Wednesday, March 14, 2007

I wish I was a spaceman ...

My own personal theme song has always been Barry Gray's end-title music for the 1963 British TV series Fireball XL5, produced by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson. It's one of the songs I'll sing at the drop of a hat at parties. And finally it is getting the recognition it deserves: the latest edition of the Penguin Television Companion has named it the #2 greatest theme song of all time.

Most US viewers won't likely know it, but Brits (and Canadians of my generation) certainly do. Interestingly, the HBO series From the Earth to the Moon used it as the theme music for one episode, too (the episode "Spider," about the designing of the Lunar Module).

You can hear it here. The composer is Barry Gray; the vocalist is Don Spencer.

The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site


3 Comments:

At March 15, 2007 6:19 AM , Blogger Lou_Sytsma said...

Ha! That sure brought back some memories! I remember getting the Fireball XL5 launcher one Christmas where the ship would, like in the show, ride a booster down the rails and then be launched into the air.

One of my all time favourite Christmas presents.

Besides this one and Thunderbirds, I really enjoyed Captain Scarlett and the Mysterions. SuperCar and Stingray were watched too.

 
At March 19, 2007 10:56 AM , Blogger Fred Kiesche said...

Dang. Where did you get that wonderful screen shot of the XL5 going into orbit?

I'll have to put that DVD set on my wish list!

 
At March 19, 2007 11:38 AM , Blogger RobertJSawyer said...

Many of the cool images I use in my blog are just links to images elsewhere on the web; I find them using Google images. Just go to http://google.com and select "images."

 

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