THE ADVENTURES OF SIR PRANCELOT



Animated tales from the same stable that produced Captain Pugwash, Sir Prancelot followed the exploits of the heroic but somewhat eccentric knight as he set off for the Crusades to the Holy Land. Five minute adventures which ran for thirty-two episodes, first aired in 1972.

BAGPUSS



Classic children's series that, inspite of only appearing in 13 adventures, was voted in a BBC poll as the most popular children's TV programme of all time. The stories were set in a lost and found shop owned by a Victorian girl named Emily, who would bring in various items that she had discovered with the object of repairing them and returning them to their rightful owner. To do this she was assisted by Bagpuss, a fat pink and white striped cloth cat, who would spring to life (and colour) at the sound of Emily's voice. Bagpuss, dear Bagpuss, old fat furry cat-puss. Wake up and look at this thing that I bring, wake up, be bright, be golden light, Bagpuss, oh hear what I sing. Bagpuss was ably assisted by Professor Yaffle the book-end woodpecker, Madeline the rag doll, Gabriel the banjo-playing toad, and the mice of the Marvellous Mechanical Mouse Organ. The series was written and narrated by Oliver Postgate, who along with Peter Firmin was responsible for numerous other children's series' including The Saga of Noggin The Nog, The Pingwings, The Clangers, and Ivor The Engine. The series is often repeated and in 1999 was made available on one single three hour video.
13 episodes of 20 minute duration. BBC TV. 1974.

THE BANANA SPLITS



Following the demise of The Monkees, NBC put four actors into oversize animal costumes, brought in Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In dancer Byron Gillian as choreographer and threw in some Hannah-Barbera cartoons, and produced 125 madcap episodes of a series first aired in the US in 1968 as The Banana Splits Adventure Hour. The Splits were Snorky (a baby elephant), Bingo (a gorilla), Drooper (a lion) and Fleegle (a dog). When not racing their Buggie cars, playing 'wacky' games on a football pitch or singing to pre-recorded tracks the gang could be seen cavorting around their Banana Pad indulging in nonsensical (some might say surreal) jokes. There was a Dear Drooper spot where the wisecracking lion would answer viewer's questions before being set upon by rival pop band The Sour Grapes. In another memorable sequence Drooper would try and take the trash out only to find that the dustbin didn't want it and so it unceremoniously threw back at him. In between all this mayhem were cartoon adventures of The Three Musketeers, The Arabian Knights, The Hillbilly Bears and The Micro Adventures. There was also a live action serial entitled Danger Island, which can boast of having given future Superman and Lethal Weapon's Richard Donner a chance to cut his directorial teeth. Barry White also began his career as a singer/songwriter by penning numbers for the band. The series had a catchy theme song (One banana, two banana's, three banana's, four...) known as the Tra La La Song, written by Ritchie Adams and Mark Barkan. The series aired in the UK from 1969-71 on Saturday morning BBC and was repeated years later as part of Channel 4's Big Breakfast. Hold the Bus!
125 shows of 60 minute duration. 1968-1970.

BILLY BEAN AND HIS FUNNY MACHINE



"Billy Bean built a machine to see what it could do. He built it out of sticks and stones, and nuts and bolts and glue. The motor ran, chuttle-a-bang, ra-ta-ta-ta-ta-torator, And all of a sudden a picture appeared on the funny old cartoonerator". Like the title song suggests the puppets Billy Bean and his friend Yoo-Hoo the cuckoo operated a machine which featured such devices as a windmill, a Dorset-Faucet and a cartoonerator which drew magic pictures. The voice of Yoo-Hoo was supplied by Ivan Owen, who later went on to voice one of the Britains best loved puppets of all time, Basil Brush.

CAMBERWICK GREEN



Monday's "Watch With Mother" offering which began in 1966 with the words "Here is a box, a musical box, wound up and ready to play. But this box can hide a secret inside. Can you guess what is in it today ?" Then out of the rotating top would pop the "secret", which in fact was the featured character of that particular episode. Amongst the rural village's cast of characters were local gossip Mrs Honeyman, Dr. Mopp, Peter the Postman, Mrs Dingles the Postmistress, Mr Carraway the Fishmonger, Mickey Murphy the Baker and Thomas Tripp the Milkman. But without a doubt the star of the show was Windy Miller the flour maker, who was in charge of the windmill. The series was animated by Bob Bura and John Hardwick from stories by Gordon Murray and told by Play School's Brian Cant. Although only 13 episodes were made they proved so successful that there were two spin-off series, Trumpton and Chigley
13 episodes of 15 minute duration. BBC 1966.

CAPTAIN PUGWASH



Classic but crudely animated children's series from John Ryan relating the tales of Captain Horatio Pugwash, podgy skipper of The Black Pig. The stories were told over several or more five minute episodes, most of the time Pugwash and his crew were pitted against the notorious, black bearded pirate, Cut Throat Jack. Ryan was later accused of including deliberate sexual innuendo in the scripts, a charge that he strenuously denied. There seems to be something of an urban myth about dubiously named characters such as Master Bate, but closer scrutiny does not bear this out (the character in question in this case was actually called Master Mate). Peter Hawkins supplied the voices for this and several other BBC shows, including Bill and Ben, and perhaps more famously, the Daleks in Doctor Who. Such was the success of Pugwash that a regular cartoon strip appeared in the Radio Times, the original series was colourised and a new set of 26 episodes were created in 1999 at a cost of £1.5 million!
86 seafaring episodes of 5 minute duration. B&W. BBC 1957-66 and 1974-75.

THE CLANGERS



Another successful childrens series from the writing/production team of Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin, The Clangers were a clan of pink, woolly, mouse-like aliens who lived on a small blue moon. They wore suits of body armour to protect themselves from frequent meteor showers and took their name from the sound made when they battened down their dustbin-lid hatches. The Clangers -Major, Mother, Grandmother, Small and Tiny- communicated with eachother with musical whistles and ate Blue String Pudding. Other inhabitants of the their asteroid were the Soup Dragon and the Froglets, and they also enjoyed visits from the Iron Chicken that lived in a nest in space. Although only made as a five minute filler, the Clangers became a firm children's favourite and expressed a clear anti-materialistic theme. In one episode Treasure, a supply of gold coins landed on the blue moon causing the Clanger family to become avaricious and mutually resentful, each building their own secret hoard. Only when Tiny discovered that the coins were made of chocolate did the Clangers return to their harmonious existence.
27 stories of 5 minute duration. Smallfilms 1969-74.