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Morph (TV series)

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Morph
A model of the main character, Morph, on display at the National Media Museum, Bradford
First appearanceTake Hart, 15 February 1977
Created byPeter Lord
David Sproxton
In-universe information
NationalityBritish

Morph is a series of clay stop-motion comedy animations, named after the main character. This fictional character was initially seen interacting with Tony Hart, beginning in 1977, on several of his UK TV programmes, notably Take Hart and Hartbeat.

History

Morph was produced for the BBC by Aardman Animations, later famous for the "Sledgehammer" music video, Wallace and Gromit, and Shaun the Sheep. Morph appeared mainly in one-minute "shorts" interspersed throughout the Take Hart show. These were connected to the main show by having Hart deliver a line or two to Morph who would reply in gobbledygook but with meaningful gestures. Later on, Morph was joined by cream-coloured Chas, who was much more badly behaved.

Morph can change shape, he would become spheres in order to move around, or extrude into cylinders to pass to different levels. He can also mimic other objects, or creatures. Morph lived in a wooden microscope box on an artist's desk. He and Chas both loved to eat cake, as seen in many of the shorts. Most appearances of Morph revolve around his friendship and rivalry with Chas, with each often playing tricks on the other and laughing at each other's misfortune. Whilst Morph's nature is that of an innocent, curious character, Chas is much more mischievous, and prone to bad behaviour.

After Hart's shows ended, Morph and Chas appeared in shorts on the Children's BBC's successor programme SMart from 1994 onwards.

Some of the early plasticine models of Morph were destroyed in a fire at the warehouse where they were being stored, on 10 October 2005.[1]

Morph's 30th birthday was celebrated in 2007 by creator Peter Lord and celebrity fan and comedian Phill Jupitus at events for the Encounters Film Festival in Bristol. In March 2009, shortly after Hart's death, a flashmob of Morph characters was organised in London outside the Tate Modern art gallery.[2]

In 2009, the BBC drama Ashes to Ashes featured Morph in a guest appearance as a representation of a present-day medic.[3]

On 29 October 2013, Peter Lord (co-founder of Aardman Animations) created a fund raising project on the crowdfunding site Kickstarter. The campaign set a target of £75,000 to be used to fund 12 new one minute episodes. The target was reached on 6 November 2013 after only 9 days, attracting contributions from over 1,700 backers who received a variety of rewards, including early access to the new animations and a small box of clay used in the production, depending on the individual's level of funding.[4][5] In January 2014, Peter Lord and Aardman began production on 15 new episodes featuring Morph. The new series premiered on Morph's official YouTube channel with 15 episodes from 4 July 2014 to 30 January 2015.

In 2015, a Morph experience opened at Land's End. The Land's End signpost was rebranded 'Lamb's End' with original sets, models and characters from a range of Aardman productions. Visitors were also able to star in a real Shaun the Sheep scene, using green screen technology, and meet other characters from the Aardman family, including Shaun the Sheep and Wallace & Gromit.[6]

Released between 20 March and 2 October 2015, HD restored versions of The Amazing Adventures of Morph appeared on YouTube and in the summer of 2015, Morph returned to TV on CBBC with the 15 new episodes.[7] From 6 November 2015 to 7 January 2016, The Lost Tapes from 2001 were revealed having been redubbed and remastered on YouTube. In March 2016, it was announced that Sky plc had made a deal with Aardman Animations to produce new Morph material to be directed at its child audience.[8] From 6 May 2016 to 15 September 2017, all clips captured from Take Hart were revealed on the Morph YouTube channel. In August 2017, new Morph merchandise was shown at Wallace & Gromit's Charity Shop.[9] Between 2 March and 14 September 2018, 15 more episodes of the new Morph series, that were previously shown on Sky Kids, were shown on YouTube. From 15 February to 17 May 2019, all 13 episodes of The Morph Files, that were remastered into HD, were released on YouTube.

In May 2019, Morph and Chas appeared in an advert for Tesco as part of the company's centenary celebrations, which also featured celebrities Anneka Rice and Derrick Evans (the latter more commonly known as Mr. Motivator).[10]

Films, shorts, and TV series

1977–83 Take Hart
1980–81 The Amazing Adventures of Morph
1984–93 Hartbeat
1994–2005 SMart
1995 The Morph Files
1997 Morph TV (with Tony Hart)
1998 On Your Marks
2001 The Lost Tapes
2006 Morph (TV series)
2009 Ashes to Ashes (guest appearance)
2012 Ricky's Radical Reinventions
2014–present Brand New Morph
2019−present Retro Morph
2020-present The Epic Adventures of Morph [11]

Series overview

Season Episodes
First aired Last aired
1 19 4 November 2013 26 June 2014
2 17 4 July 2014 6 March 2015
3 12 2 March 2018 14 September 2018

Season 1: 2013–14

The First Season of Morph was aired on 4 November 2013 and ended on 26 June 2014.

# Episode Original airdate
101 (1) Hats 4 November 2013
102 (2) No Entry 4 November 2013
103 (3) Magic Boots 4 November 2013
104 (4) Invisimorph 4 November 2013
105 (5) Sweet Showdown 4 November 2013
106 (6) The Amazing Mimic 6 November 2013
107 (7) Get The Picture 11 November 2013
108 (8) Cake 14 November 2013
109 (9) Robomorph 27 March 2014
110 (10) Messy April Fools 1 April 2014
111 (11) Card Trick 1 May 2014
112 (12) Ice Cream 8 May 2014
113 (13) Row Your Boat 15 May 2014
114 (14) Sailors 22 May 2014
115 (15) Cleaning 29 May 2014
116 (16) Minimorph 5 June 2014
117 (17) Football 12 June 2014
118 (18) Sitting Comfortably? 19 June 2014
119 (19) Pudding Time 26 June 2014

Season 2: 2014–15

# Episode Original airdate
201 (20) Twin Decks 4 July 2014
202 (21) Portable Hole 18 July 2014
203 (22) Great Outdoors 1 August 2014
204 (23) Stand Up 15 August 2014
205 (24) Fetch 29 August 2014
206 (25) Bin It To Win It 12 September 2014
207 (26) Stick Up 26 September 2014
208 (27) Hiccups 10 October 2014
209 (28) Box of Tricks 24 October 2014
210 (29) Selfie 7 November 2014
211 (30) Clean Sweep 21 November 2014
212 (31) Goal 5 December 2014
213 (32) Xmas 19 December 2014
214 (33) Sloped World 2 January 2015
215 (34) Chas Express 17 January 2015
216 (35) Picture Perfect 30 January 2015
217 (36) Red Nose Day 6 March 2015

Season 3: 2018

# Episode Original airdate
301 (37) Phosing 2 March 2018
302 (38) One Man and His Dog 16 March 2018
303 (39) Treasure Map 30 March 2018
304 (40) Shadow Puppets 13 April 2018
305 (41) Magic Doors 27 April 2018
306 (42) Boot Camp 11 May 2018
307 (43) Desktop Rodeo 25 May 2018
308 (44) Tablet 8 June 2018
309 (45) New Neighbour 22 June 2018
310 (46) Birthday Party 3 July 2018
311 (47) Portable Portals 20 July 2018
312 (48) Lamp 3 August 2018
313 (49) Remote 17 August 2018
314 (50) Pinata 31 August 2018
315 (51) Rappers Delight 14 September 2018

Season 4: 2021

Characters

  • Morph – The curious and creative main character with terracotta skin. He is a clay figure who can transform into many things.
  • Chas – Morph's amoral white-skinned best friend.(Originally named Stu)[12]
  • Nailbrush – Morph's 'canine' companion, a barking nailbrush.
  • GrandMorph – Morph's elderly, bearded grandfather, who travels by skateboard and frequently invents things.
  • Delilah – A bossy, bespectacled female character in a yellow dress with dark brownish-purple skin.
  • Folly – A scatter-brained girl made of tin-foil.
  • Gillespie – A large, purple, dimwitted but peaceable friend of Morph's.
  • The Very Small Creatures – An array of small plasticine balls with eyes who travel in a swarm; the smallest of the group, Little Green, features prominently on his own in a number of episodes.
  • Gobbledygook – A green, omnivorous alien child (who arrived on the table by sleeping near Morph's box in The Amazing Adventures of Morph, but in The Morph Files, he arrived by mistakenly being printed from a 'Space Invaders' style game).
  • The Paint Pots - A group of sentient paint pots who can morph their paint into facsimiles of people; unlike Morph and Chas, they are able to speak coherently (one of them even chides Morph for his non-existent linguistic skills on multiple occasions); they only appear in Take Hart
  • Talking Lamp - A Luxo lamp who warns the others when Tony is entering the room; like the Paint Pots, he only appears in Take Hart, but later reappeared in a 2018 short in a silent role more akin to Luxo Jr.

Credits

1980

  • Narrator: Tony Hart
  • Editor: Alan Trott
  • Sound Effects: Peter Harwood [13]
  • Animated and directed by: Peter Lord, David Sproxton
  • Produced by: Patrick Dowling

1995

  • Narrator: Neil Morrissey
  • Animators: Aardman Animations, including Mike Booth, Gary Cureton, Dave Osmand
  • Computer Animation: Alan Snow
  • Dubbing Editor: James Mather
  • Special Sounds: Peter Harwood
  • Writer: Andy Walker
  • Film Editor: Andrew Hassenruck
  • Producer: Jacqueline White
  • Executive Producers: Peter Lord, David Sproxton

2014

  • Morph created by: Peter Lord and David Sproxton
  • Voices by: Merlin Crossingham [14]
  • Script written by: Peter Lord, Sara Barbas, Patrick Makin
  • Story Artist: Andy Janes
  • Animators: Yago Alvarez, Adam M. Watts, Inez Woldman
  • Sets and Props by: Kitty Clay
  • Modelmaking: Chris Entwistle
  • Lighting/Camera by: Nat Sale
  • Camera Assistant: Adam Cook
  • Permanent Way Engineer (Chas Express): Tony Prescott
  • Script Coordinator: Ngaio Harding-Hill
  • Production Coordinator: Danny Gallagher
  • Compositors: Jon Biggins, Spencer Cross
  • Editor: Dan Hembery
  • Assistant Editor: Ben Craske
  • Music (Twin Decks): Bunkersonix
  • Sound by: Will Norie @ Evolutions
  • Associate Producers: Stewart Abel, Dawn Adams, John Gleaves, Dianne Martin
  • Executive Producers: Peter Lord, David Sproxton, Heather Wright, Christopher Blower
  • Producer: Helen Argo
  • Director: Merlin Crossingham

2018

  • Morph created by: Peter Lord David Sproxton
  • Voices by: Merlin Crossingham
  • Script written by: Merlin Crossingham
  • Story Artist: Nigel Davies
  • Animators: Wendy Griffiths
  • Sets and Props by: Charlie Brandon-King
  • Lighting/Camera by: Nat Sale
  • Camera Assistant: Adam Cook
  • Production Manager: Sami Goddard
  • Compositors: Jon Biggins, Bram Ttwheam
  • Editors: Dan Hembery, Ben Craske
  • Colourist: Bram Ttwheam
  • Music by: Josh Brown
  • Sound by: Laura Izzard
  • Executive Producers at Aardman: Peter Lord, David Sproxton, Alix Wiseman
  • Executive Producer at Sky: Lucy Murphy
  • Producer: Helen Argo
  • Director: Danny Capozzi

See also

References

  1. ^ Morris, Steven (11 October 2005). "Curses, Gromit! Fire destroys animation firm's history on eve of box office triumph". The Guardian. Retrieved 27 November 2018.
  2. ^ "Morph flashmob honours Tony Hart". News.bbc.co.uk. 1 March 2009. Retrieved 27 November 2018.
  3. ^ Mirror.co.uk (28 April 2009). "1980s kids' plasticine star Morph to star in Ashes To Ashes". Retrieved 27 November 2018.
  4. ^ "'Bring back Morph' campaign launched". 30 October 2013. Retrieved 27 November 2018 – via www.bbc.co.uk.
  5. ^ "All New Adventures of Morph from Aardman Animations". Kickstarter.com. Retrieved 27 November 2018.
  6. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2015-09-23. Retrieved 2015-10-24.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  7. ^ Agency (20 May 2015). "Morph returns to TV after 15 years with new CBBC show". Retrieved 27 November 2018 – via www.telegraph.co.uk.
  8. ^ Financial Times, 31 March 2016
  9. ^ "The Gromit Unleashed Shop". Wallaceandgromitcharityshop.org.uk. Retrieved 27 November 2018.
  10. ^ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0Ky13g10eo. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  11. ^ https://www.aardman.com/epic-adventures-morph-debut-sky-kids/
  12. ^ https://amazingmorph.com/history/. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  13. ^ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jbOnh-jjnc. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  14. ^ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jbOnh-jjnc. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
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