XL5 is for Firkin' Great Fireball!

So I bought myself a Christmas present last year, which I've been meaning to Blog for a while, it's missing a piece and needs a bit of work, but it was missing two pieces until Chris Smith kindly sent me the more important one!

Probably one of the best-wrapped parcels I've ever taken delivery of, and it's come from the other side of the pond, while all those pictures of piles of rain-soaked Christmas mail were in the tabloids last year, it actually arrived on 2nd February, so in the end it was a late-Christmas present, but given everything else which was going on at the time, a blessed relief from the grim realities of everyday life!

MPC Steve Zodiac's Fireball XL5 Space City playset; the box is a bit faded and the lid's crushed down the front panel, but that's how I got it for somewhere between a quarter or a tenth of what they normally go for, or less, I'm not telling you but I've seen them (good ones) over $2,000 and I only paid a fraction of that . . . phew!

The card control tower/space HQ building seems to be all there, and was buildable, but the paper ring which separates the two discs of the base tore while I was trying to put it together for this post, so I will have to reinforce it on the blank-side and do that shot another day, also the tower itself has been discoloured by miles of Sellotape (other sticky-backed plastic tapes are available), which wasn't needed and has been removed (by me) to no other detrement?

Fuel tanks, before and after cleaning; both marked "XL FUEL", and looking like some fancy holder for picnic hard-boiled eggs in a mail-order catalogue circa 1975! A use for which they are ideally suited!

The artwork shows one, split in halves, sat flat on the ground but there is a stud-and-hole joining system, so they are meant to be fully-rounds?

The mini XL1 and transporter/low-loader truck, the cab-unit having some of the lines of the old M25 'Dragon Wagon' tank-transporters or M65 'Atomic Cannon' road-train. My first piece of luck (if I hadn't already got extra fuel tanks) was getting two XL1's in the box, this may be standard (I have seen another set with two silver ones), but only one is listed in the contents?

I also got two launcher sleds, and it took me a while to work out what they are (check the box-lid!), I still haven't worked out exactly how they work, but suspect it includes at least one elastic band of the heavier type? I only have one of the slip-in bars however, and they are clearly important! In addition to the sliding-bar, there is a swinging arm which folds/unfolds under the sled and if anyone can furnish me with a scan of the instructions I'd be very grateful.

I suspect the folding arm [folded under] is somehow attached to the sliding arm and fires at the end of the ramp (below), but it may be the other way round and it starts folded-up, then the sudden folding-under releases the slide to launch? Because I sent some of these shots to other people in the hope of ID's, I included the blue bit, but it's job became clear . . .

. . . once I had studied the mini interceptor-satellite launcher. Which is a dressed-up version of a common toy of the era, you could find micro-versions in gum-balls, simple versions were given away on comic-books and there were fancy space-pistols which fired the same discs.

The one item I am still missing for certain (beyond elastic launch consumables!) is a three-stage rocket (Ed Berg at 'Toys & Stuff' Blogged them here) for the red tower, and I will have to look out for a loose one going unloved in a mixed-lot of cheapie-shite sometime!

Space car, before and after cleaning; the whole set was pretty grimy, which was a second factor (after the tatty box) in its low BIN amount, but two minutes in the sink brought everything back to 'made yesterday', at which point all the red stuff became bloody-hard to photograph! The two figures in the next image can be used with this car.

Venus on her Jetmobile, Steve (coutesy of Chris Smith) is still waiting here at home to be reunited with his, it having gone to the storage unit a while ago, they should have matching ariels, I used dressmakers pins, but will try making some from colour matched-runner one day. I saw a couple of complete ones on the same stall the Clifford space set came from, at September's Sandown Park toy fair, but they were silly-money!

Also a comparison with one of the smaller pair of Jetmobile's stowed in the front section of Fireball XL5 itself.

Which - the front section - is called Firball Junior! And this is he, well; I don't think Fireball is a terribly feminine name? Compared to the two red plastic XL1's (and the TV originals) scale is all over the place with the main component, or 'star' of the set, due in no small part to the facts that A) an in-scale ship would need a box at least a foot longer if not two-feet, and B) would be more prone to breakage, right across the middle!

Fireball Junior has a sliding door in the roof, and both the smaller-scale crew figures and the pair of Jetmobile's can be removed for play - presumably at the destination of flights round the garden/yard, as there are larger figures for play back at the Space City site!

You can see the third reason for a cheap purchase price is the state of the stickers and some pretty-crude painting, but the painting can be removed and/or redone, and there are options for the stickers too. Meanwhile 'Junior' has all eight fine jet-vents intact.

There is also a fold-down landing skid under the cockpit, which is a tad loose on my example, but when I strip down for paint-removal, I'll try to prize it all apart and in the rebuilding will ensure everything is as tight as it was originally.

The rest of the beast, or the 'main hull', again paint and stickers! They only painted one of the outer tail-fins? Anyway, again it can all be sorted, and it'll be the subject of a proper 'project-video' once I am settled in wherever I end up!

All the stickers are in a bag (including those seen on the machine in this post - I had a stripping session after the last shots were in the bag! There are sellers offering sets of new stickers on feebleBay, but I might try either resurrecting these with clear matt varnish (as an under-glue and over sealant), or even making my own from scans of the survivors, they are all present, but you could produce a set with mirroring if you only had one of each?

You can also see some damage to the left outer fin, but again both pieces are present and it's a simple mend I could have done for the photographs, but as the plastic will need buffing after the gloss red and yellow is removed, I might as well wait - and do it all as one project.

Finally - problem wise - the missile launchers have got so old, they fire themselves! Unlike the spring-catch versions of these (which we saw here), the MPC ones are designed to be fired by hand, so they have a longer tab at the back-end which you flick across to fire, but the polyethylene of both the tab - and a plastic tag to hold them in-place before firing - have warped with age and now slowly fail while you are trying to get the shot in focus, they just sigh-away from each other and the rocket goes off like an over-excited virgin if you know what I mean! I doubt hot-water will solve the problem in the long-term, but I will try it as part of the restoration-project.

Launch-activity on Moon 57, Solsys 12, Quadrant 9, Sector 25, but then you recognised it, didn't you? The one piece I still have to work-out fully; the launch-ramp. You can see a catch at the end of the ramp (about two inches short of the buffer-plate) and between it, the existing spring (in the box at the other end) and the two bars; one sliding and one folding, there is a mechanism for launching the diminutive XL1's to the other side of the park!

Hard to photograph in low Autumn sunshine, as if it's flying, without an assistant, but hopefully you can use you imaginations where my photo-journalistic skills have failed! It's a Big Bloody Beautiful Bastard (to quote Ozzy Man) of a toy, and by the time I've cleaned it up, fixed a few jinks and ironed the box flap; it might be worth the $2k I didn't pay for it!

Which finally brings us to the figures! A toy soldier blog ought to have a few figures from time to time! As well as the two-pairs of seated Zodiac/Venus figures in different sizes, we get six standing characters, as above (seen elsewhere before), and a handful of MPC's spacemen, I haven't bothered showing them as if you need to know what they look like, you need another hobby! Joking, I will 'box tick' them one day, but they aren't that interesting and I put them with the rest back in Feb'!

I got about 25/30-odd, of which around half were gold (brighter than the three characters above), the rest were the red, white and blue ones, except there were no white ones, but there were orange ones instead!

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Now, it happens I showed the Jetmobile with Venus on a Faceplant group back a few months, and followed up with the above picture a few weeks later, since when TJF has managed to mention them on his blog three times! Not only mention them but get some pictures from the other side of the pond, taken by someone else, on the second occasion! Three times, in less than three months . . . to my knowledge, he's never previously mentioned them . . . at all, ever!

The last time I had to respond to Stadinger's  nonsense, I suggested his behaviour (on that occasion) pointed to serious insecurities, and this, latest, is only confirmation of that, such inadequacies need professional therapy, not sycophants!

I mean I get that some Americans 'rate' these, the online prices are enough to convince, but actually they just aren't that rare, there were three or four different sets, from this big one with everything, to a smaller window box, with only a few figures and the car - I think, I could look it up, but that's not the point, the point is, he could have mentioned them at any point in the last 18-odd years, mentioning them three times after I've just shown them - it's as obvious as snow in August? "I can be him too!"

He's declared himself a legend twice, in recent years, yet publicly follows me, copies what I'm doing, trying to 'best' me, or be me? What does that make him . . . my fucking shadow, that's what! Again; the other night, trying to score points with that Avengers video-link? No one cares how many Herald there are, they are as common as cow-muck on a cow-farm! That's a dairy Hugh.

The Marx tank had nostalgia-value and the Airfix both a rarity-premium and the interest of the converted figure, so I highlighted them, in a 'bit of fun' link, it was meant to be a bit of FUN! But blinded by his insecurities he thought he'd score some Brownie-points by solemnly stating the bleeding-obvious!

He then went away and spent 24hrs researching a TV series so he could go back the next night and post more 'snippets' on a link everyone had lost interest in, because he'd already ruined it with his pompous arsery and which wasn't mean to be taken so seriously to begin with!

I don't comment on his group-posted-stuff (oh, once maybe), he should try to learn to attempt to ignore mine; he's leaving it very late in life to grow-up and get-a-grip. Sigh!