FIREBALL XL5 - DAVID GRAHAM as Professor Matthew Matic - AUTOGRAPH CARD DG1
David Graham (born 1924 or 1925) was an English character actor and voice artist. Born in London, he trained as an actor in New York City following service in the Royal Air Force as a radar mechanic, and has since worked mainly in British television. Graham is known for his voice work for the series Doctor Who and Thunderbirds during the 1960s.
Graham played several characters in the science-fiction TV series Doctor Who during the 1960s and 1970s, most notably Dalek voices in the serials The Daleks (1963–64), The Dalek Invasion of Earth (1964), The Chase (1965; in which he also provided Mechanoid voices) and The Daleks' Master Plan (1965–66). He performed in person as barman Charlie in The Gunfighters (1966) and as time-travel scientist Professor Kerensky in City of Death (1979).
Graham also provided the regular voices of Gordon Tracy, Brains, Parker and Kyrano for the Supermarionation TV series Thunderbirds (1965–66), as well as its film sequels: Thunderbirds Are Go (1966) and Thunderbird 6 (1968). Other credits from his association with Thunderbirds producer Gerry Anderson include Four Feather Falls (1960), Supercar (1961–62), Fireball XL5 (1962–63), Stingray (1964–65) and The Secret Service (1969).
Graham has also appeared in Callan, Timeslip, So Haunt Me, Danger Man, The Saint, Howards' Way, Softly, Softly, Armchair Thriller, Ace of Wands, Justice, The Regiment, The Bill, The Fixer, The Sentimental Agent and The Avengers (in the 1963 episode "Man in the Mirror"). He contributed puppet voices to two episodes of The Tomorrow People. He also guest starred in the second series of the 1970s drama When the Boat Comes In and later had a recurring role in the fourth series of the show as "Morty Black", the American Businessman and friend of the main character Jack Ford played by James Bolam.
In the "1984" television Super Bowl advert, filmed in 1983 to introduce the Apple Macintosh computer, Graham played the role of Big Brother. His other voice work includes the animated children's TV series Moomin and Dominion: Tank Police. More recently, Graham provided the voices of Grandpa in Peppa Pig and Wise Old Elf in Ben and Holly's Little Kingdom. He reprised the voice of Parker in Thunderbirds Are Go!, the computer-animated remake of Thunderbirds, which was broadcast early 2015 in the UK. In February 2013, Graham was interviewed by Paddy O'Connell for BBC Radio 2 about his role as one of the early voices of the Daleks, following the death of the Dalek designer Ray Cusick.
SELECTED FILMOGRAPHY:
Danger Within (1959)
Trouble with Eve (1960)
Crossroads to Crime (1960) as Johnny
Thunderbirds (1965–66) as Gordon Tracy, Brains, Parker and Kyrano
Doctor Who (1963)
The Pleasure Girls (1965)
Freelance (1971)
Callan (1974)
King David (1985)
Moomin (1990)
Leon the Pig Farmer (1992)
Peppa Pig (2004–present) as Grandpa Pig
Ben and Holly's Little Kingdom (2009–present) as Wise Old Elf
Thunderbirds Are Go! (2015-present) as Parker
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 aired for a single 1962—63 series, produced 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, Captain Scarlet, Joe 90 and The Secret Service. 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..
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 often proclaim ON-OUR-WAY-HOME. Robert was the only character in an Anderson series which was actually voiced by Anderson, himself, albeit with the aid of an artificial larynx. As Anderson describes in a deleted scene of Filmed in Supermarionation:
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 Space City control tower 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, and the ship was on call at base between missions.
The patrol space ship Fireball XL5 takes off utilising a mile-long launch rail culminating in a 40-degree incline, or sky ramp, which, as Anderson claimed, was inspired by an old Soviet design, a concept also used in the film When Worlds Collide.
The World Space Patrol operates a fleet of at least thirty 'Fireball XL' ships (an XL30 is referred to in the episode The Firefighters), of which XL5 is the most famous. The ship itself is made up of two detachable sections. A winged nose cone, known as Fireball Junior, contains the cockpit and separates from the main body to land on other worlds. The rest of the ship contains a navigation bay, laboratory, a large lounge, workshops and separate crew quarters, together with fuel and the main rocket motors used for interstellar travel. The main ship generally remains stationed in orbit after arriving at an alien planet.
When Fireball XL5 returns to its base on Earth, Space City, the whole ship lands horizontally, without separating, using underside-mounted retro-rockets.
Although the series uses many classic, early 20th-century science fiction themes reminiscent of the space opera of E. E. "Doc" Smith, it was a children's show and not intended to be realistic. Fireball XL5 is portrayed travelling around the galaxy at sub-light speeds (until the episode Faster than Light), and the series observed few of the limitations of known science and rocketry. Viewers were informed that the ship's rocket motors were powered by a 'nutomic reactor' and that XL5 could travel safely at speeds up to 'Space Velocity 7', enabling it to reach the outlying star systems of charted space within a few months. Furthermore, the crew never wore space suits; instead they took "oxygen pills" to survive in the vacuum of space, where they manoeuvred in zero gravity with the aid of thruster packs. 'Neutroni radio' enabled virtually instantaneous communication within the sectors of charted space, and XL5 and her sister ships were fitted with 'gravity activators' that generated artificial gravity fields within them.
Regular characters were voiced by Paul Maxwell, Sylvia Anderson, David Graham and John Bluthal. In common with many of the Anderson puppet shows, most of the important characters have American accents, with some notable exceptions: Dr. Venus is French, Jock the engineer is Scottish and some of the aliens have remarkably sedate British accents (e.g. episode 33, the Day the Earth Froze). Language issues between alien races and Earth were rarely encountered as most races appeared to speak perfect English.
Fireball XL5 had separate opening instrumental theme music and a closing theme song. The closing theme, Fireball, written by Barry Gray and sung by Don Spencer, became a minor hit in Britain. Gray would have a long relationship with the Andersons' productions, writing themes for such series as Thunderbirds and Space: 1999. Don Spencer would become Australia's premier children's entertainer and founder of the Australian Children's Music Foundation. A group, The Flee-Rekkers, produced by Joe Meek, came out with an instrumental version in the style of Telstar.
In addition to the theme song, the series spawned a number of other licensed merchandising spin-offs including toys, an MPC playset with rocket ship and figures, model kits including a plastic kit of Fireball XL5 itself, puppets, ray guns, comic strips and annuals. In Britain, a two-page black-and-white Fireball XL5 comic strip appeared in the weekly TV Comic between 1962 and 1964 before moving to the newly launched weekly TV Century 21 comic in January 1965 for another five years. The strips that appeared between 1965 and 1968 were in colour only reverting to black-and-white in 1969. Four hard cover Annual books were published in Britain by Collins between 1963 and 1966 featuring colour and black and white comic strip and text stories, while in the United States Gold Key Comics printed a single-issue colour comic book in 1963. Little Golden Books published a hard-cover colour illustrated story book in 1964 (later released as 'Fireball XL5 – A Big Television Book' in Britain).
During the mid 1960s there were also three soft cover colouring/puzzle books published in Britain and one soft cover colouring/story book published in the United States.
Like most of Anderson's Supermarionation series, this one was given a "complete series" release in Region 1 by A&E Home Video. A Region 2 version featuring new bonus material was released on DVD in those territories in 2009, superseding a 2004 release with no extras. On 22 October in Region B territories, an individual Blu-ray featuring a colorised version of the episode A Day in the Life of a Space General was released. The disc also includes an episode of Four Feather Falls and an extended version of the Wonderland of Stardust documentary released as a bonus on the Region B box set released earlier in 2009. The series was reissued in North America in a slim DVD set (only about the size of a single DVD case), but aside from a bonus PDF file of a publicity brochure for the show, and different menu design, the set is identical to its predecessor.
Colonel Steve Zodiac: - The Pilot and commanding officer of Fireball XL5 (voiced by Paul Maxwell). Zodiac was awarded Astronaut of the Year in the episode "Space City Special".
Doctor Venus: - A Doctor of Space Medicine, of French origin. Personally chosen to be part of his crew by Steve Zodiac and with 5 years of service on the XL5 according to the episode "The Last of the Zanadus" (voiced by Sylvia Anderson).
Professor Matthew "Matt" Matic: An engineer, navigator and scientist of XL5 (voiced by David Graham, speaking in a voice similar to the actor Walter Brennan).
Robert the Robot - The Co-Pilot of XL5, a transparent robot invented by Professor Matic and Earth's most advanced mechanical man (voiced by an uncredited Gerry Anderson using an artificial larynx and the only main character Gerry Anderson ever voiced in one of his series).
Zoonie the Lazoon: - A lazy, semi-telepathic pet of Dr. Venus from planet Colevio (voiced by David Graham). During his first appearances, he couldn't say anything but "welcome home" but his vocabulary grew as the series progressed, often due to him mimicking other characters.
Commander Wilbur Zero: - The Operational Commander-in-Chief of the World Space Patrol and Space City's Chief Controller (voiced by John Bluthal). Despite his gruff exterior, he cares deeply for his subordinates and respects them, especially Steve.
Lieutenant Ninety: The assistant Space City Controller (voiced by David Graham). Ninety is young, inexperienced and the character most often on the receiving end of Commander Zero's scathing attitude. Despite the seeming high tension between him and Zero, Zero called him "the best lieutenant Space City has." In one episode of the series, Lieutenant Ninety even underwent training as an XL pilot.
Jock Campbell: - The Chief Engineer at Space City (voiced by John Bluthal). He is of Scottish descent and makes it clear he doesn't think too highly of women but when Venus saves his life during an ill-fated mission, he starts to have a change of heart.
Eleanor Zero: - Commander Zero's wife (voiced by Sylvia Anderson)
Jonathan Zero: - Commander Zero's young son (voiced by Sylvia Anderson). According to the Little Golden Book 'Fireball XL5' story book published in the USA in 1964 young Jonathan was lucky enough to be a passenger aboard Fireball XL5's maiden voyage which included an unscheduled stop at the planet Geminy.
Captain Ken Ross: - The Pilot of several XL spaceships (voiced by John Bluthal). He often needs saving by the crew of XL5.
Space Spy Boris: - (voiced by David Graham)
Space Spy Griselda: - (voiced by Sylvia Anderson)
The Subterrains of Planet 46: - (voiced by John Bluthal and David Graham)
Many episodes of Fireball XL5 were set on exotic planets:
Amazonia – a planet mentioned in the episode Prisoner on the Lost Planet as being a member of the United Planets Organization alongside Earth and which had banished its mad queen to an unnamed planet of active volcanoes.
Aridan – the desert planet that once had water but is now an arid wilderness seen in the episode "Space Pirates"
Conva – a regularly featured planet first introduced in the episode "Space Pen" as a planetwide prison for criminals and featured prominently in the episode "Convict in Space", in which one of its convicts escapes.
Granatoid – home of the Granatoid robots who appear in "The Granatoid Tanks" and described (though not seen) as having a completely technocratic society, led by a robot voiced by an uncredited Gerry Anderson.
Granvenia – a planet mentioned as the destination of fuel tankers that are being diverted to the planet Suventa in the episode "Hypnotic Sphere".
Hedera – a planet rich in plant life that was visited in the episode "Plant Man from Space" and home of a rampant strain of Ivy called Hedera helixa.
Herbos – a jungle planet seen briefly in the episode "Last of the Zanadus".
Magneton – a planet visited in the episode "Space Magnet" and inhabited by the invisible Solars.
Membrono – a planet that was nearly destroyed (by another, unnamed planet) in the episode "The Doomed Planet". An advanced alien race lived on Membrono's moon.
Minerra – a planet rich in radioactive minerals needed for earth resources seen in the episode "Space Pirates"
Mirana – a perpetually burning planet seen in the episode "Hypnotic Sphere".
Monotane – a desert planet inhabited by a space monster in "Space Monster".
New Earth – a planet with a thin atmosphere and little gravity that was to be colonised by the crew of the spaceship Mayflower-3 in the episode Space Immigrants until spaceship Fireball XL7, sent out to prepare for the arrival of the Mayflower-3, was captured by megalomaniacal aliens.
Planet 46 – home of the Subterrains and a barren planet with an oxygen atmosphere; introduced in the pilot episode Planet 46 and appearing in numerous other episodes.
Planet 73 – a planet colonised by Earth and attacked by the Granatoids in the episode The Granatoid Tanks.
Planet 82 – a planet renamed Robotvia by Professor Al Himber.
Platonia – a planet featured in the episode Planet of Platonia and revealed to be rich in Platinum and inhabited by silver-skinned aliens who eat 23-course meals. A trade agreement with Earth had created a power-struggle on the planet, which the XL5 crew was sent to calm.
Rajusca – A desert planet featured in the episode Sun Temple, in which the Earth is attacked by sun worshipping Rajuscans living in the desert.
Suventa – an ice-planet that is home to an unnamed brain-creature which hopes to use hypnotic satellites to take control of the universe.
Triad – a planet featured in the episode, The Triads, which is almost identical to earth in every way, except for being three times its size. Consequently, everything on it, plants, people, animals, etc. is three times the size it is on earth, also. The gigantic human inhabitants are friendly, but are at least 100 years behind earth technologically and were just attempting their first space launches when the crew of the XL5 visited.
Zanadu – a planet that featured a mysterious temple in the episode Last of the Zanadus
Zofeit – a planet whose inhabitants, the Zofeits,were almost wiped out (only two males surviving) by a lone alien in the episode XL5 to H20. The crew of XL5 rescued the two survivors, who were evacuated to Earth.
(in French) : Fusée XL5
(in Spanish) : El Capitán Marte y su XL5. In the version shown in Latin-American countries, Colonel Zodiac is rechristened Capitán Marte ("Captain Mars").
(in Greek) : Πύρινη Σφαίρα (pyrine sphaera = ball of fire).
INFORMATION
ABOUT SUPERMARIONATION:
Supermarionation (a
portmanteau of "super", "marionette" and
"animation") is a puppetry technique devised in the 1960s
by British production company AP Films. It was used extensively in
the company's numerous Gerry and Sylvia Anderson-produced
action-adventure series, the most famous of which was Thunderbirds.
The term was coined by Gerry Anderson.
DEVELOPMENT
AND USE IN GERRY ANDERSON PRODUCTIONS: The system used marionettes
suspended and controlled by thin wires. The fine metal filaments
doubled as both suspension-control wires for puppet movement, and as
electrical cables that took the control signals to the electronic
components concealed in the marionettes' heads. Although efforts were
made to minimise this, the strings used to control the puppets are
often visible (more so on modern high-definition television screens),
although the production teams' ability to mask the strings and the
fineness of the strings noticeably improves through the various
series.
The heads contained solenoids that created
the facial movements for dialogue and other functions. The voice
synchronisation was achieved by using a specially designed audio
filter, actuated by the signal from the pre-recorded tapes of the
voice actors; this filter would convert the signal into a series of
pulses that then travelled down the wire to the solenoids controlling
the puppet's lips. Up to and including Thunderbirds, these control
mechanisms were placed within the puppets' heads, which meant the
heads had to be disproportionately large compared to the bodies; the
rest of the body could not be sized up to match, otherwise the puppet
would be too bulky to operate.
With the advent of
miniaturised electronic components in the mid-1960s, a new type of
puppet was designed with control mechanisms in the chest, connected
to the mouth by narrow rods through the neck. This resulted in a far
more proportionate appearance for the puppets, first appearing in
Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. In a 2002 interview, Anderson
revealed that it was his desire to move into live-action television
during the production of Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, and that
he endorsed the new, realistic design of the Supermarionation puppets
as a compromise for his inability to use live actors.
Because
the marionettes could not be made to walk convincingly, most scenes
depicted the characters either standing or sitting, or placed them in
settings that allowed the use of vehicles and other mechanical
transportation systems. The personal hovercraft used in Fireball XL5
and Thunderbirds were one of the devices the producers used to
overcome this problem.
Occasionally, close-ups of a
live actor's hand would be inserted to show actions such as turning
keys and pressing buttons. This was affectionately parodied in the
2004 live-action feature film Thunderbirds, with a brief shot of a
puppet hand, suspended by wires, operating the controls of
Thunderbird 1.
In many cases, the puppets were
modelled on the actor voicing the role; two good examples are Lady
Penelope in Thunderbirds, which closely resembled Sylvia Anderson,
and Captain Blue in Captain Scarlet, who looks like his voice actor
Ed Bishop (although the latter similarity was reportedly
coincidental). Other characters were based on well-known film stars,
such as Captain Troy Tempest in Stingray, who was based on James
Garner, Scott Tracy in Thunderbirds, who was modelled on Sean
Connery, and Captain Scarlet in Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons,
whose voice and appearance were modeled on Cary Grant. Stingray also
featured the only non-speaking Supermarionation puppet: the
water-breathing woman Marina.
ANDERSON’S
SUPERMARIONATED TELEVISION SHOWS: Four Feather Falls (1960) //
Supercar (1961) // Fireball XL5 (1962) // Stingray (1964) //
Thunderbirds (1965) // Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons (1967) //
Joe 90 (1968) // The Secret Service (1969) //
The
term "Supermarionation" was not actually coined until
during production of later episodes of Supercar. As a result, Four
Feather Falls is often omitted from lists of Supermarionation
productions.
The Secret Service was actually a
hybrid of live action and Supermarionation, using footage of live
actors from a distance to depict driving, walking, etc. Production
was cancelled by ITC owner Lew Grade before the pilot episode aired;
the 13 completed episodes aired sporadically on ATV and other British
broadcasters beginning in 1969. Despite the poor reception, Anderson
has been quoted as naming The Secret Service as his favorite
Supermarionation series.
In 1973, Anderson produced
a pilot episode for another Supermarionation/live-action hybrid
entitled The Investigator but was displeased with the results, so no
series resulted. This is the last known occasion in which a full
Supermarionation production was mounted.
Two
feature films based upon Thunderbirds were also made with
Supermarionation: Thunderbirds Are Go (1966) and Thunderbird 6
(1967). Numerous episodes of Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet, and other
series were also edited together (sometimes with the addition of new
narration) to form movie-length features for VHS release and TV
syndication in the 1980s.
In 1991, Anderson
produced Supermarionation versions of the Dire Straits band members
for the music video "Calling Elvis".
Supermarionation
techniques were recreated and employed during the production of
Filmed in Supermarionation, a 2014 documentary that told the behind
the scenes story of the films and television series produced by AP
Films.
SUPERMACROMATION: In the early 1980s,
Anderson returned to puppetry for the science fiction series
Terrahawks. In this show the characters were realised using
hand-controlled puppets, mostly controlled from beneath using a
system called Supermacromation, which was broadly similar to the
techniques developed by Jim Henson.
HYPERMARIONATION:
In 2004, Gerry Anderson produced Gerry Anderson's New Captain
Scarlet, which was rendered using computer-generated imagery (CGI)
and motion-capture techniques. As a nod to Supermarionation, the show
is promoted as being produced in Hypermarionation.
USE
IN NON-GERRY ANDERSON PRODUCTIONS: Refined Supermarionation
techniques were used in the South African children's science fiction
show Interster in the late 1970s. The 1980 Japanese TV series
X-Bomber (also known as Star Fleet) was filmed with refined
Supermarionation techniques, in a style dubbed Supermariorama by the
crew. Japanese puppeteer Kinosuke Takeda produced three
Supermarionation styled television series between 1960 and 1970
including Spaceship Silica, Galaxy Boy Troop and Aerial City 008.
Super Adventure Team was an American comedy series shown on the cable
television network MTV in 1998. It was produced in the style of
Thunderbirds from 1964, with live action marionettes, but had more
adult themes and suggestive situations. Team America: World Police, a
2004 film by South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, is
inspired by and uses the same style of puppetry as Thunderbirds.
Stone and Parker, however, dubbed their version of the technique
"Supercrappymation" since the strings controlling the
puppets were intentionally left visible.