Fireball XL5

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
Conkers of the sky. (Conkers is a game like marbles. It definitely sounds like conkers, not conquerors.)
My heart would be a fireball,
A fireball
Every time I gazed into your starry eyes.
We’d take the 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’d zoom away to Mars
My heart would be a fireball,
A fireball
Cuz you would be my Venus of the stars


Fireball XL5 is available on DVD from Amazon.com (and other retailers of course) and is a lot of fun.



Fireball XL5 is one of at least 5 space ships operated by Space City. Its captain is Troy Tempest, the science officer is Venus, the doctor/comic relief is Professor Matic, and the copilot is a robot, Robert.

Space City Control is run by the grumpy Captain Zero (a precursor to the grumpy Commander Shore of Stingray) and Lieutenant 90.

Occasionally (un)comic relief is provided by Venus' talking pet, a Lazoon.

Fireball XL5 takes off from a ramp...a method of launching that was actually seriously considered for rockets as early as 1945. In When Worlds Collide, the ship takes off via a ramp.

The song lyrics for Fireball XL5 were released as a single and were the only hit its singer ever had!

Fireball XL5

I just ordered the complete DVD set of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's 1962 creation, Fireball XL5.

It is a lot of fun!

Yes, the Supermarionation is not on a par with later efforts - the wires are visible at all times, and kids might not like the fact that it's in black and white, - but the plots are interesting, as are the gadgets - quite a bit of foreshadowing of future SF shows and even a bit of reality.

I'm going to quote the copyright free Wikipedia:

Set between the years 2062/2063, the series features the missions of spaceship Fireball XL5, commanded by Colonel Steve Zodiac of the World Space Patrol. Also aboard as part of the crew are the glamorous Doctor Venus, middle-aged navigator and engineer Professor Matthew Matic, and Zodiac's co-pilot Robert the Robot, notable for being transparent. Robert was the only character in an Anderson series that was actually voiced by Gerry Anderson himself.

Fireball XL5 is based at Space City, located on an unnamed island in the South Pacific, headquarters of the World Space Patrol headed by Commander Zero. Zero is assisted by Lieutenant Ninety. The patrol rocket Fireball XL5 takes off utilising a mile-long launch rail which culminates in a 40 degree incline, or sky ramp, which Anderson explains was inspired by an old Soviet design, a concept also used in the film When Worlds Collide.

There is a fleet of at least 30 'Fireball XL' ships (an XL30 is referred to in The Firefighters episode), of which XL5 is the most famous.