Talk:Balamory

Misplaced Miscellany

The main article claims 254 episodes were made, but the episde descriptions claim there were 64 in series 1 (I can't bring myself to use the American 'season') and 63 in series 2. Is 254 overstated, or were there more series? Fuzzy 22:58, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Sorry yeah, there were indeed 2 more seasons, but I'm afraid I've lost the website where I was sourcing the episode list/descriptions from.

I hate Balamory! The music gets in my head and the whole experience of watching it makes me feel uncomfortable and slightly disturbed the teacher is quite pretty though. - Jamestaylorwiki 13:40, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

What's the story in Balamory wouldn't you like to know!? Blah blah blah It's hilarious, but Miss Hoolie is more than a bit weird, don't you think? - Ferretgames 17:12, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Whenever I watch Balamory I feel that I've been messed with in ways I don't fully understand. - Jamestaylorwiki 13:40, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

But listen to yourself, you do watch it! :O - Ferretgames 07:00, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Confusion over sexual tension

I'm confused. The article mentions sexual tension between "the schoolmistress and the policeman" and between "Archie the inventor and P.C. Plum".

Now, there is only one policeman in Balamory - PC Plum. I would be surprised if, on a show as simple as this, that he was interested in both Miss Hoolie _and_ Archie.

If I had to choose between the two as being correct I'd say it was Archie and PC Plum, but I'm still not convinced.

I've never seen the episode where the characters kiss at a wedding, or the episode when Plum is in Venice.

--JimmyTheWig 11:31, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Well, I've seen both of those episodes (I admit :\) - and I didn't notice any homosexual innuendo in the Venice episode. In fact, it looked more as though a love triangle was forming between Plum, Penny Pocket (who went to Miss Hoolie saying she really missed PC Plum and wanted to see him on the webcam), and Miss Hoolie. Also, at the end of that episode I think Plum said "I'm especially missing you, Miss Hoolie". In the wedding episode, when MH and Plum kissed, the other characters looked at each other as if they were thinking "hello, what's going on here", and Miss Hoolie caught the flowers.....

But I do reckon Plum plucks his eyebrows - make of that what you will. --Dave ~ (talk) 17:25, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

I think 'sexual tension' is far too strong a term. Budding romance may be more applicable! Is Balamory really supposed to be understood on two levels or is the innuendo unintended? Annagreathead 18:00, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Political Correctness?

Is it really 'politically correct' to have a woman bus driver? Where I live it's fairly common. UK-Logician-2006

Yeah, you're right. I removed the political correctness rubbish - the reasons given were pants, and there werent any relevant google results about it. -- jeffthejiff 23:15, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

"Post-operative transexual"

Some older viewers also like to believe that it is implied that Edie McCredie is a post-operative transexual. Her theme song is entitled "When You Honk My Horn" (with the older viewers in this case taking 'horn' as a euphemism for penis).

First of all - it's called "When I Honk My Horn". So, if anything, it's about masturbation.

Second - what is this nonsense? The love triangle with Miss Hoolie, Archie and PC Plum should be mentioned - it's well known, and, I'm sure, to some extent intentional. But please, there are no signs whatsoever that Edie is a 'post operative transexual', and I suspect that 'some older viewers' mainly consists of whoever wrote this. And any way, if she's post-operative, she wouldn't have a horn to honk, would she? This just doesn't make any kind of sense.

Show me references, and tell me why it's relevant. Otherwise, I'll remove it. And no, that's not something Edie said. The Legend of Julie Egbert 05:32, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Cheap Residents

If theres ever a problem instead of buying something useful they make something half-arsed out of cardboard and glitter, how on earth archie makes his robots with a pritt stick is beyond me

Of course they're cheap, they're from Scotland! But I still don't think you're being fair. They try to buy useful things, but Pocket & Sweet have an ability to be out of exactly that item, and oh no, it's no use ordering it, because 'the last ferry has already gone'. Then, and only then, do they turn to Archie - with a feeling of resignation, one can imagine. The Legend of Julie Egbert 21:18, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Narrated by?

In the info box it says that Balamory is narracted by Andrew Agnew (PC Plum's actor). I can't think of a narrator in the programme. Does this make sense to anyone? --JimmyTheWig 11:48, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

No, it doesn't. The closest thing to a narrator would be Miss Hoolie, but even that is questionable. This is either a mistake, or more of the nonsense this page seems to attract, so I've removed it. Well spotted. The Legend of Julie Egbert 14:56, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Lost sentence in 'Reference' section

In the 'Reference' section the sentence 'animated by Cosgrove Hall Films - animated stories from the book,poems,play theatre and novel'. Where should this be? Wiki-uk 13:27, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Entire cast is hideously ugly

Has anyone else noticed this? Is there some sort of a message in it?

Also, is it worth mentioning that there has been criticism of the show's tokenism and multi-culti brainwashing (on a number of blogs that I can think of at least)? For instance, although the show is supposedly set in Scotland we have a quota of one Englishman, one black woman, one Asian woman, and one disabled woman (the latter two are in fact the same person, so two boxes ticked there). On the brainwashing, there has been a nursery trip to a mosque but never to a church and certainly not to a synagogue of course. Tirailleur 17:26, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

A lot of people write a lot of stuff on a lot of blogs. I think it takes more than that to make something notable.

Anyway, I'm not sure what this criticism consists of. That Balamory doesn't give a realistic image of Scotish demographics? Is this really supposed to be a realistic show? You think Archie is a realistic character? Yes, I guess it's possible that this show is an evil scheme to brainwash children into not judging each other by the colour of their skin. It's also possible that they want to have a cast that resembles their viewers - or maybe they just picked the actors they liked best. The point is, we don't know, and this isn't the place to make guesses about ulterior motives.

As a sidenote, there's actually an Indian restaurant in Tobermory. Just saying.

There are a couple of factual inaccuracies in your post. Penny Pocket isn't asian. The actress has a greek father, Greece is in Europe. And while I'll admit that I don't see the connection between 'brainwashing' and going to a mosque, and may be missing the point here, I'll mention that there's a church building on the Main Street which is clearly visible in every episode - and furthermore, they have been to a church (the wedding episode). Why they 'certainly' wouldn't go to a synagogue, I don't know - weren't you saying that this show is interested in 'multicultural brainwashing'? Wouldn't a synagogue be another 'ticked box'?

In conclusion - an unnotable opinion, somewhat confusing (at least to me) and based on factual inaccuracies, has no place in this article. The Legend of Julie Egbert 11:34, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Ethnicity

I've added some Census data to show the REAL ethnic makeup of the Isle of Mull, in contrast to the cosmopolitan composition of Balamory. There seems to be a bit of debate about it on the web... Ok, so Balamory is totally fictional and bears no relation to the real world, but being in posession of the facts is always handy when discussing issues of "tokenism"... Paul-b4 (talk) 11:23, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

I still don't see the point of this. Do we need to mention that the REAL population of the Isle of Mull may not have their own theme tunes, or have clothes with the same colour as their houses?

But alright, I've understood that there are people who feel it needs to be pointed out that Balamory isn't entirely realistic. Maybe this can work as a compromise. The Legend of Julie Egbert 03:17, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

I included the data in the (much maligned by Wikipedia) "Trivia" section purely as there IS some "argument" about this topic, and facts are always useful.

Balamory is a fictional Scottish island community, and I think that comparing it with Mull (as a typical example of a real Scottish island community) is an interesting aside (if nothing else), which is why it is in the trivia section (and not in the main body).

OK, so Balamory is a fictional community full of larger-than-life characters and slightly surreal situations and thus cannot be taken as representative of everyday life in the Scottish islands, but it is based around a Scottish island theme - a line therefore has to be drawn at some point between fantasy and realism, and some people (not necessarily me I hasten to add) like to comment about where this line has actually been drawn.

Unlike with similar series such as "Me Too!" (based in a city where you could expect to have a much more diverse ethnic mix), some would argue that the casting of Balamory does seem to reflect "tokenism". Paul-b4 09:53, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm intrigued - which city is "Me Too!" based in? The Wikipedia entry says it has elements of Glasgow, Edinburgh and Newcastle, and the Gherkin also appears, so I don't think it is based in _a_ city. Rachel Pearce 18:02, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

The fictional setting for "Me, too!" is the community of "Riverseafingal". We can surmise that it is a city because it says so in the title song ("we better get on down to the city...") Also, the place boasts a major bus terminus, mainline rail terminus, large hospital and a castle as well as being set on a large river. At worst we can assume that Riverseafingal is merely a suburb of a major city - at any rate, the original point about ethnicity still stands.

You are right, though - It is filmed in several different cities, and I'm not even sure that it is explicitely stated in the series that Riverseafingal is actually in Scotland (A few of the cast are Scottish, as are the choir who do the backing vocals in the title song, but there is less of a pronounced "Scottishness" about it than with Balamory.) Paul-b4 09:04, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

OK, so Riverseafingal is not a real city, so they can make it as multi-ethnic as they like - more than Newcastle (about 3% non-white) perhaps, less than London (about 29% non-white)?. I'm not sure that this doesn't apply likewise to Balamory. Rachel Pearce 10:01, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Coming back to the original point - there has been a fair amount said about Balamory on this issue elsewhere, but I don't recall seeing anything being said about Riverseafingal. Possibly some feel that the somewhat profuse multiculturalism shown in both of these programmes sits better in the urban environment of Riverseafingal than in the Scottish Highlands and islands - All I know is that it would be wrong to just assume that the Scottish islands are largely "White British" (Scottish!), and have people base any criticisms of the show on that assumption, hence my attempt to quantify the situation. You could just avoid the issue and populate Balamory totally with Wombles, but then you couldn't really make out that it was set on a Scottish island.

I think that the info stands as a piece of trivia, but wouldn't want to take it seriously enough to make it a major point of the article. Paul-b4 12:36, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

So Spencer is American?

How is this known and how is this important? Removed the note from the article. He just as easily could be Canadian with that accent (and more likely so with his albeit scripted language use). 98.119.35.172 (talk) 12:32, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

About "Balamory Ltd."

Balamory Ltd. didn't produce Balamory, BBC did. -- Logosncompanies (talk) 08:21, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

External links modified (February 2018)

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"Series" articles need to be merged into a single "List of episodes" article

It does not appear that separate "series(/season)" articles for this TV programme are justified, as per MOS:TV. "Series(/season)" articles are supposed to contain more than just the episodes list (e.g. they're supposed to also contain sourced production and critical response info as well). As the four "series" articles for this programme – Balamory (series 1), Balamory (series 2), Balamory (series 3), and Balamory (series 4) – are all unsourced, they pretty clearly don't meet the MOS:TV guideline for separate "series(/season)" articles. Thus, all four should be merged into a new List of Balamory episodes article. In addition, Balamory (series 3) and Balamory (series 4) also need to be converted into standard {{Episode table}}/{{Episode list}} format. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 15:53, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

Balamory

Is it a real town DhruvDhokiya 2006 (talk) 18:34, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion:

• Balamory logo.png

You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 11:00, 11 September 2021 (UTC)