The Adventures of Blinky Bill
| The Adventures of Blinky Bill | |
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| Genre | |
| Created by | Dorothy Wall (book) Yoram Gross (original film) |
| Developed by | Jonathan M. Shiff Productions |
| Written by |
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| Directed by | Yoram Gross (Season 1–2) David Evans (Season 3) |
| Starring |
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| Theme music composer | Guy Gross |
| Opening theme | "Hey, Hey, Blinky Bill", performed by Keith Scott (Season 1) and Ric Herbert (Season 2–3) |
| Ending theme |
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| Composer(s) |
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| Country of origin | Australia |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 3 |
| No. of episodes | 78 (list of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) |
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| Producer(s) |
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| Editor(s) |
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| Running time | 26 minutes |
| Production company(s) |
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| Release | |
| Original network |
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| Picture format | PAL (576i) |
| Original release | 1 January 1993 – 5 July 2004 |
| External links | |
| [{{#property:P856}} Website] | |
The Adventures of Blinky Bill is an Australian animated television series based on Dorothy Wall's books about Blinky Bill. The series is produced by the Yoram Gross[1] companies: Yoram Gross Film Studio (from 1993 to 1995) and Yoram Gross-EM.TV (from 2004), with the main co-production of EM.TV and WDR. Finally, all three seasons were animated at Colorland Animation Productions Ltd.. Set in Greenpatch, a fictional Australian town, the series presents stories of conservation and nature through the activities of Blinky Bill and his family and friends.
Contents
Series
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Series 1
In the first series of The Adventures of Blinky Bill (1993-1994, 26 episodes), Blinky Bill and his friends rebuild the buildings and the community in Greenpatch, following its destruction by humans. They also come to terms with their new neighbours, the ill-famed Dingo family.
The series first aired on ABC Television in 1993. Yoram Gross (with his first studios Yoram Gross Film Studio) co-produced the first series with: EM.Entertainment (Germany), WDR/ARD (Germany), ABC (Australia), and BBC (UK). It is the series closest to the original book in character and setting.
Series 2
In this series, also known as Blinky Bill's Extraordinary Excursion (1995-1996, 26 episodes), Blinky Bill and his friends become lost while on a school excursion in the bush. Finding their way home across different parts of Australia, they have many adventures helping out other animals in need, including a crocodile, penguins and farm and circus animals.
The second series was a Yoram Gross Film Studio co-production with: EM.Entertainment (Germany), WDR/ARD (Germany), ABC (Australia), VIDEAL (Germany), and Beyond Distribution (Australia). It was aired on ABC in Australia.
Series 3
In series three, Blinky Bill’s Extraordinary Balloon Adventure also known as Blinky Bill's Around the World Adventures (2004, 26 episodes), Blinky Bill, Nutsy and Flap travel around the world in a hot air balloon that takes them on exciting adventures being chased by 2 humans named Basil and Cyril who are the Circus Bros.. The animals he rescued were: Ling Ling the Panda, Slippery the Seal, Yoyo the Monkey, Princess Penelope the Poodle, Leo the Lion, and Tico the Toucan (who originally works for the Circus Bros.). They went to Antarctica, the African Plains, China, the Amazon Rainforest, India and Paris, and it was shown in high definition.
The series aired on 10 June 2004 on the Seven Network. The third series was a Yoram Gross-EM.TV co-production with EM.TV (Germany), WDR (Germany), ABC (Australia), and Wavery (Netherlands).
Spin-off
Two spin-off pilot episodes, Flap's Family and Flap's Island, both following the story of supporting character Flap after he is stolen by zookeepers, was developed by Yoram Gross with the assistance of the Australian Film Commission and the New South Wales Film and Television Office in 1996, but the pilots were not picked up.
Telemovie
In 2005 a telemovie entitled Blinky Bill’s White Christmas was produced by Yoram Gross-EM.TV,[2] with the co-production of WDR (Germany). The telemovie first aired on the Seven Network on 24 December 2005. The theme song from the telemovie, "Christmas in Australia", was sung by Christine Anu.[3]
Other media
In 1997, Forest Interactive and Roadshow Interactive published an edutainment software called "Blinky Bill's Ghost Cave" based on the episode of the same name.[4]
Characters
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Broadcasting history
Australia
- ABC (1993–1996)
- Seven Network (2004)
International broadcasts
| List of broadcasts |
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Forest industry controversy
The theme of the first series carried a strong anti-woodchip message, with the second line saying "Save us from that woodchip mill", together with scenes of forest destruction. There were also obvious environmental messages in most episodes. Some forest industry groups lobbied the ABC arguing that the opening scene showed illegal wood chipping, which was not fair to the timber industry. In the following two series, these song lyrics and the opening credits sequence were different (the line in the theme became "You'll never catch him standing still"), reflecting the change in storylines and locations.[5]
References
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- ↑ Blinky Bill’s Fire Brigade (1992) curator's notes on ASO - Australia's audio and visual heritage online
External links
- The Adventures of Blinky Bill at TV.comLua error in Module:WikidataCheck at line 28: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).
- The Adventures of Blinky Bill at Big Cartoon Database
- Blinky Bill's Extraordinary Adventures at Big Cartoon Database
- Blinky Bill's White Christmas at Oz Movies
- Use dmy dates from December 2012
- Use Australian English from February 2012
- All Wikipedia articles written in Australian English
- Pages using infobox television with editor parameter
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- Australian Broadcasting Corporation shows
- Seven Network shows
- 1993 Australian television series debuts
- 1996 Australian television series endings
- Australian animated television series
- Australian children's television series
- BBC children's television programmes
- Cartoon Network original programs
- Fictional koalas
- Television programs based on children's books
- Television programs featuring anthropomorphic characters
- 1990s Australian television series
- 1990s animated television series
- TV Asahi shows
- Preschool education television series
