[MoMo]

Click on the link below if you want to hear the theme tune to " Fireball XL5 " :

http://www.clivebanks.co.uk/Themes/xl5closing.mp3

I wish I was a spaceman,
the fastest guy alive
I'd fly you ‘round the universe.
In fireball xl5.

Way out in space together.
Conquerors of the sky.

My heart would be a fireball.
A fireball.
Every time I gaze into your starry eyes.
We’d take a path to Jupiter and maybe very soon.
We’d cruise along the Milky Way and land upon the Moon.
To a wonderland of stardust.
We’ll zoom our way to mars.
My heart would be a fireball.
A fireball.
And you would be my Venus of the stars.”

[Black 6]

Fireball XL5 was such a cool show when I was a kid. I even had the model of the XL5 (which was of good size to a 5-6 year old) which came apart into the various sections. It also came with the crew action figures.

Other faves were Thunderbirds and Stingray.

[SKUNKY]

Yeah!...that show was in the same genre as Supercar and Stingray..I loved all of them.... funny as hell...We used to have Agent X20 (of Stingray fame) right here on this very forum (briefly) and before that on TMH1....I still run into him now and then.

[mikeb1958]

Originally Posted by SKUNKY

Yeah!...that show was in the same genre as Supercar and Stingray..I loved all of them.... funny as hell...We used to have Agent X20 (of Stingray fame) right here on this very forum (briefly) and before that on TMH1....I still run into him now and then.

Yeah, he was a good one. Hope he finds his way back home to here.

[MoMo]

Did you guys in The States get this early Gerry and Sylvia Anderson show?

Long, long ago, somewhere in the desert of Kansas, USA, was a town called Four Feather Falls. It was full of mighty nice people There was Ma Jones, the general store proprietor; Marvin Jackson, the town bank manager-, Dan Morse. the telegraphist, Doc Haggerty, the medic and Slim Jim, the owner and bartender of Denison Saloon. Then there was Little Jake, and his grampa Twink. Most importantly, there was Sheriff Tex Tucker.

Sheriff Tex wasn't alone in his lawman's status - he had two unofficial deputies in the form of his dog, Dusty, and his horse, Rocky. Tex owed a lot to his two faithful friends .... he owed everything, though, to four rather special feathers....
Once, when Tex was crossing a desolate trail with his dog and horse he came across a little Indian boy. Night was drawing in and, with it, the cold. At night the Indian boy woke from his sleep screaming 'Kalamakooya' and a great Indian chief appeared. He caused great magical things to happen. As a reward for finding and caring for his son, he gave Tex four magic feathers. One gave Dusty the power of speech, another did the same for Rocky, and the remaining two made Tex's guns swivel and fire automatically whenever he was in danger.

With these four magic feathers safely in his hat, Tex maintained peace in Four Feather Falls. Mind you, many was the time when villains such as Pedro and Fernando the Mexican bandits made times hard for him. They'd try anything from robbing the bank to kidnapping Doc Haggerty to get themselves more dollars. Needless to say, they didn't succeed.

Then there was Red Scalp, the renegade Indian Chief, and Big Bad Ben the bandit. Both were nasty characters and their notable schemes included trapping Little Jake and Makooya in a dangerous mine, and gun-running for enemy tribes.
Tex would be a man of steel at times, when his job commanded it. He was one of the nicest guys you'd ever meet, also. He'd break into a song singing the likes of 'Happy Trail'. Then, of course, there was his favourite song about himself - 'Two Gun Tex".
The sets for the series were probably the largest ever made for a puppet programme at the time, with a 'Prairie' stretching some thirty feet and a full main street, where the twenty-inch high characters could act out their Western dramas.

[djjeffhall]

I remember seeing a few episodes of Fireball XL5 and Thunderbirds back when I was a kid. My local independent station quickly switched over to more "adult fare" like Project U.F.O. and Space 1999. In retrospect I wonder if it was a step forward ot back?

[MoMo]

In the late Sixties it was possible to collect Captain Scarlet vehicles from packets of Sugar Smacks breakfast cereal in the U.K.. The vehicles came as little model kits on a single sprue and required very little construction. The kits simply snapped together and were approximately 1/72 scale. My favourite was Captain Scarlet's Red Spectrum Patrol Car (SPC)
.

Captain Scarlet & The Mysterons is set in the year 2068. The real name of the eponymous hero is Paul Metcalfe but we all knew him as Captain Scarlet. He is indestructible. He has a very red uniform but his lips don't move much (even when he's saying "S.I.G").

The Mysterons (evil bad boys from Mars!) have a power called retrometabolism which enables them to destroy people and then create exact duplicates which are then under their control. Captain Scarlet was killed by the Mysterons and duplicated. Fortunately an accident broke the Mysterons control over the duplicate Captain Scarlet, leaving him with the original's personality and the Mysteron ability to recover from fatal wounds. Thus, Captain Scarlet became an indestructible soldier of Spectrum in the war against the Mysterons

Cloudbase is the HQ of Spectrum. It hangs around 40,000 feet up in the air (at the edge of the Earth's atmosphere) under the command of Colonel White (The Spectrum boss!). And it's mainly babes up here!

When you're fighting Mysterons, and all the mean guys are down on Earth driving around in HOT cars, you simply can not have enough sexy ladies in white leather jumpsuits piloting supersonic fighter planes.

NOW, A QUIZ JUST FOR SKUNKY AND ALL YOU TRUE, BLUE FLY-GUYS :

The five Angels were : D........., S..............., H..............., R............... and M..............

They flew a mean Angel Interceptor. These babes could clock 3,000 MPH! They also said "S.I.G" a lot!

Check out this Angel Interceptor by Alfred Wong. You can buy it as a kit! ( about $150.00 )


The Corgi version ( about £6.99 )


Angel who?

[MoMo]

I remember seeing a few episodes of Fireball XL5 and Thunderbirds back when I was a kid. My local independent station quickly switched over to more "adult fare" like Project U.F.O. and Space 1999. In retrospect I wonder if it was a step forward ot back?

Dear DJJeffhall,

I think that this was a definite retrograde step. For kids, the space for the imagination which Sylvia and Jerry Anderson's creations gave was immense. The live-action shows had their appeal, but the puppet shows were just like playing. Also, the actors had a lot of fun with the voices, while the model-makers and puppet artists had a blank canvas. The 'actors' came with no baggage at all!

[djjeffhall]

MoMo,
Hey there.

I agree that is was a step backwards. I was trying (unsuccessfully) to use a little sarcasm.

While I still have very fond memories of Space 1999, as it was the first science fiction show that was "mine" growing up, (i.e. It was running new episode during the period I was watching it. I missed Star Trek by a few years.) I cannot imagine going back and trying to watch it now. Painful, very very painful......

[SKUNKY]

MoMo, I never saw Tex Tucker or Captain Scarlet, but I wish I had as I loved the previously mentioned shows....Those were good stuff!