Fireball XL5

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Television series
Original title Fireball XL5
Country of production United Kingdom
original language English
Year (s) 1962-1963
Production
company		 AP Films
length 30 minutes
Episodes 39 in 1 season
genre Science fiction ,
children's and youth series
Theme music Fireball XL5 from Don Spencer
idea Gerry Anderson ,
Sylvia Anderson
production Gerry Anderson
music Barry Gray
camera John Read
cut Gordon Davie
First broadcast 28 October 1962 (UK) on Associated Television

Fireball XL5 is a British science fiction - puppets tv series by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson , who from 1962 to 1963 in 39 episodes in black and white was produced format. A German synchronization is not yet available. It was the first European television series to focus on space travel and the Andersons' first puppet series to be filmed in the Supermarionation format.

Further technical data

Scriptwriters : Alan Fennell , Anthony Marriott , Dennis Spooner , Gerry and Sylvia Anderson.

Directed by Gerry Anderson, David Elliott, Bill Harris, John Kelly, Alan Pattillo

Artistic design: Bob Bell

Special Effects: Derek Meddings

Editing: Gordon Dariel, Eric Pask

Format: 35 mm film , black and white, super marionation

Characters: Voices:

Colonel Steve Zodiac, Commandant

and 1st pilot of the Fireball : Paul Maxwell

Dr. Venus, spaceship doctor: Sylvia Anderson

Professor Matthew Matt Matic, Navigator

and Science Officer: David Graham

Robert the Robot , 2nd pilot: Gerry Anderson

Zoonie the Lazoon, Venus Pet : David Graham

Corvette Captain (Commander) Zero, Space City Commander : John Bluthal

Lieutenant 90, his adjutant : David Graham

Production history

The series emerged as the successor to Supercar (television series) , Anderson's first puppet television series in the science fiction milieu. The new series was originally supposed to bear the title CENTURY 21 or Nova X 100 , but was then named after the spacecraft Fireball XL5 , which has since been designed . The designation XL in the title came from the Castrol XL engine oil . The series takes place in the year 2063. The trick technology, especially the pyrotechnics , was subject to high demands, since, compared to supercar, numerous explosions had to be simulated for the plot .

Fireball was a consistent further development of the previous Anderson puppet series with the aim of making the puppets more and more similar to real people. An example of this is the character of Venus , which is optically modeled after Sylvia Anderson, but has been given a French accent that should be reminiscent of Brigitte Bardot .

The series was consciously designed for globalization and should reflect the development of the United Nations and the European Community in the future. It achieved considerable commercial success in the United States.

Don Spencer made it into the British charts in March 1963 with the theme song Fireball XL5 he sang and stayed there for 12 weeks. The highest listing was 32nd place.

Fireball XL5 was the last Anderson television series in black and white. The follow-up series Kommando Stingray from 1963 was already produced in color to improve sales opportunities on the US market.

Plots and characters

The series takes place in 2063. The spaceship Fireball XL5 is part of the World Space Patrol , a space police that is supposed to protect the United Planets from aliens , criminals , pirates and natural disasters . Your base is Space City , which is located on an unnamed island in the Pacific and is managed by Commander Zero.

The crew of the Fireball consists of Steve Zodiac, Matt Matic, Venus and the robot Robert. Venus owns a futuristic- looking bungalow , which is inhabited in her absence by her pet, the semi-intelligent and partially speech-capable Lazoon Zoonie . Zoonie serves as a sidekick of the heroine in the series, analogous to the little monkey Mitch in Supercar .

The series is designed as a space opera . The Fireball either gets itself into dangerous situations or is asked for help. She hunts Space Pirates and space spies switched megalomaniacal criminals and isotopes - thieves , or save the planet , of course runaway celestial bodies are threatened. In the episode in 1875 that uses Fireball - Crew a time machine and ends up in the Wild West .

The series was edited on video in the 1990s and is now completely available on DVD . In 2009 a colored version of episode no.37, The day in the life of a space general , was released on Blu-ray Disc .

Episodes

  1. Planet 46
  2. Hypnotic Sphere
  3. Planet of Platonia
  4. Space magnet
  5. The Doomed Planet
  6. Plant Man from Space
  7. The Sun Temple
  8. Space immigrants
  9. Space monsters
  10. Flying Zodiac
  11. XL5 to H2O
  12. A spy in space
  13. Space pirates
  14. Convict in space
  15. Space pen
  16. The last of the Zanadus
  17. The wings of danger
  18. The Triads
  19. sabotage
  20. Prisoner of the lost planet
  21. Flight to Danger
  22. Space Vacation
  23. Mystery of the TA2
  24. Robert to the Rescue
  25. The Forbidden Planet
  26. The Granatoid Tanks
  27. Dangerous cargo
  28. 1875
  29. The Robot Freighter Mystery
  30. Drama at Space City
  31. Whistle for Danger
  32. Faster than light
  33. The Day the Earth froze
  34. Invasion Earth
  35. Ghosts of Space
  36. Trial by Robot
  37. A Day in the Life of a Space General
  38. Space City Special
  39. The Fire Fighters

Lore

In the 1990s the series was fully edited on VHS . In 2009 the colorized episode A Day in the Life of a Space General was released on Blu-ray Disc . In 2013, a complete DVD edition of the series was released in the original black and white film.

literature

  • Simon Archer / Marcus Hearn: What made Thunderbirds Go! The authorized biography of Gerry Anderson , London (BBC Worldwide Limited) 2002, pp. 72-83. ISBN 0-563-53481-8
  • Adam Pirani: The complete Gerry Anderson episode guide , London (Titan Books Ltd) 1989, pp. 37-48. ISBN 1-85286-216-5

Web links