The Big Comfy Couch
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| The Big Comfy Couch | |
|---|---|
 Alyson Court Portraying Loonette With Her Doll Molly |
|
| Genre | Children's television series/Educational |
| Creator(s) | Cheryl Wagner
Robert Mills |
| Starring | Alyson Court (1992–2002) Ramona Darling (2006–present) Bob Stutt Fred Stinson Taborah Johnson Robert Mills Jani Lauzon Jackie Harris Grindl Kuchuka Edward Knuckles |
| Country of origin | Canada |
| No. of episodes | 100 |
| Production | |
| Camera setup | Multi-camera |
| Running time | 25 minutes |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | YTV |
| Original run | 1992 – present |
| Links | |
| Official website | |
The Big Comfy Couch is a Canadian children's television series about Loonette the Clown and her friends, produced by Cheryl Wagner and Robert Mills and directed by Wayne Moss and Mills. It premiered on March 2, 1993 in Canada and in 1994 in the USA on public television stations across the country.
The shows format revolves around Loonette the Clown, a child clown (portrayed by an adult actress) living with her dolly, Molly, on the eponymous Big Comfy Couch, an oversized green couch. She frequently reads stories to Molly, always performs a "Clock rug stretch", and likes to visit her Granny Garbanzo, who is played by (Grindi Kuchirka), Auntie Macassar (Taborah Johnson) who sends things from time to time to Loonette (or more recently, her Uncle Chester) frequently sends Loonette postcards which Major Bedhead (Fred Stinson) delivers on his unicycle (similar to Reba the Mail Lady from Pee-wee's Playhouse). Loonette is gifted in the art of classical dance and runs "Miss Loonette's Dance Academy". Another gift she possesses is the unusual ability to clean up just about any mess in ten seconds, which she calls the "Ten Second Tidy". (In reality, the video's action was sped up during video taping of an episode; the cleaning up actually took longer than 10 seconds, in an episode where hundreds of ping pong balls invade the room, the sped up tape took around 40 seconds). Originally, Loonette was too young to visit Clowntown, but starting in 2006, Loonette makes frequent (adult supervised) trips to Clowntown to visit Granny Garbanzo's "Cabbage Club Cooking School" and Major Bedhead's "Clown Chi Mojo Dojo and Dancing School". Bob Stutt has the roles of Molly Dolly, Dust Bunny Fuzzy, Snicklefritz, The Cat that belongs to Granny Garbanzo.
The show was originally produced by Radical Sheep Productions and Owl Television, then Canadian children's television network YTV, with a run of sixty-five episodes. In 2002, thirteen new episodes were produced with Benny Smart, an American children's television production company, Tadpole TV and Treehouse TV, a companion channel of YTV.
Amity Entertainment and Radical Sheep Productions produced twenty-two additional episodes, which debuted on American Public Television in 2006. This marked the debut of Ramona Gilmour-Darling as Loonette, replacing Alyson Court.
[edit] Cast
- Ramona Gilmour-Darling as Loonette the Clown #2
- Bob Stutt as Molly the Doll/Dustbunny/Snicklefritz (voice)
- Grindl Kuchirka as Granny Garbanzo
- Fred Stinson as Major Bedhead
- Robert Mills as Dust Bunny Wuzzy (voice)
- Jani Lauzon as Jim Foley (voice)
- Jackie Harris as Eileen Foley (voice)
- Taborah Johnson as Auntie Macassar
- Alyson Court as Loonette #1
- Ben Deutschas Puppeteer
[edit] Fundings
- Corporation For Public Broadcasting[citation needed]
- Paramus Park[citation needed]
- McDonald's[citation needed]
- Viewers Like You
