Johnson and Friends

Johnson and Friends
Title card for the series, seen at the beginning of every episode.
Created by	Ron Saunders John Patterson Ian Munro
Directed by	Ian Munro David Ogilvy
Starring	See Cast section below.
Narrated by	Paul Bertram
Composer(s)	Chris Neal Braedy Neal
Country of origin	Australia
Original language(s)	English
No. of seasons	4
No. of episodes	78 (list of episodes)
Production
Producer(s)	Ron Saunders Donna Mitroff Jay Rayvid
Editor(s)	Robin Archer Neil Thumpston Frans Vandenburg
Running time	10 mins
Production company(s)	Film Australia ABC Avalon Studios Fuji Television Network Fox Children's Network WQED
Release
Original network	ABC
Picture format	4:3
Audio format	Stereo
Original release	3 September 1990 – 30 October 1995

Johnson and Friends (stylised as Johnson & Friends) was an Australian children’s television program broadcast on the ABC from 3 September 1990 to 30 October 1995. It was produced by Film Australia and lasted four seasons. In the UK it was shown in 1993 on TCC, CBBC, and then on UK Living's Tiny Living strand for under-fives.^[1] It was later aired in the United States with dubbed American voices as a segment on The Fox Cubhouse, an educational children's program on Fox Kids, from late 1994 to early 1996. The series was last repeated on ABC1 until 19 March 2002.

Plot

Johnson and his friends are toys that belong to a boy named Michael, unseen except for asleep in his bed. They reside in his bedroom, but do not move or show any signs of life until he has left the room or fallen asleep. Each episode involves a story about the toys and it will usually have a message to convey to the children about sharing, cheating, complaining or similar.

Themes

The series is aimed at children less than five years old, and plays upon their fascination with the notion that toys come to life when they are gone. However, the stories often have a deeper message, and sometimes they are very poignant. Often the toys live in terror that new toys will replace them, encouraging small children to look after old toys.

On one occasion McDuff was taken out into the real world. She rejected her friends because it was so wonderful, but eventually she regained her senses. One episode deals with the issue of having a TV in your child's room. The toys become completely addicted and Alfred watches it even when nothing is on. All the episodes convey gentle moral messages to young children whilst at the same time providing the lively colour and rambunctious gaiety that young children enjoy.

Characters

• Johnson: The leader of the toys. A furry pink elephant who loves reading. Johnson is the wisest and oldest of the group, despite a shortcoming of not been able to count past one, and a tendency towards impatience sometimes.
• McDuff: A blue and yellow concertina who loves having fun. Although she is a little silly, McDuff is a kind and loyal friend, especially towards the misunderstood Diesel.
• Diesel: A red toy truck with a yellow and black hat that spends most of his time going "bruuum, bruuum" around the floor. He speaks with a very pronounced Australian accent. Although brusque, he means well and is obviously fond of his friends.
• Alfred: A green hot water bottle, which is technically not a toy. He is a real fusspot and lives in the dark, dank area of the bedroom that is under the bed. He is neurotic and anxious and complains constantly. His face wears an aggrieved expression, but it is Alfred that supplies a lot of the humour. He also owns an old "banana skin blanket" which he is very protective of. Although grumpy and sometimes selfish, Alfred is generally good natured and helps Johnson out on his endeavours.
• Squeaky: A black and red robot. She guards the bedroom while Michael is asleep and loves singing to herself. She is childlike and believes that the vacuum cleaner is her mother. She does not appear in every episode.
• Victoria: A slow-moving orange and purple dinosaur that actually belongs to Michael's elder sister, Melissa; Victoria will appear at the door with some bad news she has just heard, e.g. "They're going on holiday and they can't take any toys with them!"
• Alphonse: Alfred's long lost friend from the hot water bottle factory, he mentions that he and Alfred are both very musically talented and were once known as "The Hot Water Rockers".
• Albert: Another hot water bottle acquaintance of Alfred's, Albert is known for his temper, and is even less tolerable than Alfred!
• Alfred's Friends: Aside from Alphonse and Albert, Alfred is shown to have many hot water bottle friends, whom he has invited to the bedroom at least once.
• Michael: The boy who owns the toys, he is only seen while asleep, in the form of a dummy, but is frequently mentioned throughout the series.
• Melissa: Michael's sister who is the owner of Victoria. She is never seen on screen, only mentioned.
• Michael's Mum and Dad: Michael's parents are occasionally mentioned throughout the series, however, they never appear physically.
• Michael's Aunt and Uncle: Michael's Aunt and Uncle are mentioned very briefly in one of the episodes.
• Baby: Michael's infant cousin made a non-physical appearance in one of the episodes.

Cast

The program was narrated by Paul Bertram. The US dub was narrated by Amy Hartman.

Episodes

American dub

In 1994, executive producer Ron Saunders approached Jay Rayvid, a producer at WQED, Pittsburgh's local PBS station (known for producing Mister Rogers' Neighborhood) to see if the station was interested in helping to get Johnson and Friends on television in the United States. Jay agreed, but was unable to find a market for the series as a standalone program. By this point, 52 episodes (the first three series) had been produced and were licensed to WQED. FOX Kids were looking to start a preschool series around the same time and thus The Fox Cubhouse was created. WQED and FOX teamed up and implemented Johnson and Friends as a segment in Tuesday and Thursday episodes of the 'Cubhouse'. In addition, The Fox Cubhouse itself was shot at WQED. Occasionally, two Johnson and Friends episodes would feature as part of a 'Cubhouse' episode instead of one.

However, the FOX network executives believed that the Australian accents in Johnson and Friends would confuse American viewers, so the series was dubbed over by local Pittsburgh actors. It was decided that Peter Browne would be retained as Alfred's voice actor, but due to master recording issues, all of his dialogue had to be rerecorded. Several additional songs and music pieces were written by Chris Neal and his son Braedy, who had previously composed the score and songs for the original version of Johnson and Friends, as FOX felt that some of the earlier episodes were "too quiet". Minor cuts were also made along with adjustments to John Patterson's scripts, to remove Australian terminology. Series director Ian Munro still maintained creative control over the American version of the program, and was involved with voice direction.

The Fox Cubhouse became a short-lived success, and FOX commissioned an additional season of 26 episodes of Johnson and Friends for the Cubhouse. These episodes were also shown in Australia, dubbed by the original voice cast and marketed as the fourth series of the program. David Flick, who had provided the American voice of Diesel was replaced by Doug Scroope, Diesel's original voice. Shortly after the broadcast of these episodes, The Fox Cubhouse was taken off the air, and the American version of the series hasn't seen the light of day since. It is believed that the master tapes of the US version were wiped, however several master copies are known to exist.

Legacy

Johnson and Friends is fondly remembered for its unique character and set design, and is considered by many to be a '90's cult classic'. As a result, the Australian Children's Television Foundation, the current distribution rights holders for the series have started a YouTube channel featuring episodes from the series.

Upcoming filmmaker, Joseph Marshall (from Ballina, New South Wales, Australia) has been a lifelong fan of the series and holds the record of the biggest collection of Johnson and Friends memorabilia. He runs 'Michael's Bedroom', the first and only Johnson and Friends fan site.

References

External links

• Johnson and Friends on IMDb
• ABC Kids Page (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
• RetroJunk
• Sausagenet.com
• Johnson and Friends at the National Film and Sound Archive
• Joseph Marshall's fan site
• The ACTF's official Johnson YouTube channel