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Roobarb

Roobarb

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Roobarb is a British animated
Animation
Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...

 television program
Television program
A television program , also called television show, is a segment of content which is intended to be broadcast on television. It may be a one-time production or part of a periodically recurring series...

me for children, originally shown on BBC1
BBC One
BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...

 just before the evening news. Each cartoon, written by Grange Calveley
Grange Calveley
Grange Calveley is a British writer and artist who is best known as the creator of the BBC's animated television series Roobarb and SkylArk ....

 and animated by Bob Godfrey
Bob Godfrey
Roland Frederick Godfrey is a British animator whose career spans more than fifty years. He is probably best known for the children's cartoon series Roobarb , Noah and Nelly in... SkylArk and Henry's Cat and for the Trio chocolate biscuit advertisements shown in the UK during the early 1980s...

, was about five minutes long. Thirty episodes were made, and the show was first shown on October 21, 1974. The theme is that of the loving rivalry between Roobarb the green dog and Custard the pink cat from next door.

Original series


Roobarb is a green dog
Dog
The domestic dog is a domesticated form of the gray wolf, a member of the Canidae family of the order Carnivora. The term is used for both feral and pet varieties. The dog may have been the first animal to be domesticated, and has been the most widely kept working, hunting, and companion animal in...

, and Custard is a pink cat
Cat
The cat , also known as the domestic cat or housecat to distinguish it from other felids and felines, is a small, usually furry, domesticated, carnivorous mammal that is valued by humans for its companionship and for its ability to hunt vermin and household pests...

. Roobarb is always involved in some kind of misadventure which he approaches with unbounded enthusiasm. Custard is cynical and sets out to sabotage Roobarb's fun. Which one comes out on top varies from episode to episode. Other characters in the series are the bird
Bird
Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...

s, who watch the antics of the other two from the safety of a nearby tree, often making snide remarks, and siding with whoever is winning. There is also a rather timid, pink mouse
Mouse
A mouse is a small mammal belonging to the order of rodents. The best known mouse species is the common house mouse . It is also a popular pet. In some places, certain kinds of field mice are also common. This rodent is eaten by large birds such as hawks and eagles...

.

The series is animated in a deliberately rough style, using marker pen
Marker pen
thumb|MarkerA marker pen, marking pen, felt-tip pen, flow or marker, is a pen which has its own ink-source, and usually a tip made of a porous, pressed fibres; such as felt or nylon.-Permanent marker:...

s and a very sketchy drawing technique, so that the pictures are constantly moving. This effect, known to animators as "boiling", gives an energetic character to the show, and was a contrast to the slick, smooth colouring of the imported Hanna-Barbera
Hanna-Barbera
Hanna-Barbera Productions, Inc. was an American animation studio that dominated North American television animation during the second half of the 20th century...

 shows that were being widely shown on British television. The series was voiced by actor Richard Briers
Richard Briers
Richard David Briers, CBE is an English actor whose career has encompassed theatre, television, film and radio.He first came to prominence as George Starling in Marriage Lines in the 1960s, but it was in the following decade when he played Tom Good in the BBC sitcom The Good Life that he became a...

 and the famous theme tune was written by Johnny Hawksworth
Johnny Hawksworth
Johnny Hawksworth is a British musician and composer who has lived and worked in Australia since 1984.Hawksworth initially trained as a pianist, but also played double bass for Britain's leading big band the Ted Heath Orchestra during the early 1950s and through the 1960s...

. It was the first fully animated television series to be made in the UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

.

The series was an enormous success, greatly loved by children and adults alike, and winning numerous awards. It is now viewed as "must watch" cult TV. Contrary to popular belief, the show was not called Roobarb and Custard.

2005 series


A new series titled Roobarb and Custard Too debuted on Five on 8 August 2005. Like the original, it is written by Grange Calveley
Grange Calveley
Grange Calveley is a British writer and artist who is best known as the creator of the BBC's animated television series Roobarb and SkylArk ....

 and narrated by Richard Briers
Richard Briers
Richard David Briers, CBE is an English actor whose career has encompassed theatre, television, film and radio.He first came to prominence as George Starling in Marriage Lines in the 1960s, but it was in the following decade when he played Tom Good in the BBC sitcom The Good Life that he became a...

. The series introduces a large number of other animal characters who also get involved in Roobarb's schemes. It is produced by Adam Sharp and Bernadette O'Riordan for A&B TV, and directed by Jason Tammemagi
Jason Tammemagi
Jason Tammemagi is the creator, writer and director of preschool show, Fluffy Gardens. He also directed Roobarb & Custard Too and Irish animated drama, Ballybraddan....

; the animation is by the Irish company Monster Animation & Design. The new series, comprising 39 seven-minute episodes, uses computer animation, but retains the "wobbly" look and plain white backgrounds of the original series. A new musical score by Jon Atkinson adds to the manic feel of the remake.

Roobarb

  1. "When Roobarb Made a Spike"
  2. "When Roobarb Didn't See the Sun Come Up"
  3. "When Roobarb Was Being Bored Then Not Being Bored"
  4. "When the Tree Fell to Pieces"
  5. "When Roobarb Found Sauce"- Roobarb sets out to find the source of the pond.
  6. "When It Was Night"- Roobarb dreams that he and Custard are cowboys fighting a band of nasty crows.
  7. "When It Was Christmas" - Roobarb plans a delicious Christmas feast and everyone is invited, but when the dog takes it too far and eats the whole feast, he is ashamed, until a special guest arrives and saves the day, yet Roobarb feels terrible for poor Custard not turning up, who is going to save the Christmas party now?
  8. "When The Sun Was Just Right"
  9. "When The Opera Wasn't A Phantom"
  10. "When There Wasn't Treasure"- Roobarb dresses as a pirate and searches for treasure.
  11. "When It Wasn't Thorsday"- Roobarb angers the Viking Gods.
  12. "When Roobarb Was Cheating"
  13. "When Custard Was Sorry"
  14. "When Roobarb Mixed the Paint"
  15. "When Roobarb's Heart Ruled His Head"
  16. "When You're Going To Fly-Fly High"
  17. "When The Day Didn't Arrive"
  18. "When Roobarb Did The Lion's Share"
  19. "When Roobarb Was at the End of His Tether (and so was Custard)"
  20. "When Custard Stole the Show" - Custard wonders how deep the pond is and decides to find out, building his own diving outfit and adopting the persona Jaques Coostard. Roobarb forms a plan to get the fish out.
  21. "When There Was A Dance At Foxes Dale"
  22. "When Roobarb Wasn't As Pleased As Punch" - Roobarb makes his own puppet show, but nobody finds it funny.
  23. "When Roobarb Turned Over A New Leaf" - Roobarb plants his garden and wakes up to find that a "big fat dreamy jungle" had formed.
  24. "When There Was Someone Else" - Roobarb makes friends with a shadowy boxer and challenges everybody to have a boxing fight with him.
  25. "When The Day Wouldn't Keep Still" - Roobarb gets hiccups and thinks it's an earthquake.
  26. "When Roobarb Got A Long Break"
  27. "When The Pipes Call The Tune" - A parcel arrives at Roobarb's doorstep, he's extremely excited, however, a surprise parcel arrives for Custard and he's delighted to know that it was because anybody who orders a set of bagpipes from Glasgow, also receives a package for their next door neighbour.
  28. "When A Knight Lost His Day" - Roobarb finds an old book which happens to be of his family tree, he decides to become a knight.
  29. "When Custard Got Too Near The Bone" - Roobarb plants bones round the turf for his garden party, Custard hears this and plans to sell the land for a lot of money to a gang of fierce dogs, but are the bones what the dogs expected?
  30. "When There Was A Big Mix Up" - Roobarb becomes a hypnotist and everything goes wrong.

Roobarb and Custard Too

  1. "When There Was A Surprise"
  2. "When Custard Was Grounded"
  3. "When Custard Wrote A Book"
  4. "When There Was An Elephant"
  5. "When Custard Was Very, Very Naughty"
  6. "When The Books Went Bye Bye"
  7. "When There Was A Wind-Up"
  8. "When Roobarb Found The Hieroglypics"
  9. "When It Ended In Tears"
  10. "When There Was A Big Band"
  11. "When The Garden Was Dry"
  12. "When There Was A Time Warp"
  13. "When It Was Cool To Be Smooth"
  14. "When There Was A Pottery Party"
  15. "When The Computer Went On The Blink"
  16. "When There Was An Opera"
  17. "When The Mouse Arrived For Christmas"
  18. "When Roobarb Went On A Fitness Drive"
  19. "When Modern Thingumajigs Need Tweaking"
  20. "When The Wind Blows, The Space Age Will Stop"
  21. "When There Wasn't A Boiled Egg"
  22. "When Rookie Fell Out Of The Sky"
  23. "When The Laughing Had To Stop"
  24. "When Roobarb Was Bowled Over"
  25. "When Walter's Web Caught Roobarb's Eye"
  26. "When There Was A Dance Festival"
  27. "When There Was Magic"
  28. "When The Ballet Hit The Skids"
  29. "When A Dinosaur Broke Loose"
  30. "When Jeremy Barker Turned Up"
  31. "When There Was A Country Fayre"
  32. "When The Molecules Got Loose"
  33. "When There Was A Duel"
  34. "When It Was A Wibbling Week"
  35. "When The Astrognomes Landed"
  36. "When Everything Went Lumpy"
  37. "When Communications Weren't The Best"
  38. "When There Really Was A Something"
  39. "When There Was A Cuckoo"

Trivia


Roobarb and Custard were featured in the 'Official BBC Children in Need Medley
The Official BBC Children in Need Medley
"The Official BBC Children in Need Medley" is a cross-over single by Peter Kay's Animated All Star Band. It is the official Children in Need Single for 2009, and was released on 21 November 2009. The song was shown for the first time on Children in Need 2009. The cover art is a parody of the cover...

' video by Peter Kay
Peter Kay
Peter John Kay is an English comedian, writer, actor, director and producer. His work includes That Peter Kay Thing , Phoenix Nights , Max and Paddy's Road to Nowhere , Britain's Got the Pop Factor... and other independent productions which have included two sell out tours.-Early career:Peter Kay...

 which contained many other popular cartoon characters. They appeared via a televised monitor as they were 2-D animation, as opposed to the Stop-Motion style of the video and characters.

Roobarb and Custard became the stars of a series of children's books based on the TV series by Mogzilla Publishing in 2009.

External links