This article needs additional citations for verification .(January 2017) |
Toonattik | |
---|---|
![]() | |
Presented by | Jamie Rickers, Anna Williamson |
Starring | Nigel Clarke David Oliver Anna Kumble Laura Hamilton |
Country of origin | United Kingdom |
Original language | English |
Production | |
Production locations | London, England, United Kingdom |
Running time | 120 minutes (includes adverts) |
Production company | GMTV (CITV) |
Original release | |
Network | CITV (GMTV) |
Release | 5 February 2005 – 26 December 2010 |
Related | |
Action Stations! (2006–2010) The Fluffy Club (2008–2010) |
Toonattik was the flagship children's strand of the British breakfast television station, GMTV (known on-air as CITV at weekends), which ran from 5 February 2005 to 26 December 2010. The strand aired on weekend mornings from 07:25 (sometimes at 07:20) until GMTV's closedown at 09:25, featuring a selection of both British and imported cartoons, mainly from brands such as Disney, Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network. [1] It was presented by Jamie Rickers and Anna Williamson before being out-vision from 15 May to 26 December 2010.
Toonattik launched on 5 February 2005 as the new children's weekend morning slot on GMTV, featuring a mix of imported cartoons for ages 4–12. The slot was originally split into two, with the first half featuring pre-school programming with out-of-vision continuity, and the second half featuring shows for older children, which featured in-vision continuity links provided by Jamie Rickers and Anna Williamson. Initially the show relied heavily on phone-in competitions. After a few months on-air the slot was split into two, each adopting their own individual branding to separate the age categories. The pre-school slot for ages 0–6 became known as Wakey! Wakey! (later replaced by The Fluffy Club in 2008), with the 7-12 slot using the Toonattik name. The relaunch focused more on audience participation, with the presenters showcasing drawings and letters sent in by the viewers.
Four months later, when Toonattik was revamped, each week Rickers and Williamson would lead teams of boys and girls in a battle of the sexes, playing various games to earn as much points as they could, a format later adopted by Holly and Stephen's Saturday Showdown in 2006. Viewers had the chance to send in suggestions for games, these were pulled from a special chest named the "Challenge Chest". Then the final game would be randomly chosen by the "Golden Wheel of Twizzle", and a spin of the "Toonattik Twizzler" would determine which of the two presenters would be playing that game. At the end of each show the losing team would receive a 'pie in the face' from the winners.
A new Toonattik website was created by 4T2 and launched in late January 2006, allowing viewers to play virtual versions of their favourite "Toonattik Twizzler" games, as well as send emails to Rickers and Williamson, read about their favourite cartoons and unlock bonus content by entering a secret code word revealed at the end of each show.
On 12 March 2006, ITV began simulcasting Toonattik on the CITV Channel, allowing younger Sky Digital, Virgin Media and Freeview viewers to access the show through the children's section of the EPG for the first time. Also, the EPG showed details for the programmes broadcast during the Toonattik time slot, instead of merely saying Toonattik.
A Toonattik board game was produced by Character Options Ltd in 2007.
On 6 March 2010, it was reported that Toonattik presenters Rickers and Williamson would be made redundant, [2] as part of ITV plc's buyout of Disney's 25% share in GMTV (since renamed to ITV Breakfast). They presented Toonattik together for the last time on 9 May 2010, which featured a big song finale at the end. Soon after their departure, Jamie & Anna were hired to work for Nickelodeon. From the following weekend, the slot relaunched with out-of-vision presentation, this remained until its eventual axing at the end of 2010. From 15 May to 26 December 2010, the programme was hosted by the animated characters named the "Toonteam" (Bizzle, Hobson, Cocker3, Donk, Pat, Ni-No, Brian and Poop Dog), in place of Rickers and Williamson. On 18 January 2014, children's in-vision presentation during the ITV Breakfast slot at weekends returned in the form of Scrambled!.
Action Stations! was the flagship children's strand of the British breakfast television station, GMTV2 (branded as part of CITV). The slot aired between 06:00 and 08:40 on the CITV channel.
It began broadcasting on 13 March 2006 and was simulcast on both the CITV channel and ITV2; however, it moved to ITV4 on 17 March 2008, meaning that ITV2 could broadcast 24 hours a day. From June 7, 2010, ITV4 ceased simulcasting, meaning that from early June 2010, GMTV2 could only be seen on the CITV channel, again allowing ITV4 to broadcast 24 hours a day. [3]
Originally, Action Stations featured the voices of Toonattik presenters Jamie Rickers and Anna Williamson in the form of robots with pre-recorded links in between cartoons, and was later voiced by Mike Rance as a spaceship captain. Between September 2009 and May 2010, the slot had the presenters presenting links from the Action Station's 'space base'.
Action Stations featured characters Commander Action (David Kangas), Boogaloo (Serial #80064100) (Simon Fielding), Gribulous Bertnarg "Bert" Pimplewicks (Mike Rance) and Princess Akira, the ship's mechanic (Anna Singleton). These characters travelled the galaxy transmitting cartoons 'free to air' to the children of earth whilst trying to keep them from the clutches of the evil Dr Poopanski (James Hunt) who wanted to keep the cartoons for himself.
ITV, legally known as Channel 3, is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network. It is branded as ITV1 in most of the UK except for central and northern Scotland, where it is branded as STV. It was launched in 1955 as Independent Television to provide competition, eliminating what had hitherto been the monopoly of BBC Television. ITV is the oldest commercial network in the UK. Since the passing of the Broadcasting Act 1990, it has been legally known as Channel 3 to distinguish it from the other analogue channels at the time: BBC1, BBC2 and Channel 4.
ITV2 is a British free-to-air television channel owned by ITV Digital Channels, a division of ITV plc. It was launched on 7 December 1998. For a number of years, it had the largest audience share after the five analogue terrestrial stations, a claim now held by its sister service ITV3 both of which are freely available to a majority of households.
ITV3 is a British free-to-air television channel owned by ITV Digital Channels, a division of ITV plc. The channel was first launched on Monday 1 November 2004 at 9 pm, replacing Plus (Granada). ITV3 is the sixth-largest UK television channel by audience share and the largest after the five main terrestrial services, the position which was previously held by its sister station ITV2. The channel is known for repeats of ITV dramas, and including sequential reruns of Agatha Christie's Poirot, Classic Coronation Street, Classic Emmerdale, Heartbeat, Inspector Morse and A Touch of Frost, amongst others as well as formerly showing repeats of Kojak, Numb3rs, Columbo, Cagney & Lacey and The Bill.
GMTV, now legally known as ITV Breakfast Broadcasting Limited, was the name of the national ITV breakfast television contractor/licensee, broadcasting in the United Kingdom from 1 January 1993 to 3 September 2010. It became a wholly owned subsidiary of ITV plc in November 2009. Shortly after, ITV plc announced the programme would end. The final edition of GMTV was broadcast on 3 September 2010.
ITV Digital Channels Limited is a wholly owned subsidiary of British broadcaster ITV plc. It manages all of the company's television channels with the exception of ITV1, which is part of the entire network.
CITV is a British children's morning programming block on ITV2 and formerly a free-to-air channel owned by ITV plc. CITV, then Children's ITV, launched on 3 January 1983 as a late afternoon programming block on the ITV network for children aged 6–12. It replaced the earlier Watch It! branding and introduced networked in-vision continuity links between programmes. These links were originally pre-recorded from a small London studio up until 1987, when Central won the contract to produce live links from their Birmingham studios. In 2004, presentation of CITV was relocated to Granada Television in Manchester, which saw the demise of in-vision continuity. Nine years later, the operations moved to ITV Granada's MediaCityUK studios in Salford.
Michael Paul Underwood is an English television presenter, best known as a children's TV presenter on CBBC and CITV. He can be seen as a fifteen-year-old in an episode of The Crystal Maze, then presented by Richard O'Brien. He presented the primetime ITV series Let Me Entertain You in 2014 and was a reporter for Real Stories with Ranvir Singh.
ITV Breakfast Broadcasting Limited is the national ITV breakfast television licensee, broadcasting in the United Kingdom. It became a wholly owned subsidiary of ITV plc in November 2009.
Anna Williamson is an English television presenter and dating agent. She is the former co-presenter of children's programmes Rescue RobotsToonattik and Action Stations! on CITV. In 2019, Williamson began appearing as a dating agent on the E4 reality dating series Celebs Go Dating.
Freeview is the name for the collection of free-to-air services on the Digital Terrestrial Television platform in the United Kingdom. The service was launched at 5 am on 30 October 2002 and is jointly operated by its five equal shareholders – BBC, ITV, Channel 4, BSkyB and transmitter operator Arqiva. This article documents the history of the Freeview service, from its inception up to the present.
Daybreak is a British breakfast television programme that was broadcast on ITV from 6 September 2010 to 25 April 2014. Daybreak replaced GMTV, which aired its last weekday edition on 3 September 2010. Daybreak launched three days later.
Scrambled! is a British children's weekend morning television show which aired on CITV and ITV between 2014 and 2021. It is the first regular studio-based children's show on ITV since both Toonattik and Holly and Stephen's Saturday Showdown ended. Scrambled! was produced by Zodiak Kids Studios. For most of its run, the show usually broadcast on Saturday and Sunday mornings from January to April, with special episodes recorded for the Christmas period.
This is a timeline of the history of the British television network ITV.
James Rickers is an English former television presenter, best known as the co-presenter of children's programmes Prove It!, Toonattik and Up On The Roof on CITV.
This is a timeline of the history of breakfast television in the United Kingdom.
This is a timeline of the British company ITV Digital Channels and its predecessors Granada Sky Broadcasting and Carlton Communications, and digital channels of other ITV-related companies. The timeline does not include events related to ITV network's flagship channel.
This is a timeline of children's programming on the British ITV network and ITV Digital Channels. The timeline starts in 1980 when ITV launched its first branding for children's programming, although programmes for children had been broadcast on ITV from the earliest years of the network.