_____________________________________________________________________
‘Can we fix it?’
_____________________________________________________________________
Bob is a builder. He likes to build. And so
do his friends, Scoop the digger, Muck
the dump truck, Dizzy the cement mixer, Lofty the
crane and Roley the steamroller.
Bob has a good friend and colleague in Wendy, whom
he also secretly fancies but
is too shy to tell. He also has a cat called Pilchard,
and a dog called Scruffty. Then
there’s the mischievous scarecrow Spud, who
loiters around Farmer Pickles’ field.
He’s always up to no good, undermining the gang’s
hard work when he ought to be
helping. But between them, despite the mix ups,
muddles and mayhem, buildings
get built, constructions get constructed, and
things get well and truly fixed…
Bob isn’t just a star creation, he’s a phenomenon,
a licensing dream and a pop
star. He’s also bright and busy and beautifully
animated. His little world has been
expanded over the various series and features
so that it’s not so little any more.
We now have a swathe of additional characters
and locations stretching as far
north as the North Pole itself.
Two spin-off features have arisen from the series.
‘A Christmas To Remember’
collected a BAFTA Award in 2003, and ‘Knights
Of Can-a-lot’ has been just as
popular. A third film, ‘Snowed Under: The Bobblesberg
Winter Games’ is due
this Autumn.
Folks introduced through the seasons have included:
Skip – the skip truck Finn
– Bob’s goldfish
Trix – the forklift truck Squawk
– a bird
Travis – the tractor
Hamish – a parrot
Mr Beasly – town councillor Lenny
Lazenby – rock star
Mr Dixon – delivery man David
Dixon – brother/ famous goalkeeper
Mr Bentley – birdwatcher Jenny
– Wendy’s sister
Mr Ellis – museum curator Mrs
Potts – townsperson
JJ – building merchant
Molly – JJ’s daughter
Mr Sabatini – the pizza man Mrs
Percival – school mistress
Mr Fothergill – townsperson Mrs
Broadbent – townsperson
Building
Bob
Bob was created by advertising artist Keith
Chapman back in the late 1980s.
Keith spied a JCB on a building site one day and
thought it might be fun to
bring it to life with cartoon eyes. That JCB
became Scoop. Other machines
followed. Then of course, the vehicles need
a human operator, and so Bob
was created together with a labourer mate called
Lenny. In his original guise,
Bob was actually an older character and he sported
a macho moustache.
Keith used to tell his children bedtime
stories featuring moustachioed Bob
and the crew. At the time, however, no one was interested
in the concept as
a commercial vehicle.
Eventually, Keith brought his long-gestating project
to HIT Entertainment. HIT
took a pilot to Cannes in 1996 and acquired
a development deal from the BBC.
From those seeds their new in-house studio HOT Animation
was born, and as
they worked the concept in to a full-blooded series
several alterations were made.
For starters, Bob lost that moustache. He also became
younger. Then Lenny was
dropped, and Wendy stepped in to his shoes.
But she too developed along the way.
Originally, she was a dizzy secretary-type.
Fortunately, one of the more drastic
changes never came to fruition. It was a change
requested by the BBC and it
called for the machines to be made mute – talking
machines being a most
illogical concept. The production team spent
three months rewriting scripts but
thankfully for us , the new stories had lost
their sparkle so the BBC honchos
were persuaded to drop their request!
The series premiered on the BBC 12th April 1999,
and Keith, HOT and HIT haven’t
looked back. By the end of 2000, Bob had been
sold to 108 countries and £60m
of licensed products had been sold. And Bob’s
still building away today, with
26 new episodes forthcoming and a third feature-length
spin-off…
• The
first Bob The Builder single, ‘Can We Fix It?’ reached the coveted number
one position in the UK singles
chart at Christmas 2000. Bob’s version of
‘Mambo No.5’ repeated the
feat in September 2001.
• In
Japan, Bob has been given an extra finger for all of his licensed material.
That’s because the Japanese
Triads are famous for removing a finger of their
victims. It simply wouldn’t do
to have Bob looking like he’d had a run-in with
the Underworld!
• In
the episode ‘Roley And The Rock Star’ we meet rock star Lenny Lazenby.
Lenny is voiced by,
and resembles, that maverick entrepreneur Chris Evans.
Thus began a trend for
occasional cameos in the series, with famous
actors dropping in to
voice cameo characters – especially in the spin-off
features…
______________________________________________________________________
Bob the Builder and his team of friends explored
_____________________________________________________________________
‘Can we fix it?’
_____________________________________________________________________
Bob is a builder. He likes to build. And so
do his friends, Scoop the digger, Muck
the dump truck, Dizzy the cement mixer, Lofty the
crane and Roley the steamroller.
Bob has a good friend and colleague in Wendy, whom
he also secretly fancies but
is too shy to tell. He also has a cat called Pilchard,
and a dog called Scruffty. Then
there’s the mischievous scarecrow Spud, who
loiters around Farmer Pickles’ field.
He’s always up to no good, undermining the gang’s
hard work when he ought to be
helping. But between them, despite the mix ups,
muddles and mayhem, buildings
get built, constructions get constructed, and
things get well and truly fixed…
Bob isn’t just a star creation, he’s a phenomenon,
a licensing dream and a pop
star. He’s also bright and busy and beautifully
animated. His little world has been
expanded over the various series and features
so that it’s not so little any more.
We now have a swathe of additional characters
and locations stretching as far
north as the North Pole itself.
Two spin-off features have arisen from the series.
‘A Christmas To Remember’
collected a BAFTA Award in 2003, and ‘Knights
Of Can-a-lot’ has been just as
popular. A third film, ‘Snowed Under: The Bobblesberg
Winter Games’ is due
this Autumn.
Folks introduced through the seasons have included:
Skip – the skip truck Finn
– Bob’s goldfish
Trix – the forklift truck Squawk
– a bird
Travis – the tractor
Hamish – a parrot
Mr Beasly – town councillor Lenny
Lazenby – rock star
Mr Dixon – delivery man David
Dixon – brother/ famous goalkeeper
Mr Bentley – birdwatcher Jenny
– Wendy’s sister
Mr Ellis – museum curator Mrs
Potts – townsperson
JJ – building merchant
Molly – JJ’s daughter
Mr Sabatini – the pizza man Mrs
Percival – school mistress
Mr Fothergill – townsperson Mrs
Broadbent – townsperson
Building
Bob
Bob was created by advertising artist Keith
Chapman back in the late 1980s.
Keith spied a JCB on a building site one day and
thought it might be fun to
bring it to life with cartoon eyes. That JCB
became Scoop. Other machines
followed. Then of course, the vehicles need
a human operator, and so Bob
was created together with a labourer mate called
Lenny. In his original guise,
Bob was actually an older character and he sported
a macho moustache.
Keith used to tell his children bedtime
stories featuring moustachioed Bob
and the crew. At the time, however, no one was interested
in the concept as
a commercial vehicle.
Eventually, Keith brought his long-gestating project
to HIT Entertainment. HIT
took a pilot to Cannes in 1996 and acquired
a development deal from the BBC.
From those seeds their new in-house studio HOT Animation
was born, and as
they worked the concept in to a full-blooded series
several alterations were made.
For starters, Bob lost that moustache. He also became
younger. Then Lenny was
dropped, and Wendy stepped in to his shoes.
But she too developed along the way.
Originally, she was a dizzy secretary-type.
Fortunately, one of the more drastic
changes never came to fruition. It was a change
requested by the BBC and it
called for the machines to be made mute – talking
machines being a most
illogical concept. The production team spent
three months rewriting scripts but
thankfully for us , the new stories had lost
their sparkle so the BBC honchos
were persuaded to drop their request!
The series premiered on the BBC 12th April 1999,
and Keith, HOT and HIT haven’t
looked back. By the end of 2000, Bob had been
sold to 108 countries and £60m
of licensed products had been sold. And Bob’s
still building away today, with
26 new episodes forthcoming and a third feature-length
spin-off…
• The
first Bob The Builder single, ‘Can We Fix It?’ reached the coveted number
one position in the UK singles
chart at Christmas 2000. Bob’s version of
‘Mambo No.5’ repeated the
feat in September 2001.
• In
Japan, Bob has been given an extra finger for all of his licensed material.
That’s because the Japanese
Triads are famous for removing a finger of their
victims. It simply wouldn’t do
to have Bob looking like he’d had a run-in with
the Underworld!
• In
the episode ‘Roley And The Rock Star’ we meet rock star Lenny Lazenby.
Lenny is voiced by,
and resembles, that maverick entrepreneur Chris Evans.
Thus began a trend for
occasional cameos in the series, with famous
actors dropping in to
voice cameo characters – especially in the spin-off
features…
______________________________________________________________________