Clangers

Updated on Oct 02, 2024

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Clangers is a British stop-motion animated children's television series of short stories about a family of murine creatures who live on, and inside, a small moon like planet. They speak only in whistles, 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 the first of three special episodes that was broadcast in 1974.

The series was made by Smallfilms, the company set up by Oliver Postgate (writer, animator and narrator) and Peter Firmin (modelmaker and illustrator). Firmin designed the characters, and his wife knitted and "dressed" the Clangers. The music, often part of the story, was by Vernon Elliott.

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A new series, narrated by Monty Python actor Michael Palin, started on 15 June 2015 on the UK CBeebies TV channel with successful viewing figures. Two short specials were broadcast before then. The new cartoons are still animated in stop-motion animation instead of computer-generated imagery, which replaced the original stop-motion animation in other children's programmes such as Fireman Sam, Thomas & Friends, and The Wombles

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Clangers won a BAFTA in the Best Pre-School Animation category in 2015.

Background

The Clangers originated in a series of children's books which developed from another Smallfilms production, Noggin the Nog. Publishers Kay and Ward created a series of books from Noggin the Nog episodes, which were then extended into a series called Noggin First Reader, aimed at aiding initial reading skills.

In the 1967 story Noggin and the Moonmouse, a new horse-trough was put up in the middle of the town in the North-Lands. A spacecraft hurtled down and splashed into it. The top unscrewed, and out came a largish, mouse-like character in a duffel coat, who wanted fuel for his spacecraft. He showed Nooka and the children that what he needed was vinegar and soap-flakes. So, they filled up the tanks in this 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 BBC asked Smallfilms to produce a new series for colour television, but did not specify a storyline. Postgate concluded that because space exploration was particularly topical, the new series should be set in space. He adapted the Moonmouse from the earlier story, removing its tail "because it kept getting into the soup". The Clangers looked similar to mice, anteaters 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 whistles.

Storyline

The Clangers was described by Postgate as a family set 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 Green Soup harvested from the planet's volcanic soup wells by the Soup Dragon. The word "Clanger" is said to derive from the sound made by opening the metal cover of one of the creatures' crater-like burrows, each of which was covered with a door made from an old metal dustbin lid, to protect against meteorite impacts. In each episode, there would be some problem to solve, something invented or discovered, or perhaps some new visitor to meet. Music Trees, with note-shaped fruit, grew on the planet's surface, and music would often be an integral feature in the simple but amusing plots. In the "Fishing" episode, one of the Cheese Trees provided a cylindrical five-line staff for notes taken from the Music Trees.

Postgate provided the narration, for the most part in a soft, melodic voice, describing and accounting for the curious antics of the little blue planet's knitted pink inhabitants, and providing a "translation", as it were, for much of their whistled dialogue.

Production

The first episode was broadcast on BBC1 on 16 November 1969, and a further 26 episodes were made. The last of these was broadcast on 10 November 1972. The final programme, however, was a four-minute election special, broadcast on 10 October 1974. This was not shown at the usual slot during children's programmes. Oliver Postgate said in a 2005 interview that he wasn't sure whether this episode still existed and it has been referred to as a "missing episode". In fact the whole episode is available from the British Film Institute.

The original Mother Clanger puppet was stolen in 1972. Major Clanger and the second Mother Clanger are on display at the Rupert Bear Museum.

The Clangers grew in size from the first to the last episode, to allow Firmin to use an Action Man model figure in "The Rock Collector."

In October 2013, the BBC's CBeebies announced that a new series would be produced for their 2015 transmission schedules, with Michael Palin narrating. US pre-school channel Sprout added the series to their 2015 schedule, with William Shatner narrating.

In November 2015, The Clangers won Best Pre-school Animation at the BAFTAs.

Characters

The principal characters are the Clangers themselves, the females wearing waistcoats and the males brass armour:

Granny Clanger: an elderly Clanger, she is fond of knitting and often falls asleep. She wears a black waistcoat in the original but now wears a lilac one in the new version.

Major Clanger: the father and head of the family, he is determined to get all things right on their planet, and can be grumpy. He wears brass armour. Narrator of the 2015 series, Michael Palin has said that Major Clanger is one of his favourite characters.

Mother Clanger: Mother to Tiny and Small Clanger, Mother Clanger is the matriarch of the family and is often seen preparing and dispensing the Clangers' soup or Blue String Pudding for the family. She wears a red waistcoat.

Small Clanger: Small Clanger is the son of Mother and Major Clanger and older brother to Tiny Clanger. Small Clanger is very inquisitive and inventive which despite his best intentions has sometimes led to some element of chaos amongst the Clangers, the soup pump being a classic example. Small Clanger is often the focus of the episodes as he is the most adventurous of the family. He wears brass armour in the original but now wears a blue waistcoat in the new version.

Tiny Clanger: Youngest of the family, daughter to Mother and Major Clanger and younger sister to Small Clanger, Tiny Clanger often plays a key role in episodes, too. She has a kind and gentle nature which is apparent in many episodes in which a new visitor arrives as she usually tries to communicate peacefully with them. She wears a red waistcoat in the original but now wears a pink one in the new version.

Three other Clangers, two males with different coloured hair and a female wearing blue, also appear, but they have been removed for 2015.

Other inhabitants

The Soup Dragon: a benign (female) creature with a penchant for Green Soup. The Soup Dragon dwells in the soup wells within the Clangers' planet, she is often summoned by tapping on the top of what look like small inactive volcanoes, she slides the lid back and then takes a jug from (usually) Small Clanger which she then fills for them to eat. A green glow is visible beneath her when she emerges, suggesting some kind of energy source down there.

Baby Soup Dragon: the Soup Dragon's son. Baby Soup Dragon was brought into the Clangers' world when the Soup Dragon became broody which meant the Clangers could not get any soup. Tiny Clanger called the Iron Chicken by radio, for advice, and she told Tiny to get the egg that she had left on the surface of the planet and to fill it with ingredients. Then they made a nest with macaroni sticks harvested not far from the soup wells, and placed the egg in the middle. The Iron Chicken asked the Clangers to stand back while she shot the iron egg with a beam from her nest: this had an effect, the Soup Dragon saw the egg and instinctively sat upon it, moments later after the beam was shut off. Then the Soup Dragon was startled and leapt up to find that the egg was hatched and she had a Baby Soup Dragon.

Froglets: a trio of small orange aliens with black, stalk-like legs and large eyes, which travel around in a top hat. In the new series, they can change colour to yellow and blue (and on one occasion, Green).

The Cloud: a cotton-wool cloud that floats over the surface of the planet, releasing musical raindrops. In the new series, it displays the ability to change its shape.

The Music Trees: The two small Music Trees are a permanent fixture on the surface of the Clangers' planet. They sit in a small divot on the surface (in the new series, they now sit atop a small hill) and are often harvested by the Clangers for their music notes, though the Clangers are always polite to ask the trees first after which the trees release some of their notes onto the ground, suggesting some form of sentience.

The Glow Buzzers: lightbulb-like creatures that live in hives around the caves, which they fill with "Glow Honey". They also helped Small Clanger find his way out of the flower caves when he followed them to find out where they got the Glow Honey from. The Glow Buzzers are rendered digitally in the new series.

The Iron Chicken: a "bird" made of scrap metal (modelled from Meccano), which lives in an orbiting nest made of metallic junk. (The pieces were found around the Smallfilms studio.) She had a chick in two episodes of series 2.

Sky Moos: large, flying, blue cow-like creatures that appear in several episodes. They are always hungry and this can come in handy.

The Singing Flowers: A pair of singing flowers introduced in the new series that are friends of Tiny Clanger.

Visitors

The others appeared in only one or two episodes each:

Hoots: small horn-like creatures with three legs, speaking like trumpets.

A Spaceman: an astronaut, who arrives to collect rock samples. Upon landing, the Clangers observe his movements and discover that he is digging up rocks, Small Clanger peeks out of a hole and takes the wicker basket he is (rather humorously) placing the collected rocks into. The astronaut turns to find his basket gone and begins to look for it, he searches the surface until he lifts the lid of one of the holes only to find Tiny Clanger within. This clearly scares the astronaut who then proceeds to run away and fall straight down one of the holes into the planet where he then falls into a soup well. After the Clangers retrieve him and clean him up, he appears to be still in shock then begins to run around again in panic, at which point he accidentally runs himself into orbit around their planet. Small Clanger retrieves him with a fishing rod and a magnet.

Lunar Rover: The rover appeared when the Clangers were building a structure on the surface and one of them noticed an incoming object, they all dived below for safety. Upon impacting, the rover destroyed the structure they were building much to the Clangers' annoyance. They all observed the rover staying just out of its sight then when it began to dig and seemingly eat some of the surface Major Clanger intervenes and stops it from eating any more. It then turns to face him and they attempt to shake hands at which point the Rovers "nose" comes off in Major Clanger's hand, he tries to return it but the Rover drives off, finds a suitable bit of ground then launches itself back off into space. Major Clanger exclaims that it is "Marvellous."

Eggbots: A group of egg-shaped, nesting doll-like robots that make sounds based on the solfège scale (each smaller Eggbot saying a successive musical note).

Metal Caterpillar: A metallic caterpillar that hatched from a metal egg Small Clanger found in space. It ate anything that was metal until it wove a cocoon and became a moth.

Music and sound effects

One of the most noted aspects was the use of sound effects, with a score composed by Vernon Elliott under instructions from Postgate. Although the episodes were scripted, most of the music used in the two series was written in translation by Postgate in the form of "musical sketches" or graphs that he drew for Elliott, who converted the drawings into a musical score. The music was then recorded by the two, along with other musicians – dubbed the Clangers Ensemble – in a village hall, where they would often leave the windows open, leading to the sounds of birds outside being heard on some recordings. Much of the score was performed on Elliott's bassoon, and also included harp, clarinet, glockenspiel and bells.

The distinctive whistles made by the Clangers, performed on swanee whistles, have become as identifiable as the characters themselves, much imitated by viewers. The series creators have said that the Clangers, living in vacuum, did not communicate by sound, but rather by a type of nuclear magnetic resonance, which was translated to audible whistles for the human audience. These whistles followed the rhythm and intonation of a script in English. The action was also narrated by a voice-over from Postgate. However, when the series was shown without narration to a group of overseas students, many of them felt that the Clangers were speaking their particular language.

The song "No Smokes" by psychedelic rock band One in a Million was used in the episode "The Visitor".

John Du Prez, who wrote some of the music for Monty Python (another show Michael Palin was in) composed the score for the 2015 series.

Series 1 (1969–1970)

The first series used to be on at 5:55pm on BBC1. Although the episode 'Chicken' was at 5:50pm because there was a 'Children in Need of Help' on at 6:00pm.

Series 2 (1971–1972)

Episodes 1 and 2 were on at 4:50pm, episodes 3, 5 and 6 were on at 5:05pm, episodes 4 and 8 were on at 5:00pm, episode 7 was on at 4:40pm, episode 9 was on at 5:30pm, episodes 10, 11, 12 and 13 were on at 4:00pm on BBC1.

There was also an election special produced in 1974, entitled "Vote for Froglet". Inspired by what Postgate refers to as the "Winter of Discontent" (a phrase usually used by others to refer to the winter of 1978–79, but in his case to the miners' strike of 1974), and by his recollection of post-war Germany, it was broadcast on the night of the second election in 1974. The narrator explains the democratic process and demonstrates it by asking the Clangers to vote between the Soup Dragon and a Froglet. The Soup Dragon wins the election on a policy of "No Soup for Froglets", but the Clangers are dissatisfied with the result.

Series 3 (revival) (2015-16)

Episodes 1 - 26 were first broadcast at 5:30pm, Episodes 27 - 52 at 6.00pm on CBeebies.

Following the special a full series was commissioned for the summer of 2015. The series is narrated by Michael Palin and co-produced by Smallfilms with the involvement of Oliver Postgate's son Dan and Peter Firmin. The series is directed by Chris Tichborne and Mole Hill, with music composed by John Du Prez. 52 11-minute episodes were commissioned. The voices of the Iron Chicken, the Soup Dragon and the Baby Soup Dragon are by Dan Postgate.

The first episode of the new series aired on 15 June 2015. It turned out to be a massive hit for CBeebies. The BBC News Entertainment and Arts magazine revealed that 65% of the episode's viewing audience of 484,000 were adults, and that it was CBeebies' most watched programme of 2015 to date. The rating was more than double the previous record set by an episode of Alphablocks, Numberjacks, Waybuloo, Fimbles, Charlie and Lola, Teletubbies, The Lingo Show and The Octonauts that year, as well as other CBeebies favourites since their launch in 2002, although an episode of Numberjacks peaked at over 1 million back in 2009.

According to the 7 June 2015 issue of Parade magazine, actor William Shatner has been chosen to be the American narrator for the series when it begins airing on the cable network Sprout.

Series 4 (revival) (2017)

A second series of the revival and the fourth series overall will air in 2017.

Reception

Although not quite as popular as Bagpuss (which in 1999 was voted in a British television poll the best children's television programme ever made), since the death of Postgate in December 2008 interest has been revived in his work, which is considered to have had a notable influence on British culture throughout the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. In 2007, Postgate and Firmin were jointly presented with the Action for Children's Arts J. M. Barrie Award "for a lifetime's achievement in delighting children".

Legacy

The Soup Dragons, a Scottish alternative rock band of the late 1980s and early 1990s, took their name from the Clangers character.

In the Doctor Who story "The Sea Devils", The Master watches the episode "The Intruder". He mistakes it for a documentary on alien life, and expresses irritation when George Trenchard does not catch on that he is joking.

A Clanger (as a hand puppet rather than a stop-motion puppet) appears as a member of the "Puppet Government" in The Goodies episode "The Goodies Rule - O.K.?".

From the block's start until its discontinuation, the UK's Nick Jr. Classics block aired Clangers episodes specifically for parents who remembered the show.

Tiny Clanger (also as a hand puppet) appeared on Sprout's programming block, The Sunny Side Up Show in honor of the US premiere of Clangers.

Other countries

The series was not widely broadcast outside the UK in the 1970s, mainly because it did not require additional money from sales abroad to finance its production. However the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation showed the series in 1970 and 1982, entitled Romlingane. It was narrated by Ingebrigt Davik, a popular author of children's books. It was shown on Swedish Television in the late 1960s and 1970s, entitled Rymdlarna. The first 13 episodes were also shown on Czechoslovak Television in August 1972, entitled Rámusíci as a part of the children's evening program slot Večerníček.

The revived version in 2015 has received funding from Sprout, a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, and has been pre-sold to other foreign broadcasters including the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. The American transmissions are narrated by William Shatner.

Soundtrack album

In 2001, a selection of the music and sound effects was compiled by Jonny Trunk from 128 musical cues held by Postgate, who contributed act one, "The Iron Chicken and the Music Trees", of A Clangers Opera, with libretto that he had compiled.

Track listing

Intro Music and Dialogue from "Episode One"
The Start Of "Music"
From "Visiting Friends"
"Clangers running around the planet!"
From "Fishing"
From "Treasure"
"Some Musical Sequences"
From "Goods" (when the machine in the episode "Goods" went into continuous production of plastic objects)
"An End Title"
"Tiny Clangers Radio Hat"
"Some Of Oliver's Special Clangers Effects including the Froglets"
From "The Rock Collector"
From "Glowhoney"
From "Teapot"
From "Cloud"
From "The Seed"
From "The Bags"
From "Blow Fruit"
From "The Pipe Organ"
From "The Music of the Spheres"
"A short, silent interval"
"A Clangers Opera, Act One" "The Iron Chicken and the Music Trees" (compiled by Oliver Postgate)

VHS and DVD releases

In the early 1990s, three VHS cassettes of the Clangers were released by BBC Enterprises Ltd. Later, another six cassettes were released by Universal Pictures. A number of DVDs have also been released by Universal Pictures (original series) and Signature Entertainment (revived series).

References

Clangers Wikipedia

(Text) CC BY-SA

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