The Wombles are fictional pointy-nosed, furry creatures created by author Elisabeth Beresford, originally appearing in a series of children's novels from 1968. They live in burrows, where they aim to help the environment by collecting and recycling rubbish in creative ways. Although Wombles supposedly live in every country in the world, Beresford's stories are concerned with the lives of the inhabitants of the burrow on Wimbledon Common in London, England.

The characters gained a higher national profile in the UK in the mid-1970s as a result of a BBC commissioned children's television show which used stop motion animation. A number of spin-off novelty songs also became hits in the British music charts. The Wombles pop group was the idea of British singer and composer Mike Batt.

The Womble motto is "Make Good Use of Bad Rubbish". This environmentally friendly message was a reflection of the growing environmental movement of the 1970s.

Background

In 1968, Elisabeth Beresford took her young children for a Boxing Day walk on Wimbledon Common, where her daughter Kate mispronounced it as "Wombledon Common", sparking the idea of the Wombles in her mother's mind. On getting home, Beresford wrote down the idea and started developing the characters and storylines. She developed most of her Womble characters around members of her family, and named them after places the family had associations with.

The Wombles is a stop motion animated British television series made in 1973–1975. The Wombles are creatures that live underground, collecting and recycling human rubbish.

After the first Wombles book, published in 1968, was featured on the BBC1 children's television programme Jackanory, the BBC commissioned producer FilmFair to create a television series of the books. The series was produced by Graham Clutterbuck and directed by Ivor Wood using stop-motion. The characters were all voiced by actor Bernard Cribbins. Sets and model making were by Barry Leith. Two series of 30, five-minute episodes were produced, with the first series airing in 1973, animated by Ivor Wood, and the second in 1975, animated by Barry Leith. In all, 60 episodes were produced.

The original television series was regularly screened for many years. After FilmFair was acquired by the Canadian company Cinar Films in 1996, a new series of episodes was created, with three new Womble characters. In the UK, the series was purchased by ITV and was screened on their CITV brand.

The Wombles is a second animated series for children based on the characters created by Elisabeth Beresford transmitted in 1997 and 1998. The Wombles had remained popular with children into the 1980s. After FilmFair was acquired by the Canadian company Cinar Films in 1996, a new series of episodes was made, with three new Womble characters. In the UK, the series was purchased by ITV.

In late August 2013 it was announced that the Wombles would return with a new television series. Richard Desmond snapped up the rights to the new TV series which will consist of 26 episodes each 11 minutes in length. The new series will be made using computer-generated imagery (CGI) and is due to air in 2015 on Channel 5.

Episode list

Series one (1997)

Series two (1998)

Series three (1998)

References

External links

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The Wombles are a British novelty pop group, featuring musicians dressed as the characters from children's TV show The Wombles, which in turn was based on the children's book series by Elisabeth Beresford. Songwriter and record producer, Mike Batt, wrote the series' theme tune, and went on to perform and produce a number of successful albums and singles as 'The Wombles'. British Hit Singles & Albums jokingly referred to them as the "furriest (and possibly the tidiest) act... are natives of Wimbledon Common, London". In 2011, the band played at The Glastonbury Festival.

History

Filmfair acquired the television rights to The Wombles and commissioned Batt to write the theme song. He waived the flat fee for writing a single song, and secured the character rights for musical production to write songs under the name 'The Wombles'. To help him get into character, Batt's mother made him a Womble suit, which he wore for a week prior to writing the first songs.

The band released several albums and singles. All four studio albums went gold and four of the singles reached the Top 10 in the UK Singles Chart. The Wombles were the most successful act of 1974, with albums in the UK charts for more weeks than any other act.