Mr. Piper

Mr Piper was a Canadian children's TV series made in 1963. The series was created by Martin Andrews and Allan Wargon, who was also the producer.

The show's host was a large Canadian opera tenor Alan Crofoot, dressed as a Pied Piper with a flower in his hat. He would introduce four segments in each half hour programme:

• Teletune - as a narrator of a fantasy stories illustrated with graphics;
• Port of Call - presenter of films about children and events in other lands;
• Bag of Tricks - Crofoot performs magic tricks;
• Animal Farm - many farmyard characters telling the story of the day in miniature barnyard sets, featuring Rupert the Rat, Bessie the Bunny, Kookie the Kitten, Harriet Hen, Freddie Frog, Calvin (Rac)Coon and Charlotte Cow.

Thirty-nine episodes were produced.

It was originally shown by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and also became well-known in the UK^[1], where it was repeated on ITV throughout the 1960s and 1970s and became a fixture of school summer holiday programming, in much the same way as Robinson Crusoe and Belle and Sebastian were on BBC1. In May /June, 1972, some Mr. Piper episode have been trasmitted, dubbed into Italian, by the RAI-TV network, but it was not a success there.

Episode list

• Ali-Baba
• The Magic Horn
• Brave Molly
• Hasty and the Princess
• Kindhearted Girl
• Three Sisters
• Proud Princess
• The Wild Swans
• Ahmed the Merchant
• Hansel and Gretel
• The Tin Soldier
• Three Brothers
• Hassan the Simple
• The Three Soldiers
• Santa Piper

References

1. ^ Sterling Times

External links

• Mr. Piper on IMDb
• Alan Crofoot on Canadian Encyclopedia