Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids

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.

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. It was one of a handful of CITV programmes to regularly find its way into the CBBC-dominated Broadcast top 10 Children's chart, most recently for Christmas week 2006 when "A Grizzly New Year's Tale" hit No 2 on its third terrestrial outing.

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.

Focus

The series were a collection of morality tales which also had insinuations of a horror story; gruesome punishments happened throughout. The stories mainly focused 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 claymation sequence involving a creepy cinema owner named Uncle Grizzly (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 up with Spindleshanks getting killed, E.G squashed or splatted.

These sequences were later removed, possibly to extend the cartoon's length. Nowadays, they only show Uncle Grizzly welcoming you to the show. Spindleshanks was removed too.

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 Flash, 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 are 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. 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.

Episode list

SERIES 1

*The New Nanny
*The Spaghetti Man
*Death By Chocolate
*Grandmother's Footsteps
*The Wooden Hill
*A Tangled Web
*The Princess's Clothes
*Burgerskip
*The Barber of Civil
*The Chipper Chums Go Scrumping
*The History Lesson
*Sweets
*Dr Moribundus

SERIES 2

*Jack In The Box
*Glued to the Telly
*The Cat Burglar
*The Childhood Snatcher
*The Giant Who Grew Too Big for his Boots
*Mr Peeler's Butterflies
*An Elephant Never Forgets
*Prince Noman
*Tag
*The Litter Bug
*Fat Boy with a Trumpet
*The Broken Down Cottage
*Well‘ard Willard

SERIES 3

*The Upset Stomach
*Knock Down Ginger
*The Locked Door
*Simon Sulk
*The Urban Fox
*When the Bed Bugs Bite
*Spoiltsport
*The Pie Man
*Head In the Clouds
*Dirty Bertie
*Crocodile Tears
*Little Fingers
*The Decomposition of Delia Dethabridge

SERIES 4

*Revenge of the Bogeyman
*It's Only a Game, Sport!
*The Gas Man Cometh
*The People Potter
*Bunny Boy
*Bessy O’Messey
*Bogman
*The Stick Men
*Goblin Mountain
*Superstitious Nonsense
*Athlete's Foot
*The Grass Monkey
*The Top Hat
*A GRIZZLY NEW YEAR’S TALE: The Crystal Eye
*SERIES 5

*The Bugaboo Bear
*The Butcher Boy
*The Fruit Bat
*Monty's Python
*The Grub A Blub Blub
*Wolf Child
*The Weather Witch
*Kiss and Make Up
*William the Conkerer
*The Rain of Winter
*Silence is Golden
*Her Majesty's Moley
*Puppet on a String
*The Soul Stealer

SERIES 6

*Jamie's School Dinners
*Recyclops
*The Clothes Pigs
*Why Boys Make Better Buglers
*The Watermelon Babies
*eBoy
*Nobby's Nightmare
*The Dumb Klutzes
*The Lobster's Scream
*The Old Tailor Of Pelting Moor
*Big Head
*The Piranha Sisters
*Tom Time

ITV announced in July 2007 that "Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids" has not been recommissioned for a new series. [cite news|title= "Art Attack" axed after 18 years|url= http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/programming/a65632/art-attack-axed-after-18-years.html|work= Digital Spy|date= (2007-07-13)|accessdate= 2007-07-13]

Trivia

*Jamie Rix also wrote "Fearsome tales for Fiendish Kids", "Ghostly tales for Ghastly Kids" and "More Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids".
*The Chipper chums (Appearing in 'the Chipper chums go scrumping') are a parody of The Famous Five. They too drink ginger beer, and have an Aunt named Fanny. They also have characteristics similar to the ones the five do.
*There was a rumour that a new story, 'The Flying Airman', in which a girl stole lepoard-skin boots, and got beheaded by the Flying Airmen, would have a parody of one of Terry Deary's stories, time Time Detectives their parody name would be 'History-Mystery Solvers', and their names would be the leader, Jemma, a dumb kid, Patron, a clever boy, Leo, and the mayor's rich brat, Snowdrop However, this episode never happened.

*Nigel Planner played Neil in "The Young Ones"

*The cinema where Uncle Grizzly resides is called the Scream Screen.

*In the Grizzly Tales book series, Recyclops has the recycled voice of a Dalek.

*The New Nanny was the first story in the book AND TV series.

*"More Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids" has the most stories in the book series (20).

*The Man with a Chip on His Shoulder is the shortest story in the book series. It only has two sentences.

*Sooty and Sweep make a cameo appearance in the book series version of Glued to the Telly.

*Fat Boy With a Trumpet is a true story.

*All of the stories from "Nasty Little Beasts" and "Gruesome Grown-Ups" were adapted for the TV series.

*The Dumb Clucks is probably the story with the most alterations to fit the TV series' needs. It was re-named The Dumb Klutzes, the Cosmic Cowboy went from being the son of God to the son of the Almighty Wish-Bringer in the Sky, and Mr. Pojo (the only wise person in the village) had his name changed to Mr. Scoffman.

*Vivien and Mike from "The Young Ones" make a cameo appearance in the TV episode, Recyclops. This is probably a tribute to Nigel's infamous hippie role.

*During Series 5 and 6, the introduction to "Grizzly Tales For Gruesome Kids" is shown on various televisions in the stories.

*Spindleshanks (Uncle Grizzly's spider companion) probably got his name from Skimbleshanks, one of the characters from the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical "Cats".

*Uncle Grizzly is the owner/operator of the Scream Screen. His jobs include selling and collecting the tickets, handing out the snacks, and operating the movie projector.

*The snacks the young man in the cinema is eating in the opening sequence are black beetles, worms, and leeches. The snacks vary for each episode. Other bugs include flies and earthworms

*The zombies from the TV episode, The Crystal Eye, make an appearance in eBoy.

*During the end of the TV episode, Tom Time, characters and objects from Series 5 and 6 float around Tom as he floats in space. This is probably because Tom Time was the final episode.

Books

Nearly every story Jamie Rix has written for "Grizzly Tales" are adaptations from his books. Here are a list of them: (INCOMPLETE)

Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids

*The New Nanny
*The One-Tailed, Two-Footed, Three-Bellied, Four-Headed, Five-Fingered, Six-Chinned, Seven-Winged, Eight-Eyed, Nine-Nosed, Ten-Toothed Monster
*The Spaghetti Man
*The Princess's Clothes
*The Black Knight
*Glued to the Telly
*The Barber of Civil
*The Man with a Chip on his Shoulder
*The Giant who grew Too Big for his Boots
*The Wooden Hill
*The Litter Bug
*Goblin Mountain
*Sweets
*The Top Hat
*The Childhood Snatcher

all of these were in the TV series

Fearsome Tales for Fiendish Kids

Ghostly Tales for Ghastly Kids

More Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids

Nasty Little Beasts

*The Grub A Blub Blub
*Monty's Python
*The Lobster's Scream
*Wolf Child
*The Fruit Bat
*The Clothes Pigs

Gruesome Grown Ups

*Jamie's School Dinners
*Silence Is Golden
*The Old Tailor of Pelting Moor
*Her Majesty's Moley
*The Soul Stealer
*Nobby's Nightmare

The 'Me!" Monsters

*The Apostrophic Expositor
*Kiss and Make Up
*The Kingdom of Wax
*The Blood Doctor
*The Ugly Prince
*Big Head

Freaks of Nature

*Frank Einstein's Monster
*Recyclops
*The Weather Witch
*William the Conkerer
*Hear No Weevil, See No Weevil
*Tom Time

Terror Time Toys

* The Butcher Boy
* The Bugaboo Bear
* Why Boys Make Better Burglars
* Puppet on a String
* The Death Rattle
* eBoy

Blubbers and Sicksters

* The Piranha Sisters
* The Crystal Eye
* Cat's Eyes
* The Hair Fairies
* The Watermelon Babies
* The Nuclear Wart

References