game Master is entitled "I Wish I Was A Wombatman", a parody of the "I Wish I Was A Spaceman" lyric from Fireball XL5's title theme.

• The band XTC included their cover of the theme tune (Fireball XL5\Fireball dub) on their 2002 compilation album Coat of Many Cupboards.

Translations

• (French) : Fusée XL5
• (Spanish) : El Capitán Marte y su XL5. In the version shown in Latin-American countries, Colonel Zodiac is rechristened Capitán Marte ("Captain Mars").

References

1. ^ http://www.rockabilly.nl/references/messages/flee-rekkers.htm
2. ^ Amazon.com – Fireball XL5 – The Complete Series (1963)
3. ^ YouTube video clip.
4. ^ YouTube video clip from CBS channel

Fireball XL5, Modern Version

External links

• Fireball XL5 at the Internet Movie Database
• Fireball XL5 at the BFI's Screenonline