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Tweenies

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Tweenies
StarringColeen Daley
Justin Fletcher
Bob Golding
Sally Priesig
Emma Weaver
Sinead Rushe
Simon Grover
Jenny Hutchinson
Chris Beck
Alan Riley
Country of origin United Kingdom
Original languagesEnglish; Welsh Spanish
No. of episodes390
Production
Executive producersJudy Whitfield
Clare Elstow
ProducersKay Benbow
Robin Carr
Iain Lauchlan
Will Brenton
Running time20 minutes approx.
Original release
NetworkBBC
Release1999

The Tweenies is a television program aimed at young children, broadcast on the BBC. The programme is set in a nursery attended by the four Tweenies themselves: Milo, Jake, Bella and Fizz. They are supplemented by two adults, Max and Judy, and two dogs, Doodles and Izzles.

The original prototypes for the Tweenies characters were designed by Sally Preseig of Mimics Productions; they were later re-scaled into two sizes for the characters shown on the series. In addition, Sally also designed the character costumes and was co-constructor/developer for the Tweenies' full-size puppets. The costume fabric comes from the US and was imported and dyed into their present colours; it is about the same thickness as fleece jumpers. [1]

The Tweenies are a production of Tell-Tale Productions (now owned by Entertainment Rights) in association with the BBC. Animation for the show was produced by A Productions, an animation studio based in Bristol, U.K., with Ealing Animation providing some animation in a few early episodes. Computer animation for the series was provided by Clockwork Digital, with Ben Mars animating Mungo, the computer creature who appears in some later episodes. The show includes a "Tweenie Clock", with five circular lights arranged in a pentagonal shape with the lights denoting "news time" (orange), "messy time" (blue: art, sticking, painting), "song time" (yellow: generally nursery rhymes or children's classics), "telly time" (green; in some later episodes, this is also used when they use the computer) and "story time" (red). "Surprise Time" is a special time determined when all five lights glow. A button at the centre of the clock is pressed to select the activity that will be undertaken next.

It is currently being shown on CBeebies, the BBC's children's channel for young children.

Like a number of other CBeebies programmes, a live stage version of the show has toured in the UK. The newest tour, Enchanted Toyshop, toured the British Isles during 2007. Between 2003 and 2006, there was also a live version of The Tweenies shown regularly at Alton Towers in the Cred Street section aimed at younger children.

In 2000, Tweenies won two awards: Best Pre-School Educational Programme (Royal Television Society) and Best Live Action Pre-School Programme (BAFTA Awards).

The Tweenies were created by Will Brenton and Iain Lauchlan, a pair with a track record of being involoved in BBC children's programming. Iain Lauchlan was a presenter on 'Play School' 'Fingermouse' and 'Playdays' where he met Will Brenton, who was also a presenter, director and writer on 'Playdays'. Together they started producing two of the Playdays strands before forming their own Production company 'Tell-Tale productions, and most recently, Wish Films.

They also created 'The Fun Song Factory' 'Boo!' 'BB3B!' 'Jim Jam and Sunny' 'Basil Hair The Squirrel' & 'Entertainment Right's The Magical Live of Toys'.

Characters

Tweenies:

  • Bella - female, the oldest and most confident but with bossy tendencies. She has blue skin, and yellow hair with a bow.
  • Milo - male, boisterous but friendly. He adds "-aroony!" to words to show approval. He has Purple skin and short spiked hair.
  • Fizz - female. Stereotypically feminine, but practical. Yellow skin, long brown braided hair.
  • Jake - male, the youngest and prone to malapropisms . His skin is orange, and his hair is a yellow "mohican quiff".

Other characters:

  • Max - adult male with a Yorkshire accent; avuncular and workmanlike but prone to flights of fancy; used to play bass guitar in a band. Pink skin, balding white hair.
  • Judy - adult female with an Irish accent; sympathetic and sensible. Green skin, purple hair.
  • Doodles - canine, male, breed unknown, often wiser than the Tweenies but misunderstood. Red and yellow fur.
  • Izzles - canine, female, resembles Afghan Hound, friend of Doodles. Purple and white/light grey fur.

Original cast

The Tweenies are played and voiced by different people. The actors that provide the voices also operate the animatronic parts of their heads.

Actors

Note: Max and Judy are rarely seen together on screen (exceptions being episode 288 - "No Words", and the Enchanted Toyshop DVD).

Voices

Some of these voice actors are recognisable as actors from other BBC series. For example, Justin Fletcher is "Justin" from Tikkabilla, and Sally Preisig is "Peggy Patch" from Playdays.

Tweenies Abroad

In mid-2003, The Tweenies was introduced to U.S. audiences via the cable channel Noggin, after briefly being shown on sister channel Nickelodeon. Similar to Bob the Builder, American-accented voices were used, and words specific to British English were changed (for example, "telly time" is renamed "video time" and "news time" is renamed "circle time"). However, by early 2004, due to pressure to introduce other new shows on the channel it was no longer shown daily and was only shown intermittently at a rather early 6 am EST. This greatly diminished its US viewership and on January 1, 2006 the show was permanently pulled from Noggin's line-up and thus is no longer shown in the United States; however, the Noggin web link is still active.

In Canada, the show has aired in both English and French on BBC Kids and Radio-Canada, respectively. Radio-Canada dropped regular broadcasts of the series in mid-August 2005, but aired 2 holiday episodes on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve 2005. In April 2006, Radio-Canada brought the series back on Sunday mornings as part of its La petite minute pre-school program block for the spring-summer 2006 season. In early June 2006, the network added weekday airings as well; however, the weekday shows were dropped later that month, returning to the line-up in mid-July. On August 31, 2006, the network aired 2 Tweenies episodes that day, one in its usual 6am (Eastern) time slot and a second episode at 7am. The Monday-Friday showings were ended on September 4, 2006, leaving the Thursday 7am broadcast as the only weekday program. As of September 16, 2006, the weekend broadcast was moved to Saturdays at 6am EST. The Saturday broadcast repeated the Thursday episode, delayed 2 weeks (with a few exceptions). During the 2006 holiday period, the Saturday programme was pre-empted for 2 weeks due to special holiday progamming, but picked up at the usual point when it returned. The episode Christmas Morning was broadcast December 21, 2006 and was replayed on Christmas Day 2006 with the regular rotation returning the following week. The Thursday and Saturday broadcasts ended on April 5 and 7, 2007 respectively.

In addition, the show has been dubbed into German, Welsh, Estonian, Arabic, Russian, Indonesian, and Slovak, among others. The Spanish version of the series appears in 2 versions: a Madrid-dubbed version for Spain and a dubbed-in-Chile version for Latin America.

International Broadcasters

Dubbing casts

US dub

French dub

Spanish, Latin America dub Where two names are listed, first name is dialogue and second is vocals *

Spanish, Spain dub

Welsh dub

Dutch dub

  • Bella- Brigitte Nijman (season 1), Lizemijn Libgott (remainder)
  • Doodles- Reinder van der Naald
  • Fizz- Anneke Beukman
  • Jake- Dieter Jansen
  • Judy- Karin von As
  • Max- Rik Hoogendoorn (season 1), Bartho Braat (remainder)
  • Milo- Dennis Kivit

Videos/DVDs

  • Ready to Play (1999)
  • Song Time! (1999)
  • Ready to Play/Song Time! (combined DVD, 2000)
  • Merry Tweenie Christmas (2000)
  • Party Games, Laughs & Giggles (2000)
  • Song Time is Fab-a-Rooney (2001)
  • Songtime is Fab-a-Rooney/Song Time 2 (combined DVD, 2001)
  • Enchanted Toyshop (2001)
  • Song Time 2 (2001)
  • Songs & Surprises (2001)
  • Tweenies Live! (2001)
  • Animal Friends (2001)
  • Animal Friends/Party Games, Laughs & Giggles (combined DVD, 2002)
  • Colours are Magic (2002)
  • It's Messy Time (2002)
  • Everybody Panto (2002)
  • Doodles' New Friend (2002)
  • Tweenies Live!: The Christmas Present (2002)
  • Night-Time Magic (2002)
  • Party Games, Laughs & Giggles (2002; special edition for Marks & Spencer with added footage)
  • Music is Pop-a-Rooney! (2003)
  • Let's Play (2003)
  • Party Games, Laughs & Giggles/Let's Play (combined DVD, 2003)
  • Jungle Adventure (2004)
  • Let's All Make Music (2004)
  • Fizz! (2005)
  • It's Christmas (2005; combined DVD of Enchanted Toyshop and Everybody Panto)
  • Song Time: The Ultimate Collection (2006; combined DVD of Song Time!/Song Time 2/Songtime is Fab-a-Rooney and Songs & Surprises)
  • Ultimate Christmas Collection (2006; combined DVD of Enchanted Toyshop, Merry Tweenie Christmas, Tweenies Live: The Christmas Present, and Everybody Panto, with special Christmas material added)

Many of the videos/DVDs on the list have also been dubbed into other languages as well.

Episodes

Main article: List of Tweenies episodes
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