Smallfilms is a British television production company that made animated TV programmes for children from 1959 until the 1980s. In 2014 the company began operating again, producing a new series of its most famous show, The Clangers, but it became dormant again in 2017, after production of the show was slightly changed. It was originally a partnership between Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin. Several popular series of short films were made using stop-motion animation, including Clangers, Noggin the Nog and Ivor the Engine. Another Smallfilms production, Bagpuss, came top of a BBC poll to find the favourite British children's programme of the 20th century.
Puppetry is a form of theatre or performance that involves the manipulation of puppets – inanimate objects, often resembling some type of human or animal figure, that are animated or manipulated by a human called a puppeteer. Such a performance is also known as a puppet production. The script for a puppet production is called a puppet play. Puppeteers use movements from hands and arms to control devices such as rods or strings to move the body, head, limbs, and in some cases the mouth and eyes of the puppet. The puppeteer sometimes speaks in the voice of the character of the puppet, while at other times they perform to a recorded soundtrack.
Peter Malcolm Gordon Moffett, known professionally as Peter Davison, is an English actor with many credits in television dramas and sitcoms. He made his television acting debut in 1975 and became famous in 1978 as Tristan Farnon in the BBC's television adaptation of James Herriot's All Creatures Great and Small stories.
A marionette is a puppet controlled from above using wires or strings depending on regional variations. A marionette's puppeteer is called a marionettist. Marionettes are operated with the puppeteer hidden or revealed to an audience by using a vertical or horizontal control bar in different forms of theatres or entertainment venues. They have also been used in films and on television. The attachment of the strings varies according to its character or purpose.
Basil Brush is a fictional fox, best known for his appearances on daytime British children's television. He is primarily portrayed by a glove puppet, but has also been depicted in animated cartoon shorts and comic strips. The character has featured on children's television from the 1960s to the present day. He has also appeared in pantomimes across the UK.
Tales of the Riverbank, sometimes called Hammy Hamster and Once Upon a Hamster for the Canadian version, is a British children's television series developed from a Canadian pilot. The original series was later broadcast on Canadian and U.S. television, dubbed by Canadian and US actors for the markets they were to be broadcast in.
Button Moon is a British children's television programme broadcast in the United Kingdom in the 1980s on the ITV network. Thames Television produced each episode, which lasted ten minutes and featured the adventures of Mr. Spoon who, in each episode, travels to Button Moon in his homemade rocket ship. All the characters are based on kitchen utensils, as are many of the props.
Andi Eleazu Peters is a British television presenter, producer, journalist and voice actor, currently employed by ITV and known for presenting Children's BBC, roles on breakfast TV shows Live & Kicking, GMTV, Good Morning Britain and Lorraine, and for hosting Dancing on Ice: Extra and The Big Reunion.
Pipkins is a British children's TV programme. Hartley Hare, Pig, Topov, Octavia and the gang were the stars of ATV's pre-school series which ran from January 1973 to 29 December 1981.
Ronnie Le Drew is a Canadian-born British puppeteer who was born in Toronto, Canada. He is best known for playing "Zippy" from the ITV children's show Rainbow since the early 1970s and trained at the Little Angel Theatre, London under John Wright. His association with the Little Angel spans over thirty years as performer, and later as director.
The DJ Kat Show was a children's television programme presented by the puppet DJ Kat and his friend Linda de Mol, the sister of Endemol founder John de Mol, which ran from 1 September 1986 to 31 December 1995. The show was first broadcast to Europe on satellite and cable channel Sky Channel and later on Sky One and Sky Europe. The show was aired every weekday morning and afternoon, and throughout its life was home to a particularly large number of imported animated series. A separate version of The DJ Kat Show was later created for the United States where it was aired on stations affiliated with the Fox Broadcasting Company, including WNYW, Fox's flagship station. This article focuses primarily on the original European version.
What's Up Doc? is a British children's entertainment show that aired on ITV on Saturday mornings from 5 September 1992 to 29 April 1995. It was hosted by Andy Crane, Yvette Fielding, and Pat Sharp. For the later part of the series, Jenny Powell replaced Fielding for the final part of the series.
Nigel Plaskitt is an English actor, puppeteer, producer, and stage and television director.
In the Night Garden... is a British preschool children's television series created, written and composed by Teletubbies co-creator Andrew Davenport for CBeebies and BBC Two and produced by Ragdoll Worldwide, a joint venture of Ragdoll Productions and BBC Worldwide. The show was aimed at children aged from one to six years old. The programme is narrated by Derek Jacobi. It is filmed in live action and features a mix of actors in costume, stop motion, puppetry and CGI animation. The characters include Igglepiggle, Upsy Daisy, Makka Pakka, the Tombliboos, the Pontipines, the Wottingers, the HaaHoos, the Ninky Nonk, the Pinky Ponk, the Ball and the Tittifers.
Gus Honeybun was the station mascot for Westward Television, and later Television South West, from 1961 to December 1992. A puppet rabbit, and star of Gus Honeybun's Magic Birthdays, he achieved a longevity for a TV puppet second only to the Sooty characters.
Johnson and Friends is an Australian live action/puppet children’s television program that originally aired on ABC from 3 September 1990 to 10 July 1997. It was produced by Film Australia and was created by Ron Saunders, John Patterson and Ian Munro. In the UK it was shown on TCC, CBBC, and then on UK Living's Tiny Living strand for under-fives. It was later aired in the United States with dubbed American voices as a part of The Fox Cubhouse, an educational children's anthology series on Fox Kids, between 1994 and early 1996. The series was last repeated on ABC1, with this run ending on 19 March 2002. The fourth series was produced in 1995 for Fox and was not aired in Australia until 1997.
Sooty is a British children's television media franchise created by Harry Corbett incorporating primarily television and stage shows. The franchise originated with his fictional glove puppet character introduced to television in 1955, with the franchises focused around the adventures of the character – a mute yellow bear with black ears and nose, who is kind-hearted but also cheeky, performs magic tricks and practical jokes, and squirts his handler and other people with his water pistol, including on other television programmes the guest stars on. The franchise itself also includes several other puppet characters who were created for television, some of whom became the backbone to performances, and features additional elements including an animated series, two spin-off series for the direct-to-video market, and a selection of toy merchandising.
A puppet is an object, often resembling a human, animal or mythical figure, that is animated or manipulated by a person called a puppeteer. Puppetry is an ancient form of theatre which dates back to the 5th century BC in Ancient Greece.
Hannah Kodicek was a Czechoslovakian actress active during the period 1977-90. Her most prominent role was as Irina in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. She went on to work in children's entertainment in Britain, including children's puppet performances such as Pullover (1982), Sporting Bear (1982), Hobart's Hobbies (1982) and Foxtales (1985), various other television programmes, and a website. She wrote a book on theatre for children in 1977.
Margaret Ann Gildart Jackson better known as Ann Hogarth was a leading British puppeteer. She, her husband and "Hogarth Puppets" toured the world. She is best known for her puppet Muffin the Mule, which was one of the first stars of early BBC television in the 1940s and 1950s. She and her husband created a large collection of puppets