The crew do not wear spacesuits outside the ship: instead, they take "oxygen pills" to survive the vacuum while using thruster packs to manoeuvre. Its rocket motors, powered by a "nutomic" reactor, provide a maximum safe speed of "Space Velocity 7", allowing the ship to reach the outlying star systems of charted space within a few months. Until the episode "Faster Than Light", XL5 travels through space at sub-light speeds. On its return to Space City, it lands vertically in a horizontal attitude using underside-mounted retro-rockets. The ship blasts off from a mile-long launch rail ending in a 40-degree incline. XL5 's deep-space patrols are missions of three months' duration between missions, the ship is on call at Space City. For unspecified reasons, the city's 25-storey, T-shaped control tower is shown to rotate (in one episode, a character accidentally causes it to turn fast enough for those inside to suffer vertigo). The organisation is headed by Commander Zero, assisted by Lieutenant Ninety.
The World Space Patrol is based at Space City, located on an unnamed island in the South Pacific Ocean. On arrival at an alien world, the main section usually remains in orbit while Fireball Junior travels down to the surface. The main, larger section contains a navigation bay, laboratory, workshops, lounge and crew quarters, together with the rocket motors that enable interstellar travel. A winged nose cone dubbed Fireball Junior houses the cockpit and serves as a self-contained short take-off and vertical landing craft for exploring planets. The ship has a "gravity activator" for artificial gravity and consists of two detachable sections. XL5 patrols Sector 25 of charted interstellar space and is one of at least 30 "Fireball XL" vessels (an X元0 is mentioned in the episode "The Firefighters"). Zodiac's crew comprises the glamorous Venus, a doctor of space medicine middle-aged navigator and engineer Professor Matthew Matic and co-pilot Robert: a transparent, anthropomorphic robot who often exclaims " ON-OUR-WAY-'OME!" as XL5 returns to base.
Ball boy a day in space series#
Set in the year 2062, the series follows the missions of Earth spaceship Fireball XL5, commanded by Colonel Steve Zodiac of the World Space Patrol. It is often confused with Space Patrol, a puppet series with a similar premise that was made by the Andersons' former collaborators Roberta Leigh and Arthur Provis. Regarded by some commentators as a space opera or space Western, Fireball XL5 has been praised for its music its closing theme – "Fireball", sung by Don Spencer – was commercially released to moderate success in the UK charts.
Ball boy a day in space tv#
The series was regularly repeated on British TV until 1974 and has since been released on DVD in the UK, US, Canada and Australia.
The TV episodes were supplemented by an audio play, comic strips in TV Comic and TV Century 21, and other tie-ins including books, toys and model kits. It was also purchased by NBC in the United States, becoming the only Anderson series to air on an American network. The series' scale model special effects were directed by Derek Meddings.įilming of Fireball XL5 's 39 half-hour episodes began in February 1962 and the series premiered on ATV London (part of the ITV network) on 28 October that year. Zodiac was voiced by Paul Maxwell while two of his companions – XL5 co-pilot Robert the Robot and "space doctor" Venus – were voiced by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson themselves. It was APF's final black-and-white series and the third to be made in what the Andersons dubbed " Supermarionation": a style of production in which the characters were played by electronic marionettes whose mouth movements were synchronised with the voice actors' pre-recorded dialogue. Inspired by the Space Race, Fireball XL5 was created by the husband-and-wife team of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and filmed by their production company AP Films (APF) for ITC Entertainment. Commanded by Colonel Steve Zodiac, XL5 defends Earth from interstellar threats while encountering a wide variety of alien civilisations. Fireball XL5 is a 1960s British children's science-fiction puppet television series about the missions of Fireball XL5, a vessel of the World Space Patrol that polices the cosmos in the year 2062.
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