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To celebrate the release of Chorlton and The Wheelies on DVD available 17th June, we have 2 DVDs to give away to lucky winners!

Wheelie World is a land inhabited by the Wheelies. Long ago this land was full of happiness and laughter, until the wicked witch Fenella arrived and set up home in Spout Hall – a kettle – on the outskirts of Wheelie Kingdom. Casting her evil spell, the colour faded from the land, the laughter was silenced, and the Wheelies became sad and dejected.

Then one day a large, brightly coloured egg arrived – and from it emerged a strange and wonderful creature – Chorlton, The Happiness Dragon. As joy and laughter returns to Wheelie World, Fenella now spends her time trying to defeat and destroy the happiness that Chorlton radiates to all.

Chorlton, The Happiness Dragon brings joy and laughter to the Wheelies- causing frustration to Fenella the Kettle Witch who...

To celebrate the release of Count Duckula: The Complete Collection on DVD available now, we have the Blu-Ray Boxset to give away to 2 lucky winners!

Count Duckula accompanied by his long-suffering man-servant Igor and his clumsy house-keeper Nanny, uses his teleporting castle to seek his fame and fortune across the world!

Airing between 1988 and 1993 Count Duckula is a spin-off of the Cosgrove Hall classic Danger Mouse (in turn another Cosgrove Hall animation Victor and Hugo was a spin-off of Count Duckula based on villains Gaston and Pierre). Both Danger Mouse and Count Duckula are voiced by David Jason.

Count Duckula was a recurring villain in the Danger Mouse series having once teamed up with Danger Mouse’s arch-enemy Silas Greenback. In the Count Duckula series Duckula is no longer villainous and is now a vegetarian due to his resurrection ritual being conducted with tomato ketchup instead of blood. And he...

Castle Duckula, home for many centuries to a dreadful dynasty of vicious vampire ducks… The Counts of Duckula!

Terrifying until now…the current Count is a vegetarian vampire with a desire for showbusiness! Count Duckula: The Complete Collection includes all 4 series of this classic Cosgrove Hall animation in a 7-disc set which is out now on DVD in the UK courtesy of Fabulous Films.

“Count Duckula was The Rolling Stones to Danger Mouse‘s Beatles” Den of Geek

Airing between 1988 and 1993 Count Duckula is a spin-off of the Cosgrove Hall classic Danger Mouse (in turn another Cosgrove Hall animation Victor and Hugo was a spin-off of Count Duckula based on villains Gaston and Pierre). Both Danger Mouse and Count Duckula are voiced by David Jason. Count Duckula was a recurring villain in the Danger Mouse series having once teamed up with Danger Mouse’s arch-enemy Silas Greenback. In the Count...

To celebrate the release of Jamie and the Magic Torch, on DVD from 18th March, we are giving away DVDs to 2 lucky winners!

Every night when his mum calls out ‘Sleep Well Jamie’, the naughty rascal gets out of bed, picks up his magic torch and with his dog, Wordsworth, travels down a helter skelter into the magical world of Cuckoo Land. With 39 fantastic stories to watch, join Jamie and Wordsworth in all three series of their exciting adventures. Presented for the first time as a complete collection on DVD.

Jamie and the Magic Torch ran from 1976-1979 and was made by the Cosgrove Hall animation studios in Manchester, the studio that brought to us other classic shows such as Danger Mouse, Count Duckula, The Wind in the Willows, Chorlton and the Wheelies and The Bfg movie. Brian Truman who narrates the series also wrote it.

Jamie and Wordsworth have...

One thing that rankles about some historical dramas is their tendency to indicate the story’s epoch using the broadest possible signifiers. Movies about the 1980s in particular often draw as much from the spirit of ’80s-themed house parties as they do from history. In contrast, Tim Mielant’s Small Things Like These fashions a believable and at times engrossing vision of the mid-’80s, even if its story could’ve benefited from similar nuance.

Adapted from the novel of the same name by Claire Keegan, the film takes place during the 1985 Christmas season in New Ross, Ireland. In this working-class town, not everything is “from” the ‘80s: People wear clothes that look like they’re from the ’60s, the kids watch ’70s cartoons like Danger Mouse, and some of the vehicles even seem as they’re from the ’40s. Small Things Like These understands how the vestiges of the...

Stars: Jonah Ray, Ryan Kattner, Kiran Deol, Randee Heller, Alex Winter, Jon Daly, Thomas Lennon, Kumail Nanjiani | Written by Mike Benner, Jared Logan, Charles A. Pieper | Directed by Josh Forbes

Revolving around two things many of us know all too well, neighbours from hell and writer’s block, Destroy All Neighbors is an over-the-top exercise in splatstick from director Josh Forbes and writers Mike Benner, Jared Logan and Charles A. Pieper.

William Brown makes his living as a sound engineer at Industrial Sound & Magic, helping to bring other people’s music to life. Currently, it’s the obnoxious Caleb Bang Jansen, “Emerson, Lake and Palmer? It sounds like Emerson getting buttfucked by Lake and Palmer.”

But when it comes to his own Prog Rock album, he’s stuck in a rut. While his girlfriend Emily believes in him, everyone else around him seems to exist only to stifle his efforts.

It was oddly devastating to learn that ITV’s kid’s channel Citv is to close on 1st September 2023. Many millennials and Gen Xers probably haven’t even seen a Citv show for two decades or more – besides, back in the day it wasn’t even a channel, but just a few after-school hours of programming on the regular ITV channel. So why does its closure leave us feeling like it’s the end of an era?

Because the memories of that era were so, so good, that’s why. We all remember getting home from school, grabbing a glass of squash and a Wagon Wheel and immediately flicking the TV on, and Citv (along with Cbbc – and Nickelodeon and the Disney Channel if you were well posh) kept us company until it was time to eat our spaghetti hoops and turkey twizzlers.

There were zany dramas, comforting puppet characters,...

Mid-July doesn’t exactly constitute the dog days of summer, but for parents with kids to keep entertained it’s certainly close enough. Summer break is only half over for most kids across the United States, and that means parents have at least another month of kids with nothing but time on their hands.

To combat the boredom that can crop up during this time of year, parents should check out Sling Freestream. Freestream is, as the name suggests, completely free to all users, whether they subscribe to Sling TV’s live TV service or not. The service offers hundreds of free streaming channels, including some selections that are tailor-made for keeping children entertained.

Watch Now $0 / month sling.com What Are the Top Kids Channels Available on Sling Freestream?

Sling Freestream’s channel count has grown to over 400, and it offers more than 41,000 titles to stream on-demand as well. No...

Run the Jewels have announced a 10th anniversary tour in celebration of their self-titled debut taking place in Fall 2023.

“Rtjx – Celebrating 10 Years of Run The Jewels” will feature four shows each in New York City, Atlanta, Chicago, and Los Angeles, during which El-p and Killer Mike will perform a different, career-spanning set each night. See the full itinerary below.

Tickets go on sale Friday, March 31st at 10:00 a.m. local time via Ticketmaster, with a Live Nation pre-sale beginning on Wednesday, March 29th (use access code Opener).

Once tickets are on sale, you can also find them at StubHub, where orders are 100% guaranteed through StubHub’s FanProtect program. StubHub is a secondary market ticketing platform, and prices may be higher or lower than face value, depending on demand.

Last April, Killer Mike teased in an interview with Consequence that he and El-p “may have messed around and started Run the Jewels 5.” Since then,...

On the 16th of February 1993, Count Duckula bade its audience ‘Goodnight out there…whatever you are’ for the final time. For five years from 1988, Cosgrove Hall‘s creepy and clever animated kids’ show about a vegetarian vampire duck had dazzled audiences with its madcap mix of farce, physical comedy and witty word-play.

While never as broadly popular as Danger Mouse – the spoof spy caper out of which it was spun, and which also featured David Jason as the voice of its titular character – Count Duckula built a steadfast core of fans. To them, Count Duckula was The Rolling Stones to Danger Mouse‘s Beatles, a darker, edgier delight for those who prefer their cartoons with a little more bite. Whichever way you look at it, it’s hard to refute that they don’t make kids’ TV shows quite like Count Duckula anymore…

In the Heart of Transylvania

In a very real sense,...

Shetland’s Series 7 return is a bittersweet one for fans of the Scottish BBC crime drama. The six-episode run will be actor Douglas Henshall’s last in the lead role of Di Jimmy Perez. Henshall’s departure though, doesn’t mean the end for Shetland, which has been renewed for an eighth series due to arrive in 2023. A new, as-yet-unannounced, lead actor will be joining the returning cast for that run.

Series 7, which starts on BBC One on Wednesday the 10th of August at 9pm, promises to tie up Perez’s loose ends and follow up on last series’ will-they-won’t-they frisson with Irish carer Meg. Before Perez says his final goodbye to the evidence board though, there’s a missing person case to solve, and a host of new characters to interrogate. Here’s who he’ll be meeting…

Shauna Macdonald as Rachel Cairns

Rachel Cairns is the mother of Connor and Abbey,...

Exclusive: Erik McCurdy’s comic strip Stuffed is set to be turned into a television series.

Boat Rocker, which is involved in animated series including BBC’s Danger Mouse and Nickelodeon’s The Loud House, has teamed up with The Operating Room, which is behind Fox’s Hawkmaster on the animated project.

Stuffed centers on the outrageous, curious and absurd adventures of an irrepressible little girl and her adventure-ready plush toy guild. Together, they journey beyond the highest mountain to rescue a mythical Yeti, beneath the deepest ocean to solve a pirate riddle, outside the edge of the galaxy to make contact with alien beings and occasionally to the kitchen for cookies.

The comic debuted in 2018 and has amassed hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.

“The heart and soul of Stuffed is childhood imagination, which is why it is such a joy to create,” said McCurdy.

“It’s...

Recently revived on TV with Alexander Armstrong, Kevin Eldon and Stephen Fry among the voice cast, Danger Mouse is also set to storm the big screen. Sony Pictures Animation and StudioCanal have hatched a plan for a movie, with producers Neal Moritz and Toby Ascher overseeing the diminutive super-spy shenanigans.Starting life as an animated series from Cosgrove Hall in the early '80s, Danger Mouse was a secret agent, channelling James Bond and Danger Man, and getting involved in a lot of very silly nonsense on a weekly basis.He lived underneath a pillar box on Baker Street and drove a flying car; his sidekick was the blundering hamster Penfold; his "M" was Colonel K. (a chinchilla); and his arch enemy was the wheezy toad Baron Greenback, who had a crow henchman called Stiletto and was always up to dastardly schemes like trying to melt the North Pole. Occasional secondary villains included Count Duckula,...

Danger Mouse is back on the small screen - and now Hollywood wants a movie too...

Well, it's all go in the world of Danger Mouse. Not content with a revival on the small screen, the strongest, quickest and best mouse is heading to the movies too.

Sony Pictures Animation and Studio Canal are joining forces on the project, which is being overseen by Neal Mortiz's Original Film company. It's unclear at this stage if the mighty Brian Cosgrove will retain direct involvement. He's certainly been working as a consultant on the new Cbbc show, but his name isn't attached to the project thus far.

The producers are on the lookout for a writer to draft a screenplay. They're after someone British-based, who gets what Danger Mouse is all about. The aim? To honour the franchise to date, whilst attracting a new audience.

No pressure. But that notwithstanding, we're on our way.

HBO star John Oliver (“Last Week Tonight with John Oliver”) and Lena Headey (“Game of Thrones” Queen Cersei) are cast as voice over talent for the BBC and FremantleMedia’s revamped animated series “Danger Mouse.” The beloved 80s cartoon was about a secret agent mouse and his hamster friend Penfold and was originally voiced by David Jason and Terry Scott.The announcement was made at Comic-Con International in San Diego, California. Oliver is reportedly cast as scientist wolf Dr. Augustus P. Crumhorn III, and Headey will voice the U.S. Secret Agent Jeopardy Mouse. “Danger Mouse” will air on the BBC’s kids’ channel […]...

The upcoming Danger Mouse reboot may feature female characters who were previously male.

The move is said to fit into the BBC's plans to make female characters more prominent in children's shows, reports The Guardian.

Cbbc will air 52 new episodes of the classic 1980s cartoon in 2015. The original series featured very few female characters.

"Characters that might have been male in the past will now be female characters," Cbbc controller Cheryl Taylor said.

However, she did not specify which characters could see gender swaps.

CBeebies controller Kay Benbow said of the move: "I still feel the default tendency is for there to be a male lead or a male presenter."

The new series will see Danger Mouse and Penfold still stationed at their iconic red post box. However, it will be filled with modern technology, including the title character's eye patch being replaced by a multi-function 'iPatch'.

Sir David Jason...

How likely is the current crop of kids' TV reboots, from Danger Mouse to The Clangers, Morph and more, to harm your childhood memories?

Feature

The period June 9th to 15th 2014 was an unpleasant raid on the collective VHS cassette memory of our youth. Not only did Eric Hill, the creator of Spot the Dog, pass away, but so too did Casey Kasem, who for forty years had been the voice of Scooby-Doo's snack wingman Shaggy. Francis Matthews, the stiff upper lip behind Captain Scarlet's stiff puppet lip, departed to be with a different angel squadron. And before that Earth lost Rik Mayall, who performed the best Jackanory ever. Sorry Prince Charles. He did.

So if you felt a part of your formative years had suddenly melted away like a Funny Feet ice cream abandoned on a see-saw, then that's perfectly normal. It's always sad and strangely personal...

First Bananaman now Danger Mouse? This is a good time for fans of '80s Brit-toons. The show is being rebooted by Ireland’s Boulder Media, with Horrible Histories‘ Ben Ward on script duty. No word yet on who'll be providing the voices, but one would hope British comedy icon David Jason might consider returning to bring Dm back to life again.

Over two decades since it wrapped, much loved 1980s British cartoon series "Danger Mouse" is coming out of retirement with FremantleMedia Kids & Family Entertainment teaming with the BBC to produce a 52-episode new series to air on Cbbc next year in the UK.

A parody of the Bond films and TV's "Danger Man", the Cosgrove Hall Films production followed an eye-patched white mouse who is also the world's greatest secret agent. He and his bespectacled and reluctant hamster assistant Penfold work out of their base within a red postbox.

Together they battled the evil machinations of the wheezy voiced toad Baron Silas Greenback and his crow assistant Stiletto Mafiosa. On occasion the vampire Count Duckula was the antagonist, and he went on to score his own spin-off series.

161 episodes were produced over a decade and the show proved to be an international hit, even in the United States market where...

Danger Mouse will return next year with a new 52-episode series on Cbbc.

The original Cosgrove Hall Films production ran for ten series from 1981 to 1992, on Citv in the UK and Nickelodeon in the Us.

Original co-creator Brian Cosgrove will consult on the new series and said: "When I helped to create Danger Mouse I had no idea the show would be such a huge success both in the UK and overseas.

"I am delighted that a whole new generation will be introduced to his daring deeds and thrilled to be part of this new 21st century series.

"I can't wait to find out what he's been up to for the last 23 years."

The rights to the Danger Mouse character are now owned by FremantleMedia Kids & Family Entertainment, which is collaborating with the BBC on the new series.

Fremantle had teased the possible return of the character in March 2013, following...

Cbbc has revived Cosgrove Hall's Danger Mouse for a 52-episode new series to air in 2015...

News

Thunderbirds, Morph, and now Danger Mouse... The UK is officially only a Super Gran reboot away from full nostalgic kids' TV submersion. Cbbc has announced it's bringing back Cosgrove Hall's murine super spy for fifty-two new eleven-minute instalments, due to air in 2015.

It's a mighty thirty-three years since the series, about a Bond-like super agent mouse who lived in a secret lair underneath a red post box aided by his trusty er, hamster? friend Penfold zipped around the world besting foes, first aired on ITV.

Horrible Histories' Ben Ward is leading the writing team, and there's no official confirmation yet on who will be voicing the titular character (if it isn't David Jason, Cbbc may well have an angry thirty-something riot on their hands, providing we can all get babysitters that is).

The reboot,...

Danger Mouse is being considered for a TV reboot by FremantleMedia after its success as part of Citv's Old Skool retro weekend earlier this year.

Citv celebrated its 30th birthday in January with a weekend of classic series including Sooty, Fun House and Press Gang. Danger Mouse was the biggest hit of the weekend, pulling in record viewing numbers for Citv.

Broadcast has confirmed that FremantleMedia Kids and Family Entertainment are now holding talks about reviving the kids' animation for a full series.

Danger Mouse was produced by Cosgrove Hall Films for Thames Television between 1981 and 1993.

David Jason voiced the eponymous Danger Mouse, who was joined on his spy adventures by timid, bespectacled hamster Penfold (voiced by Terry Scott). The primary villain was wheezy-voiced toad Baron Silas Greenback (voiced by Edward Kelsey).

President of FremantleMedia's Kids and Family Entertainment Sander Schwartz said: "[Danger Mouse] is something we might be looking to do in the not-too-distant future.

For any child raised between the mid-seventies and early nineties, the work of Brian Cosgrove, and his creative partner Mark Hall will be instantly familiar. From the adventures of a not particularly successful rodent secret agent, and the bizarre home life of a vegetarian vampire duck, to the stop-motion antics of Ratty, Badger, Mole and Toad, their creations dominated afternoon TV in a way that Rastamouse could only dream of.

In addition to his work on children’s TV series, Cosgrove produced and directed the 1989, animated adaptation of Roald Dahl’s novel The Bfg, which comes to Blu-Ray this week. Cosgrove recently took the time to talk to HeyUGuys about the film, as well as his other work, his views on Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr Fox, and his frequent collaborations with the actor David Jason.

On watching the film again, 23 years after it was first released and thinking back to the production.

Louisa Mellor Aug 1, 2016

With Steven Spielberg's The Bfg in cinemas, we look back at the 1989 Cosgrove Hall adaptation feat. David Jason…

On Christmas day 1989, ITV premiered the most charming child abduction story ever told: Cosgrove Hall’s animated adaptation of Roald Dahl’s The Bfg.

Directed by Brian Cosgrove, co-founder of the UK animation studio behind The Wind In The Willows, Danger Mouse, Count Duckula and a whole raft of the sort of kids’ TV that thirty-somethings still get excited about in pubs, The Bfg was, and is, a lovely thing.

Imaginative, funny, and just on the trippy side of weird, the film tells Roald Dahl’s story of orphan Sophie and the titular Big Friendly Giant’s scheme to stop bigger, much less-friendly giants from roaming the globe and gobbling up human beans. But before Cosgrove and co-producer Mark Hall could relay that tale, they had their own...

'He could be quite vocal, Roald Dahl, if he didn't like something so it was a real relief he liked our film'

Brian Cosgrove, director

Quentin Blake was Roald Dahl's illustrator of choice, and his art for the book was perfect: very simple line drawings, perfectly balanced. But we wanted our giant to be more believable and scary.

I painted a watercolour of how we saw him. I got a lovely note back from Dahl saying it was perfect, he was right behind it, and to just get on and do it. Sophie, the little girl who befriends the Bfg, was easy. I had read that Dahl based her on his granddaughter, Sophie Dahl. At the time she wore John Lennon glasses, so we took it from there.

David Jason voiced the giant. I first found him when I was doing voice tests for Danger Mouse. With a lot of voice actors,...

When Mark Hall's death was announced, one of Britain's leading animation businesses put a message on Twitter: "Deeply saddened by the passing of our dear friend Mark Hall. Our company would not be here without him." Hall neither founded that business nor took any part in it. But its directors learned their trade under his unique guidance and inspiration, and never forgot it.

In his long professional life, Mark had two consistent passions. One was for filming stories by great children's writers, in ways which would respect and amplify the original work. The other was for teaching the craft and technique of animated film. The company he founded with Brian Cosgrove was born in the 1960s, when UK animation was a failing cottage industry and even Disney was in the doldrums. So they daringly built their team of film-makers from scratch, bringing new young recruits out of art colleges...

British animator and Danger Mouse co-creator Mark Hall has died of cancer. He was 75.

Hall was surrounded by family when he passed away in the early hours of Friday at his home in Manchester, England.

He launched the animation studio Cosgrove Hall Films with his production partner Brian Cosgrove and the pair went on to enjoy worldwide success with cartoons including Danger Mouse, its spin-off Count Duckula and The Wind in the Willows.

Cosgrove Hall director Adrian Wilkins has paid tribute to Hall's "lifetime of achievement" in the world of animation, adding, "He is one of life's gentlemen."...

Danger Mouse: The Complete Collection 30th Anniversary Edition

Stars (the voices of): David Jason, Terry Scott | Produced by Cosgrove Hall

Released to coincide with the characters 30th Anniversary, this new DVD boxset of the complete series of the classic Cosgrove Hall animated series Danger Mouse features every single episode ever made, in original broadcast order, along with a veritable feast of special features – including the never-before-seen featurette, Danger Mouse and Friends.

Featuring a voice cast that includes British institution David Jason as Danger Mouse and former Carry On and Terry and June star Terry Scott as his bumbling assistant Penfold, the series was first broadcast in September 1981 and has since been oft-repeated on television, capturing the hearts of generation after generation of British children – myself included. In fact the series’ popularity is so great that it ranked third in a nation poll of the nation’s 100 greatest kids...

To celebrate the 30th birthday of the greatest secret agent the world has ever known and one of Britain’s best loved animated characters, Danger Mouse, this September FremantleMedia Enterprises is releasing Danger Mouse – The Complete Collection 30th Anniversary Edition as a 10-disc DVD set featuring every single episode of Danger Mouse and, for the first time ever, in the correct screening order. The collection also comes with a brand new extra feature exclusive to this release, the never-seen-before featurette “Danger Mouse And Friends”.

First broadcast on 28th September 1981 and starring David Jason as the intrepid hero and Terry Scott as his faithful but bumbling assistant Penfold, Danger Mouse was an instant hit with children and adults alike and has since become a national institution. The show’s enormous popularity was confirmed when it ranked third in Channel 4’s poll of the 100 Greatest Kids’ TV Shows, just behind The Simpsons and The Muppet Show,...

The idiosyncratic director defies expectation once more by turning singer-songwriter

David Lynch: revered film-maker, avant-garde visionary, artist. But pop star? The suggestion is not as far-fetched as it may seem, as the legendary American director tomorrow makes an unexpected departure from his previous work and launches himself on an alternative career path as a writer and singer.

The creator of Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive is releasing two debut singles, Good Day Today and I Know, through a British independent label. After a film career spanning more than four decades, Lynch told the Guardian that music has become a powerful inspiration in his life.

"I've always loved sounds and so I built a studio where I can experiment with sound, and gradually I started experimenting with music. I'm not a musician, but I love to experiment and try to make music," he said, speaking from his home in La.