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Clangers
Clangers (usually referred to as The Clangers) is a British stop-motion animated children's television series, consisting of short films about a family of mouse-like creatures who live on, and inside, a small moon-like planet. They speak only in a whistled language, and eat green soup (supplied by the Soup Dragon) and blue string pudding. The programmes were originally broadcast on BBC1 between 1969 and 1972, followed by a special episode which was broadcast in 1974.
The series was made by Smallfilms, the company set up by Oliver Postgate (who was the show's writer, animator and narrator) and Peter Firmin (who was its modelmaker and illustrator). Firmin designed the characters, and Joan Firmin, his wife, knitted and "dressed" them. The music, often part of the story, was provided by Vernon Elliott.
A third series, narrated by Monty Python actor Michael Palin, was broadcast in the UK in June 2015 on the BBC's CBeebies TV channel, gaining hugely successful viewing figures, following on from a short special broadcast by the BBC earlier that year. The new programmes are still made using stop-motion animation (instead of the computer-generated imagery which had replaced the original stop-motion animation in revivals of other children's shows such as Fireman Sam, Thomas & Friends and The Wombles). Further new series were made in 2017 and 2019.
Clangers won the British Academy Children's Award for Pre-School Animation in 2015.
The Clangers originated in a series of children's books developed from another Smallfilms production, Noggin the Nog. Publishers Kay and Ward created a series of books based on the Noggin the Nog television episodes, which was subsequently expanded into a series called Noggin First Reader, aimed at teaching children to read.
In one of these, called Noggin and the Moonmouse, published in 1967, a new horse-trough was put up in the middle of the town in the North-Lands. A spacecraft hurtled down and splash-landed in it: the top unscrewed, and out came a largish, mouse-like creature in a duffel coat, who wanted fuel for his spaceship. He showed Nooka and the children that what he needed was vinegar and soap-flakes, so they filled up the fueltank of the 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 year of NASA's first landing on the Moon), the BBC asked Smallfilms to produce a new series for colour television, but without specifying a storyline. Postgate concluded that as space exploration was topical the new series should take place in space and, inspired by the real Moon Landing, Peter Firmin designed a set which strongly resembled the Moon. Postgate adapted the Moonmouse from the 1967 story, by simply removing its tail ("because it kept getting into the soup"). Hence the Clangers looked similar to mice (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 whistled language.
The Clangers was described by Postgate as a family in space. They were small creatures living in peace and harmony on – and inside – a small, hollow planet, far, far away: nourished by Blue String Pudding, and by Green Soup harvested from the planet's volcanic soup wells by the Soup Dragon.
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Clangers
Clangers (usually referred to as The Clangers) is a British stop-motion animated children's television series, consisting of short films about a family of mouse-like creatures who live on, and inside, a small moon-like planet. They speak only in a whistled language, and eat green soup (supplied by the Soup Dragon) and blue string pudding. The programmes were originally broadcast on BBC1 between 1969 and 1972, followed by a special episode which was broadcast in 1974.
The series was made by Smallfilms, the company set up by Oliver Postgate (who was the show's writer, animator and narrator) and Peter Firmin (who was its modelmaker and illustrator). Firmin designed the characters, and Joan Firmin, his wife, knitted and "dressed" them. The music, often part of the story, was provided by Vernon Elliott.
A third series, narrated by Monty Python actor Michael Palin, was broadcast in the UK in June 2015 on the BBC's CBeebies TV channel, gaining hugely successful viewing figures, following on from a short special broadcast by the BBC earlier that year. The new programmes are still made using stop-motion animation (instead of the computer-generated imagery which had replaced the original stop-motion animation in revivals of other children's shows such as Fireman Sam, Thomas & Friends and The Wombles). Further new series were made in 2017 and 2019.
Clangers won the British Academy Children's Award for Pre-School Animation in 2015.
The Clangers originated in a series of children's books developed from another Smallfilms production, Noggin the Nog. Publishers Kay and Ward created a series of books based on the Noggin the Nog television episodes, which was subsequently expanded into a series called Noggin First Reader, aimed at teaching children to read.
In one of these, called Noggin and the Moonmouse, published in 1967, a new horse-trough was put up in the middle of the town in the North-Lands. A spacecraft hurtled down and splash-landed in it: the top unscrewed, and out came a largish, mouse-like creature in a duffel coat, who wanted fuel for his spaceship. He showed Nooka and the children that what he needed was vinegar and soap-flakes, so they filled up the fueltank of the 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 year of NASA's first landing on the Moon), the BBC asked Smallfilms to produce a new series for colour television, but without specifying a storyline. Postgate concluded that as space exploration was topical the new series should take place in space and, inspired by the real Moon Landing, Peter Firmin designed a set which strongly resembled the Moon. Postgate adapted the Moonmouse from the 1967 story, by simply removing its tail ("because it kept getting into the soup"). Hence the Clangers looked similar to mice (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 whistled language.
The Clangers was described by Postgate as a family in space. They were small creatures living in peace and harmony on – and inside – a small, hollow planet, far, far away: nourished by Blue String Pudding, and by Green Soup harvested from the planet's volcanic soup wells by the Soup Dragon.