OOglies

OOglies is a stop-motion animated children's television series produced by BBC Scotland for CBBC. The show involves short humorous sketches with household items, virtually all of which have googly eyes stuck on, hence the show's title.

The show first aired on 10 August 2009 on both CBBC and BBC HD. The commission was for two series of 13 shows, each 15 minutes long. The shows were produced in a block over five months in Glasgow. Voices are provided by Tim Dann, Peter Dickson and Shelley Longworth. The series was created and written by Nick Hopkin, Tim Dann and Austin Low.

Recurring gags

There are groups of characters who appear with similar gags multiple times, and sometimes the characters meet each other.

• The Playful Grapes and Melonhead - A group of three or four green grapes try out an activity (such as sliding or skipping) until a clumsy watermelon tries to join them, usually ending up squashing the grapes.
• Husband and Wife Strawberries - A "husband and wife" strawberry meet across a gap in the counter and the husband tries to get across, but ends up being squashed.
• The Cherry-aiders - Four cherries make up an air ambulance team and go to help another OOglie who is hurt by wrapping them up in bandages, normally causing more problems for the injured OOglie.
• Lonely Sprout - A brussel sprout tries to join in with or save other OOglies but ends up failing as no one seems to like him.
• Stunt Tomato - A tomato in a cape and mask tries to do impressive tricks for three cherry tomatoes, however ends up sqaushing himself at the end.
• Slippery Nana - A Banana skin tries to do something but keeps slipping over, usually breaking objects around it.
• Racey Bacon and Mr. Bun - A slice of bacon is running away from a bun and hides somewhere disguising itself as something else (e.g. the centre of a flower or a fish stick). It escapes from the bun, but something bad always happens to it (such as being sprayed with water or ketchup).
• Zombie Vegetables - An OOglie food is tossed into a bin where a rotting Parsnip and Turnip live. Although seemingly menacing at first, the "zombies" quickly show their friendship to newcomers through flatulence, which often backfires on them when their "visitors" try and copy them.
• The Stapler Dogs - A stapler torments her three dogs (staple removers) by getting them to jump off their shelf, such as giving them a bowl of staples then throwing some off the shelf.
• The Baby Blocks - Three blocks, a cube, a sphere and a 3 equilateral pyramid are babies, and go off to investigate something which ends up scaring them, causing them to cry and run back to the safety of their toybox.
• The Fruit Bunch and Devious Blender - An orange sees something interesting and tells a banana, an apple and a pear about it. They go over to investigate, but find out that it is in fact the blender in disguise and turns them into smoothie.
• Laser Mouse - A computer mouse moves around by shooting a laser beam in front and following it. It comes across an object it cannot get through so uses the laser to make a doorway, though ends up being squished or otherwise.
• Zip Face and Pencil - a cheeky pencil escapes from a pencil case, who constantly tries to recapture it. The pencil, however, uses a sketchbook to draw pictures that come to life and bring comical harm to the case.
• The Scramblers - a trio of motor biking eggs who attempt daredevil stunts (with a slab of Red Rind Cheese as a ramp). However, one of the eggs has training wheels on his bike, and it is usually him who attempts the stunts last and, somehow, ends up smashing himself and his bike.
• The Cheeky Carrots and Torch - a torch tries to get some sleep in a basement; but whenever his light is off, a band of nocturnal carrots get up to mischief in the darkness, until the torch puts them straight.
• Sugar Cube - a small sugar cube goes sledging with husky dog tea bags, until she becomes knocked off her "sledge" (a spoon) and winds up coming into contact with water where she melts, much to her dogs' displeasure.
• Strictly Come Grating - similar to "Strictly Come Dancing", a male grater dances with various female continents (a carrot, an orange, a potato) until the female dancers are accidentally grated by their partner.
• Alarming Clock - a cheeky alarm clock disturbs a sleeping OOglie (such as a balloon) by its noisy ring, which usually backfires on the clock itself.
• The Party Box Gang - a group of Christmas Decorations play an needless game of musical chairs in their box. When one decoration is left out, it finds a way to gain itself a chair.
• Grumpy Ball and Bouncy Ball - a hard red, grumpy ball is constantly annoyed by his brother, a cheerful, green bouncy ball. Usually, Grumpy finds a way to stop Bouncy's bounciness.
• Boo Potato (usually at start of program in season 2) - a sprouting potato often lays "traps" for a random OOglie character to come and observe. When it is close enough, potato jumps out with a "BOO!" and scares the OOglie in a comical fashion. However, when it tricked a make-up mirror it looked in its mirror and scared itself.
• Bonkers Conkers - a pair of conkers make countless attempts to knock the others off its end of rope - resorting to armour and ray guns.
• The Inquisitive Mushrooms - a tray of mushrooms (who only communicate by a neanderthal-like "oogah") come across strange and interesting items for them to explore and demonstrate to one another, such a computer scanner or keyboard.
• Frantic Fan - A large revolving fan, who is normally reading a book gets annoyed by various OOglies (whom he tries to blow away) or is used as a "wind machine" for various stunts.
• Dopey Doughnut Builders - two doughnuts (one sugar-covered, the other pink) are builders given orders by their Foreman (a giant chocolate doughnut) for various jobs. Unfortunately, they wind up literally making a mess of things, much to their Foreman's annoyance.
• Meatball and the Pasta Olympics - a small meatball tries to overcome her fears when participating in the OOglies' answer to the Olympics, often smashing herself or some other hapless food product.
• Two pineapple rings try to wake up their "dad" - a whole pineapple - with various loud devices, which usually backfire on the two rings, leaving the pineapple to sleep.
• A quiet Spanish Cactus tries to avoid fragile OOglies (such as a balloon or dartboard) but always looses her spines when given a nasty shock.
• A high-speed strip marker races around the household, leaving behind its long yellow trail of sticky tape.
• A pepper shaker goes about spraying its contents on various OOglies, but suffers the aftermath from their explosive sneezes.
• Rubber's Got Talent - in similar fashion to the " __ Got Talent" shows, a group of rubber contestants try to dazzle the judges with incredible and wild stunts. It is only when they botch up their stunts do they actually impress the judges. The only exception was; when a juggling rubber failed to impress them, it juggled their scorecards and change the scores on them, to their chagrin.
• Strong Man Monkey Nut - a crazed monkey nut attempts at lifting various heavy objects, but only results in crashing his shell and allowing the smaller nuts inside to escape.
• Mr Magnetic - a magnet donning sunglasses tries to escape anything metal around him, with little success.
• Whistle and Marshmallows - A busy blue whistle herds its flock of marshmallow (in the same style as a sheepdog with sheep), but one pink marshmallow constantly lets the rest of the flock escape its basket.
• Throughout Series 1, starting off in a frying pan, a string of sausages rockets along and around the house, using everything as a "tunnel" (a hosepipe, a drain) where it usually picks up an OOglie breakfast product (such as an egg, mushroom or bacon slice) where upon they finish up as a breakfast meal on a plate.
• A French Maid Scrubbing Brush often deals with some of the messier OOglies when clearing up after their messes.
• A piece of cheese "cries wolf" to be released from its mousetrap. Every time an OOglie helps it, they become trapped in the mousetrap as already planned. Although sometimes, the OOglies get their own back on the mousetrap and cheese.
• A hungry hoover suffers strange indigestion when consuming various objects or other OOglies.
• Pinky Glove - a stray woolen glove lends a "hand" to various OOglies needling help.
• A French shoe "hunts" after a band of socks in order to make a meal out of them.
• A line of clothes pegs fall, one by one, off their washing line by forces of nature. They were introduced in the Second Series, where it turns out they finish up in a washing basket.
• Three peas climb up a mountain of mashed potato and slide back down, often getting into trouble along the way.
• A nervous wreck of a jelly is constantly scared witless by a mischievous pair of chocolate fingers.
• Extreme Soap Bars - two bars of soap (one tan, the other black) start from the kitchen and skid around in sporty fashion, finishing up from a long jump off the stair banisters. Usually, however, the tan bar winds up landing in the most awkward of places - a coal bag, a litter tray, a big of nails, etc.
• A flourish camera takes photos of various OOglies characters, but is left exasperated when they mess up their shoots.
• Sal the Slice - a menacing pizza slicer, who creeps up on his unsuspecting victim in similar fashion to "Jaws" before slicing them up - whereupon the new slices come to life and attack him!
• A measuring tape tries to see how far it can run around the house, but whenever it recoils its tape due to some obstacle, it usually winds in an uncomfortable landing at the end; one exception was where 'Sal the slice' cut the tape which recoiled straight afterwards.
• A trio of pound coins cause grief for a credit card whenever it tries to join in their games.
• The Battery Brothers - a pair of AAA batteries use various objects run on batteries to escape a larger, menacing battery known as 9Volter.
• The Duelling Toothbrushes - a normal toothbrush and an electric toothbrush constantly do battle to win the attention of a set of wind-up teeth, but eventually forget about her when they find themselves too deep within their duels.
• Clippy the Barber - a barber's razor gives haircuts to various OOglies, which aren't very satisfactory...
• Choccy Castle - a bag of jellybeans make constant attempts to raid the box of vulgar chocolates.
• A pair of "rapper" mobile phones cause countless sleepless nights with their night-time malarkey on the desk.
• The Rock Band - a trio of rocks make constant noise and music in the garden, but are always silenced by an annoyed pine cone.
• The Intrepid Loo Roll - a strip of tissue makes endless attempts to escape the bathroom, but is usually caught by a human and used for cleaning before being flished down the toilet.
• A tiny ice cube, tired of the freezer, escapes to find warmer places to stay - a radiator, a kettle, etc.- but always melts every time.
• The Farty Pants - a group of smelly pants play silly games around the household, with a pair of boxers often falling victim to their games.
• Action Hero Sock - an Indiana Jones-like sock tries many attempts to cross the Snake-Belt Pit, but often fails.
• A hungry kitchen bin uses lures and objects to trick hapless OOglies into his waiting mouth. He suffered indigestion when he ate the Chilli Peppers, and later on got hit by a saucepan and iron when attempting to lure some paper clips.
• The Chilli Peppers - a band of wild chilli peppers runs rings around an unwitting OOglie food product and causes them to cook, with a lone chilli following and adding a "last touch".
• The Makeup Makeover Crew - a group of female makeup assortments give surprise makeovers to various OOglies passing by their dressing up desk.
• A sly remote control often appears in front of the various sketches and messes them up - be it by changing the screen colour, the volume, the scenery or fast-forwarding, rewinding, pausing the number of characters present.
• A walnut strums a guitar (its base made up of various items) and whistles the OOglies theme as the credits are shown at the end of each show - only to be squashed, smashed, interrupted, etc.

• Another common sketch involves household objects freaking out when they "react" - such as a telephone ringing, a toilet flushing, a TV changing channels.

• OOt-takes - exclusive to the CBBC website, this mini-series showcases a number of "bloopers" and "behind the scenes" footage when "filming" the OOglies and their various sketches.

References

• "Leading team of animators come together to create OOglies, a new comedy for CBBC made by BBC Scotland", BBC Press Office, BBC, 26 March 2009. Retrieved on 20 August 2009.

External links

• OOglies at BBC Programmes