Little Red Tractor
Little Red Tractor is a British children's television series produced by The Little Entertainment Company and was co-produced by Entertainment Rights for the first two series.[2] The ten-minute episodes were broadcast in the United Kingdom by the BBC on the CBeebies channel.[3]
Little Red Tractor | |
---|---|
Genre | Children's television series |
Created by | Colin Reeder |
Directed by | Russell Haigh |
Voices of | Stephen Tompkinson Derek Griffiths Jimmy Hibbert Shireen Shah Florence Jones Stewart Majkowski Euan Dick |
Theme music composer | Michael Cross Stan Cullimore |
Country of origin | United Kingdom |
Original language | English |
No. of series | 3 |
No. of episodes | 75 |
Production | |
Producer | Keith Littler |
Editor | Fred Tay |
Running time | 10 minutes per episode (approx.) |
Production companies | The Little Entertainment Company[1] TRACK Productions Limited Entertainment Rights (Series 1-2) |
Release | |
Original network | CBeebies |
Picture format | HDTV 1080i |
Original release | 5 January 2004 – 29 April 2007 |
The series is produced using stop motion model animation and features unusually detailed sets and models. The series features the popular voices of Stephen Tompkinson and Derek Griffiths. The characters are based on the books by Colin Reeder, which were narrated for video in the mid 1990s by Brian Glover and Richard Briers. The show is mainly aimed at an audience at Preschool.
History
Little Red Tractor Projects Limited owned the original Little Red Tractor video series. Although it didn't have television exposure, Little Red Tractor broke into the top ten children's videos and stayed there for several weeks. In total, the original series sold over 300,000 copies. Contender the distributor wanted to duplicate that success. However, the television rights were sold to Keith Littler's Little Entertainment Group because Peter Tye, the director/writer of the series, preferred their expertise in stop frame animation and empathy with the original. Despite losing the television rights to Little Red Tractor, Contender went ahead and produced their similar series, CITV's Tractor Tom. Despite apparent similarities to Tractor Tom, Little Red Tractor has a completely different style, with more realistic story-lines, a larger human cast, and no surreal livestock behaviour.
Characters
- Stan (voiced by Stephen Tompkinson) is Little Red Tractor's driver and constant companion. Stan lives at Gosling Farm, and keeps two cows Daisy and Veronica, and two pigs.
- Little Red Tractor (leader) is a small and old but reliable red farm tractor, mute but capable of expressing emotions. Stan restored him to his farm as in new condition.
- Patch is Stan's dog, Patch is depicted as a male in the 2004 series whereas in the original stories depict Patch as a female.
- Mr. Jones (voiced by Derek Griffiths) is Stan's neighbour and owner of Big Blue Tractor and Harvey. He often appears selfish, materialistic or otherwise antisocial, but tends to be socially inept or smug rather than actually unpleasant. His first name is revealed to be Jasper and he lives at Beech Farm.
- Big Blue Tractor (co-leader) is a large, up-to-date blue farm tractor owned by Mr. Jones. Has no anthropomorphic traits, but can blow his horn by himself. In the original stories he was named Big Fred.
- Harvey is an orange combine harvester owned by Mr. Jones but sometimes borrowed by Stan.
- Thomas is Mr. Jones' nephew who comes to stay at Beech farm with him on occasion since Mr. Jones' sister moved back from the city to the country. Thomas is learning to like the country life which he initially thought was smelly, dirty and not as good as computer games.
- Stumpy (voiced by Jimmy Hibbert) is the miller. Friendly, mildly eccentric and clumsy. Drives his quadbike, "Nipper" very badly. Stumpy plays in Walter's band.
- Elsie is Stumpy's wife.
- Nipper is a purple quadbike ridden by Stumpy.
- Ryan is the child neighbour of Stan. He and his sister like to play with Little Red Tractor and help out.
- Amy is Ryan's sister.
- Mr. Turvey (voiced by Jimmy Hibbert) is Ryan and Amy's father. He likes to run and plays keyboards in Walters band.
- Mrs. Turvey (voiced by Shireen Shah) is Ryan and Amy's mother. She likes to paint and does arts and crafts.
- Walter (voiced by Derek Griffiths) is a mechanic who runs the Babblebrook garage and likes to play rock and roll. Walter is easily led astray. Walter is lead singer and plays the guitar for his band called Walter and the Wolverines.
- Nicola (voiced by Shireen Shah) is Walter's daughter who also runs the garage. She tends to be far more sensible than her father. Nicola also plays an instrument in her father's band.
- Leo is Walter's nephew, becomes a friend of Ryan and Amy. He is a more than competent drummer who stands in for Nicola in Walter's Band.
- Sparky is a yellow and blue tow truck which Nicola and Walter drive.
- Rusty is Walter's burgundy unreliable car and restoration project who unfortunately breaks down regularly.
Episodes
Series 1 (2004)
- 1. The Big Bang (5 January 2004)
- 2. The Ladder (8 January 2004)
- 3. The Gold Cup (13 January 2004)
- 4. Little Red Tractor's Birthday (6 January 2004)
- 5. Making Hay (21 January 2004)
- 6. The Lucky Day (7 January 2004)
- 7. Berries (9 January 2004)
- 8. Mr. Fixit (12 January 2004)
- 9. Flying (14 January 2004)
- 10. The Garage Sale (20 January 2004)
- 11. Tiger, Tiger (19 January 2004)
- 12. The Windy Day (15 January 2004)
- 13. Farm of the Year (27 January 2004)
- 14. The Dam (16 January 2004)
- 15. The Silence of the Cows (22 January 2004)
- 16. The Big Sneeze (2 February 2004)
- 17. The Secret Den (23 January 2004)
- 18. Mr. Big (29 January 2004)
- 19. The Detectives (30 January 2004)
- 20. Roof Tops (26 January 2004)
- 21. Winter Lights (6 February 2004)
- 22. Dog Gone (28 January 2004)
- 23. Bye Bye, Blue (3 February 2004)
- 24. Enter the Dragon (5 February 2004)
- 25. Water Water (9 February 2004)
- 26. The Party (4 February 2004)
Series 2 (2005)
- 27. The Beast of Babble-Brook
- 28. The New Engine
- 29. The Town Boy
- 30. Circles in the Corn
- 31. Spuds
- 32. Little Red Rocker
- 33. Glorious Mud
- 34. The New Addition
- 35. The Tree House
- 36. Traction Trouble
- 37. Gone With the Wind
- 38. Llama Drama
- 39. Read All About It
- 40. Marrow Mangler
- 41. Buried Treasure
- 42. The Ghost of Tawny Owl Wood
- 43. The Beech Farm Flyer
- 44. Paper Chase
- 45. Molehills and Windmills
- 46. May Day
- 47. Scrambled Eggs
- 48. Farm Games
- 49. Double Trouble
- 50. Hot Hot Hot
- 51. Cheesed Off
- 52. Magic Hat
Series 3 (2007)
- 53. Thunder and Dancing
- 54. Row Yer Boat
- 55. Lost!
- 56. Up, Up and Away
- 57. One Potato, Two Potato
- 58. The Show Must Go On
- 59. Too Cold for Snow
- 60. Furry Jumper
- 61. Topsy Turvey
- 62. The Map
- 63. The Hill
- 64. Run
- 65. Movie Madness
- 66. Kart Race
- 67. What's Up, Duck?
- 68. Rambling Rabbits
- 69. Milkshake
- 70. Electric Trickery
- 71. An Unwanted Tractor
- 72. Raindance
- 73. Bubblegum
- 74. Countryside Code
- 75. Welcome Home
References
- "Toonhound - Little Red Tractor (2004-2007)". www.toonhound.com. Retrieved 20 November 2022.
- "Entertainment Rights Hauls Little Red Tractor To Mipcom". Animation World Network. Retrieved 25 August 2021.
- Donohue, Simon (10 August 2004). "True North's on the right track". Manchester Evening News. Retrieved 25 August 2021.