Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids

Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids
Genre childrens animation fox
Created by Jamie Rix
Written by Jamie Rix
Directed by Sara Bor
Simon Bor
Jamie Rix
Narrated by Nigel Planer
Country of origin  United Kingdom
Language(s) English
No. of series 7 (7th series was on Nicktoons) (Series 1-6 was on ITV)
No. of episodes 105 (79 ITV episodes + 26 Nickelodeon episodes)
Production
Producer(s) Sara Bor
Simon Bor
Jamie Rix
Broadcast
Original channel ITV (2000-2010)
Nickelodeon (2010-present)
Nicktoons (2010-present)
Original run 4 January 2000 (2000-01-04) – present

Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids is a series of books by Jamie Rix and a TV series produced for ITV. The original TV series was based on the award winning collections of cautionary tales by Jamie Rix. Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids, Ghostly Tales for Ghastly Kids, Fearsome Tales for Fiendish Kids and More Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids. The series was narrated by Nigel Planer and animated by Sara and Simon Bor of Wolves Witches & Giants fame.

In all, six series and a New Year's special ran from 2000 to 2006 on ITV1 and Grizzly Tales was consistently one of the highest rated children's animation shows on the channel. A new 26 re invention of the show is being produced for Nickelodeon UK and NickToons UK

The BAFTA-nominated show picked up many awards including Animated Series and Children's Choice at the British Animation Awards, and Children's Animated series at Cartoons on the Bay.

The show is available on DVD through ITV in the UK, Porchlight in the USA and Time Life in Australia. Orion Audiobooks have also released full CD recordings of the books, read by Rupert Degas. Audio Go have re released the original Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids audio book on CD and download.

The series is produced by Grizzly TV [1]

In 2010 Nickelodeon UK and NickToons UK started broadcasting the original series. The re invented series airs from 2011 on Nickelodeon UK and Nicktoons UK.

Contents

Focus

The series is a collection of morality tales which also has insinuations of a horror story; gruesome punishments happen throughout. The stories mainly focus on naughty or horrible (for example vain, untidy or lying children) children learning a grim lesson. Examples include "The Bugaboo Bear" (in which a little blond girl, buys a "Bugaboo Bear", and treats it as a person, only after a surprisingly short amount of time she gets bored with it, and starts treating it in a horrid manner), and "William the Conkerer" (in which a young lad, who destroys trees, attempts to steal every conker in the village).

Television series

First debuting in 2000, the show was broadcast on CITV, commissioned by Carlton Television, now part of ITV plc. It was a co-production between Elephant Productions and Honeycomb Animation, Jamie Rix co directing the series with Simon & Sara Bor. On most of the early series, a stopmotion sequence involving a creepy cinema owner named [Uncle Grizzly] http://www.grizzlytv.co.uk (On occasion, the CITV presenters referred to him as the 'Storyteller man') and his pet spider, Spindleshanks would be present. The two would discuss the morals of the tales shown, often ending with Spindleshanks getting badly injured, e.g. squashed or splatted.

These sequences were later removed, possibly to shorten the cartoon's length. More recently, only Uncle Grizzly is shown welcoming you to the show. Spindleshanks was removed too. They also had a different theme song.

Many of the episodes between Seasons 1-4 were adaptations from the books also written by Rix, although they usually edited out or altered many parts of the stories to fit the time slot. In 2006, the series went from hand-drawn animation to digital, starting with "A Grizzly New Year's Tale: The Crystal Eye". The latest seasons of stories were later published in book form, in a new format and known as the Grizzly Tales Series. Each of these books focused on various themes (such as "Nasty Little Beasts", "Gruesome Grown Ups" and "Freaks of Nature") and contained six stories each.

Each tale is normally set in a different location. However, many of the character designs and backgrounds were reused and altered to make different characters and settings.

Nigel Planer was the narrator for this series and played Uncle Grizzly. He also narrated Fearsome Tales for Fiendish Kids on audiobook. Bill Wallis narrated More Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids and Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids and Ghostly Tales for Ghastly Kids were both read by Andrew Sachs.

After Grizzly Tales ended in 2007, it was announced that Grizzly Tales would return for a brand new series for Nicktoons UK for 2011. The series location moved from the Squeam Screen, to the Hot-Hell Darkness. Uncle Grizzly made way to his half brother, The Night Night Porter, who took over as storyteller, but retained Nigel Planer's voice.

Episode list

SERIES 1 2000

  1. The New Nanny (4 January 2000)
  2. The Spaghetti Man (11 January 2000)
  3. Death By Chocolate (18 January 2000)
  4. Grandmother's Footsteps (25 January 2000)
  5. The Wooden Hill (1 February 2000)
  6. A Tangled Web (8 February 2000)
  7. The Princess's Clothes (15 February 2000)
  8. Burgerskip (22 February 2000)
  9. The Barber of Civil (29 February 2000)
  10. The Chipper Chums Go Scrumping (7 March 2000)
  11. The History Lesson (14 March 2000)
  12. Sweets (21 March 2000)
  13. Dr. Moribundus (28 March 2000)

SERIES 2 2001

  1. The Childhood Snatcher (6 September 2001)
  2. Glued to the Telly (13 September 2001)
  3. The Broken Down Cottage (20 September 2001)
  4. The Cat Burglar (27 September 2001)
  5. Mr Peeler's Butterflies (4 October 2001)
  6. The Giant Who Grew Too Big for His Boots (11 October 2001)
  7. Tag (18 October 2001)
  8. Prince Noman (25 October 2001)
  9. Jack in a Box (1 November 2001)
  10. The Litter Bug (8 November 2001)
  11. Fat Boy with a Trumpet (15 November 2001)
  12. An Elephant Never Forgets (22 November 2001)
  13. Well'ard Willard (29 November 2001)

SERIES 3 2002-2003

  1. The Upset Stomach (10 December 2002)
  2. Knocked Down Ginger (17 December 2002)
  3. The Locked Door (24 December 2002)
  4. Simon Sulk (31 December 2002)
  5. The Urban Fox (7 January 2003)
  6. When the Bed Bugs Bite (14 January 2003)
  7. Spoiltsport (21 January 2003)
  8. The Pie Man (28 January 2003)
  9. Head In the Clouds (4 February 2003)
  10. Dirty Bertie (11 February 2003)
  11. Crocodile Tears (18 February 2003)
  12. Little Fingers (25 February 2003)
  13. The Decomposition of Delia Dethabridge (4 March 2003)

SERIES 4 2004

  1. It's Only a Game Sport! (13 September 2004)
  2. Revenge of the Bogeyman (20 September 2004)
  3. The People Potter (27 September 2004)
  4. The Gas Man Cometh (4 October 2004)
  5. Bunny Boy (11 October 2004)
  6. Bessy O’Messey (18 October 2004)
  7. Goblin Mountain (25 October 2004)
  8. Superstitious Nonsense (1 November 2004)
  9. Bogman (8 November 2004)
  10. The Stick Men (15 November 2004)
  11. Athlete's Foot (22 November 2004)
  12. The Grass Monkey (29 November 2004)
  13. The Top Hat (6 December 2004)

A Grizzly New Year's Tales 2005

  1. The Crystal Eye (Christmas Special 2005) (25 December 2005)

SERIES 5 2006

  1. The Bugaboo Bear (12 January 2006)
  2. The Butcher Boy (19 January 2006)
  3. The Fruit Bat (26 January 2006)
  4. Monty's Python (2 February 2006)
  5. The Grub A Blub Blub (9 February 2006)
  6. Wolf Child (16 February 2006)
  7. The Weather Witch (23 February 2006)
  8. Kiss and Make Up (2 March 2006)
  9. William the Conkerer (9 March 2006)
  10. Silence is Golden (16 March 2006)
  11. Her Majesty's Moley (23 March 2006)
  12. Puppet on a String (30 March 2006)
  13. The Soul Stealer (6 April 2006)

SERIES 6 2007

  1. Jamie's School Dinners (7 April 2007)
  2. Recyclops (14 April 2007)
  3. The Clothes Pigs (21 April 2007)
  4. Why Boys Make Better Burglars (28 April 2007)
  5. The Watermelon Babies (5 May 2007)
  6. eBoy (12 May 2007)
  7. Nobby's Nightmare (19 May 2007)
  8. The Dumb Klutzes (26 May 2007)
  9. The Lobster's Scream (2 June 2007)
  10. The Old Tailor Of Pelting Moor (9 June 2007)
  11. Big Head (16 June 2007)
  12. The Piranha Sisters (23 June 2007)
  13. Tom Time (Last episode aired on ITV) (30 June 2007)

ITV announced in July 2007 that Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids has not been recommissioned for a seventh series.[1]

Grizzly Tales - Cautionary Tales of Lovers of Squeam Nickelodeon series (aka series 7 & 8)

Batch 1 (series 7) 2010 (First UK transmission May 2011)

1 Tinklebell (2 May 2011) Gilbert

2 Sick To Death (2 May 2011) Victoria

3 The Ugly Prince (3 May 2011) Spencer

4 Hear No Weevil See No Weevil (3 May 2011) Brokli

5 The Rise and Fall of The Evil Guff (4 May 2011) Bart

6 Cat’s Eyes (4 May 2011) Cat

7 Message in a Bottle (5 May 2011) Poppering

8 Little Angel (5 May 2011) Eliza

9 The Dragon Moth (6 May 2011) Josiah

10 The Long Face (6 May 2011) Petty

11 Kingdom of Wax (9 May 2011) Nathaniel

12 The Spelling Bee (9 May 2011) (Based On The Death Rattle) Purnellopy

13 The Flat Pack Kid (10 May 2011) Humpty

Batch 2 (series 8) 2011

14 The Blood Doctor (Sept 2011) Georgina

15 The Hair Fairies (Sept 2011) Peacebiscuit

16 The Apostrophic Expositor (Sept 2011) B.S Brogan

17 Nerves of Steel (Sept 2011) Charlie

18 The Worm (Sept 2011) Eustus

19 Lazy Bones (Sept 2011) Linda

20 Frank Einstein’s Monster (Sept 2011) Frank

21 Nails In Her Coffin (Sept 2011) Nails

22 The Undertaker (Sept 2011) Callum

23 Little Flower Girl (Sept 2011) Petal

24 The Wrap Man (Sept 2011) Samuel

25 Old Macdonald’s Farm (original story) ) (Sept 2011)

26 Nuclear Wart (Sept 2011) The Two Boys

Books

Nearly every story Jamie Rix has written for Grizzly Tales are adaptations from his books:

Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids

Ghostly Tales for Ghastly Kids

Fearsome Tales for Fiendish Kids

More Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids

Nasty Little Beasts

Gruesome Grown Ups

The 'Me!" Monsters

Freaks of Nature

Terror Time Toys

Blubbers and Sicksters

The Naughty Gnomes of NO!

Super Zeroes

A Grizzly Dozen

References

  1. ^ "Art Attack axed after 18 years". Digital Spy. (2007-07-13). http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/programming/a65632/art-attack-axed-after-18-years.html. Retrieved 2007-07-13.