Supermarionation Tuesdays: Fireball XL5!

Theme: Fireball - Barry Gray

Mommy rudely interrupts my sacred gaming time to ask if I want tendies. STUPID mommy shouldn't have to ask (2025, colourised).

Gerry & Sylvia Anderson's followup to Supercar began as space opera but largely lapsed into sitcom by the end. The adventures of space Chad & Stacy Steve Zodiac and Doctor Venus, backed by Robert the Robot (every relation to Robby) and Dr Beaker clone Professor Matthew Matic, were the stuff of every schoolboy's idle daydreams in the back of class, but for no clear reason the focus shifted overwhelmingly to side characters like Commander Zero, Lieutenant 90 (possible relation to the later Joe), and Zoony the Lazoon, who mostly bickered away in Space City (whence Fireball launched weekly on railtracks, at the trivial cost of its rocket-powered sledge, which sailed off a cliff).

A good gag would have been to reshoot just this shot with a mountain of these wrecked sledges poking up into frame whence they've accumulated at the bottom of the cliff. I'm in the mood for typing "whence" this week.

This was a tooty move if you ask me*, but those early episodes still slap. It's obvious the puppet-makers had great fun coming up with designs for Star Trekian ayylmaos, most of which were recognisably humanoid, like the Bogdanoffs here:

Whamen: this is what you actually look like when you get that buccal fat removal shit.

The Bogdanoffs prepare to give Venus the Goldfinger treatment.

But other designs were more wildly inventive, like the sinister PLANT MAN:

Oh no look out he's got a syringe! Note that the Plant Man built a model of the Space City tower out of Lego on his workbench. Aww.

Even though the space setting gives pretty much unlimited scope for stories, sometimes the team got bored and wanted to do another setting, like a circus or a western, so they just did. Matic invented a time machine just so they had a pretext for a western episode, which nodded heavily to their OG work, Four Feather Falls:

Sadly, they didn't rig up a squirty flower from a prank shop to the puppet's mouths so they could spit in a spitoon, so you'll just have to pretend they did.

Fireball also introduced a trend of dream episodes that allowed the creators to blow up all their key buildings and vehicles without having to permanently bum out and/or traumatise their little kid viewers, but if you're feeling mean you can always shut the TV off before the reveal so they think that's just how the series ended.

Now, son, what did we learn from the horrific 9/11ing of Space City? That's right: violent death can come for you at any time. Now, off to bed! You've got preschool in the morning.

*"Tooty" is space slang for whack/crazy in the show, and possibly in the 60s when it was made.

Greatest Album of All Time of the Week: Operation Mindcrime!

On the album art, Dr X resembles Lenin or Castro. In the "Eyes of a Stranger" video they cast a dead-ringer for Charles Manson, suggesting a deep insight into the parallel cult dynamics at play.

Queensrÿche might have ripped off "Comfortably Numb" with their shameless bid for radio play "Silent Lucidity", but I'd argue they own Pink Floyd's entire discography anyway because their signature album, 1988's audacious concept-driven Operation Mindcrime, mogs The Wall so hard in its sonic rampage through alienation, sex, drugs, guilt and radicalisation that it makes Geoff Tate legally Roger Waters' daddy. We could talk about the stellar sequencing of rapid-fire bangers or the insanely cinematic production, but it's the fact the psychological depth of the character study stays with you as long as the melodies that makes it both a 10 for album and for concept. Queensrÿche understand the process by which their resentful, TV-addled malcontent falls into the nihilism and murder of an antifa-type revolutionary movement, penning fever dream screeds as on point as they are incoherent to reflect his scrambled worldview. Compare and contrast how Nikki slips from jaded loser to fanatic to desperate renegade with the way Waters' Pink becomes a natzee because Waters wants you to know how much he hates le natzees and for not a reason more*.

It's no mistake that Nikki first asserts "Just watch the television/Yeah, you'll see there's something going on", then follows up with "I'm tired of all this bullshit/They keep selling me on TV/About the communist plan". Nikki is one of those super-sleuths we all know who's figured out that Fox News is propaganda but earnestly believes every word out of CNN. It doesn't matter nor occur to him that it's the same little box in his apartment selling him both lines: like Plato's cave-mates, he perceives only symbolic reality. He rejected his old conviction that "only America's way was right" and now rants and seethes about everything that he imagines is American in character, like a borderline engaged in splitting. He reveals the stark gulf between libtard self-delusion and actual character with lines like "Educate the masses/We'll burn the White House down".

I'm not even exaggerating when I say that Nikki is as well-observed and developed a protagonist as something out of Dostoevsky: the addictive personality that craves the needle and the dopamine rush from the confirmation of his delusional beliefs is both a plot point and a timeless, devastating metaphor. Nikki sneers at politicians and evangelists caught up in sex scandals but pitifully orbits a prostitute. His abjection feeds his narcissistic fantasies, with characteristic lack of insight: "Religion is to blame/I'm the new Messiah". He's a ticking time bomb and the perfect useful idiot for Dr X's scheme. But it's not just the lyrics that paint such a stark picture of this unhappy soul: there's a strange pseudo-harmonic effect at play between the plaintive angst of Tate's tormented vocals and the squealing guitar tone that buries any "oh, that's dated" brushoff of the classic metal operatic vocal style and guitar tuning; imagine a death or numetal band sounding half as raw with twice as rough production. That's right, you can't; retvrn.

*Waters now wants to stop the genocide in Gaza. Hey asshole, maybe you shouldn't have made ziolatrous agitprop for the boomer truth regime facilitating it? Food for thought, had you the palate.

Sword and Sorcery Tuesdays DOUBLE BILL: Deathstalker! and Deathstalker 2!

Theme: Deathstalker - Tower Hill

The original Conan, as written by Howard, might have seemed a tad amoral at times: he was variously a mercenary, conqueror, destroyer, pirate, thief, kidnapper, loiterer and public urinator, but he had his own code, as complex and inscrutable as it might have been. Deathstalker (whose name is actually Deathstalker) has no code whatsoever, overtly disdains the notion of heroism, and at one point tries to rape a woman who is actually a man transfigured by the villain's sorcery. This isn't really a problem, since the movie never pretends he's a good guy, but it's kind of funny just watching a complete asshole slash and burn his way through the typical hero plot beats.

Me to the suspiciously glowing egirls in my DMs.

The core of the story is a gladiatorial tournament, sort of like what you'd get in a Street Fighter game, only instead of M. Bison, the villain is Douchar the Magnificent, whose dickhead face tattoo switches sides in one of the more glaring continuity errors in flickstory, but no matter. Douchar (yeah, I forgot his real name. This ain't Ozu) brilliantly schemes to have the strongest fighters in the land off one another to remove any troublemaking competition to his reign.

Douchar looks like the world's #1 consumer of Doritos and XXL T-shirts with inverted pentagrams and Baphomets on them.

Sensing that our protagonist might be a tougher prospect to control than the rest, he troons out his sidekick with a spell to make him resemble the captive princess Douchar himself intends to wed, then sends him to Deathstalker's bedchambers to seduce him and stab him while his defences are lowered. It does not seem to occur to Douchar that promising Deathstalker his own betrothed in front of everyone makes him look like a literal cuckhold, nor that he probably could have simply recruited Deathstalker into his fold because Deathstalker doesn't give a shit about morality.

"GTFO tranny janny, YWNBAW" - Deathstalker. Personally I felt Raimi was just a little on the nose here.

Fortunately for Deathstalker, he realises something is amiss before actually raping the hapless stooge, but his lust interest (Lana Clarkson, Barbarian Queen) is not so lucky and gets rekt trying to comfort what she thinks is a distraught princess. At least she didn't get strapped to a rack or raped this time!

This could be us but you playin'.

You'd think her untimely demise would be the motivation for Deathstalker to win the tournament and avenge her on Douchar's face-tattooed ass, but instead our antihero forgets all about her and proceeds to fight-to-the-death his friend who betrayed him but had a change of heart and confessed his betrayal, which is sort of like if Hank Solo merked Lando Calamari in Revenge of the Jedi (based). Again, don't bother trying to discern a moral message from this; Deathstalker likes violence, simple as.

"I have the power!" - Kull the Conquerer.

Deathstalker II: Duel of the Titans (not to be confused with Clash Thereof) is less a sequel and more a lighthearted parody of the original, and of sword and sorcery flicks in general. It also has the classic B-movie trait of recycling random footage from its predecessor (and, I think, Amazons!).

"I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jests, of most exquisite fancy" - Hamlet.

John Terlesky replaces the much taller and rippeder Rick Hill and his version is more charming rogue than DGAF Gigachad meme. While this makes him and the movie more likable, paradoxically it also makes it less hilarious, because Deathstalker just doing whatever the hell he wants because he rocks the He-Man build approaches peak hilarity. But II is nonetheless a broadly charming comedy, and wins instant points with me because it actually does the maymay:

ebin XDDDD

Monique Gabrielle costars as the dubiously psychic princess, ousted by her evil twin, who nudges Stalker into saving the land from Evil David Bowie, fighting a checklist of guards, zombies and Amazons along the way, including this chick who is credited as "Queen Kong":

Happily, Mr & Mrs Kong were confident their little angel wouldn't have to worry too much about bullies making fun of her given name.

"Freak out in a sun-age night-dream ohh yeah" - Evil Bowie.

There's not a joke that isn't cornier than Centeōtl's stool, so the viewer's goodwill sinks or swims on the chemistry of the two leads. Fortunately, I'm about 90% certain these two were fucking IRL between takes, besides having so much more fun with the material than it warrants that they drag it up to 8/10 territory, vindicating yet again my conviction that casting Chads and Stacies and excising grimdark pretensions is just the most basic foundation necessary for entertainment to thrive.

You just know.

Deathstalker received at least two more sequels (presumably also in name only) but none of the cast seems to have returned for them and I don't get the sense they have the same cult following as the first two, but if I ever get around to watching them I'll throw out an update. Until then, do whatever it is you were planning to do anyway!

Supermarionation Tuesdays: Supercar!

Theme: Supercar - Barry Gray

Gamers will be shocked to learn that Supermarionation is not a strategy game starring Nintendo's Italianest plumber, but instead refers to a process of filming puppets in sci-fantasy action shows for kids' TV invented by Bri'ish madlads in the 1960s. While the most famous of these was Thunderbirds, the journey of refinement that led up to it saw various prototypes aired, including this week's showcase: Supercar!

What would you do for the flying car?

The premise is simple: German Professor Popkiss and Bri'ish Doctor Beaker have invented the titular vehicle, piloted by nominal protagonist Mike Mercury. All the Supermarionation protagonists had these space-age cool-guy names: Fireball XL5 had Steve Zodiac, while Stingray had Troy Tempest. None of the protagonists really did much except be easygoing Chads, except for Captain Scarlet, who was more of a sarcastic dick Chad. In fact, Mike Mercury barely did anything at all, since Supercar could be piloted remotely by the Professor. Nor had they quite figured out the Chad phenotype later modelled by the Tracy family marionettes: Mike had gap teeth, a gargantuan proboscis, and the browline of an archaic hominid.

Mike looking like he's about to club the Professor with a bone.

Just as Mike served as a prototype for later heroes, the Thunderbirds fan will see early sketches of stern-to-cantankerous patriarchs like Jeff Tracy and Commander Shore in the more genial Professor, and of stuttering savant Brains in Doctor Beaker, with his catchphrase "satisfactory, most satisfactory". "Don't have a cow man" it ain't.

Beaker rocks the world's most optimistic combover.

Another trend they wisely phased out in the later shows was the "cute" animal companion: Supercar's Mitch the Monkey begat Fireball's Zoonie the Lazoon, both of whom were more annoying than cute, though the fault always lay with their human costars, who would gift them free run of the labs and control rooms, which they would invariably trash. These were toned-down into the more endearing seal from Stingray, and finally dropped.

Science genius Doctor Beaker asserts authoritatively that Mitch is a chimpanzee, which is wrong. Chimpanzees have black fur, no tail, and are not known to make good pets or roommates, because they're insanely violent.

Another motif that made it as far as Fireball was the evil yet inept eastern bloc spy duo: in Supercar, Master Spy and his hapless sidekick Zarin; in Fireball Griselda and her hapless husband Boris. Master Spy followed the classic trajectory of recurring villains, at first being somewhat credibly menacing, but quickly becoming a joke after his failures began to stack up too high. Fortunately, the Supercar crew went easy on him: each appearance would end in his capture, but then they seem to have just let him go in between episodes, as he would always show up again later with a new whacky scheme.

A good way to subtly disguise yourself is to dress like a pirate from the neck up.

But the most perplexing thing about the show is that the opener has Mercury & co. rescue little Jimmy, Mitch, and Jimmy's pilot brother from a raft after they bailed out of their crashing plane, only for the older brother to disappear from the show, never to be mentioned again, while Jimmy and Mitch are basically adopted and tag along on missions for the remainder of the show. What became of Jimmy's brother? Did our heroes whack him and harvest his organs? Is he in Jon's basement with Lyman? You decide!

Lyman is still missing since his last sighting in 1983. If you have any knowledge of his whereabouts, leave a comment and subscribe to Heavy Metal Classic Albums on You Tube Dot Com.

While Thunderbirds was mainly focused on rescues and Captain Scarlet on stopping the Mysterons' schemes against Earth, Supercar alternated freely between rescues, treasure hunts, crimefighting and the surreal: the final episode concerned Mitch swapping places with a giant ape who played drums in a band he saw on television. While it's obvious that Supercar was more of a stepping-stone to greater things, it's still fun to revisit 470 years on. From these modest beginnings, Supermarionation was to reach heights still unmatched in small screen action entertainment.