Children’s TV in Wales
SUPERTED (1983-1986)
The brainchild of Barry-born animator Mike Young, SuperTed was the tale of a discarded child’s teddy bear visited by an space alien who grants it special powers with his cosmic dust.
The list of voice artists who brought the show to life read like a who’s who of ‘remember them?’ – notably late legends such as Victor Spinetti, Jon Pertwee, Melvyn Hayes, Derek Griffiths and Roy Kinnear.
Originally created by Young as a series of stories to help his son overcome his fear of the dark, SuperTed became a popular series of books and led to an animated series produced from 1983 to 1986.
An American-produced series, The Further Adventures of SuperTed, was produced by Hanna Barbera in 1989. The series also aired on The Disney Channel in the United States where it became the very first British animated series to air on that channel.
Young wrote and published over 100 SuperTed books, with illustrations done by Philip Watkins. Just after his first book was published, his wife suggested he should produce a stuffed toy version of SuperTed, which was done in 1980.
The process drew the attention of Warner Brothers, who in 1980 made an offer of £250,000 for the film rights. Young was determined to keep SuperTed Welsh, as he wanted to help create local jobs and prove that places outside London had talent. In 1981, S4C enquired about making SuperTed into animations, but Young decided to create Siriol Productions to produce the series himself. By November 1982 it had been sold to over 30 countries.
The story follows an ordinary teddy bear who, upon his creation at a toy factory, was deemed defective and thrown away into an old dark storeroom. By chance, he is discovered by Spotty, a visiting alien from the Planet Spot, who decides to bring the bear to life using his cosmic dust. Spotty then brings the now living teddy bear to Mother Nature, who gives the bear special powers, transforming him into SuperTed. Whenever trouble arises, SuperTed whispers his ‘secret magic word’ and transforms into a superhero adorned with a red suit, cape and rocket boots. As SuperTed and Spotty travel across the world, and sometimes even space, to help others in need, they find themselves up against the nefarious and greedy cowboy, Texas Pete, and his two henchmen; the overweight and bumbling Bulk and the cowardly and effeminate Skeleton, as he seeks to either rule the world or increase his own wealth.
SuperTed, along with Spotty and his sister Blotch, appeared in a Public Information Film sponsored by the Green Cross Code in 1986. The film, commissioned by the Central Office of Information, was entitled ‘Super Safe with SuperTed’, and featured the three characters being flown to Earth by SuperTed, in order to teach Spotty how to cross the road safely after he nearly gets killed by recklessly rushing across the road on the planet Spot (his home), to talk to his sister. The animated setting for the film was based on Castle Street in Cardiff city centre, Wales, with Cardiff Castle as a backdrop.
SuperTed was also turned into a stage show with Melvyn Hayes reprising his role. SuperTed’s popularity even led to the production of a line of vitamin supplements for children.
IVOR THE ENGINE
Ivor the Engine is a British cut-out animation television series created by Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin’s Smallfilms company. It follows the adventures of a small, green steam locomotive who lives in the ‘top left-hand corner of Wales’ and works for The Merioneth and Llantisilly Railway Traction Company Limited. His friends include Jones the Steam, Evans the Song and Dai Station, among many other characters.
Ivor the Engine was Smallfilms’ first production, and drew inspiration from Postgate’s World War II encounter with Welshman Denzyl Ellis, a former railway locomotive fireman with the Royal Scot train, who described how steam engines came to life when you spent time steaming them up in the morning. Postgate decided to locate the story to north Wales, as it was more inspirational than the flat terrain of the English Midlands. The storylines drew heavily on, and were influenced by, the works of south Wales poet Dylan Thomas.
Ivor the Engine was made using stop-motion animation, of cardboard cut-outs painted with watercolours. The series was originally made for black and white television by Smallfilms for Associated Rediffusion in 1958, but was later revived in 1975 when new episodes in colour were produced for the BBC.
The series was written, animated and narrated by Postgate. Firmin provided the artwork. The sound effects were endearingly low-tech, with the sound of Ivor’s puffing made vocally by Postgate himself. The music was composed by Vernon Elliott and predominantly featured a solo bassoon, to reflect the three notes of Ivor’s whistle.
Voices were performed by Postgate, Anthony Jackson and Olwen Griffiths. Jackson provided the voices for Dai Station, Evans the Song and Mr Dinwiddy.
The original black and white series comprised six episodes which told how Ivor wanted to sing in the choir, and how his whistle was replaced with steam organ pipes from the fairground organ on Mr Morgan’s roundabout. There then followed two 13-episode series, also in black and white. Black and white episodes were 10 minutes each.
In the 1970s, the two longer black and white series were re-made in colour, with some alterations to the stories, but they did not revisit the original six. The colour series consisted of 40 five-minute films. These would often each form part of a longer story.
Although the six original black and white episodes were subsequently released on video, the two longer black and white series (totalling 26 episodes) were not and for many years were thought to have been lost. In October 2010, however, film copies of all 26 episodes were discovered in a pig shed.
When the colour series was subsequently released on DVD, some of the episodes whose content linked, were edited together, with the relevant closing and opening titles and credits removed.
Six story books, based upon the TV series were published in the 1970s and were reprinted in 2006/07. As the books were published in the early days of political correctness, London Borough of Hackney Public Libraries banned the entire series because of the Indian elephant keeper, called Bani. They thought ethnic minorities might be offended by him.
BBC2 Wales revived Ivor for a series of promotional spots advertising their digital television channel 2W for Wales. Postgate and Jackson provided new dialogue for these spots.
Some of the artwork from production was put on display at the Rupert the Bear Museum, along with several other items from Smallfilm’s history. The Rupert Bear Museum is part of the Canterbury Heritage Museum in Stour Street, Canterbury.
FUNNYBONES
Funnybones is a British children’s television comedy series, which originally aired on S4C in Wales, and BBC One elsewhere in the United Kingdom from September 29 to December 15, 1992.
It was based on the eponymous series of nine storybooks and one triple storybook, by Janet and Allan Ahlberg, which were illustrated by André Amstutz, and focused on the adventures of a pair of skeletons who were the eponymous Funnybones. There was Big Funnybone (whose catchphrase was “Good idea.”), Little Funnybone (who was the brains of the group), (White, White) Dog (“These Bones”) Funnybone (whose catchphrase was “Woof.”) and (Black, Black) Cat (whose catchphrase was “Meow.”). Each of the show’s episodes was five minutes in length.
The voices were provided by popular Welsh comedian Griff Rhys Jones, who also sang the theme song as the Moon Man.
A BBC video, entitled, Funnybones – Bumps in the Night, which contained all 12 episodes, was released soon after the series ended, but is now out of print. The VHS tape was also released in Bulgaria and Australia respectively, by the companies Proxima Entertainment and ABC Video (in the former case, dubbed into Bulgarian).
FIREMAN SAM (1987-1994/2005/2008-)
More than 30 years after he began putting out claymation conflagrations, Pontypandy’s best-known member of the emergency services keeps going from strength to strength.
Recommissioned for a brand new generation of fans in 2008, ‘Sam Tan’ is more CGI these days, while his home village has relocated from the Valleys to the seaside.
Fireman Sam is a British animated comedy children’s series about a fireman named Sam, his fellow firefighters, and other residents in the fictional Welsh rural village of Pontypandy (a portmanteau of two real towns, Pontypridd and Tonypandy). The original idea for the show came from two ex-firemen from London, England, who took their idea to artist and writer Rob Lee who developed the concept, and the show was commissioned.
Fireman Sam first appeared as Sam Tân (Fireman Sam in Welsh) on S4C in 1987, and at the same time on BBC One. The original series finished in 1994, and a new series that expanded the character cast commenced in 2005. The series was also shown in Gaelic in Scotland. The series was sold to over 40 countries and has been used across the UK to promote fire safety.
The theme song was performed by Mal Pope in a classic rock style from 1987-1994, then by a different singer in a 2000’s alternative rock style after the 2005 new episode broadcasts.
Fireman Sam has been translated into over 25 different languages, including Mandarin.
The original series comprised 32 10-minute episodes and a 20-minute Christmas special. The narration and all the character voices were done by John Alderton. Fireman Sam is the main character of the show, and interacts with both colleagues at the fire station and fellow villagers. He is seen as somewhat of a hero in the village. Despite being so small, and with so little activity, the village sees its fair share of fires, which Sam and his team can easily handle. The villagers are bus driver/auxiliary firefighter Trevor Evans, Italian café owner Bella Lasagne, troublemaker Norman Price, Norman’s mother Dilys Price, and the twins Sarah and James Jones.
In 1988, the original series was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Short Animated Film.
In 2005, a new Fireman Sam series was produced by Siriol Productions for HIT Entertainment, comprising 26 episodes, each 10 minutes in length. These episodes used more modern techniques of stop-motion claymation, including mouths that move with the dialogue. This series featured all the original characters, but also introduced some new faces, such as Tom Thomas, the Australian pilot of the rescue helicopter Wallaby One. The characters in this series were voiced by John Sparkes, Joanna Ruiz and Sarah Hadland.
The series was revamped in 2008 which saw the show convert to CGI. Pontypandy was now a seaside fishing village instead of a village set deep in the hills, though most of the locations have retained their appearances.
The show saw its first feature-length movie, The Great Fire of Pontypandy, released to DVD and iTunes in 2010, and was shown in select cinemas.
Fireman Sam was adapted into a live musical theatre show, which began touring the UK in June 2011.
In 2015, the show’s second feature-length movie, Heroes of the Storm (also known as Ultimate Heroes in the US), was released.
Common Sense Media recommended the 2003 series for ages three and up, praising it for showing how to “stay calm in a crisis” and rely on a team to solve problems. The American website found that the “distinctly Welsh characters, community, accents, and expressions may pose some minor comprehension problems for kids on this side of the pond”, but considered it a useful example of life in another part of the world.
THE LIFE OF JOHNNY MORRIS, CHILDREN’S TELEVISION PRESENTER
JOHNNY MORRIS OBE was a Welsh television presenter, best known for his children’s programmes for the BBC on the topic of zoology, most notably Animal Magic and for narrating the imported, Canadian-produced Tales of the Riverbank series of stories.
Earnest John Morris was born in Newport, Monmouthshire, on June 20, 1916, the son of a postmaster. He learned to play the violin as a child and toured the valleys of south Wales, performing with his cello-playing father. Morris attended Hatherleigh School, Newport, and worked as a solicitor’s clerk, a timekeeper on a building site, a salesman and managing a 2,000-acre farm in Wiltshire for 13 years.
Morris was discovered telling stories in a pub by the then BBC Home Service West Regional producer Desmond Hawkins. Morris made his radio début in 1946, and featured in a number of regional series throughout the 1950s often employed on light and entertainment programmes as a storyteller, such as in Pass the Salt, or as a commentator on local events.
A natural mimic and impersonator, Morris first appeared on television as The Hot Chestnut Man, a short slot in which he was shown sitting roasting chestnuts. He would tell a humorous yarn in a West Country accent, often ending with a moral.
In 1960, he narrated the imported, Canadian-produced Tales of the Riverbank series of stories about Hammy the Hamster, Roderick the Rat, GP the Guinea Pig, and their assorted animal friends along a riverbank. The show used slowed-down footage of real animals filmed doing humanised things such as driving a car or boat, and living in houses.
In the 1960s, Morris also narrated books 1–11 of The Railway Stories in recordings of the Railway Series books by the Rev W Awdry. The recordings of the first eight books were re-released in LP format in the 1970s, but the other three sets of recordings were never reissued and in the end were re-recorded by Willie Rushton. During the 1980s he also recorded a few audiobooks of Sylvanian Families.
Morris’s ability to create a world which children could relate to through his mimicry led to his best-known role, that of the presenter, narrator and ‘zoo keeper’ for Animal Magic. For more than 400 editions, from 1962 until 1983, and with inserts shot at Bristol Zoo Gardens, Morris would carry out a comic dialogue with the animals, whom he also voiced.
His regular companion on the show was Dotty the Ring-tailed Lemur. When the idea of imposing human qualities and voices upon animals fell out of favour, the series was discontinued. Morris very rarely worked with spiders, having a phobia that he wished to keep from the public.
Morris carried over his comedic commentary technique into other programmes, such as Follow the Rhine, a BBC2 travelogue which included a witty Morris commentary featuring his companion Tubby Foster – actually his producer Brian Patten.
Follow the Rhine was based on Morris’s earlier BBC Radio 4 series Johnny’s Jaunts. These series chronicled not only the Rhine journey, but other worldwide journeys and were broadcast between 1957 and 1976. Included in this series were tales based upon his visits to such places as Austria, Spain, Hong Kong, Japan, USA, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, South America, South Sea Islands, France and even a cruise on the River Thames.
Morris was also vice-president of the Bluebell Railway in Sussex from its early days in the 1960s until the late 1980s, attending several anniversaries and landmark events over the first few decades of the railway’s existence. He also made two promotional LPs for the railway in the 1970s, one of which was released on the Discourses Label, Johnny Morris on the Bluebell Railway.
In the 1970s, Morris read children’s bedtime stories for the Post Office to be heard via the telephone. Children could dial 150 and hear a different story over the telephone each week. He was also a presenter on BBC Schools Radio’s Singing Together and wrote and read stories on BBC Schools Radio’s A Service for Schools which was later renamed Together.
In a nod to his role with Animal Magic, Morris also added his voice to the award-winning Creature Comforts series of electricity advertisements, created by Aardman Animations. These advertisements featured animated claymation animals speaking about their life and conditions in a way comparable to the dialogues that Morris had created in the earlier television show.
Morris was active in environmentalism, and in his 80s demonstrated against the building of the Newbury By-pass near his home. In June 2004, Morris and Bill Oddie were jointly profiled in the first of a three-part BBC Two series, The Way We Went Wild, about television wildlife presenters.
Morris was awarded the OBE in 1984. His autobiography, There’s Lovely, was first published in 1989. He died on May 6, 1999, aged 82.
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