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''Fireball XL5'' is a science fiction themed children's television show following the missions of spaceship ''Fireball XL5'', commanded by Colonel Steve Zodiac of the World Space Patrol. The show was produced from 1962 to 1963 by husband and wife team Gerry and Sylvia Anderson through their company APF, in association with ATV for ITC Entertainment, and first transmitted on ATV on Sunday 28 October 1962. While developing his new show, Anderson thought a brand of motor oil—Castrol XL—had an interesting sound. A phonetic change created the name "Fireball XL", with the "5" added as the title seemed a bit flat without the numeral. The show featured the Andersons' Supermarionation, a form of puppetry first introduced in ''Four Feather Falls'' (1960) and ''Supercar'' (1961) and used again in their subsequent productions such as ''Stingray'', ''Thunderbirds'' and ''Captain Scarlet''. Thirty-nine black and white half-hour episodes of ''Fireball XL5'' were made on 35mm film: all subsequent Anderson series were produced in colour. Several Anderson series have been shown in syndication in the US, but ''Fireball XL5'' is the only Anderson series to have run on a US network. NBC (the National Broadcasting Company) ran the series in its Saturday morning children's block from 1963 through to September 1965. A similar programme often confused with ''Fireball XL5'' due to a number of similarities and settings is ''Space Patrol'' (known as ''Planet Patrol'' in the U.S.), produced by Gerry Anderson's former business partner and co-founder of AP Films, Arthur Provis. The complete series is available on DVD in the UK, Australia, Canada and the U.S.. ==Setting== Set between the years 2062 and 2063, the series featured the missions of spaceship ''Fireball XL5'', commanded by Colonel Steve Zodiac of the World Space Patrol. The crew included glamorous Doctor Venus, a doctor of space medicine; middle-aged navigator and engineer Professor Matthew Matic and co-pilot Robert, a transparent anthropomorphic robot who would most commonly proclaim ''ON-OUR-WAY-HOME.''. Robert was the only character in an Anderson series that was actually voiced by Anderson himself, albeit with the aid of an artificial larynx. In the series, the World Space Patrol is based at Space City, located on an unnamed island in the South Pacific, headed by Commander Zero. Zero is assisted by Lieutenant Ninety. For unspecified reasons the 25-storey T-shaped control tower at Space City rotates; in one episode a character inadvertently makes it rotate fast enough for those inside to suffer from vertigo. ''Fireball XL5'' patrolled Sector 25 of charted interstellar space (although there only appeared to be three sectors marked on the space chart seen in the Space City control room). The patrols were missions of three months duration but the ship was also on call when at base. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Fireball XL5」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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