Fireball XL5: The Vault

34 - My Own Vision/Invasion Earth

This is a chapter that is a little different that casts my own mind at looking how I would release certain forms of my own merchandise to my own design. This will be for the VHS/DVD/Blu Ray range and if any modern toy figures were to be released. As well as if any other stories had of been made, I would have used my own stories adapted for Fireball XL5 stories either if there was a continuation for the series or if a remake was spawned at any point. 

For the home media range, I will stick to the releases of when they came out (unless otherwise stated), but will otherwise say what special extras would be included and which episode appears on which volume/disc. With 29 episodes being released from 1991-94 on VHS, 10 episodes would have to wait until the era of DVD to be available to watch publically. 1 episode was included on a special VHS tape about ITC programs, so therefore I will include 11 episodes to be released by ITC left to issue. 28 episodes had been released in 6 VHS sets and 2 Fireball XL5/Supercar releases (excluding the Pocket Money video release). 2 more VHS sets I would have released of the remaining episodes to be released. They would be released at the same time in late October 1994, as well as the remaining episodes of Supercar releases, to coincide with the Anniversary of the series' start. The first tape would five episodes; The Robot Freighter Mystery up to The Day The Earth Froze, with the original TV ads at the start of the tape. The extra feature and extra episode advertised on the casette would be more appealing to buyers looking to get more out of buying the tape. The second tape would have the final six episodes of the series with the extra episode on the casette would have helped buyers get more out of the tape. The usual VHS adverts would appear at the start of the tape too. Perhaps, the two tapes could have been combined to form a bumper pack set with a two tape set with a total of 11 episodes, plus the original 1960s ads. This tape set would have been released, along with the other tapes of episodes, including the special Fireball XL5/Supercar releases in September 1996.

Along comes the DVD in 2003, released in America in early March but in the UK in October - bar exclusive DVDs featuring Planet 46. I'd have the release pushed forward to about the same time for the UK release as the American version. If the series was to have been released on VHS at the same time (by 2003 VHS tapes were becoming superseded with DVD), this would be my layout of the episodes, closely following the Stingray style batch of episode release. The tapes, whether they would have been released for October 2003 or an earlier release like March so the UK and US releases would be roughly at the same time, would have all included the tape layout below;

TAPE 1 - Episodes 1-4

TAPE 2 - Episodes 5-8

TAPE 3 - Episodes 9-12

TAPE 4 - Episodes 13-16

TAPE 5 - Episodes 17-20

TAPE 6 - Episodes 21-24

TAPE 7 - Episodes 25-29

TAPE 8 - Episodes 30-34

TAPE 9 - Episodes 35-39

A VHS box set would be available with all 9 tapes and a similar sort of cover and background to that of the DVD set and that of the other Anderson boxed set VHS releases. The episode titles would be on each side of the tape, with background about the series on the back as per the DVD, and the iconic colour image of Fireball XL5 blasting into space as the front cover around a planet. The UK Carlton DVD contained no special features whatsoever (bar subtitles and interactive Fireball XL5 style menus), so here is mine.

DISC 1; Episodes 1-7; Gerry Anderson commentary Planet 46, Memrobillia - TV21 Audio Album - Journey To The Moon (with description at the start of context followed by the album itself), The Noble Art Of Fireball XL5 featurette