Underplayed Gems

Pingwings

Pingwings poster
Original title
The Pingwings
Genre
children's television series
Country
United Kingdom
Length
3 seasons, 12 episodes
Elsewhere
IMDb
The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this series is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

More series like this

How it feels

A family of knitted penguin-like creatures lives at the back of a barn on a farm. They interact with the farmers and a goat in stop motion and live action scenes.

whimsicalgentleplayfulnostalgiccozylightheartedsimpleslow-paced

What happens

Pingwings is an animated black and white children's television series, comprising 18 ten-minute episodes, broadcast in the United Kingdom on ITV in three series of six programmes each, between 1961 and 1965. It first aired on Associated Rediffusion in February 1961. Created by Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin of Smallfilms, it starred a family of penguin-like creatures (the word "Pingwing" is a pun on the word "penguin") who lived at the back of a barn on the fictional Berrydown Farm. The characters were knitted by Firmin's sister Gloria Wilson, and the animation was achieved using the stop motion technique. Some of the animated sequences were filmed in the open air. Such sequences were often intercut with live-action sequences, featuring Mr and Mrs Farmer and Gay the Goat. In this way the Pingwing family interacted with their neighbours on the farm. The series was in fact filmed partly "on location": since Peter Firmin and his wife lived in an old farmhouse, and the Smallfilms film studio was located in a disused barn adjacent to it, all the exteriors needed for the series were available literally on their doorstep. The series was captured on 16mm black-and-white film. All of the voices were provided by Oliver Postgate and Olwen Griffiths. A short sequence of Pingwings is available on the CD accompanying Oliver Postgate's autobiography, and a DVD of the 18 episodes is also available, from the Dragons' Friendly Society. The music for the series was composed by Vernon Elliot, and performed by him with the oboist Sidney Sutcliffe. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

This page is from Underplayed Gems. Not quite it? You can browse by genre, country and year, or take this one into the 3D catalogue and ask the Catbot for something closer.