Good Luck Nigel Planer

Nigel Planer will be at the Hilton Park Lane for the annual Children's BAFTA awards tomorrow. The former Young One and star of stage, screen and TV is nominated for his first BAFTA, in the performance category, for his work on Nickelodeon's Grizzly Tales.

This is the seventh BAFTA nomination for Grizzly Tales, which has collected silverware from The British Animation Awards, Cartoons on the Bay and The Broadcast Awards, but has so far failed to convert a BAFTA nomination into a gong.

Nigel is up against stiff opposition including 15 year old Khalil Madovi, a Manchester Grammar School pupil, who plays Josh Carter in the 4 O'Clock Club on CBBC.

Grizzly Tales continues it's run on NickToons in UK and Eire.

http://www.bafta.org/awards/childrens/


Follow @BAFTA on Twitter with #BAFTAKids

What's on NickToons

New episodes of Grizzly Tales on NickToons for UK and Eire at 5.30pm  Classic episodes continue at 10pm.

A Grizzly Halloween to you.

New Grizzly Tales for NickToons.
Find out when Grizzly Tales is on next. http://www.nick.co.uk/whatson/Default.aspx?channel=NKTT

BAFTA 2012 Update

NickAlive reports that Grizzly Tales is one of five Nickelodeon nominations for a BAFTA in this year's Children's ceremony to be held next month.

BAFTA suggests that this seventh nomination for Grizzly Tales is actually Nigel Planer's first. Other sites celebrating Nigel Planer's nomination for the performer category include Zimbo, Under The Small Umberella, Chortle and TalkTVWorld.

The full list of nominations can be found HERE.

Nigel Planer nominated for BAFTA

Grizzly Tales has once again been nominated for a Children's BAFTA. This time it's for Nigel Planer's performance as The Night Night Porter. Nigel has been the voice of Grizzly Tales since the TV series was first broadcast in 2000, but his involvement with the franchise goes back to the BBC Radio 4 readings of Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids in the early nineties.

New Episodes of Grizzly Tales on NickToons

The Night Night Porter returns to NickToons this month for the continuation of the Broadcast Award winning series 8. Full details can be found on the Nickelodeon blog HERE.

The seven new episodes, held back from the rest of the series to coincide with Halloween, include Frank Einstien's Monster, The Undertaker and The Nuclear Wart.

Nigel Planner is, once again, the narrator of the series, Jamie Rix continues as writer. Jamie is joined by Sara & Simon Bor for directing duties.

Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Passengers

First Great Western trains are currently offering episodes of Grizzly Tales to help pass the time on the long journey from London Paddington to Penzance. It's worth a visit to Cornwall this week if you want to see Tom Time, the last episode of Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids to be made for CITV.

For information about this free TV service, visit First Great Western or go to the VOLVO TV site

Link to the Gruesome Directors

Grizzly Tales is co directed by Jamie Rix, Sara Bor and Simon Bor. You can find out more about them on their personal web sites.


News about Grizzly Tales and more from Jamie Rix
http://www.jamierix.com/grizzly-tales/

@SaraBorArt the website of Sara Bor
http://sarabor.co.uk/

Look inside Simon's Head
http://simons-head.blogspot.co.uk/ and
http://simonbor.co.uk/

Tube Mice are back in Town

Tube Mice was made for ITV at the London studios of Honeycomb Animation in the 1980s. Since leaving Smithfield for rural Devon, it seems that the studio may have left some of their characters behind. They may be the descendants of Toaster, (pictured here) who was voiced by Dennis Waterman (New Tricks) or George Cole's Vernon.

The series creators, Simon & Sara Bor got their inspiration from watching a mouse eat a sandwich at the Angel Tube Station. It seems that 24 years later, the mice have moved into Farringdon Station, which was a two minute walk from their studio.

Time Out has a story about this vicious new breed of mouse, which may bring the humble cycle clip back into fashion. You can find it at http://now-here-this.timeout.com/2012/08/29/tube-mice-on-the-loose-in-farringdon-station/

Thanks to Trev.

Voice of Dippy the Cow to star in Doctor Who

Harry Potter, 101 Dalmatians and Fast Show star Mark Williams, who also voiced Honeycomb Animation's Dippy the Cow in Channel 5's Milkshake shows, Funky Valley and Funky Town, is to star in two episodes of BBC One's Doctor Who this autumn.

Playing Rory William's dad, Brian, Mark Williams joins the Doctor in the story Dinosaurs on a Spaceship next week.

Mark voiced all 82 editions of Funky Valley and Funky Town, which ran for three series between 2004 and 2007. Funky Town is currently available to view on 5 on demand.

http://www.channel5.com/shows/funky-town/episodes

Is Rooney a Grizzly Tales fan?

Most of the page views for this blog come from the UK, Ireland, US and Australia. Something strange happened last night when the Grizzly Tales blog got an usually high page view from Ukraine, where, as some readers may be aware, there was some sort of football match involving England and Ukraine last night.

It has led us, at The Hot-Hell Darkness, to believe that Wayne Rooney, (or at least one of this team mates), must be a Grizzly Tales fan and celebrated his winning goal at Euro 2012 by logging on to grizzlytv.co.uk  via his iPhone.

Happy Birthday to Honeycomb

Honeycomb Animation turns thirty this summer. Find out how the studio got its name at simons-head.blogspot.com.

 

Tube Mice, an early Honeycomb Animation show.

More Grizzly Tales this Autumn

NickToons is to air Grizzly Tales series 8 part 2, this autumn.

The new episodes, which get their UK premier are,

Frank Einstein’s Monster 

Nails In Her Coffin 

The Undertaker 

Little Flower Girl

The Wrap Man 

Old Macdonald had a Farm 

Nuclear Wart 

The series is a Grizzly TV production for Nickelodeon and ITV Global Entertainment

Do you want to write for TV?

The BBC Writer's Room has details of a new Grizzly Tales co-producers, Little Brother's writing opportunity.

Little Brother's Big Opportunity 11 can be found HERE.

Uncle Grizzly to tread the boards with Spymonkey?

According to whatsonstage.com, Uncle Grizzly could soon be treading the boards, thanks to theatre company Spymonkey, who plan to adapt the original book by Jamie Rix for the stage.

They will be going back to the source material and re-imagining the tales for the stage.

More on this later in the year.

Oedipussy by Spymonkey can be seen at Theatre Royal Brighton from 14 – 16 May at 7.45pm

What's on TV Monday 9th April.

Nigel Planer narrates four more Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids at10pm - 11pm on Nicktoons for UK and Ireland

Spike Milligan tells more tales of Wolves Witches and Giants at 3.30. on CITV.

Wolves Witches and Giants. Now showing on ITV Player

More Spike Milligan from ITV

Mark Williams voices Funky Town at Demand5 and its sister programme Funky Valley HERE.

Confessions of a Grizzly Tales Producer

Grizzly Tales co producer, Simon Bor, has admitted to being a bit of a gruesome kid himself.

In his blog, simons-head, he tells of how a tantrum led to a life-long fondness of bourbon biscuits.

Other subjects covered in the blog are cat stew, book shelves, Dan Dare, plastic bags, Tea and Mrs. Thatcher.

Dippy heads for Time and Space

Mark Williams, the voice of Dippy and her friends in Funky Valley, is currently filming for the new series of Doctor Who.

Best known as Arthur Weasley in the Harry Potter movies, Mark has featured in films such as 101 Dalmatians, The Borrowers and Shakespeare in Love. On TV he was a regular on The Fast Show and has starred in George Gently, Frankenstein's Wedding, Miss Marple, New tricks and Being Human.

Funky Valley was created by Grizzly Tales directors Simon & Sara Bor for Channel 5 and ITV Global Entertainment.

Simon's Head

There's a new blog by, Grizzly Tales co-director / producer, Simon Bor.

Read about his camel coat at simons-head.blogspot.com or his visit to a Jacqueline Wilson signing.

Grizzly Tales praised by panel

“Great storytelling made with love” 

According to the Broadcast website Grizzly Tales was praised by the judging panel at last week's Broadcast Awards.

The judges described the show as “exceptional” and having “a brave, raw and original approach”.


“It is unusual for children’s TV to produce such daring, funny and outrageous storytelling. And that deserves to be celebrated.”

“the author(Jamie Rix)’s spirit shines right through it”.

Subscribers to the magazine can read the full Grizzly Tales article HERE. Non subscribers can find the article reproduced on the NickAlive Blog 

Broadcast Award for Grizzly Tales- Updated

The latest series of Grizzly Tales has won the Broadcast Award for Best Children's programme. Full details of awards winners can be found HERE  It beat off stiff competition from other programmes including  BAFTA winners "Sarah Jane Adventures" and "The Amazing World of Gumball".


Author and co-producer Jamie Rix has added his thoughts to the win on his website. jamierix.com

The story is reported by NickAlive, Digital-Spy, Screen International. BBC NEWS, Broadcast, FromTheNorth, Entertainment Focus, 

The programme was previously nominated for a BAFTA in 2011.

Animated Exeter

February 11-19 are the dates for this year's Animated Exeter. http://www.animatedexeter.co.uk/


As well as film programmes there are plenty of exhibitions, workshops
and  events like the Peppa Pig Master-class.


Legendary film trick luminaries Forkbeard Fantasy's spectacular animation will be projected onto Exeter Cathedral on Thursday Evening 16th February.


Grizzly Tales co-producer, Simon Bor, will be on the panel of the careers event -The Pitch on Friday 17th February at 10.30. 


You can download the Animated Exeter App. HERE  or find the Festival Programme HERE

The 999 Lives of Fuzzy Cat: Fuzzy's Stripy cousin

The 999 Lives of Fuzzy Cat: Fuzzy's Stripy cousin: Fuzzy Cat creator Tom McLaughlin has a new book published.

Tom is responsible for backgrounds and characters on the latest Grizzly Tales series.