Paddington (BBC), 1976
More of an early evening Kids’ classic than our usual lunchtime, but still a classic.
From a golden era of kids TV the original television series of British animated shorts, based on the Paddington bear books by Michael Bond.
Produced by the BBC this was the first television series based on the popular children’s books.
It was one of the few television programmes to combine a puppet with cartoon animation – Paddington himself was a puppet, but other characters in the series were depicted as cartoon characters.
The animation gives the series a very distinctive art style. Paddington himself is a stop-motion animated puppet who moves within a 3-dimensional space and interacts with 2-dimensional animated drawings of the human characters, buildings, etc. The idea was unusual at the time even today it has a distinct style but the idea worked. A different technique was employed for the specials but that’s another post.
Thirty episodes aired in 1976. A Further series of 25 episodes aired between 1979 and 1980 under the title The Adventures Of Paddington. There were also 3 specials that also aired on the BBC between 1980 and 1986. In total 59 episodes aired on the BBC.
Summary
Based on the books the short 5 minute episodes featured the adventures of Paddington Bear.
Paddington is always polite — addressing people as “Mr”, “Mrs”, and “Miss” and very rarely by first names—and well-meaning, though he inflicts hard stares on those who incur his disapproval. He has an endless capacity for getting into trouble, but he is known to “try so hard to get things right”. He is an adopted member of the (human) Brown family and thus gives his full name as “Paddington Brown”.
Clips
Narrated By: Michael Hordern
Details
Channel: BBC1
Written By: Michael Bond
Produced By: FilmFair
Originally Transmitted:
5th January – 20th May 1976 (series 1)
22nd October 1979 – 18th April 1980
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