Rupert (TV series)
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| Rupert | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Cartoon series |
| Directed by | Gary Hurst Dale Schott |
| Voices of | (See article) |
| Composer(s) | Milan Kymlicka |
| Country of origin | Canada France United Kingdom |
| Language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 5 |
| No. of episodes | 65 |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | Pierre Bertrand-Jaume Philippe Gildas Michael Hirsh Patrick Loubert Robert Réa Clive A. Smith |
| Producer(s) | Patricia R. Burns Merle-Anne Ridley |
| Running time | 30 minutes |
| Production company(s) | Nelvana Limited Ellipse Programmé Funbag Animation Studios |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | YTV |
| Original run | September 1, 1991 – June 1, 1997 |
Rupert is an animated television series based on the Mary Tourtel character Rupert Bear, produced by Nelvana, Ellipse Programmé and TVS for the first season, with Scottish Television (now STV Central) taken over control when TVS closed. Aired from 1991 to 1997 with 65 half-hour episodes produced. It was broadcast in syndication on YTV in Canada. In the United States, the show first aired on Nickelodeon before moving to CBS [1]; repeats of the series came to qubo's digital service in January 2007. The show was broadcast in the UK on CITV and has recently been re-airing on the satellite and cable channels Tiny Pop and KidsCo. In Australia, the show was broadcast on the ABC public broadcasting network and on TV 2 in New Zealand as part of the Jason Gunn Show.
The theme song played at both the beginning and end of the show is a rendition of Robert Schumann's The Happy Farmer, Returning from Work. When this series aired as part of the Nick, Jr. block on Nickelodeon in the U.S., a different theme was written for it and used. This song was performed in a peppy, rollicking, ragtime style, with lyrics and vocals in the intro, and an instrumental of this same tune in the outro. This composition, Rupert's Number One, was co-penned by Sheree Jeacocke and Gerry Mosby, and was possibly also sung by the former. Scenes in the intro used in this version were different from the original as well. Here, scenes used for it were taken from various episodes mostly and the ending credits differed (aside from the scene of a silhouette of one of Rupert's friends releasing the box kite as it's lifted up by the wind and Rupert pulls it away while running) from the initial, in that in the Nick, Jr. version, after getting a close up of the kite, the scene switches to various scenes of Rupert with another, different character (or other different characters). In the initial, after the kite has been lifted and there's a close-up shot of it, it's zoomed in so far that all that is seen is the color red, over which the credits are superimposed. Then there's a zoom-out of the kite and the only still scene is of Rupert on his knees and crawling on the grass while Tiger Lily tries to bring down the kite from a tree. The Rupert's Number One theme/opening was used when it aired on CBS and is still used on qubo likewise. Playhouse Disney has also aired Rupert in the Early 2000s in the United States, but used the original intro.
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[edit] Characters
[edit] Main characters
- Rupert Bear is considerate, smart, resourceful, brave, trusty, and a good spirited white bear. On occasion he breaks the fourth wall addressing some of his observations and funny comments to the viewer.
- Bill Badger – Rupert's best friend, who unlike Rupert often presents a lot of flaws, such as cowardliness, short patience, clumsiness or a horrible singing voice. He has a younger baby brother Toby, who appears to be fond of Bill's singing voice.
- Mr. Bear – Rupert's father. He is much more clumsy and forgetful compared to Rupert. He smokes a pipe. Mr. Bear (as shown in in the episode "The Firebird") and Podgy's father are part of the Nutwood Fire Brigade.
- Mrs. Bear – Rupert's mother. Like her son, she is wise and often offers advice to Rupert who later uses it during his adventures.
- Podgy Pig – A jolly, yet greedy and not very bright pig, with a large appetite. He is very friendly to others and appears not to see that his friends sometimes find him annoying. His appetite at times can lead him and his friends into trouble, but Rupert can look past this to go out of his way to help Podgy.
- Pong Ping – A Pekingese from China who owns an elevator that can travel under the ground all the way to China. He has a great knowledge of his culture including dragons as well various magical objects.
- Professor – A very friendly unnamed scientist who live in old castle tower in Nutwood, who invents many incredible devices during the series. Rupert often helps out with his experiments. He has the catchphrase, " Think of the possibilites my boy(s)!" whenever he is explaining his experiments and all the benefits that can come from it to Rupert and his friends.
- Tiger Lily – Rupert’s female Chinese friend. The only human student in school and the member of one of few human families in Nutwood. She and her family have a lot of knowledge about magic and mystic objects.
- Algy Pug – Rupert's friend, who [as shown mainly in the episode “The Mulp Gulper”] strongly overestimates his abilities and takes a lot of pride in himself. Despite his flaws he is shown to be a good and helpful friend for Rupert and others.
- Edward Trunk – An elephant, very kind and sensitive.
- Gregory- A guinea pig who is very kind and friends with Rupert. Sometimes he can be nervous and scared, but he meets the challenges head on when his friends need help.
- Ottoline the Otter – Rupert's friend of a Scottish decent who loves Shakespeare and lives in an old castle that belonged to her ancestors. The castle has many secret entrances hidden all over. Ottoline has vast knowledge of each entrances location and will prefer to use them instead of the stairs.
- Freddy and Ferdy Fox - Two mischievous twin fox brothers who spread mischief around the village of Nutwood.
- Constable Growler – A dog, local policeman, he rides a bicycle. He constantly states to follow everything by the book and is always turned to by Rupert and his friends whenever they need help catching a criminal.
[edit] Minor Characters
- Cedric Pig - Podgy's father, who is often going and doing expensive things like vacationing on yachts with his wife Lilly. Like his son, he is good friends with Rupert's father and also has a huge appetite to match. He is also a part of the Nutwood Fire Brigade, as seen in ( The Firebird). Whenever he sees a fire, he shouts "Fire!" and goes off to switch into his fire brigade gear and goes to put out the nearest fire.
- Lilly Pig - Podgy's mom, who often goes on vacations with Podgy's father and often reminds Podgy to watch his appetite and not eat too much.
- Mrs. Badger'- Bill's mom and also the mother to Bill's little brother Tobey
- Tobey- Bill's baby brother who always wants to tag along with Bill and Rupert on their advetures. He also always falls asleep two Bill's singing.
- Constable Robinson - An Urban Constable dog who is not used to the country, and is also not the one to be fooled.
- Constable Blatherstock - A female Constable dog who was called by Robinson when Rupert and Growler escaped custody.
- Sage of Um - A wizard and Tiger Lilly's friend. He has a vast amount magic stored in similar colored purple bags that he keeps in his sleeve. He is forgetful, often mistaking one purple satchel for another. He also has a magic umbrella that will take the rider anywhere he wishes to go and uses this as his main mode of transportation. He also owns a magical staff with a crystal ball that can show the future. It only shows part of the future which can lead to complications, like those of Rupert and Tiger Lily in (The Crystal Ball).
- The Conjurer A powerful Chinese wizard who is Tiger Lily's father and friends with Rupert and the Sage of Um. He is knowledgeable about the mystic arts.
- Princess Cristin - The daughter of Old King Cole who is love with her father's fiddler.
- Fred Fidler - One of Old King Cole's three fiddlers. He wished to marry his daughter Cristin, but was forbidden to do so because he was a commoner.
- Blaze A baby firebird or phoenix that hatched from a ruby like egg that Rupert found underground. When Blaze hatched, he had a hard time controlling his fire power. Rupert found a home for him at the Bird King's kingdom.
- Marina - A very young blond-headed mermaid with a pink T-shirt and a green tail who is friends with Rupert.
- King Neptune[disambiguation needed
] - Inspired by the Roman god of the seas, he initially misunderstands Rupert, but later turns against the sharks and eel. - Santa Claus - Based the holiday character, Santa is always happy to see Rupert and often comes to him for help, usually by sending the Little Cowboy to take Rupert to the North Pole.
- The Little Cowboy - A little cowboy who is good friends with both Rupert and Santa. He usually helps deliver Christmas letters to the North Pole and of course help deliver presents. He is often sent by Santa to bring Rupert to the North Pole whenever Santa needs help.
- Jack Frost - A ice imp who can create ice with a magic ice wand and taps on all the windows covering them with frost. He is good friends with Rupert and enemies with Billy Blizzard, who tried to steal his wand.
- Father Time - An old man who has control over time and has a large room that has many clocks. The largest one can control time. He can use it to freeze time so he can take a vacation.
- The Sandman - A tiny man to puts people to sleep with his magical sand encountered Rupert and Podgy while trying to put them to sleep only for him to help Podgy overcome his fear by taking him and Rupert to dream land.
- Raggety - A lonely wood imp who lives inside of trees, which causes them to die. This is a problem [as seen in "Raggety"] when the pixies of Spring were trying to start Spring. Raggety ruined their work by moving into different trees and killing them off. He has a grumpy attitude and chases away anyone who tries to befriend him. He very curious about things and constantly questions what something is.
- The Bird King - Bird like king who lives in a castle in the clouds and rules a kingdom of birds. He first appeared in "Twilight Fan". At first he despised the idea of flying machines as he thought that birds where the only creatures that should fly. He later appeared when Rupert need his help in "The Firebird" when he gave the firebird a home in his kingdom upon hearing Rupert needed his help.
- The Wise Old Goat - A wise old sage like Goat who owns a time machine that allows two people to visit the past while wearing amulets. He is another person that Rupert goes to for advice.
- Little Yum - A baby yeti, he is seen in "Little Yum" and the " The Dragon Race".
- Lilly - A reed warbler who wants her song back.
- Uncle Polar - Rupert's Polar Bear uncle that lives in the North Pole.
- Uncle Grizzly - Rupert's Grizzly Bear uncle that lives in the wild west in America. He is a prospector and is said to have big dreams and never gives up on them like Rupert.
- Magic Carpet/Sultan - A magic carpet that was really sultan under a spell casted by an evil genie.
- The Snake King - A large snake that Rupert rescued while him and Podgy were stranded on an island he would return the favor when him and Podgy led his troops to free Rupert and the sailors who were trapped by the crocodiles that lived on the island
- Captain Bill, Young Tom, and Mr. Ribbons - Three friendly elderly retired pirates who live in the Rocky Bay Retirement Home For Old Pirates. They are good friends with Rupert and will spin old tales of life on sea to Rupert whenever he visits them. He even helped show them that they are never too old for adventure. They also work together with Rupert when Grandad the River Pirate steals the donated treasure for a re-enactment treasure hunt and pins the blame on his grandchildren. Together Rupert, the pirates, and the grandchildren work together to take him down. A running gag that occurs in their appearance is that due to Mr. Ribbon's hearing he often misinterprets what people say.
- Reyka - Rupert's female Icelandic friend who appears in "Rupert and Billy Blizzard". She takes care of Santa's reindeer.
- The April Fool - A dwarfish, silly jokester who wears a jester's outfit. He is a brilliant prankster and enjoys playing jokes, telling riddles and jokes, magic tricks, and gags. Despite the fun he brings with his jokes he doesn't know when to stop and when enough is enough, which led to his expulsion from the village of Applewood by the villagers. Rupert and Gregory taught him a lesson and helped him learn self control and taught the adults of Applewood how to have fun again.
- Nessie The legendary Loch Ness Monster. Rupert met her during a fishing trip with his folks. Soon after meeting him she is befriended by Rupert, Bill, and the Professor. Later, she is captured by a Scotsman who wishes to put her on display until Rupert and the Professor free her and promise to keep her a secret.
- A.R.C.H.I.E - A robot invented by the proffesor he is designed to many tasks ranging from housework to yard work. The proffesor planned to make robots and had Rupert and Bill test Archie out until he was struck by lighnting which short circuited him to have his own mind and become fixated on getting the task down his way this would lead disaster when overhearing Bill's suggestion of chopping life time supply of wood for everyone in Nutwood. He would proceed to cutdown many trees and further this goal by building and programing more archie robots to meet this goal until Rupert and Bill found out to stop archie by drenching him in water. In end the proffesor dismantled and rebuilt archie with just one command since archie's programming become overhwhelmed by being programmed to do so many tasks no his programming is just to build kites.
- The Living Carousel- An old abandoned carousel that was found by Rupert and Otterline one day and the decide to repair it and they tried to bring it to life with the help of the Sage of Umm who accidently brought it literally to life. Carousel is made up of Lion, a Zebra, an elephant, and two flamingos.
[edit] Antagonists
- Billy Blizzard - An evil ice imp who uses a magic whistle to create an icy blizzard and constantly tries to take over winter.
- Sir Humphrey - An evil antagonistic archaeologist/graverobber. Rupert met him in Egypt, when Sir Humphrey drained the Nile in an attempt to get a museum to put all of its treasure back into a tomb so he could steal it more easily. Unfortunately for him, he was stopped by Rupert and a poor boy who offered rides on his camel. He and Rupert met again when he was using a sub to vacuum the ocean floor for sunken treasure when he heard from Rupert and a merboy that he was trespassing near Neptune's treasury. He took the chance to steal his treasure until he was stopped by Rupert, the merboy, and the captain. He often wishes to plunder the riches of the world for his own greed.
- Grandad Pirate - An old river pirate captain who tries to steal around Nutwood. He returned with his nephews at the retirement home for old pirates claiming to have turned straight, but in reality he planned to steal the retired pirates' treasure and let his nephews take the blame while he got away, until he was caught by Rupert, the Old Pirates, his nephews and his own captain.
- Sir Guy - An evil baron that lived in Nutwood during Medieval times and attempted to take over the throne by using Algy to impersonate the Duke of Nutwood.
- Jasper and Sprogg - An evil game hunter and his assistant who are responsible for the kidnapping of a baby yeti called little Yum.
- The McSwines - An evil bandit family of pigs who often rob trains. The matriarch, Big Mom McSwine and her two sons, Delbert and Dewey started out in the lumber business; but unfortunately, they made their fortune by lying, cheating and stealing. They wished to steal Rupert and his Uncle Grizzly's fortune of gold that they were prospecting while Rupert was visiting the wild west on holiday. While robbing trains they always use fake French accents to fool train passengers while they rob them, but the passengers know who they are anyway.
- Dennis Finch An old colleague of the Professor who retired, but came out to get revenge on the Professor by stealing of all his and the people of Nutwood's memories from the memory bank.
- The Professor's Reflection- When aggravated to distortion by the Professor's mirror machine, he became a grumpy and jealous version of the original Professor. Only when the Professor returned back through the mirror, the reflection was restored to his normal self.
- The Great Mephisto- A magician who specializes in hypnosis, which he uses to hypnotize everyone in Nutwood into steal from their own homes.
- Dr. Reginald P. Healthminder - A small, roly poly evil doctor who stole the sunshine and tried to sell it for a high price.
- The Chameleon - A fox who is both a master thief and master of disguises. He steals a precious emerald called the tiger's eye and impersonates a detective of Scotland Yard. He is considered to be the more friendlier antagonist than any other character in the series.
- Constable Curly O'Haira - A constable of Applewood who outlaws jokes, riddles, pranks, and gags after the April Fool overdoes his jokes. After Rupert and Gregory teach the Fool self control and help him put on a show, Officer Curly tries to stop it until he too gets in on the fun and stars in the fool's show.
- Tung Lai - An evil Chinese wizard and the enemy of the Conjurer. He fooled Rupert into thinking he was an old friend of the Conjurer, who replaced him as court magician. He swore he would have vengeance by using the Twilight Fan to put its victims to an eternal sleep.
- Evil Chalk Rupert - A Mischievious chalk drawing of Rupert that came to life and ran wild and ruined Rupert's good name during His and Gregory's visit to chalk world. He was drawn by the fox brother's Freddi and Ferdi Fox as such he looks like a clown and the exact opposite of his real counterpart as he like his creators would do various mean pranks and causes mischief that would spiral out of control.
- Podgy's Nightmare - A giant pickle that was dreamed up by Podgy's nightmares and had been plaguing him and all of dream land in attempt to give everyone sour dreams.
- The Birdman - An evil man that who went around stealing various birds for his collection he was stopped by both Rupert, Audmidaud, and Ticktock the clockwork cuckoo bird.
- Crocodiles - A bunch crocodiles in the episode " Rupert and the Crocodiles" who wanted to eat Rupert, Podgy, and sailors until they were stopped by Podgy and the Snake King.
- The Mayor of Origami City- a mayor of a city made of buildings and various structures that were made of folded paper. The mayor became so fixated on advancing the city he cut down all the trees on the island the city was on and of course stole paper from the citizens nutwood that he used to be recycled into new paper to be folded.
- Toy General - A toy general who ran toyland he was formlerly owned by Freddi and Ferdi after being played and abandoned by them he under the false belief that all owners will abandon their toys.
- Evil Genie - An evil genie who took over the kingdom of Chandalar after he was freed from his lamp and turned the sultan into a magic carpet. He commands an enchanted army of four-armed men called the Black Turbans who are just as mean and evil as he is.
- Chess King - A giant living chess king who him and various other chess pieces would try to take over gameland.
- The Great Enchanter - A small impatient child wizard who tried to kidnap all of the Unicorns under the belief that by stealing their horns he could magically grow up into a great and powerful wizard.
- Prince Lazuli - An evil Elf prince of Gemland that stole the throne from his cousin Princess Tiara.
- Captain Stubbs - An evil sky pirate that stole the north, west, east, and south winds to aid in his heist to steal weather clouds.
[edit] Voice cast
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Additional Voices
- Susan Roman (Erin (1st Imp Of Spring), Briar (2nd Imp Of Spring))
- John Stocker
- John McGrath
- Lisa Yamanaka
- Harvey Atkin (Evil genie)
[edit] Episode list
65 half-hour episodes were produced:
[edit] Season one (1991)
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[edit] Season two (1992)
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[edit] Season three (1994)
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[edit] Season four (1995)
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[edit] Season five (1997)
- Rupert and Jolly Roger
- Rupert and the Great Mephisto
- Rupert and the Little Bear
- Rupert and the Paper Folders
- Rupert and the Crystal Ball
- Rupert and the Sun Bandit
- Rupert and the Song Snatcher
- Rupert and Queen Bess
- Rupert and the Water Works
- Rupert and the Deep Freeze
- Rupert and the Chalk Drawing
- Rupert and the Dragon Festival
- Rupert and the Whizz Watch
[edit] External links
- Rupert Bear at itv.com/citv
- Rupert at the Internet Movie Database
- Rupert at TV.com
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Categories:
- 1990s American animated television series
- 1990s Nickelodeon shows
- 1991 Canadian television series debuts
- 1997 Canadian television series endings
- Canadian animated television series
- Television series by Nelvana
- CBS network shows
- Children's ITV television programmes
- Canadian children's television series
- Disney Channel shows
- Nick Jr. shows
- Nickelodeon shows
- Qubo
- STV Productions
- Television programs based on comic strips
- YTV shows
- Television programs featuring anthropomorphic characters
- Programs broadcast by Treehouse TV
- Rupert Bear
