h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Fireball XL5 - A3554471
Author: teamelectra - U985519

Fireball XL5 was the second Supermarionation series by Gerry Anderson, telling the story of World Space Patrol astronaut Steve Zodiac, as he battled infamous villans throughout the cosmos to protect the Earth from evil. Today, Fireball XL5 is one of the most best-remembered science fiction shows from the 1960's.

Fireball wasn't Anderson's second production - it was his fifth, after The Adventures of Twizzle, Torchy the Battery Boy, Four Feather Falls and Supercar.

Were those first three *Supermarionation* Jims?

I would suspect the first three weren't supermarionation.

But equally, the first sentence of the enter states that Fireball XL5 is "the second puppet cartoon by Anderson", on which point Jims is correct in says that it was the fifth.

Oh, the tangled webs we weave.


Geggs

I must admit that I haven't yet read the entry, but I presume Jims was replying to post 1, which says that FXL5 was the second Supermarionation series (which I believe it was), and I was replying to Jims's reply

Nope, I was commenting on the entry.

The first two Anderson series were produced by Roberta Leigh of Pelham puppets, then Four Feather Falls was a Granada production, and finally Supercar was the first ITC production made in 'Supermarionation'.

Wow, you guys know a lot of, *ahem*, important stuff. Why didn't you mention all this at the Meet, Jimster?

Anyway, teamelectra, I think this is potentially a very good entry, though the boys above might be better placed to check that your facts are all good. The one thing I would suggest is that you could break up the entry into nice, logical paragraphs by going to 'Edit Entry', switching the 'style' to 'Guide ML' and inserting some 'headers' like this:

Characters and Crew

(above the line 'The head of the World Space Patrol is...')

If you put maybe three or four of these in to break it up into relevant sections, it would just make it that bit more readable.

Good work, and please ignore the inane mutterings of those above , they'll come to discussing your entry soon.

Ok, I'll do just that.

Yep, I agree that this is a smashing start. Fireball tends to be forgotten about because it was made in black-and-white, and gets eclipsed by Anderson's later colour series. But it really was a lot of fun and had some great ideas.

I think it might help the entry a lot if you explain where some of the info comes from. Just a sentence that says that while most of the information comes from the TV show itself, some of it comes from the comic strips that were published around the same time.

You could also do with a cast list, as this is a TV show. Luckily... here's one I made earlier

Paul Maxwell (Colonel Steve Zodiac)
Sylvia Anderson (Dr Venus)
David Graham (Professor Matthew Matic / Lieutenant Ninety)
John Blathel (Commander Zero)
Gerry Anderson (Robert the Robot)

The theme music was written by Barry Gray, while the end theme song 'I Wish was a Spaceman' was sung by Don Spencer.

There were 39 TV episodes, shown between 28 October, 1962, and 27 October, 1963

Hi teamelectra

Re-Post 8 - ***Don't follow advice***

Sorry, Skankyrich, explanation being typed at this moment.

Emmily

>"The one thing I would suggest is that you could break up the entry into nice, logical paragraphs by going to 'Edit Entry', switching the 'style' to 'Guide ML' and inserting some 'headers' like this:

Characters and Crew"

There is so much more than that for this for teamelectria, to add headers.

**All of the Entry** would need to have GuideML tags, you can't just change to GuideML and add headers.

These also lots of &s that will need to be replaced with Character codes.

This us a big Entry for a researher who has not 'dipped their toe' into GuideML, to attempt to change to GuideML, he could mess up his whole Entry following that advice.

In the circumstances I think it best if it is left for the Sub-editor (when the entry gets to that part of the process) to change Entry to GuideML.

Hope that all makes sense, had rough night, not been up long, and not had 2nd cup of

Emmily

Ah, in that case teamelectra, I hope you haven't done anything to mash up your good work. I must need some myself before I open my big mouth.

It's no problem at all, I'm glad that you all are pitching in ideas. Thanks.

Corporal X

*Nudge*

Researcher PSG

"It is interesting to note that a mention was made to XL5 in an autobiography of Captain Scarlet's "Captain Black", stating that he was once a Captain aboard Fireball XL3. "

Is it just me or does this make it sound as if a mention of the ship XL5 was made by Captain Black when he said he had been aboard the ship XL3?

Perhaps I'm being odd.

On a side note...when my dad was young he looked like a healthier version of captain black and it tickled me every time i watched.

*prances around like a maniac to get this back up in teamelectra's convo list*

No, it is an actual reference to FIREBALL XL5 (The XL3 bit I mean) as any Gerry Anderson booklet will tell you.

Corporal X

Kat is pointing out a grammatical problem; that the wording makes it sound as if you're referring to the ship (XL5) rather than the series (Fireball XL5).

Mmm yeah what Gosho said.

Also...funnily enough I don't have a handy dandy Gerry Anderson booklet on me.