Fireball XL5 and the Doomed Planet

The Andersons’ "Supermarionation" science fiction series for kids was their first to air in the US

Today’s hed gif brings you the 1962 sci-fi puppet action of Fireball XL5, the first of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson’s “Supermarionation” projects to make it to US television screens. Supermarionation (a portmanteau derived from super, marionette and animation) was created by the British husband-and-wife team for their production company AP Films (APF—later called Century 21 Productions) and was a style of television series and feature films featuring marionettes with electronic lip movement abilities, timed to sync with dialogue. UK kids would have already been familiar with the Andersons’ production stylings thanks to television series Supercar and Four Feather Falls. On the strength of the rising popularity of Supermarionation, the team would later go on to create the popular Thunderbirds franchise, which included the TV series, movies and highly-sought toys and other merchandise.

The Fireball XL5 series is set in the year 2062 and follows the adventures of the crew manning the space ship of the same name at the direction of the World Space Patrol (WSP). The crew commander is Steve Zodiac; he’s joined on-board by Dr Venus and Professor Matthew Matic. The crew is rounded out by a transparent anthropomorphic robot named Robert who co-pilots the spaceship with Steve. When not patrolling their assigned region, Sector 25 of charted interstellar space, the crew docks at Space City, an island headquarters on Earth.

While it had been Gerry Anderson’s ambition to produce and direct series with human actors, puppetry provided a lower cost of entry into the world of television production. But given his original goals, he strove to create scenes and action as high-quality and realistic as possible and his puppets as “human” as achievable. The tungsten steel wires needed to move the puppets were chosen to be as thin as possible and were chemically colored and treated to be darker, less shiny and less noticeable on film. APF’s highly detailed marionettes were fitted with movable lower lips that could move; this action was synced to pre-recorded dialogue that triggered electrical charges and moved the mechanism by means of a solenoid fitted in the head of the puppet. The eyes of the puppets were also designed to move using radio control, providing more expressive responses. Puppeteers were given video-assist mounts to help guide movements. Three-dimensional scenes and props were carefully designed to reflect a high quality of production, and the team employed sophisticated film effects such as front and back projection, live-action inserts and live-style special effects. Camera work was designed to showcase careful cinematographic choices. Care was also taken in post with editing and musical orchestration. In fact, the closing theme for Fireball XL5–“Fireball,” performed by Don Spencer and arranged by Charles Blackwell—spent 12 weeks on the UK music charts.

However, puppetry did present challenges to realism, particularly in walking movements. Even as talented as the puppeteers were, the limitations of articulating the leg movements meant that they could not completely convincingly replicate a human’s walk cycle. Therefore, much of the walking movement action was filmed from above the puppet’s knees. To further reduce the need for walking action, Supermarionation staging frequently used floating vehicles to move their characters from one point to another, making sci-fi and space settings advantageous for APF productions. With interest in sci-fi and space travel being high in the 1960’s, this certainly made a program like Fireball XL5 a smart choice for the production team. Another challenge was limitations in some elements of costuming; changing the head wiring of the existing puppets would have required complicated rework, meaning that fitting the characters with space helmets would have been difficult. The solution to the problem was simple, if not completely scientific—XL5 crew members simply took an “oxygen pill” for adventures outside of the ship, enabling them to survive what would otherwise be environments hostile for oxygenated-air-breathing characters.

Our friends at the Internet Archive have episodes of Fireball XL5 available for viewing, including the one sampled for our hed gif, linked below.

The Internet Archive: Fireball XL5 - 1x02 - The Doomed Planet

Wikipedia: Fireball XL5

Wikipedia: Supermarionation

Gerry Anderson Encyclopedia | Fandom: Fireball XL5

IMDB: Fireball XL5 (TV Series)

Rotten Tomatoes: Gerry Anderson