Every day millions of television sets throughout the land are switched on at 1 45 pm and 5 44 pm for an ever-popular but critically neglected little slice of television entertainment. For five or ten minutes viewers step into the fantasy world of the stop-frame puppet film and meet such heroes as Dougal and Parsley and Rupert Bear. As with most things in the television industry, there is more to these charming children’s adventures than meets the eye.
Making a series like “The Magic Roundabout” or “The Adventures of Parsley” is big business, as most producers of animated films for children will freely admit: “We make our programmes to entertain the mothers and keep the children quiet. After all it is the mothers who are the decision-makers; they are the ones with the purchasing power. We’re not going to be able to sell the merchandising rights to our puppets to the cornflakes people unless they are convinced that the mums are in love with our puppets.”
Of course, the television policymakers, people like Monica Sims and Edward Barnes, Queen and Prince Regent of the Children’s Department at the BBC, and their equivalents in commercial television, think first and last of the children and what appeal their programmes will have to them. However, once the decision has been made to produce a series of 13 five-minute films on, say, the Life and Times of William the Waffle in the Land of Sweatmeats, the task of actually putting the programmes together is subcontracted to a private film production company. These film-makers have ideas that differ at times from those of their employers.
Graham Clutterbuck is head of one of the most successful of these independent organisations and his outfit, Film Fair, is responsible for such mini epics as “The Herbs,” “The Adventures of Parsley,” and “Hatty Town.” Clutterbuck – why call a character Trumpington when you could have called him Clutterbuck? – considers his commercial attitude unavoidable: “Since the television companies can’t afford to pay the full cost of one of our short children’s animated films – say, £400 – I have to keep my eye on the adult audience because I must consider the merchandising possibilities.” Even if William the Waffle himself cannot earn a vast fortune, it is possible that William the Waffle crisps and wallpaper and dolls can.
“Advertisers are principally interested in using these children’s characters because of their appeal to grown ups. A recent survey suggested that more adults watch the early evening kiddies’ cartoons than do children. We know on which side our bread is buttered.” Millions watch these little films and naturally the more millions that watch, the greater the commercial power of the characters involved.
Clutterbuck gives an example of how important the popularity stakes can be: “When Rupert Bear comes up with a marvellous signature tune that turns out to be a hit, we are all obliged to start thinking about the possibilities of getting our own puppets to break into song.”
Since following the “Magic Roundabout” has became a national pastime, every director of animation in the field has been wanting to create a similar cult. Ivor Wood has been responsible for more than half a dozen children’s series: “You can’t forget what a beautiful potential audience you have, from six to ninety-six, all waiting to become addicted to your characters.” Some directors make a definite bid for the older audience in their films: “I try to tell my story on two levels so that there is something for everybody.”
Market research is undertaken – parents are consulted, not children – but programme-making remains by and large a hit-and-miss affair. Even the creators of “Magic Roundabout,” in Paris back in 1964, were not altogether sure what they were searching for. Dougal, for instance, was never intended to be the star. Initially he was just a dog, an incidental non-speaking extra designed to provide a bit of animal interest, and he upstaged Florence, the leading lady, quite by accident.
“Magic Roundabout” has come a long way since the early days when it was put together by a group of young men working in a tumble-down room with supply-heating who had to halt filming every so often in order to let the overheated equipment cool down. One of those young men now feels that the programme has lost its charm and has been taken over by the adults who have robbed it of its innocence. Certainly the series’ commercial spin-offs have exceeded the creators’ most optimistic daydreams.
Commercial and artistic considerations combine with chance in settling the destiny of these films. Puppets are used in preference to cartoon, because they are so much cheaper. Scripts are written to appeal to the maximum audience. Chance plays its part when a film company sends off a children’s story which it has not even read to the BBC and the BBC commission a series based on the story. The programme makers’ motives are mixed, but they feel that the end product is acceptable to all and as evidence of the fact that they are not totally commercially-orientated they point out that were they wanting to make really big money and storm the American children’s market their films would be far louder, brasher and faster than they are. They hold on to the occasional moment of whimsy and the odd sophisticated joke, “because we don’t produce Mickey Mouse or Yogi Bear – our programmes have class.”
