Today, the death was announced of Grange Caveley, creator of the wibbly-wobbly animated show Roobarb and Custard, voiced by Richard Briers. So, in memoriam, a thread. Did R&C make it across the Atlantic to the USA?
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Not as far as I know, but we did get a significant amount of other British animation in the early days of Nickelodeon when they were scrambling for content. Bananaman and Simon in the Land of Chalk Drawings come to mind. Then a little later they picked up Danger Mouse and Count Duckula.
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Also, a few years ago when my daughter was still young enough to appreciate it, I discovered The Clangers on YouTube. What a lovely show.
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BEERRRRRRRKKKK!!! I loved The Trap Door, and Willie Rushton’s various voices matched the animation perfectly.
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All of Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin’s Smallfilms work is charming, and worth seeking out. They brought back the Clangers in 2015, with Michael Palin taking over narration duties.
There’s more than a hint of the Smallfilms style in Rastamouse. I think the creators must have been fans.
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I do remember seeing several of the Cosgrove Hall animations over here as a child.
Duckula and Danger Mouse both came on at some really odd inconvenient time, (like 7AM on a Sunday morning) which made them rather difficult to watch with any regularity, but I loved them regardless. With Duckula, I remember the first season quite vividly, but I don’t recall ever seeing the 2nd or 3rd until decades later when I picked them up on DVD.
PBS also ran their stop motion version of Wind in the Willows, though again, I think we only got to see part of the series, because I definitely didn’t see the final season or “Oh Mr. Toad” which came out in 1990.
Sadly, my favorite bit of Cosgrove Hall animation, Terry Pratchett’s Truckers, has never been shown in the US. It is utterly impossible to find the DVD as well, unless you own a region-free DVD player. I’m guessing Cosgrove Hall realized the idea of a children’s show that mocks the inherent silliness of organized religion would be a tough sell to U.S. audiences and might hurt the overseas sale of their other properties if the rabid fundies got wind of it.
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Truckers seems to be on iTunes. https://itunes.apple.com/gb/tv-season/terry-pratchetts-truckers/id702964163
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I wish it’d show up on Netflix with the “skip intro” button. Like the other two Terry Pratchett animations Cosgrove Hall did for Soul Music and Wyrd Sisters, the badly synthesized crumhorn theme music is embarassingly dated and bad enough to have to listen to once, but nobody should be forced to sit through it 13 times along with the accompanying 60 second recap for a 20 minute show. (And the DVD has lazy chapter marks so you can’t simply hit the “next” button to move on with the story.)
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Some of the kids shows I used to watch are: Playhouse Disney shows (The Book of Pooh, The Wiggles (seasons 1-5), Bear in the Big Blue House (my favorite out of everything), Shanna’s Show, Rolie Polie Ollie, Out of the Box, The Koala Brothers, and JoJo’s Circus), NHK Educational shows (I bet a lot of you guys never heard of it), Cartoon Network (I fell in love with their 90’s shows during its 20th Anniversary at the time), and a bunch of American and Japanese direct-to-VHS videos.
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One of my favorites, a Canadian kids’ show that came south-
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It’s the 50th anniversary of Zoom, a show I watched as a kid.
We’re gonna Zoom, Zoom, Zooma ZOOM!
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Used to love Stoppit and Tidyup as a kid. All the characters are named after things your mum says.
Button Moon. Surreal show with quite a charming aesthetic. Kitchen objects form the basis for a lot of the puppets and scenery.
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Teenage mutant hero turtles intro opener (VHS Capture) - YouTube (That last one is just to confuse the non-uk people)
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Of course British children’s TV didn’t mind scarring young minds with genuine terror either.
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They certainly don’t mind killing 'em off in bunches in British educational shorts.
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Didn’t Rifftrax do one of those at a recent (pre-lockdown) show?
“Little Billy is curious about the industrial meat grinder. Watch out, Billy! Well, goes to show…”
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Indeed! It may not have quite the body count of One Got Fat, but we never saw a monkey on a bicycle burst into flame.
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RiffTrax did one of the milder public safety films at their London show. Here’s more of the stuff we grew up on.
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I have vivid memories of seeing that at primary school, the class huddled around the one television in the school, while the local police constable with the coolest name ever, PC Pepper, warned us of the dangers of playing near electricity pylons. I remember little else about primary school, but I will never forget that lesson.
While not directed at children as such, here is my favourite British PSA:
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