THE CLANGERS - Great Mending Game - Two Solutions - Cbeebies

• published: 05 Oct 2015
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Clangers is a British stop-motion animated children's television series of short stories about a family of aardvark-like creatures who live on, and inside, a small moon-like planet. They speak only in whistles, and eat green soup supplied by the Soup Dragon and blue string pudding. The programmes were originally broadcast by BBC1 between 1969 and 1972, followed by the first of three special episodes that was broadcast in 1974. The series was made by Smallfilms, the company set up by Oliver Postgate (writer, animator and narrator) and Peter Firmin(modelmaker and illustrator). Firmin designed the characters, and his wife knitted and "dressed" the Clangers. The music, often part of the story, was by Vernon Elliott. A new series, narrated by Monty Python actor Michael Palin, started on 15 June 2015 on the UK CBeebies TV channel with successful viewing figures. Two short specials were broadcast before then. The stop-motion animation remains, despite the evolution of modern technology such as computer-generated imagery, often a replacement of the original stop-motion animation in most other children's programmes such as Fireman Sam, Thomas & Friends and The Wombles. Background The Clangers originated in a series of children's books which developed from another Smallfilms production, Noggin the Nog. Publishers Kay and Ward created a series of books from Noggin the Nog episodes, which were then extended into a series called Noggin First Reader, aimed at aiding initial reading skills.[2] In the 1967 story Noggin and the Moonmouse, a new horse-trough was put up in the middle of the town in the North-Lands. A spacecraft hurtled down and splashed into it. The top unscrewed, and out came a largish, mouse-like character in a duffel coat, who wanted fuel for his spacecraft. He showed Nooka and the children that what he needed was vinegar and soap-flakes. So, they filled up the tanks in this little spherical ship, which then "took off in a dreadful cloud smelling of vinegar and soap-flakes, covering the town with bubbles". In 1969, the BBC asked Smallfilms to produce a new series for colour television, but did not specify a storyline. Postgate concluded that because space exploration was particularly topical, the new series should be set in space. He adapted the Moonmouse from the earlier story, removing its tail "because it kept getting into the soup".The Clangers looked similar to mice, anteaters and, from their pink colour, pigs. They wore clothes reminiscent of Roman armour, "against the space debris that kept falling onto the planet, lost from other places, such as television sets and bits of an Iron Chicken", and they spoke in whistles. Storyline Clangers was described by Postgate as a family set in space. The Clangers were small creatures living in peace and harmony on – and inside – a small, hollow planet, far, far away, nourished by Blue String Pudding, and Green Soup harvested from the planet's volcanic soup wells by the Soup Dragon. The word "Clanger" is said to derive from the sound made by opening the metal cover of one of the creatures' crater-like burrows, each of which was covered with a door made from an old metal dustbin lid, to protect againstmeteorite impacts. In each episode, there would be some problem to solve, something invented or discovered, or perhaps some new visitor to meet. Music Trees, with note-shaped fruit, grew on the planet's surface, and music would often be an integral feature in the simple but amusing plots. In the "Fishing" episode, one of the Cheese Trees provided a cylindrical five-line staff for notes taken from the Music Trees. Postgate provided the narration, for the most part in a soft, melodic voice, describing and accounting for the curious antics of the little blue planet's knitted pink inhabitants, and providing a "translation", as it were, for much of their whistled dialogue. Production The first episode was broadcast by the BBC1 on 16 November 1969, and a further 26 episodes were made. The last of these was broadcast on 10 November 1972. The final programme, however, was a four-minute election special, broadcast on 10 October 1974. This was not shown at the usual slot during children's programmes. Oliver Postgate said in a 2005 interview that he wasn't sure whether this episode still existed[3] and it has been referred to as a "missing episode".In fact the whole episode is available from the British Film Institute. The original Mother Clanger puppet was stolen in 1972. Major Clanger and the second Mother Clanger are on display at the Rupert Bear Museum. The Clangers grew in size from the first to the last episode, to allow Firmin to use an Action Man model figure in "The Rock Collector." In October 2013, the BBC's CBeebies announced that a new series would be produced for their 2015 transmission schedules, [8] with Michael Palin narrating.[9] US pre-school channel Sprout added the series to their 2015 schedule, with William Shatner narrating.[