My Kids TV

The Origins of In The Night Garden

Ryan Jarrett — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 14:19:26 +0000

Original Drawing of Iggle Piggle by Andrew Davenport

There is a fantastic article on the Guardian website detailing the beginning of My Kids TV favourite, In The Night Garden. Andrew Gilchrist talks to Andrew Davenport, Creative Director at Ragdoll Productions, about how the show started. As well as the wonderful picture of Iggle Piggle as seen here, the article also includes early artwork for Makka Pakka and Upsy Daisy.

You can see In The Night Garden Live at the O2 until 4th September, followed by a series of shows in Glasgow and Birmingham. For more information or to book tickets please go to the In The Night Garden Live website.

You can read the full article about Andrew Davenport at the Guardian website.

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Best Selling Toys for Christmas 2010

Ryan Jarrett — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 10:30:43 +0000

Yes, I know it’s only July and that Christmas is another five months away, but if you want to get the best presents for your kids then you need to be prepared. According to Woolworths, here are the predicted top ten most wanted toys for Christmas – buy them early and save hunting for them later!

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The Pocoyo Playground

Ryan Jarrett — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 08:00:36 +0000

Did you ever think that your local park looks a little, well, boring? Would a splash of colour and some familiar kids TV characters face make that play area much better? If so, you’re in luck!

Pocoyo, the Spanish pre-school cartoon, have teamed up with Doctor Play (a Spanish company with, I presume, no medical background) to create a Pocoyo-themed playground. Zinkia, who produce Pocoyo, describe the play areas as:

a colorful, well-balanced and fun ‘Pocoyo Playground’ to allow little ones to interact while sliding, climbing or dreaming up adventures with their favorite characters and letting their imagination fun free.

The first installation is in Madrid, with other Spanish city councils reported to be interested further. At the moment these are only available in Spain, but with plans to offer the play equipment outside of the country we may see them pop up in the UK.

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Ben 10 Competition Winners

Ryan Jarrett — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 09:32:48 +0000

Our Ben 10 Alien Force competition was a great success and we had a huge number of people taking part. However, there can only be two winners and they are:

Karen Richards
Kath Amis

Congratulations to you both – your prizes will be on their way to you very soon.

We will have another Ben 10 competition very soon, so please keep checking the site.

Competition – Win Ben 10 Alien Force DVDs Calling all Ben 10 fans! Set your Omnitrix for 31st...

Kerwhizz Magazine

Ryan Jarrett — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 08:30:53 +0000

CBeebies’ Kerwhizz has made into print form. The Kerwhizz Magazine is available from next week and contains the same mix fun and thinking the TV show has. Not only that, the Kerwhizz Magazine website has a great game where you can win a free copy of the magazine or even an annual subscription!

Win a FREE sample magazine. New Kerwhizz Magazine has developed an online game to mark the launch of the magazine: www.kerwhizzmagazine.com. Simply play the game online and enter your details – there are 10,000 free samples and 5 annual subscriptions to give away!

Kerwhizz is a brand new magazine based on the fantastic Cbeebies show. Build confidence at school with quizzes and puzzles based on the National Curriculum. Plus, there are stickers and a fantastic free gift every issue. On sale from Wednesday 30th June 2010.

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From Overseas: Krysta’s Kingdom

Ryan Jarrett — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 13:16:19 +0000

This is a guest post by Barbara Siragusa, Producer of Krysta’s Kingdom

The producers of Krysta’s Kingdom, filmed near Orlando, Florida, are very excited to be able to introduce this wonderful series to the UK!!

Krysta’s Kingdom is a new exciting and educational pre-school children’s series! Having won multiple awards only months after production began this series has won the hearts of parents, teachers and children here in the US! ElectricBear Studios, the creators of this series, walked away with 5 FMPTA ( Florida Motion Picture and Television Association ) awards last year including Best of Children’s Series. Also awarded The Dove Seal of Approval for safe family viewing.

Starring Krysta who lives on her very own island with Rex the teddy bear, Lady Liz the lady bug and other animal friends, our vibrant host shows them how to do age appropriate cooking, crafts, science experiments, spelling, counting and some valuable lessons on sharing, caring and friendship.

Be sure to check out our website at www.krystaskingdom.tv where you can see some episodes, and also check out the kids club while you are there!

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Thomas & Friends Mega Bloks

Ryan Jarrett — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 14:21:46 +0000

From July this year your little ones will be able have hours of creative play building and rebuilding scenes from one of their favourite TV Series, Thomas & Friends!

2010 is a busy year for The UK’s best selling pre-school construction brand, MEGA Bloks as it celebrates its 25th Birthday AND launches NEW Thomas & Friends construction sets for kids aged 3+! Opening up a whole world of new characters, rebuilds, themes and destinations, the new range will give your little builder’s lots of play set fun based on treasured Thomas themes!

Also marking Thomas’s 65th Birthday, the Thomas & Friends sets are traditional and simple capturing children’s imaginations through engaging characters, play patterns and storylines. Kids can follow Thomas and his friends as they embark on exciting adventures using their creativity to build and transform the play sets.

The Thomas 3 in 1 Buildable sets include 4 beloved Thomas scenes including Thomas Loads Coal, James On The Move, Emily Loads Luggage & Toby Hauls Wood. What’s more, all these play sets are 3 in 1 adding significantly to the play value for your little ones, and with compatible blocks and parts they will be wanting the whole collection in no time. Easily tidied away and simple to store these toys are guaranteed to impress you as much as your kids!

The Thomas Buildable Characters will feature all your little ones favourites including Thomas, James, Percy, Gordon, Henry, Harold, Diesel and Spencer! Plus, the exciting NEW play set builds will include destinations such as ‘A Busy Day At The Quarry’, ‘Thomas at the Sodor Fair’ and ‘Cranky The Crane’. Each set also connects to the next to create the amazing Thomas World!

Adding to the construction fun, the innovative 2 in 1 Buildable Thomas provides hours of fun & interactive play as kids build Thomas and then easily transform him into a train station!

Keep checking My Kids TV for your chance to win a fantastic Thomas Load & Go Mega Bloks set!

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Coming Soon: Splatalot

Ryan Jarrett — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 09:57:44 +0000

A Medieval-themed game show is heading this way and will air on CBBC next year. Each episode of Splatalot, which is to be produced in Canada by Marblemedia, will feature twelve teenage contestants tackling “Canada’s largest extreme obstacle course” across three Medieval rounds. Doing their best to stop them in their tracks will be six gladiators. Matt Hornburg of Marblemedia, the co-creator of the series, says:

Splatalot is all about the hilarity of watching contestants get splattered, with the best spills instantly replayed in slow-motion. With oversized props, cool special effects and lively characters, it’s sure to be a highly-entertaining adventure

First thoughts are this sounds a little like a younger version of Total Wipeout, which is also a large obstacle course hosted in another country that pits a large number of contestants against each other. But without the water!

Splatalot will be filmed this Summer near Toronto and will be delivered to CBBC in Spring 2011.

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Legends of Kids TV – Competition

Ryan Jarrett — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 09:12:19 +0000

My attention has been drawn to a fantastic book called Legends of Kids TV, a unique collection of interview with stars of children’s television of the last 40 years. All proceeds from the sale of the book go to the NSPCC’s Child’s Voice Appeal.

Written by Garry Vaux, the book contains unique and personal anecdotes from the likes of Chris Tarrant (Tiswas), Bernard Cribbins (The Wombles, Jackanory, Dr. Who), Ed Stewart (Crackerjack), Rod, Jane & Freddy (Rainbow), Sir Derek Jacobi (Doctor Who, In the Night Garden), Sue Nicholls (Pipkins/Rentaghost), Peter Purves (Dr. Who, Blue Peter), Danny John-Jules (Maid Marion, M.I.High), Phil Cornwell (Gilbert the Alien, King Stupid), Pat Sharp (Fun House), Emma Forbes (Live & Kicking), Richard Briers (Roobarb & Custard) to name just a few.

Find out:

What stopped the Play School Clock forever
How a kitchen appliance helped Roy North form a partnership with Basil Brush
Why George Melly took a fancy to Toni Arthur’s knickers
How a fight over HP sauce helped Colin Bennett work with Tony Hart
Who is the Doctor’s most faithful companion
What song Rick Jones once sang to the Beatles
How antics on scaffolding helped Lizzie McPhee become Wizadora!

plus much much more.

You can read an excerpt from Legends of Kids TV here. Please visit the Legends of Kids TV website to find out more about the book and to order your copy.

Competition Time

We have two copies of Legends of Kids TV to give away. To enter all you have to do is leave a comment below saying what your favourite Kids TV show was and why. We will pick the two best comments after the closing date, Friday 2nd July, and announce the results on this site. UK entrants only I’m afraid.

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Coming Soon – Hounded

Ryan Jarrett — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 10:51:06 +0000

Rufus Hound is a strange beast. He pops up on panel shows and the like quite regularly, but its hard to pin down exactly what he is. He is a comedian of sorts, not exactly stand up in the traditional sense but he “hangs around” comedy programming. Therefore I was quite surprised when I read that he is to star in a new CBBC show called Hounded.

Billed as “Hanna-Barbera meets The Mighty Boosh”, the show actually sounds fairly entertaining for us big kids as well as the target audience. Brought to us by the creative team behind sketch show, The Wrong Door, the premise is that Rufus Hound has landed the job presenting a new (fictional) CBBC show called Funlab. On his first day, however, his future self turns up and transports him to a “fantastic” parallel universe.

In this alternative dimension, Rufus is pursued by an evil genius called Dr Muhahahaha and subsequently leads to a series of handy 30-minute adventures across the multiverse (apparently). Even though Rufus usually thwarts the Doctor’s evil plans, he has a convenient reset button which sends Rufus back in time, Groundhog Day-style, only to repeat and rinse.

With reference to the Boosh comes high expectations, and the combination of “amazing visual effects and stunning sets” might lend itself very well to the same style of humour, although pitched a little lower for family friendly viewing. Personally I haven’t warmed to Rufus Hound in the little I’ve seen him in, but this might just be his calling.

Hounded starts Friday 11th June on CBBC.

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