I dimly remembered that Clangers was also aired on our local SABC back yonkers ago when I was a wee tyke...
RIP Peter Firmin: Clangers creator dies aged 89
Peter Firmin, co-creator of The Clangers, has died aged 89. Firmin also designed the puppet Basil Brush and Bagpuss. A generation of Register readers was educated on space through the popular stop-motion British children's TV show [are you sure? – ed] which was broadcast between 1969 and 1972 (with a one-off in 1974). Firmin …
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Tuesday 3rd July 2018 15:36 GMT I ain't Spartacus
In that weird way of following links online, I watched an episode of Ivor the Engine on Youtube last week. And it was excellent nostalgia.
Psssssshhh-t-ccchh
Psssssshhh-t-ccchh
Bagpuss was probably my favourite, when I was very young.
Mentally drifts off happily. ...Nostalgia ain't what it used to be...
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Monday 2nd July 2018 14:49 GMT Anonymous Coward
The Swanee whistle parts were fully scripted in English and sent to the BBC for approval before filming. It was only Major Clanger who swore, and the worst thing he ever uttered was "Sod it, the bloody thing's stuck again", which Oliver Postgate managed to get the Beeb to agree to on the grounds that people wouldn't actually think he was saying that.
Strange really, because I had a Tiny Clanger plush that played that exact phrase when you squeezed it.
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Monday 2nd July 2018 14:41 GMT ArrZarr
Personally, I always found the stop motion creations of this ilk terrifying; Bagpuss, The Magic Roundabout, Parsley the Lion and Postman Pat gave me nightmares. When it came to Noddy, I would refuse to watch it because (in a state of toddler-minded clarity) "Something always went wrong".
Maybe that's why I've grown up into the sweet-natured tolerant person I have done.
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Monday 2nd July 2018 15:03 GMT John 104
Similar
"One of Firmin's last interviews finds him criticising the soulless quality of modern CGI animations."
Here in the States, we lost Ray Harryhausen a few years ago. He had a similar take on CGI.
Ray almost singlehadedly filmed the stop motion action in all the Charles Schneer produced moivies, along with Jason and the Argonauts, and many others.
It is a painstaking art that really is underrated by today's film goers.
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Monday 2nd July 2018 20:39 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Oops
Not often needed - but sometimes a closer reading of a text makes one undecided.
Errrmm, our pleasingly Asperberger-ish world of the Reg forums isn't that world shatteringly important, surely people can make a simple binary choice?
C'mon, for fuck's sake, YES, or NO.
Round up the dithererers, and cart them off in cattle trucks I say (in my utterly reasonable mode).
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Monday 2nd July 2018 23:01 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Oops
"[...] surely people can make a simple binary choice?"
Only if they have all the facts on which to make the decision. Sometimes the second reading shows an ambiguous slant - or another comment gives extra information. Disrespectful to mark them down - but an uptick may give the wrong impression of support for a view.
El Reg comments are a valuable source of both informed and uninformed opinion on many subjects. Comments probably won't change people with extreme views - but they undoubtedly are valuable input for those willing to think about the pros and cons of a subject. Those subjects may be in the remit of their work or more general life.
PS cancel my down vote - it wasn't warranted.
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Monday 2nd July 2018 15:11 GMT Charlie Clark
Attention to detail
The stories were great and well-told but it was the meticulous attention to sometimes baffling detail that made things stick in the mind and the wires and the screen melt away. I've been showing my Jorman missus some of the series and she is just as entranced as I was. For those who speak German, die Augsburger Puppenkiste made equally magical shows.
Similar for Gerry Anderson's work, Aardman and for much of Pixar's work. The sort of pixie dust that the beancounters hate.
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Tuesday 3rd July 2018 15:46 GMT I ain't Spartacus
Re: Attention to detail
It's why good animation takes bloody ages.
I liked the admission from the guys behind Dangermouse (a work of true genius), that they did all those bits in dark rooms where all you can see is the eyes, because it was so much quicker and cheaper to animate.
Cosgrove Hall also did Chorlton and the Wheelies, which I loved as a kid, but nobody else seems to remember. And I think they also did Jamie and his Magic Torch - which is equally bonkers.
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Tuesday 3rd July 2018 16:08 GMT TchmilFan
Re: Attention to detail
‘Ullo little old lady
I was a long time Chortlon and Jamie fan. I was a little older than target, but still at school. Always hoped that ITV (remember when we only had 3/4/5 channels?) were showing either of them on days when I was “ill”.
Thought Fenella the Witch was brilliant. REGIONAL ACCENTS!!
Jamie! (Wordsworth)
Jamie! (Wordsworth)
A great theme tune.
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Monday 2nd July 2018 15:17 GMT Pen-y-gors
Space Education
A generation of Register readers was educated on space through the popular stop-motion children's TV show
True for me - well mainly the Clangers but also watching the Apollo missions live on TV. Somewhere I still have the three large scrapbooks of newspaper clippings I gathered about Apollo 11.
I wonder if that influenced my decision to study Astronomy at Uni?
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Monday 2nd July 2018 15:54 GMT BinkyTheMagicPaperclip
Lovely chap, great series
Saw him as part of an animation festival a couple of years ago, and met one of the Bagpuss hand puppets. Nice chap.
Ivor The Engine was one of my favourites, but it's well worth checking out the original black and white series as it includes about four episodes missed in the colour remake. It would scar modern children. Ivor is depressed because he can't sing in the choir, so Jones the Steam takes him to be auditioned. The choir leader is very nice but explains that as Ivor at the time only has one horn which creates one (not very good) note, he'd maybe be able to join in once a year(!).
Cue end of episode, sad Ivor sitting in a grim Welsh valley in black and white, children needing to wait an entire week to see what happens. Suicides probably tripled.
(Seeing out what happens is definitely worth it. It can be found on Youtube)
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Monday 2nd July 2018 17:50 GMT Dazed and Confused
Re: Lovely chap, great series
but it's well worth checking out the original black and white series
When the time came for little confused to arrive I sort out the "complete" set of Ivor the Engine and was applauded that some of the ones from my dim and distant memory of times yonder were missing. Still I persevered and was able to find that those too had been released on a separate VHS tape. So my children were brought up to the sounds of Ivor singing with the choir.
The first of the stories from the black and white series is essential to understanding the rest, it's where the story comes from. It took a while hunting through eBay to find the original story book.
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Tuesday 3rd July 2018 05:22 GMT The Oncoming Scorn
Re: Lovely chap, great series
It was Christmas & I recall a episode of Ivor where Jones the steam has somehow fallen out of of Ivor & is in the supporting braces of the bridge, quite traumatic as a 3 year old, also in my recall of the same day is a episode of Sooty with Harry (not Matthew) Corbett around a Christmas tree as opposed to the usual scaled sets.
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Monday 2nd July 2018 18:29 GMT SVV
Luckily the Beeb have done a superb job with the new Clangers series
His involvement obviously meant that the key principle has been "Do NOT screw this up. Has to be VERY good". Highly recommend Oliver Postgate's autobiography "Seeing Things". He and Peter were two interesting people indeed. Mine came with a CD-Rom with video, artwork, and some other bits and bobs, but to be honest it is then just a very necessary small investment to get the DVDs if these shows were as big a part of your childhood as they were for mine.
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Monday 2nd July 2018 23:36 GMT JimboSmith
Re: Bagpuss, Clangers, Ivor the engine and Basil Brush
It's not often that I get very upset at someone's passing (outside of the family) but I did when I heard this. My childhood was built on watching the entire Smallfilms productions. I raised a glass on Sunday night in your honour. RIP there need to be more people like you in the world.
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Monday 2nd July 2018 22:01 GMT Anonymous Coward
hoo hoo hoo! hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo hoo! hoo! hoo-hoo-hoo!
hoo! hoo... hoooo.
RIP.
There are no suitable words to describe how kindly and clever you were and no numbers fit enough to describe how many lives you enriched, both young and old. My condolences to your family. There aren't enough of your sort in the world.
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Monday 2nd July 2018 23:30 GMT Anonymous Coward
I am read that if you wrote to the BBC back when the Clangers first aired, they'd send you a Xerox of the knitting pattern Peter Firmin's wife used to create the real ones. My Mum actually knitted me a Clanger earlierthus year from a hardback book based on the original patterns. I am 46 years old and not ashamed :-D
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Tuesday 3rd July 2018 10:00 GMT Anonymous Coward
I am read that if you wrote to the BBC back when the Clangers first aired, they'd send you a Xerox of the knitting pattern Peter Firmin's wife used to create the real ones. My Mum actually knitted me a Clanger earlierthus year from a hardback book based on the original patterns. I am 46 years old and not ashamed :-D
I (we - siblings) had a knitted Clanger as a child but I never found out where it came from. Now I wonder if an aunt knitted it!
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Tuesday 3rd July 2018 07:09 GMT rmason
GNU mate
*sad slide whistle noise*
The clangers live on, the new series (done by his son etc) are very faithful to the original. Everything is still wool and tin foil, just in HD! It's actually beautifully made.
It's the firm favourite of mk2 son, who is almost 2. When those episodes had all been watched, the original series was free on prime too, so on that went. All went down an absolute treat.
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Tuesday 3rd July 2018 14:13 GMT The_H
Come see a real Clanger
Shameless plug: come pay Hull's Ferens Art Gallery a visit, they've got an exhibition of original Clangers, Pogles, Bagpuss (the Mouse Organ!) and a few more (including the sets and original filming equipment). On until 29th July. Free entry.
https://www.hull2017.co.uk/whatson/events/clangers-bagpuss-co/
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Monday 9th July 2018 10:19 GMT dajames
The Clangers were pink?
Who knew?
The earliest TV I remember watching was Popeye the Sailor -- which I used to watch at my Grandmother's house, because she had a TV set and we didn't, back then.
Later on, my favourites were Gerry Anderson's Supercar and Fireball XL5 ... and especially Roberta Leigh's excellent Space Patrol.
[Warning: The DVD box set of Space Patrol contains a 'bonus' episode of the series Sarah and Hoppity which I always hated but which was a favourite of my younger sister and whose theme tune is still an ear-worm. (Don't ask me how I know this)]