Here Come the Double Deckers! | |
---|---|
Created by | Harry Booth Roy Simpson Glyn Jones |
Starring | Michael Audreson Gillian Bailey Bruce Clark Peter Firth Brinsley Forde Melvyn Hayes Debbie Russ Douglas Simmonds |
Country of origin | United Kingdom |
Production | |
Running time | 22 minutes (approx.) per episode |
Original release | |
Network | BBC1 |
Release | 1 January – 30 April 1971 |
Here Come the Double Deckers! is a 17-part British children's television series originally broadcast in 1971 on BBC1, revolving around the adventures of seven children whose den was an old red double-decker London bus in a scrap yard. The programme made its US debut on 12 September 1970 at 10:30 am ET on ABC. The entire series was released on DVD in the UK on 1 November 2010.
A co-production between British independent film company Century Films and 20th Century Fox Television, it is a children's adventure sitcom. The shows (without adverts) are about 22 minutes in length.
The programme made its US debut on 12 September 1970 at 10:30 am ET on ABC, and began in the UK at 4.55 pm on 1 January 1971 on BBC1. In the US, the series was repeated on Sunday mornings on ABC from 12 September 1971 to 3 September 1972, in the same time slot. [1]
The series was repeated in the UK during the early 1990s on a number of ITV companies. [2]
Each week saw the gang in a separate adventure, including episodes based around a runaway homemade hovercraft, a chocolate factory and invading 'Martians' with guns that shoot out chocolate candy, a disastrous camping holiday, collecting tin foil for a guide dog, becoming pop moguls with their protégé 'The Cool Cavalier', and a haunted stately home.
Some of the cast were unknown, though Melvyn Hayes was an established adult actor, Gillian Bailey was fairly experienced for a child actor and both Brinsley Forde and Michael Audreson had appeared in The Magnificent Six and a Half , a series of Children's Film Foundation films on which the Double Deckers were based. Hayes also wrote the episode "Man's Best Friend", co-wrote the episode "Get a Movie On!", co-wrote the series' theme music, and acted as a dialogue coach for the series. Bailey went on to become head of the drama department at Royal Holloway, University of London, and as at July 2023 is Professor of Women's Performance Histories at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London. [3] Peter Firth has gone on to a prominent acting career, appearing in Equus , The Hunt for Red October , Tess , Pearl Harbor and Spooks (known in some territories as MI-5). Co-star Brinsley Forde later became the lead singer in Aswad.
The series was originally scheduled for 26 episodes (as well as a second series of 26 additional episodes), but production ceased after 17 had been completed.
Music played a prominent part in the programme, with an original soundtrack sung by the cast and written by Harry Booth, Melvyn Hayes and Johnny Arthey. The music was composed and directed by Ivor Slaney. An 11-track album of this was issued on Capitol Records in 1970 and re-issued as a CD in 2007 with liners notes by David Noades. [5]
The programme made its US debut on 12 September 1970 at 10:30 am ET on ABC, and in the United Kingdom began at 4.55 pm on 1 January 1971 on BBC1. In the US, the series was repeated on Sunday mornings on ABC from 12 September 1971 to 3 September 1972, in the same time slot. [1]
The series was given a repeat in the United Kingdom during the early 1990s by certain ITV companies. [2]
In the United Kingdom, Here Come the Double Deckers was released in November 2010 by Second Sight as a two-disc Region 2 DVD set containing all 17 episodes. All the episodes are presented as originally aired. The set also includes a special feature, Double Decker Memories, featuring interviews with Brinsley Forde and Michael Audreson.
Children's comic Whizzer and Chips ran a "Double Deckers" cartoon strip from 22 May 1971 until 13 May 1972.
Debbie Russ appears as herself/Tiger in the comedy film Go for a Take (1972), which was directed and co-written by Harry Booth. The film stars Reg Varney and is set in a film studio. Evidently, Here Come the Double Deckers is one of the shows in production within the fiction of the film. [6] Unfortunately the original stuffed tiger prop had been lost shortly after filming had been completed on the series, so a lookalike had to be used. Tiger makes the reference of the character "Brains". [7] Production was at Pinewood Studios and on location.
Prior to Here Come the Double Deckers, Century Films produced a film serial for the Children's Film Foundation called The Magnificent Six and 1/2 . The series was very similar to the Double Deckers, and essentially acted as a blueprint for the latter. Like the Double Deckers, Six and a Half centred on the adventures of seven children, who had similar personalities to the characters in Double Deckers. Many of the crew members from the Six and a Half series also worked on the Double Deckers, including producer Roy Simpson, director and writer Harry Booth, writer Glyn Jones, and choreographer Arnold Taraborrelli (who designed the title cards for Six and a Half). In addition, future Double Deckers cast members Brinsley Forde and Michael Audreson were among the stars of Six and a Half, and Melvyn Hayes appeared in a few episodes. Six and a Half also featured several gags and plotlines that would later be reused in Double Deckers.
Scooby-Doo is an American media franchise owned by Warner Bros. Entertainment and created in 1969 by writers Joe Ruby and Ken Spears through their animated series, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, for Hanna-Barbera. The series features four teenagers: Fred Jones, Daphne Blake, Velma Dinkley, and Shaggy Rogers, and their talking Great Dane named Scooby-Doo, who solve mysteries involving supposedly supernatural creatures through a series of antics and missteps, while traveling using a brightly colored van called the "Mystery Machine". The franchise has several live-action films and shows.
The Brady Bunch is an American sitcom created by Sherwood Schwartz that aired from September 26, 1969, to March 8, 1974, on ABC. The series revolves around a large blended family of six children, with three boys and three girls. After its cancellation in 1974, the series debuted in syndication in September 1975. Though it was never a ratings hit or a critical success during its original run, the program has since become a popular syndicated staple, especially among children and teenage viewers.
Alias Smith and Jones is an American Western television series that originally aired on ABC from January 1971 to January 1973. The show initially starred Pete Duel as Hannibal Heyes and Ben Murphy as Jedediah "Kid" Curry, outlaw cousins who are trying to reform. The governor offers them a clemency deal on two conditions: that they keep the agreement a secret, and that they will remain wanted fugitives until the governor decides that they should receive a formal amnesty.
Michael Brandon is an American actor. He is known for his role as James Dempsey in the British drama series Dempsey and Makepeace (1985–1986) and narrating the U.S. dub of the children's television series Thomas & Friends (2004–2012). His theatre credits include the original Broadway production of Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie? (1969), and Jerry Springer in the West End production of Jerry Springer: The Opera (2003–2004).
SuperTed is a Welsh superhero animated television series about an anthropomorphic teddy bear with superpowers, created by writer and animator Mike Young. Originally created by him 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 1982 to 1986. An American-produced series, The Further Adventures of SuperTed, was produced by Hanna-Barbera in 1989. The series was the first British animation acquired by the American based Disney Channel.
Melvyn Hayes is an English actor and voice-over performer. He is best known for playing the effeminate Gunner "Gloria" Beaumont in the 1970s BBC sitcom It Ain't Half Hot Mum, for appearing in the Cliff Richard musical films The Young Ones, Summer Holiday and Wonderful Life as well as Here Come the Double Deckers (1970–1971).
Brinsley Forde MBE is a British singer and actor of Guyanese parentage who is best known as the founder member of the reggae band Aswad and as a child actor in the children's television series Here Come the Double Deckers! (1970–71).
Gillian Bailey, also known as Gilli Bush-Bailey, is a British actress and professor.
Robots named Robert, Robbie/Robby, Rob, and the like, reflect an alliteration trope in science fiction in which robots are given names starting with the letter "r", and particularly with the phoneme "rob". Isaac Asimov noted this in-universe in the short story, "Christmas Without Rodney", in which a character says: "There's no law about it, but you've probably noticed for yourself that almost every robot has a name beginning with R. R for robot, I suppose. The usual name is Robert. There must be a million robot Roberts in the northeast corridor alone". This trope has appeared not only in the English language, but also in languages such as German and Russian. Robots named following this trope include:
Michael Audreson is a British actor who appeared in films and television shows in the 1960s. He was in the 12-episode Children's Film Foundation series The Magnificent Six and a Half before playing the bespectacled "Brains" in Here Come the Double Deckers (1970–71). In the film Young Winston (1971) he played Winston Churchill as a schoolboy.
Harry Booth is an English film director, film producer, screenwriter and editor. He began his film career in 1941.
Go for a Take is a 1972 British comedy film starring Reg Varney and Norman Rossington, directed by Harry Booth. The screenplay was by Alan Hackney.
This is a list of British television related events from 1979.
This is a list of British television related events from 1978.
This is a list of British television related events from 1975.
This is a list of British television related events from 1974.
This is a list of British television related events from 1970.
This is a list of British television related events from 1967.
The Magnificent Six and 1/2 was a British comedy film series for the Children's Film Foundation. Based on Hal Roach's popular Our Gang series of shorts, "Six and 1/2" followed a group of seven children on their fun misadventures. Created by Harry Booth and Roy Simpson, the series ran in cinemas from 1968 to 1972, with three series and eighteen half-hour episodes in all. Following the first two series, Booth and Simpson decided to bring their children's series to television, eventually creating a very similar series called Here Come the Double Deckers!. The final "Six and 1/2" series was produced by a different company and featured an entirely new group of children in the cast.
Neasa Hardiman is an Irish director of both fiction and nonfiction, predominantly known for her television work.