Charlie E. wrote:
> Doug Freyburger  wrote:
>
>>Lost in Space is fun and campy but was it really any more important than
>>Fireball XL-5 ...
>
> Well, Fireball was childrens TV, on saturday mornings IIRC. (Yes, I
> had a toy XL-5!)

Lost in Space was openly marketed to children when it was in first run. 
I remember that their marketing worked on me when I was a kid.  Some
show in addition to Star Trek!  By their fourth season even I lost
interest.

The fact that Lost in Space led the way to the funding for other series
is something I had not looked at.

Fireball XL-5 (I had a lunchbox back in the day) was a poineer of puppet
shows.  Maybe Supercar came before it?  Stingray was okay.  Thunderbirds
was enough of a franchise that it even got a feature film about a decade
ago.  The poineers series is about US TV.  I first saw all of the puppet
series on Canadian TV.
--- SBBSecho 2.12-Win32