Rex the Runt | |
---|---|
Genre | Live action Stop motion animation Clay animation Pixilation Comedy |
Created by | Richard Goleszowski |
Developed by | Aardman Animations |
Written by | Richard Goleszowski Alan Gilbey Kevin Wrench Andrew Franks David Max Freedman Andrew Viner Peter Holmes Ben Caudell Ben Seymour |
Directed by | Richard Goleszowski Dan Capozzi Peter Peake Christopher Sadler Sam Fell |
Creative directors | Peter Holmes Richard Goleszowski |
Voices of | Elisabeth Hadley Paul Merton Steve Box Arthur Smith Andrew Franks (series 1) Kevin Wrench (series 1) Colin Rote (series 2) Andy Jeffers (series 2) |
Theme music composer | Stuart Gordon |
Opening theme | "Rex the Runt" by Kevin Wrench Andrew Franks |
Ending theme | "Rex the Runt" by Kevin Wrench Andrew Franks |
Composers | Stuart Gordon Ben Jones |
Country of origin | United Kingdom Denmark France (series 1) |
Original language | English |
No. of series | 2 |
No. of episodes | 26 3 (pilots) |
Production | |
Executive producers | Michael Rose Peter Lord David Sproxton Colin Rose Paul Kofod Ulla Brockenhuus-Schack (series 1) Mikael Shields (series 1) Steve Walsh (series 1) Tom Van Waveren (series 2) |
Producers | Michael Rose (series) Jacqueline White |
Production location | Bristol |
Cinematography | Frank Passingham Fred Reed Andy MacCormack Chris Maris |
Editors | Ben Jones (dubbing) James Mather (dubbing) Jane Hicks Andrew Ward (series 1) Sheri Galloway (series 2) Tim Bolt (online) Nick Brooks (online, series 1) |
Running time | 10 minutes |
Production companies | Aardman Animations Egmont Imagination BBC Bristol EVA Entertainment (series 1) |
Original release | |
Network | BBC Two (1998–2001) BBC Four (2005) |
Release | 21 December 1998 – 16 December 2001 |
Rex the Runt is a stop-motion adult animated claymation pixilation comedy series, primarily consisting of a television show and two short films produced by Aardman Animations and Egmont Imagination for BBC Bristol, with EVA Entertainment co-producing the first series. Its main characters are four plasticine dogs: Rex, Wendy, Bad Bob and Vince. [1]
Rex was first introduced as a minor character in Ident (1989), a short film directed by Richard Starzak for the Lip Synch series. [2] During the seven years of development of the characters, Starzak produced three pilots, subtitled How Dinosaurs Became Extinct (1991), Dreams (1991) and North by North Pole (1996). [2] [3] [4] The 1991 pilots were unknown to the Aardman crew at the time, as Starzak created them during his free time. Because of this, the series wasn't pitched until the discovery of these shorts a year later, as the team found potential to turn these shorts into a full-fledged series. [5]
Thirteen ten-minute episodes of the series aired over two weeks on BBC Two from December 1998. [6] A second, thirteen-episode series aired from September 2001 on the same channel. As well as the core cast, guest voices included Paul Merton, Morwenna Banks, Judith Chalmers, Antoine de Caunes, Bob Holness, Simon Day, Bob Monkhouse, Jonathan Ross, Graham Norton, Arthur Smith, June Whitfield, Kathy Burke, Pam Ayres and Eddie Izzard.
The animation is unusual in that the models are almost two-dimensional and are animated to exaggerate this - they are flattened in appearance and animated on a sheet of glass with the backgrounds behind the sheet. This would be altered in the second series, as the models would become more three-dimensional.
Many one-off and recurring characters in Rex The Runt are voiced by various well-known UK celebrities. These include:
Several episodes of Rex the Runt contain inside references to other projects created by Aardman Animations:
All airdates are sourced from the BBC Genome. [7]
Series 1 was broadcast over the Christmas period of 1998, originally airing in the prime-time family slots, but after several outraged letters complaining about language and content in show, the last few episodes were burned off in later time slots. [8] Note:Episodes are ordered by their production number, not by their original air date.
# Production Number | # Broadcast Number | Title | Summary | Airdate |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 1 | Holiday in Vince | The Runts try to cure Vince of his Random Pavarotti Disease (a Tourette syndrome-like singing of phrases of opera) by miniaturising a submarine to go on a journey through Vince's brain. | 21 December 1998 |
2 | 6 | Adventures on Telly, Part 1 | After their television gets broken, the Telly Man wants them to cover for him while he is fixing the family's TV. First, they need to find money to start their adventure, which causes Bad Bob to Rob a bank. | 23 December 1998 |
3 | 7 | Adventures on Telly, Part 2 | The Runts are short of money again, and lend themselves to Dr. Dogg's animal experiments. NOTE: This episode is an expanded version of the pilot "North by North Pole". | 24 December 1998 |
4 | 8 | Adventures on Telly, Part 3 | After accidentally destroying the Earth, the Runts head towards a black hole. | 25 December 1998 |
5 | 2 | Bob's International Hiccup Centre | Bob loses his comic timing, so he turns to medicine. | 21 December 1998 |
6 | 5 | Easter Island | The Runts' helicopter crash lands on Easter Island, where they meet visiting aliens who resemble the local statues. | 23 December 1998 |
7 | 3 | Too Many Dogs | After Rex's house is stolen, the Runts go back in time to recover it, and meet parallel versions of themselves. | 22 December 1998 |
8 | 11 | The Trials of Wendy | Wendy is arrested after shooting Vince. After she is proven not guilty, she starts to make a name for herself, causing Rex the Runt to get cancelled by the Telly. | 30 December 1998 |
9 | 4 | Stinky's Search for a Star | The Runts enter a talent contest hoping to win enough money to pay the gas bill. | 22 December 1998 |
10 | 12 | Under the Duvet | The Runts visit the University of Love under their bed, while Vince falls in love with a vacuum cleaner. | 31 December 1998 |
11 | 9 | Johnny Saveloy's Undoing | Wendy joins Johnny Saveloy's following. | 27 December 1998 |
12 | 10 | The City Shrinkers | The Runts win Birmingham in the lottery. After shrinking it with their shrinking gun, Bad Bob and Wendy go on a city-shrinking craze. | 29 December 1998 |
13 | 13 | Carbonara | Rex is accidentally run through a sausage mincer, and must avoid the attentions of a hungry Vince. | 1 January 1999 |
Series 2 was aired between 23 September 2001 to 16 December 2001 on late nights. Each episode was then repeated the following Sunday, after CBBC on BBC Two.
# | Title | Summary | Airdate |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Mouse in Me Kitchen | Upon returning home, Rex finds that his kitchen has been occupied by a mouse. | 23 September 2001 |
2 | Wendy's Hot Date | Wendy gets a date with a handsome dog, who is also called Rex. | 30 September 2001 |
3 | Patio | The garden ants object when the Runts lay down a patio. | 7 October 2001 |
4 | A Crap Day Out | A new garden centre is opening, and Bad Bob needs a new shed. | 14 October 2001 |
5 | Slim Bob | Bad Bob consults Dr. Dogg about weight loss. | 21 October 2001 |
6 | Private Wendy | Vince, Wendy, Rex and Bob join the army. | 28 October 2001 |
7 | Rocket Raymond | The inhabitants of a distant planet believe that Rex is their hero, Rocket Raymond. | 4 November 2001 |
8 | The Plasticene Gene | Dr. Dogg cons Rex out of his ear, and later clones Vince. | 11 November 2001 |
9 | Wendy's New Hairdo | Wendy gets a Nobel Peace Prize nomination for her truth drug. | 18 November 2001 |
11 | Wayne the Zebra | With Rex on holiday, Bob is left in charge of a production involving "The Beast of Crannock Moore", but can his choice for the star character, Wayne the Zebra, fulfil expectations? | 9 December 2001 |
13 | The Art of Cooking | Bad Bob steals Rex's food creations and enters them in an art exhibition. | 19 April 2005 [lower-alpha 1] |
10 | Bob Joins a Gang | Bad Bob joins a not-so-bad gang. | 25 November 2001 |
12 | Hole in the Garden | Bad Bob's lawn mower crashes through the garden and lands in Australia. | 16 December 2001 |
These include:
As previously mentioned, Rex the Runt consisted mainly of two short films that were entirely animated by Richard Starzak during his free time. The animation from these shorts were very crude and bizarre, and featured different designs for the gang. At the time, the team at Aardman had never known about these films, and didn't discover them until a year later, as they found potential to turn these shorts into a series. [5] Each episode of the series cost $166,000. [9]
The show was originally going to be on Saturday Zoo as comedy skits for the show, the main idea being that it was "like a cartoon strip". Soon after, the BBC got interested in the series. From here, the episodes slowly got longer, until the 10-minute episodes that it eventually used. [5]
With help from the crew, a third pilot (North by North Pole) was produced as a pitch for the BBC in 1996, this time with much smoother animation and a plotline that would later define how the series was going to be. Parts of this pilot were incorporated into the episode "The Adventures On Telly, Part 2" due to the footage being expensive to reshoot. Unfortunately, other than a screenshot of the title card, the full pilot has yet to be released to the public as it is lost media.
The production of Series 1 began between late 1997 and early 1998. It was produced at Wetherell Place, Aardman's smallest studio space. The production office was on-site. A storyboard artist continually sketched boards for episodes to be shot later in the schedule, and there was a model-shop attached to the studio (where the models and props would be made). The unusual animation technique was laying the characters on top of a sheet of glass with the backgrounds behind the sheet (with the backgrounds being below the sheet, to show depth) angled away from the animators at 45 degrees. At any point, two to three episodes could be in production at any time, with each episode taking around four to six weeks to make. Some scenes, such as most of "The Adventures On Telly, Part 3" were filmed in front of a blue-screen to show a different background, such as space. The animation of Series 1 took 10 months, then went into post-production, and finally aired in December 1998.
The models did not use armatures due to of the strange form of animation, making them much easier to move around.
Underdog is an advertising character (voiced by Joe Pasquale), first appearing in 2010, animated by Aardman Animations, in the same style as the Rex the Runt figures, but wearing bandages, promoting the personal injury claims company National Accident Helpline. [10] [11]
Underdog also has a friend named Cindy
On IMDb, Rex the Runt received a rating of 7.9/10 from 367 users.
Rex the Runt was eventually popular enough to have its own merchandise. Some known items of merchandise include:
There were many things that never happened, due to the series ending so quickly. The series’ creator, Richard Starzak, hoped to be able to do the following: [5]
Wallace & Gromit is a British stop-motion animated comedy franchise created by Nick Park and produced by Aardman Animations. It consists of four short films, two feature-length films and has spawned numerous spin-offs and TV adaptations. The series centres on Wallace, a good-natured, eccentric, cheese-loving inventor, and Gromit, his loyal and intelligent anthropomorphic beagle. The first short film, A Grand Day Out, was finished and released in 1989. Wallace was voiced by actor Peter Sallis until 2010 when he was succeeded by Ben Whitehead. While Wallace speaks very often, Gromit is largely silent and has no dialogue, communicating through facial expressions and body language.
Aardman Animations Limited is a British animation studio based in Bristol. It is known for films and television series made using stop motion and clay animation techniques, particularly those featuring its plasticine characters from Wallace & Gromit, Chicken Run, Shaun the Sheep, and Morph. After some experimental computer-animated short films during the late 1990s, beginning with Owzat (1997), Aardman entered the computer animation market with Flushed Away (2006). As of February 2020, it had earned $1.1 billion worldwide, with an average $135.6 million per film.
Nicholas Wulstan Park is an English filmmaker and animator who created Wallace & Gromit, Creature Comforts, Chicken Run, Shaun the Sheep, and Early Man. Park has been nominated for an Academy Award a total of six times and won four with Creature Comforts (1989), The Wrong Trousers (1993), A Close Shave (1995) and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005).
Wallace & Gromit: The Wrong Trousers is a 1993 British stop-motion animated short film co-written and directed by Nick Park, featuring his characters Wallace & Gromit, and was produced by Aardman Animations in association with Wallace and Gromit Ltd., BBC Bristol, Lionheart Television and BBC Children's International. It is the second film featuring the eccentric inventor Wallace and his dog Gromit, following Wallace & Gromit: A Grand Day Out (1989). In the film, a villainous penguin, Feathers McGraw, posing as a lodger, recruits Wallace by using his techno-trousers to steal a diamond from the city museum.
A Grand Day Out with Wallace and Gromit, later marketed as Wallace & Gromit: A Grand Day Out, is a 1989 British stop-motion animated short film starring Wallace & Gromit. It was directed, animated and co-written by Nick Park at the National Film and Television School in Beaconsfield and Aardman Animations in Bristol.
Peter John Sallis was an English actor. He was known for his work on British television. He was the voice of Wallace in the Academy Award-winning Wallace & Gromit films and played Norman "Cleggy" Clegg in Last of the Summer Wine from its 1973 inception until the final episode in 2010, making him the only actor to appear in all 295 episodes. Additionally, he portrayed Norman Clegg's father in the prequel series First of the Summer Wine.
Morph is a British series of clay stop-motion comedy animations, named after the main character, who is a small terracotta-skinned plasticine man, who speaks an unintelligible language and lives on a tabletop, with his bedroom being a small wooden box. Morph was initially seen interacting with Tony Hart, beginning in 1977, on several of his British television programmes, notably Take Hart, Hartbeat and SMart.
Peter Duncan Fraser Lord CBE is an English animator, director, producer and co-founder of the Academy Award-winning Aardman Animations studio, an animation firm best known for its clay-animated films and shorts, particularly those featuring plasticine duo Wallace & Gromit. He also directed Chicken Run along with Nick Park from DreamWorks Animation, and The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists! from Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animation which was nominated for Best Animated Feature at the 85th Academy Awards.
Shaun the Sheep is an independent stop-motion animated silent children's television series which is developed by Aardman Animations. A spin-off in the Wallace & Gromit franchise, the series focuses on the adventures of Shaun, the eponymous sheep previously starring in A Close Shave, as the leader of his flock on an English farm. The series premiered on 5 March 2007 on CBBC in the UK, also airing on BBC Two. Since 2020, the series is streamed globally on Netflix. In March 2024, it was announced that the seventh series is in development and will premiere in 2025. With 170 episodes over 6 series, Shaun the Sheep is one of the longest-running animated series in British television.
Steven Royston Box is an English animator and director who works for Aardman Animations.
Richard Starzak, previously known as Richard "Golly" Goleszowski, is an English animator, screenwriter, and film director.
Wallace & Gromit: A Matter of Loaf and Death is a 2008 British stop motion animated short film produced by Aardman Animations and created by Nick Park. It is the fourth short to star the titular characters of the Wallace & Gromit series, the first one since A Close Shave in 1995.
United Kingdom Animation began at the very origins of the art form in the late 19th century. British animation has been strengthened by an influx of émigrés to the UK; renowned animators such as Lotte Reiniger (Germany), John Halas (Hungary), George Dunning and Richard Williams (Canada), Terry Gilliam and Tim Burton have all worked in the UK at various stages of their careers. Notable full-length animated features to be produced in the UK include Animal Farm (1954), Yellow Submarine (1968), Watership Down (1978), and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005).
David Bowers is an English animator, storyboard artist, film director, screenwriter and voice actor.
Christopher Sadler is a British animator, director and writer. He is primarily known for his work on Wallace and Gromit, Chicken Run, Rex the Runt, Cracking Contraptions, Creature Comforts and Shaun the Sheep.
Wallace & Gromit's World of Invention is a British science-themed miniseries, starring Peter Sallis, Ashley Jensen, Jem Stansfield, and John Sparkes, produced by Aardman Animations, which aired on BBC One during 2010, from 3 November to 8 December. The programme focuses on inventions based around various themes, and consists of live-action films interlaced with animated claymation segments hosted by characters Wallace & Gromit, featuring a side-plot connected to that episode's theme. While Sallis reprises his role as the voice of Wallace, live-action film segments were either narrated by Jensen or presented by Stansfield, with Sparkes providing the voice of Wallace and Gromit's unseen archivist Goronwy, a unique character for the programme.
Benjamin Whitehead is an English actor. He is best known as the current voice of Wallace in the Wallace & Gromit franchise following Peter Sallis' retirement and subsequent death.
Oscar and Friends is a New Zealand children's stop motion animated television series that aired from 1995 to 1996. The series was produced in Wellington, and was aimed at children aged 3 to 6. The series was produced by Gnome Productions Ltd., distributed by Southern Star Sales, and funded by NZ On Air and Southern Star Entertainment. Oscar and Friends has been screened all around the world including the UK (ITV), The United States, Australia (ABC), Taiwan, Germany, South Africa (M-Net), Argentina and Brazil.
Shaun the Sheep Movie is a 2015 animated adventure comedy film written and directed by Richard Starzak and Mark Burton. It is based on the British television series Shaun the Sheep, in turn a spin-off of the Wallace & Gromit film A Close Shave (1995). Starring the voices of Justin Fletcher, John Sparkes, and Omid Djalili, the film follows Shaun and his flock navigating the big city to save their amnesiac farmer, while an overzealous animal control worker pursues the group. It was produced by Aardman Animations, and financed by StudioCanal in association with Anton Capital Entertainment.
Aardman Animations is an animation studio in Bristol, England that produces stop motion and computer-animated features, shorts, TV series and adverts.