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Post by Craig Herbertson on Aug 1, 2016 8:54:51 GMT
I was a tad too young to see Fireball XL5, Stingray and Thunderbirds when they were first broadcast, but I remember seeing Captain Scarlet, Joe 90 and The Secret Service on their first runs, all in B+W, of course, as we didn't have a colour TV until late 1973. I also used to really enjoy a children's comedy series called The Kids from 47A, about siblings left to fend for themselves when their mom has to go into hospital and trying to avoid nosey neighbours and social services. It was made around 1973. Just been watching FireballX5. You really had to have been there first time round to appreciate its astonishing effect on the imagination. (You also had to be about five years old) Never got into any of the follow ups. More polished but less exciting. |
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Post by ripper on Aug 1, 2016 14:02:38 GMT
I can remember the excitement of rushing home from school, knowing that a new episode of Captain Scarlet etc was on. I am sure it would have been the same for those viewing Fireball XL5 on its first broadcast. I never tire of that wonderful launch sequence for Fireball XL5 and then that stonking title music.
Around the same time that Fireball XL5 was transmitted initially, there was a similar series called Space Patrol, made by an associate of Gerry Anderson, I believe, and I think that show also featured hover scooters.
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Aug 2, 2016 7:43:41 GMT
I can remember the excitement of rushing home from school, knowing that a new episode of Captain Scarlet etc was on. I am sure it would have been the same for those viewing Fireball XL5 on its first broadcast. I never tire of that wonderful launch sequence for Fireball XL5 and then that stonking title music. Around the same time that Fireball XL5 was transmitted initially, there was a similar series called Space Patrol, made by an associate of Gerry Anderson, I believe, and I think that show also featured hover scooters. Good shout Ripper. I'd forgotten all about Space Patrol although I didn't see it at the time. There's a few youtube episodes which will now be on the watching list. I confess that after a few pints I am apt to break into the Fireball XL5 theme on stage despite no one being even slightly interested in it except me. |
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Aug 2, 2016 8:28:16 GMT
I can remember the excitement of rushing home from school, knowing that a new episode of Captain Scarlet etc was on. I am sure it would have been the same for those viewing Fireball XL5 on its first broadcast. I never tire of that wonderful launch sequence for Fireball XL5 and then that stonking title music. Around the same time that Fireball XL5 was transmitted initially, there was a similar series called Space Patrol, made by an associate of Gerry Anderson, I believe, and I think that show also featured hover scooters. Good shout Ripper. I'd forgotten all about Space Patrol although I didn't see it at the time. There's a few youtube episodes which will now be on the watching list. I confess that after a few pints I am apt to break into the Fireball XL5 theme on stage despite no one being even slightly interested in it except me. Wow, never heard of this but Roberta Leigh seems to have been a precursor of Anderson. I knew about The Adventures Of Twizzle and Torchy the Battery Boy because they frightened the life out of me but this is magnificent: www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXn4z74Vxz0 |
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Post by pulphack on Aug 2, 2016 10:58:42 GMT
If you look down the sidebar on that page you'll see a pilot for The Solarnauts, which was the next Provis/Tovey project, and live action at that! Again, no series, but probably because they were too close to what Gerry Anderson was doing - it is fascinating to see how the ex-partners developed similar ideas - I'd say Gerry's team were more inventive in terms of story and character, which gave them the edge, but then again they had the space to develop (ha!) that Provis & Tovey didn't.
Edit - Roberta Leigh & Arthur Provis - who the hell is this 'Tovey' I was writing about? Where did I get that name from?? Quick google and I think I was getting mixed up with Roberta Tovey who was in some early Dr Who stuff. Apologies for the alzheimer's attack.
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Post by ripper on Aug 2, 2016 15:36:52 GMT
Looking at Fireball XL5 and Space Patrol together, it seems to me that the latter, though made for children, had a little bit more of an adult feel to it. Also, that electronic music must have been very unusual back in the early 60s. I had a Space Patrol annual when I was young, bought secondhand from a jumble or similar sale, I believe.
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Post by ripper on Aug 2, 2016 15:38:36 GMT
There were also strips of Space Patrol featured in TV Comic.
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Post by pulphack on Aug 2, 2016 17:01:13 GMT
That feel for adults was something that Anderson series only developed later on, and I think was probably very much to do with the writers who came on board then, the likes of Denis Spooner who had been working on ITC shows (and Dr Who, I think, in Spooner's case). I recently saw Crossroads To Crime, the first Anderson live action and a crime movie from the very early sixties. It's not very good at all (though not quite as bad as those taking part remember it on the extras) and shows that at the time he was making XL5/Stingray (which it bridges in years) his sense of story was still undeveloped in an adult sense - this would have been better as a children's film foundation story with the hero as a scholkid rather than a copper.
As for the electronic music - that must have been really unusual on TV back then. I love Barry Gray's music - the tunes of my childhood - but none of it was very otherworldly until the end titles for UFO!
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Post by ripper on Aug 3, 2016 6:03:26 GMT
I agree that the Anderson series got more serious as they progressed, 'The Secret Service' apart, which was so quirky. The humour which could be found in Fireball XL5 and Thunderbirds had mostly disappeared by the time Captain Scarlet was made.
As far as I am aware, the music for Space Patrol is entirely electronic. It reminded me somewhat of Forbidden Planet.
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Post by pulphack on Sept 13, 2016 4:48:51 GMT
Well, I shall have to get round to watching Space Patrol again on youtube as I picked up this months Shindig and it had a long piece on early electronic music in the UK, as there's a new book about it(www.tapeleaders.co.uk) which also has a cd in the package. Guess what someone's early Xmas present to themselves might be...
Anyway, it's a fascinating piece on how much of the early experimentation in the UK was carried out by men and women in garden sheds, cobbling together their equipment and having only demonstartions and talks about the equipment in church halls to actually show their work. The Radiophonic Workshop - great as it was - appears to have got an unfair amount of credit for their work simply because, being the BBC, it was broadcast and also saved in some way ('some' way - this is the BBC, after all) whereas those who got thier music on other film and tv found it mostly in ads or industrial training films. Apart from some library recording, that was about it.
But then there was Space Patrol. Definitely the first use of electronic music in a programme, as the first episode was boradcast in April '63 on ITV, seven months before Delia Derbyshire claimed credit with Dr Who (incidentally, why does everyone go mad about her? Is it just because she was a woman? And prettier than the more prolific Daphne Oram, whose first electronic pieces were in 1949 before she helped actually form the Radiophonic Workshop? A bugbear of mine, I'll admit).
Back to Space Patrol! The pioneer composer responsible turns to be a chap called FC (Fred) Judd, whose first book on the subject - Electronic Music And Musique Concrete - had come out two years before, and who travelled extensively lecturing and playing his taped music when not working on it in his home workshop in downtown Woodford! Now I have to find out where this was so I can stand outside (creeping out the contemporary residents, probably) as I happen to also be a resident of that sunny suburb! All this time and I never knew a pioneer lived here - where's his blue plaque?
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Post by ripper on Oct 23, 2016 15:17:54 GMT
Similar in concept to the 1970s series 'Shadows' was the 1983 anthology 'Spooky', which was followed by the more general single-play series 'Dramarama'. There were 7 episodes:
1. War Games with Caroline
2. The Exorcism of Amy
3. The Danny Roberts Show
4. The Ghostly Earl
5. In a Dark, Dark Box
6. The Restless Ghost
7. The Keeper
I can't recall too much about them, but episodes 2, 3 and 5 are the clearest, relatively speaking.
The Exorcism of Amy was quite disturbing and is narrated by a seemingly normal young girl. I have the feeling that it ends up that she is in some kind of secure unit for the mentally disturbed but I am not 100% on that.
The Danny Roberts Show was very creepy, with a DJ being haunted by a ghost or poltergeist as he is broadcasting and gradually losing it. Nicholas Ball played the DJ.
In a Dark, Dark Box was about a boy reading a poem who comes to realise that the box in the poem is the one that is at the foot of his bed.
Although I don't remember seeing it, I think The Ghostly Earl was based on the Ronald Chetwynd-Hayes story.
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Post by rawlinson on Oct 25, 2016 16:15:52 GMT
Spooky was actually released on dvd a few years ago by Network. It can usually be picked up quite cheap and it's definitely worth a look.
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Post by ripper on Oct 26, 2016 12:19:39 GMT
Spooky was actually released on dvd a few years ago by Network. It can usually be picked up quite cheap and it's definitely worth a look. Thanks for that. I may well buy it for myself as a Christmas present.  |
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Oct 26, 2016 17:01:19 GMT
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Post by ripper on Oct 27, 2016 12:18:21 GMT
Noggin the Nog was a perennial of summer holidays BBC morning TV for children when I was growing up, and thinking of the series always brings back memories of lazy warm days in July and August. It provided a gentle introduction to fantasy for the young.
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